Harold Cohen (British, 1928–2016) Arnolfini plotter drawings, 2 of 2, 1983
Plotter drawing / Ink on Paper
57 × 76 cm
Signed and dated
Collection of Bre Pettis
PION.2018.017
Description
The second of a pair of 1983 ink drawings composed by AARON, Harold Cohen's pioneering autonomous drawing program, and drawn onto paper by a computer-controlled pen plotter. In 1983 AARON's machines drew publicly at Arnolfini in Bristol (his solo exhibition ran August 1 – September 9, 1983) — where four plotters produced a fresh drawing roughly every twenty minutes — and at the Brooklyn Museum, each unique sheet the unrepeatable output of Cohen's hand-built hardware and software. *This plotter drawing is from AARON's drawing at Aronlfini - Bristol’s International Centre for Contemporary Arts in 1983. The imagery of this period is characteristic of AARON's transition from abstract mark-making toward representation: closed, organic forms rendered in confident black line that evoke a natural world without describing one.
Sources: https://www.aleator.press/shop/p/cohen-at-the-tate-2 · https://gazelliarthouse.com/artists/harold-cohen/biography/ · https://computerhistory.org/blog/harold-cohen-and-aaron-a-40-year-collaboration/