large scale cnc plotter robot

Overview

In the end of 2017, I received an Undergraduate Research Grant with Caleb Rowe from Indiana University. This grant funded the construction of a 6-foot by 6-foot cnc machine, known in the 70's as a XY pen plotter. This predecessor to the contemporary 2D printer has fascinated me because some of the original Algorithmicist artist 'performed' their works throught this once-cutting edge technology. The similarities between the pen plotter and a contemporary 3D cnc or laser cutter are much more than the dissimilarities. Technology is often so cyclical in the ways it reinvents itself and folds back in onto itself.

I've been interested lately in how an artist's capital is their time. Much of my current work deals with large data collection and visualization, but I also explore in traditional processes that require hundreds of hours to create work. As I have worked in these two disciplines I have often wondered if there could be a way to automate the creative process and further remove myself from the art-making experience. The construciton of this drawing robot was - in part - a performative exercise to explore automation of creativity.

My computer art uses generative algorithms and small, random variations to develop unique views each time the work is visited; I have written the system, but it is the computing device, together with the viewers, which apply their own 'creativity' into the creation of what is seen.

After building a homemade cnc plotter, I curated a selection of my computer algorithms and translated these to electronic instructions so my drawing robot could create drawings, freeing my talents for other creative endeavors. Ultimately the intent for each drawing is made based on random variables and decisions that the drawing robot makes. All irrational behavior and the irrational fabric of human experience is reflected in the machine’s actions – nullifying our own creative actions.

These large scale drawings were done with pen. Each drawing takes more than 150 hours of continuous work to produce, running through many gel pens. There have been over a hundred large format drawings created in this collaboration. Documentation of the construction of the original robot is below; the robot has changed since this original prototype. The video and editing was under Caleb Rowe's direction.