it's a log. & the log doesn't judge. - the log has something to tell you.
one day there were a lot of computer drawings on my harddrive. some years of drawing with pixelish pixels & pixels that still had corners, experimenting with software and converting formats in front of a screen. @day @night - all day.
the artist quit the studio and went home office.
I decided to get them out of the computer mainly because I was interested in the translation of computer paintings & drawings and their specific nature into a physical object in the "real world" and what that does to the process of painting or the nature of a painting more general. I decided to use mainly mass production processes to produce a number of unique copies. And to my surprise there are many paralles in digital drawing and computer based stitching,embroidery, weaving & knitting.
here I document a bit the process and thoughts around that experiment.
"professionalism" & "timing" - very stressful words, sometimes it seems like generic words - that people will use to pretend they are adults & that polishs the surface of process's that no one should question.
a little mood board:
the date for the opening is set. 11.07.2020
obviously
... a lot happened, maybe one remembers the
.DST format entry.
the "T" in .DST
stands for tajima. tajima is a brand of embroidery machines.
"DS" stands for DOS
~remember the floppy~
NOW COMES .DSZ
basically .DSZ says DOS again & this time the "Z" sais ZSK.
ZSK is another brand of embroidery machines.thru my friend iris I got introduced to a person in freiburg - that is interessted in embroidery machines & has close conncetions to ZSK. All the embroidery you see in the log is one head. one needle/head is doing it. this comes with restrictions and also means a lot to the layering of more complex images. having more needles/heads can be useful to make larger scale embroiderings because one can organise the size via several heads/needels.
The puncher - that's the human who translates the image into a code that can organise the machine. it comes from punchcards.
to make it short. I got in contact with ZSK and they explained me that there is one machine in germany that con do what I want. And there is also a person that knows how to programm it. so it will work out !!!
here a preview of the structure of the code:
3 | 2 | 1 |
means 3 heads have to be used to do the picture in one go.
the picture that needs to be embroidered :
the framework bamboo / ryc made is really nice to work with - and beeing more around the gallery - it helps to imagine a narrative for how it can be linked to the process and the actual exhibition as well having the quality of a documentaion that is alive. An experiment in presentation
A lot of web experience nowadays is scrolling and feedback looping. it would be nice to create a website that has a different paste and approach, not only to show the works - also to challange the user to explore something and maybe dive into a screen based version of what the physical space and works imply. & @ the same time not just to cutify or as gameification of the irl - more with the quality of the hypertext and less consumer oriented driven - to remodel an irl experience.
p.s.:
<enter here> a fade out juxtaposition
dear reader its time for a third installment of our radio service.
this time via cashmereradio.com - 7:30 - 9pm... from in between the lanes. one might know it:
... another fieldtrip. very spontaneous and short; to fulda to visit a small embroidery company, called stickerei sonnenblume
very nice small family enterprise. we spend most day rearrenging the .dst
files and preparing some of the materiel for the embroidery. here are some pics and more will follow during the production. somehow it was important to meet the people I want to work with - as the whole project is also to some extend "impossible" it is good to meet & exchange ideas and solutions and douplecheck if it is possible and what it needs to realise the embroideries. in that sense or as a fieldtrip, it was a huge success and motivated me a lot to continue working on the exhibition and how to present it.
Also I met with a friend - and he will help me with the framework for the online aspect of the exhibition - very very soon more update on that too
and ++++ a little preview from the worksho in dresden++++
the was again a little service stream.
this time my backyard.
seems like it is still there. going to make a few more soon -
collected some interesting spots and some others are more or less obvious. so stay tuned for this.
together with iris dankemeyer and kaur hensel we will do a workshop for the c.rockefeller center in dresden. the idea of the workshop came from a short performance we did last year. In the workshop we will build together another creature, kaurs collection is 11 creatures and is called "die suche nach dem ots" - so saturday 30.05. will be building, arranging the bluescreen + scouting some possible locations for filming and taking pictures. sunday 31.05 we will try to make a short film that will be a loop.
die radiosendung vom wochenende aus der km galerie ist archiviert.
jentle ben, lud wieder ein zu einem 3. zusammenschnitt von interviews.
diesmal is es um die oranienstrasse 25, die buchhandlung kisch & co so wie das nGbK
Die sendung is hier zu finden im archiv.
ein zusätzlicher link: CHRISTOPH TRAUTVETTER UND MARKUS HENN
a few weeks went by and there was not much happening or maybe the process just slowed down a bit and it was difficult to communicate it.
here a little summary of some reasons why this was possible to happen and how it got fixed.
means. I'm working with a lenovo G50 laptop most of the time. I figured out there is a linux/ ubuntu distribution called ubuntu studio from 2018, april release that works best on my laptop. so I usually only update what is really necessary and the rest sort of works fine. sad but true at some point there comes a day where one has to make desicions what to update and what not. so after one of that updates nothing was really working anymore and already since a while I realized that usb boot and bios are not working the way they should.
the bug is reported here. (in case someone is interested), took me a little to get everything back to normal but also helped me to experiment more with bootable usb devices and running an OS only from usb. sort of interesting set up and I think I'm going to experiment more with that sort of workflow.
so far I was planning and rendering most stitching files and .dst
formats for the machines of a small family computer embroidery enterprise in NRW. Herr Steinke was one of the first people who showed interest in my work and was willing to experiment with it. He works with computers/ coding and embroidery since more than 35 years. The past months/ weeks and also his age (he is 78 years old) made him realise that he can't continue the work anymore also because he had to lay his workers off. Herr Steinke was always very helpful and grumpy, he would not tell me a solution but give me little tips and than told me to call in a week again. In that way I learned quite a lot about the process as well as figuring out work arounds and tricks. He is also a biker. his website is here.
often I had to think of the relation between biking and coding + embroidery. still fascinates me a lot.
nevertheless. show must go on. after researching quite a while, gefühlten/what felt like 100 telephone calls, I found someone who is willing to experiment more with the files and the production of the works. I m very happy about it - as it made me very unmotivated to be back at the start after I was already thinking everything is sorted & my sheeps are dry. I have to admit I like the challange such situations create even if it is at times very frustrating - the way the process is organised and that it is very specific makes that it is also very exciting to find people who share an interest in translating the digital paintings into something new. but also it often creates a personal level and becomes a friendship thru and around a craft, it also shows how much someone is willing to experiment with his or her means of productions and the openness to break the conventional pattern of how to use a tool. it seems sometimes that it also makes it easier to communicate than.
as already mentioned here, the weaving process also started and herr weiss who helps me with it, has been of great help - he mainly does the communication with the manufacture where the works are produced. there are some rules to the prozess as there is only a fixed set of frame sizes and the color managment is also completly different than the ascii drawings or the embroidery but ya there are paralles for example with the punchcards or even if one uses dithered colors in ascii it would even be much closer to it.
a little inside :
anyway just for the record a simple explenation what that means and does. here now some images and a little video about the process so that it becomes a bit easier to understand/ visualize.
punchcard / detail carbourg (180 X 135 cm)
carbourg final weaving / original file
leatherface (180 X 135 cm)
a video:
P.S.: last but not least the radio show from the weekend is archived, and can be found here.
as already promissed there will be a few more public radio services with fieldrecordings in the upcoming weeks, will try to keep the /log updated about it - stream will be here.
it has been a bit quite ~here~. soon there will be another update. for now a little announcement.
don t miss the missed connection - tonight 7:30 - 9 pm,
live @cashmere_radio .first episode of a new series of public services to make sure that reality still exists : ) -----> tune in and enjoy in our first episode
the pure aural existence of kottbusser tor & westgermany
the floppy is alive !!!
today tmrw label released the disk. very happy about it. it was again a lot of emails until we found the right compression to fit everything on the 1.44mb, thanks to the 512byte unites
the label also added some more info to the inlay. see here ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------>
the release is already sold out. : ) !!! within only a few hours - guess it is also because of the small number of copies, but in any case it made me even more happy. it is here on bandcamp
iframe magic ! now its here:
finished all the files for the weaving files are prepared. the digital paintings that will be reproduced in the weaving technique will be much larger size-wise then the stitchings. sizes vary from100cmx100cm to 150cmx180cm - here is a little preview of one of the files that will be produced :
- .dst files arrived & paypal was used.
here a little preview:
the idea is to embroider that image on the prototype of the foodora bag. foodora is long gone. but i like the juxtapositioning a lot.
- talking about digital files & 512 byte blocks, here is a file that is a directly hotlinked image from soundcloud
= "original"
a new mix - one can listen to it here or maybe here ?
the origin of that img collage is from an image that will be also part of the exhibition and translation process.
- last but not least .
komm schon ; )