Basic Information

Title: P-049/621290
Artist(s): Manfred Mohr
Date Created: 1990
Framed Dimensions: 53 x 53 in.
Unframed Dimensions: 51.5 x 51.5 in.
Medium: plotter drawing ink on canvas
Inventory ID: Mohr-1990-01

Description

signed, titled, and dated on the reverse in graphite

image conceived: 1970
drawing on canvas: 1990

“Mohr’s work is an important bridge between handmade manipulations and machine-calculated structures in art. Following a series of geometric experiments, a shift toward hard-edge painting by 1967 immediately preceded Mohr’s use of the computer as a tool for art. In this period of work, his fascination with modern electronic hardware emerges, seen in his use of iconic shapes resembling schematics. Mohr’s interest in electronic and circuitry, in part, predisposed him to being so adventurous in using computers for his art in the late 1960s.

Mohr calculated this particular picture using a program that he wrote in the FORTRAN language. Using a choice of different line characteristics, an alphabet of arbitrarily generated signs is created Part of Mohr’s early algorithmic work phase (1969-72), it emphasizes a “formalism” of the software medium: logical and automatic construction of pictures. Typical of this phase, the piece links line to language, process and conceptual systems.

More about the algorithm:
The given elements are horizontal, vertical, 45 degree lines, square waves, zig-zags, and the probabilities for line widths and lengths. In each position, on a very dense imaginary matrix, a sign is composed from 0-7 elements from the above alphabet. When 0 lines are chosen, a circle can be drawn having a randomly chosen radius and center.”
– Bitforms Gallery, New York, NY

 

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