Jean-Pierre Hébert: Rosettes grises

Artist(s):

Jean-Pierre Hébert

Title:

Rosettes grises

Exhibition:

SIGGRAPH 2006: Intersections
More artworks from SIGGRAPH 2006:

Medium:

Digital print

Size:

32" x 24"

Artist Statement:

For an algorist, the line is a dream medium. It is at the same time simple, extensible, rich. It can be suggestive of motion, time, music, light, nature. It can be rendered in innumerable ways, styles, and processes. It is perfect material for geometry, for art, for thought. It is a natural object-oriented software subject.

This year, I have been pursuing my investigation of the line. In the past I have asked a single line with a complex behavior to build the whole work. Now, instead, I consider the line simply an element in a set, or a working individual within an active group of peers. The individual and the group have their own characterizations and behaviors, and their release and interactions create the work. I define, in particular, sets of grids (akin to the one used by Fran9ois Morellet, Sol Lewit, and others) and subject them to abstract force fields and chance, striking a balance between order and chaos. This starts as a concept piece created in software, but it does not stop there: I want to see a proof on paper produced in an appropriate medium. Rosettes grises is one of the initial sketches and explorations made for this series. Currently, I work on similar pieces that I render on plotters or engrave as dry points on copper plates to produce hand-pulled prints on etching presses.

Technical Information:

This piece results from running variations of an algorithm written in Mathematica first and later in Python. Defined sets of lines fit randomly in the space reserved for the work and are subjected to deformations and motions induced by arbitrary or random forces and also to various rendering and coloring procedures. The output mode is a choice of eps, hpgl, dxf, and tiff formats, as required by the device selected to produce the proof on paper.