From 4 November to 3 January artist Oliver Hein will explore the potential of machine generated drawings along the walls of the Window Gallery at Phoenix Art Space. This machine undergoes constant changes in it’s appearance and movements, it is engaged in a daily metamorphosis documented by lines, patterns and traces on the walls, resulting in a landscape of machine generated drawings in the gallery.

The size, complexity and scope of this project expands over time, starting from 4 November with the first elements being mounted to the walls. This robot is a purely analog system of mechanical elements acting in response to ever changing and interdependent parameters set by the artist, which influence each other in very complex and quite unpredictable ways. Pencils, felt markers and crayons attached to moving rods and connected to small 12V motor units, create a flurry of fluctuating line patterns, regular and irregular loops and traces, some wildly asymmetrical, some reminiscent of statistical graphs and curves used in scientific charts and the media. Small digital displays and screens showing numeric information like voltage, amperage or temperature have no real function, they are merely meant to entice the viewer to follow an anticipated logic within a completely random structure and try to figure out what is happening: there is no logic, the machine just produces art.

You can download a summary of the drawing machine’s latest developments written by artist Oliver Hein here.

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