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Automatic Drawings — Kunstverein Freiburg and narrative projects (2017–2018)

Two short texts by institutions on the plotter drawings that harm.work lists as the series Automated Drawings. Both call them automatic drawings. The wiki page on the series is Automated Drawings.

1. Kunstverein Freiburg: Bamboo (2017), annual edition

Source: the entry for the annual edition (Jahresgabe) Bamboo on the database of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Kunstvereine, kunstvereine.de/de/jahresgabe/bamboo-1. Kunstverein Freiburg; year of issue 2017; 29.7 × 21 cm; "Kugelschreiber auf Hahnemühlepapier" (ballpoint on Hahnemühle paper); edition 2/3; members' price €500. Kunstverein Freiburg showed its 2017 annual editions from 15 November 2017 to 7 January 2018.

Original text (German), verbatim:

Harm van den Dorpel gehört zu einer Generation von Künstlern, deren künstlerische Produktion durch das Internet und die fortschreitende Digitalisierung geprägt ist. Ein großer Teil seiner Arbeit, die digitale wie auch traditionellere Medien einschließt, lässt sich als Kooperation mit Algorithmen beschreiben. Er hat eine Reihe von Web-Ausstellungen realisiert, das nicht-lineare, soziale Netzwerk deli near info geschaffen und betreibt mit der left gallery eine Blockchain-basierte Online-Galerie. In der Ausstellung Immortalismus war Harm van den Dorpel mit seiner Werkserie Death Imitates Language vertreten. Über genetische Algorithmen und Feedbacks des Künstlers wird eine digitale Bildpopulation gezeugt, die mehr und mehr die kreativen Entscheidungen von van den Dorpel verinnerlicht.

Für seine automatischen Zeichnungen arbeitet van den Dorpel mit einem CNC-Plotter. Gesteuert durch eine eigens programmierte Software fertigt der Plotter in millimetergenauen Schritten Zeichnungen und wird dabei manchmal durch die Hand des Künstlers gestört. Mit dem Bambus zeichnet die Maschine ein Motiv, das in Tuschezeichnungen als globales Dekorationselement in Lobbys, Büroräumen, Sushi-Bars oder Wellness-Oasen meditative Naturbetrachtung und spontane, künstlerische Schöpfung signalisiert.

English translation (the wiki's):

Harm van den Dorpel belongs to a generation of artists whose artistic production has been shaped by the internet and advancing digitisation. A large part of his work, which includes digital as well as more traditional media, can be described as a cooperation with algorithms. He has realised a number of web exhibitions, created the non-linear social network deli near info, and runs left gallery, a blockchain-based online gallery. In the exhibition Immortalismus Harm van den Dorpel was represented with his series Death Imitates Language. Through genetic algorithms and the artist's feedback a digital population of images is bred that internalises more and more of van den Dorpel's creative decisions.

For his automatic drawings van den Dorpel works with a CNC plotter. Controlled by software he programmed himself, the plotter makes drawings in steps precise to the millimetre and is sometimes disturbed by the artist's hand. With the bamboo the machine draws a motif that, in ink drawings used as a global decorative element in lobbies, offices, sushi bars or wellness oases, signals meditative contemplation of nature and spontaneous artistic creation.

The entry closes with a selected exhibition list: "2017: Open Codes, ZKM, Karlsruhe; Immortalismus, Kunstverein Freiburg; 2016: Wer nicht denken will, fliegt raus, Museum Kurhaus Kleve; 2015: The Swiss Institute, Milan; 2014: Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; 2013: MoMA PS1, New York; The Dutch Institute for Media Art, Amsterdam; Abrons Art Center, New York; 2010: The New Museum, New York." The entry's photograph of the drawing is reproduced on Automated Drawings.

2. narrative projects: Automatic Drawings at Art on Paper, Brussels (2018)

Source: narrative projects, London, art fairs page "Art on Paper", narrativeprojects.com/artfairs/art-on-paper-brussels. Brussels, 6–9 September 2018. Upstream Gallery's news item of 31 August 2018 places the fair at Bozar and says "several plotter drawings and one digital work" were shown (upstreamgallery.nl).

Verbatim:

narrative projects is pleased to present Automatic Drawings by Harm van den Dorpel, an ongoing series of works made with a mechanical cnc-plotter and the artist's own hand. Various scripts and custom software were used to generate the drawings. Challenging the medium, the artist does not create his work directly himself. Rather, he devises software and a robot, which stands in for him, raising questions about artistic agency and identity in our era of artificial intelligence and increased automation. At the fair we will show an installation of a group of framed drawings that explores formal and conceptual possibilities of this method.

Where these texts are read