Basic Information
Title: Struggle Between Good and Evil
Artist(s):
William J. Kolomyjec
Date Created: 1976
Unframed Dimensions: 10.75 x 10.75 in.
Medium: CALCOMP plotter drawing on paper
Inventory ID: Kolomyjec-1976-01
Description
signed and dated lower right in graphite
titled lower left in graphite
hardware: CDC6500 mainframe computer
software: FORTRAN
output machine: offline CALCOMP 963 drum plotter
created at Michigan State University during the artist’s MFA/Ph.D studies
“M.C. Escher demonstrated this algorithm by employing traditional media and interlocking figures in his “square limit” graphic works.
I don’t claim to be on par with Escher but I had a computer to do my drawing. I devised an algorithm (described below) and designed two interlocking hand-digitized figures: an angel representing good and a bat-devil representing evil. The image is designed to be hung on a 45 degree angle to keep these forces in balance.
Ambiguity of Limits is a very specific form of spatial organization. All math and no randomness involved. The idea is that central figures are surrounded by half size versions of themselves. In turn that ring of shapes is surrounded again by half size versions of those figures, etc. In theory this could go on forever and you would never reach the outer limit. However, a practical limit is reached, and the process stopped when the area to draw the scaled version of the figure is smaller than the nib of the pen.”
– from the artist’s website