Benetton Play - Doodle / Cameron Adams - Pixelfest / Casey Reas - Process:Drawing / David Lu - The Line Drawn / Drew Trujillo [Dr. Woohoo] - Brushes, Pencils, Stencils / Hansol Huh - Typedrawing / Inklude . Flan . Andreu Balius . Alex Trochut - Superveloz / J. Tindall - Sketchpad / James Paterson - Davey Jones' Locker / Joshua Davis - The Dynamic Canvas / Juan Ospina - Flipbook! / Leonardo Solaas - Dreamlines / M. Watz - System_C / Peter Edmunds - Swarmsketch / Philipp Lensen - Pixel Group / Ricard Marxer - Caligraft / Robert Hodgin - Ribbons / System One - Retrievr / Uli Franke & Jürg Lehni - Hektor / Zach Lieberman - Drawn /
From Freehand or Illustrator to Flash and Processing, tools for vectorial design and generative strategies have displaced traditional illustration and drawing as the central element in contemporary visual culture. However, more and more artists and designers are developing ways to reconciliate software aesthetics with the nuances and subtlety than can arise when you draw a line over a piece of paper. Can the distance between the pixel and the canvas be shortened, to introduce the expression of gesture in the universe of digital design? Showplace focuses this year in exploring the bridges connecting the culture of interaction and algorythmic art with the essential acts of drawing, painting and sketching.
The creation of “drawing machines”, algorythms that can autonomously execute visual expressions out of the control of their programmer, was one of the first strategies of computer art. The active generative scene has brought them back through the work of artists like Marius Watz or Casey Reas. Others are creating physical drawing machines,like Hektor, Jurg Lehni’s graffiti robot; reinventing digital and manual drawing technologies to find new paths in a territory where most works look similar, because they have been crafted with similar tools.
The most intriguing results are probably found in hybrid projects that create unexpected connections among both spaces. Like Drawn, Zachary Lieberman’s installation that augments the act of drawing until it becomes a surprising performative process, where through sketching we create a dance of movement and sound. Or Davey Jones Locker, James Paterson’s captivating video where the artist -one of the best examples of how to navigate from drawing to computer code- has processed his whole collection of sketches through a generative system that colours and animate them.
But drawing can also be a catalyst for comunication, and an excuse to develop community and dialogue. Joshua Davis, some one who needs no introduction a OFFF, will be drawing during the whole festival with anyone who wants to join him, in order to generate a huge visual piece that will combine all the previous sketches. And on the Web, the “exquisite corpse” - the collective drawing that goes from hand to hand- is being reinvented in online projects where sketches are the work of hundreds of users from all over the world; hyperpaintings where there is someone behind every single pixel.
