User:Alessia/list pen plotter artists

Writing about pen plotter art without mentioning computer and generative art is impossible. Pen plotters undeniably played an important role in the evolution of both these art movements, as they were among the earliest digital tools available to artists, and before them to mathematicians, scientists, and programmers.
One of the first computer art exhibitions, that featured pen plotter generated artworks, was held at the Howard Wise Gallery in New York in the 1960s. The exhibition included artworks from two Bell Labs researchers, Michael A. Noll and Bela Julesz. Bell Labs was all about pushing boundaries, encouraging the development of new softwares that could be used beyond scientific purposes to art as well.

- A. Michael Noll, Gaussian-Quadratic, 1963 (made), 1970 (printed), Photographic print, 28 x 21.8 cm. Image courtesy of V&A Museum, London
- Charles Csuri, Sine Curve Man, 1967
- George Nees, Polygon of 23 Vertices, 1964
- CalComp advertisement, 1969, Computer History Museum

Manfred Mohr was a precise mathematical logic artist, his style was objective. He used photogravure from pen plotted drawings in his artistic process, highlighting the role of pen plotting as a bridge between a more material printing technique approach typical of traditional photochemical processes and the new digital revolution of computer technology. His style was typically that of writing random variables to allow the computer to choose the end result. As computers and plotters were difficult to own at the time he used the ones from the Paris Institut Météorologique

Frieder Nake, he followed a scientific approach to aesthetics, something that it’s quite popular around the pioneer group of generative art. He, as well, used plotter drawings to produce screenprints and fed computers with random values, He is Professor of computer graphics in Bremen.

George Ness, involved with the existential rationalist Max Bense, worked on multiple graphic libraries using ALGOL language to control the famous Z64, he played a lot with randomness, order and disorder. He was the first generative computer graphic artist to participate in the 1965 exhibition at Stuttgart College titled Computer Graphik, one of his works there: Polygon of 23 vertices.

Herbert W Franke used plotter drawings as tools to produce serigraphies and silk prints (as in the case of Algebraische Kurven). He published a series of works entitled KAES (aesthetic curves), that Peter Henne programmed and manipulated, then generated through a Siemens 4004. He is the co-founder of the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz.

Vera Molnar was a radical experimental artist, she was fond of repetition, inspired by Malevich and Mondrian, as well as variation, geometric abstraction, clash between order and chaos. She referred to her algorithmic programmes as machine imaginaire.She worked with Fortran.
Another significant plotter artist is Charles Csuri. For his Sine Curve Man, from 1967, he used IBM 7094 (with punch cards) connected to a Calcomp 565 drum plotter to produce his self-portrait, which is claimed to be the first example of digital morphing (distortion by marking key points) and one of the most complex figurative computer generated art. This artwork was part of Cybernetic Serendipity, the first international exhibition of electronic cybernetic and computer art that took place in London in 1968.

Other remarkable pioneers of pen plotter art still included under the generative art are : Harold Cohen, Mark Wilson, Peter Beyls, Roman Verostko, Jean-Pierre Hébert, Casey Reas.

- Edward Zajec, RAM 13, plotted with a DP-1 plotter on an IBM 1620, written in FORTRAN IV
- Frieder Nake, Matrix Multiplication, 1967, plotted using a graphomat plotter
- Mark Wilson, SkewR34, 1983
- Joan Truckenbord, Coded Algorithmic Drawing #9, 1975, CalComp plotter and FORTRAN
- Grace C. Hertlein, The Field, CalComp plotter, ink nylon and brushes

AxiDraw / fresh new plotter artists:

Alida Sun https://cryptoart.io/artist/alidasun
An intersectional futurist artist based in Berlin. She is into esoteric interdisciplinarity forms, fluid dynamics, crystals and mythology. "Glitch Crystal Monsters on the Art Block" is the result of 777 :) days of exploration of generative art.Through this work, Sun focus on fluid and transformative potential inherent in structures often considered rigid and inflexible.

Sougwen Chun 愫君 https://sougwen.com/
Chinese-Canadian artist pioneer in the field of human-machine collaboration. Her artwork "MEMORY (Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 2)" has earned a place in the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, marking the first instance of an AI model being acquired by a major institution. She was recognised as a Cultural Leader at the World Economic Forum and recognized as one of the 100 most influential people in AI for TIME's .

LIA https://www.liaworks.com/
Australian artist pioneer of software and net art. She works with video, installation, sculpture, performance and projections. Her concept of artwork is fluid, filled with vivid coloured abstract forms, as she is trying to grasp signals from the subconscious mind of her viewers. She views the interconnection between machine and artist as a conversation. She runs a vegetarian food blog as well.

Jürg Lehni https://juerglehni.com/
Swiss artist, designer, software developer, and plotter engineer! He worked on Paper.js, Scriptographer and Vectorama.org.
His large scale chalk drawing machines are probably his most famous works, named Hektor, Rita and Viktor, sketch, Lehni explained how they were builded to “break out” of the computer monitor.
There is something familiar and childlike about how these machines operate. Being placed on a large blackboard one is catapulted back to elementary school days. As they are machines that adjust their position in mid-air anyway very often their mark, the lines they produce, are not perfect, this brings a natural, almost freehand drawing style that is often not present within the production of plotter art.
“All these machines are performative devices. People love watching them doing their work, and it’s as much about the final drawing as it is about the drawing in creation, where there’s a sort of storytelling happening.”

Tyler Hobbs https://tylerxhobbs.com/
A professional programmer :) from Texas, he’s into iterations ,organic structures and chaos. He gets inspiration from natural elements creating hybrid paintings and collaborating directly with the plotter in the creation of the artworks. He uses Clojure, Java and Processing. With his works he includes signed printouts of the source codes.

Zancan https://zancan.art/
He’s interested in the richness of nature’s complexity and trying to move away from a stereotypical vector appearance. His works subjects are mainly visual symbolism and harmony through dense pattern of foliage and trees. He worked in Rifugio Digitale, in Florence in 2023, where he participated in the transformation of a former WW2 air shelter into a digital art exhibition space (Sheltered Landscapes).
Joanie Lemercier https://joanielemercier.com/
Glitch artist, focused on complex algorithmical drawings that could take even more than 24 hours. He creates unique ID / codes for each of his pieces, to control tracks of his works and help with the auction speculations issue.

Jessica In (Shedrawswithcode) https://www.jessicain.net/pagesdwc
Architect, designer, creative coder and educator, from Australia.
In her researches she delves into the integration of programming to architectural drawing. Beyond she applies her knowledge to create music videos and virtual environments.

Frederik Vanhoutte https://winterbloed.be/
A physics Ph.D. working as a medical radiation expert in Belgium. During the nighttime, a creative coder, walking on the fine boundary between art and science, functionality and beauty.

Antigoon
He is an Eindhoven based graffiti artist, punk musician, synthesiser enthusiast.
He uses self-built plotters made from paintball guns, fire extinguishers, spray cans that he controls like plotter pens. He is an anti-perfectionist.

Andreas Rau https://andreasrau.eu/
A generative artist fascinated by traditional textile techniques that explores the interaction between people and different digital environments, as well as materials, utilising pen plotters, CNC machines and weaving looms. Another artist that works with algorithmical textile is Huw Messie https://huwmessie.com/

Barbe Generative Diary (Peco) https://barbegenerativediary.com/en/
Japanese artist that work with sound design, field recording light, and their visualisation, virtually and physically.

Other interesting pen plotter artist out there:

Beatrice Lartigue (Lab212 Collective) https://beatricelartigue.com/informations
Julien Gachadoat https://v3ga.net/
Chris Bly (machine.arm) https://chrisbly.com/
Rev Dan Catt https://revdancatt.com/
Michelle Chandra https://www.michellechandra.com/
Julien Espagnon https://www.julienespagnon.fr/
Simon Kirby https://www.simonkirby.net/
Bustavo (Gustavo Muñoz) https://bustavo.com/
Lars Wander https://larswander.com/
Guillaume Lagarde (Entropismes) https://guillaume-lagarde.github.io/
Desmond Clarke https://www.desmondclarke.com/
Arno Beck http://arnobeck.de/0
Sven Björn Fi https://shop.xn--svenbjrn-s4a.fi/
Horikawa Junichiro https://jhorikawa.com/
Andee Collard https://www.andeecollard.com/
Diana Becker (DiDiffArt) https://www.didiffart.de/
Matt DesLauriers https://www.mattdesl.com/
Pablo Garcia https://www.pablogarcia.org/
Sunjoo Lee https://sunjoolee.com/
Pablo Azócar (Pavlovpulus) https://pavlovpulus.com/
Targz https://targz.fr/
Matt DesLauriers https://shop.mattdesl.com/
David Mrugala (The Dot Is Black) https://thedotisblack.com/
Licia He https://www.eyesofpanda.com/
Jimmy Herdberg https://jmy.art/
Some Xpub students