Hybrid Drawing

I was recently commissioned to create an artwork and here I show a part of the making process. The most important part is the interaction between me and the digital world of software and robotics. Add to that, days of trial and error, looking and sifting through lots of drawings. In the end I arrived then at a couple of drawings that worked out for me.

Talking about it and showing it to several people, I realised that something surprising has happened. Something I did not anticipate or was aware of at the time.

I got a question about who is actually leading? Drawing by hand or drawing by a robotic arm? Trying to answer that, I discovered that the robot is teaching me a new way of drawing. It is setting me free from the way I learned to draw over many years. More fluidity and all the lines seem to be drawn on the surfaces of 3 dimensional objects and space, filling space and surfaces.

Have a look at the video. It shows the making process of one of the drawings, Hybrid Drawing 08, using ink on paper. The drawing starts off with the plotter and I react to what has been drawn. Then back to the plotter, etc.