Photography by (clockwise from top): Jürg Lehni (Hektor); Sabrina Raaf (Grower); Anton Perich (machine at bottom); Fernando Orellana (machine at middle left)

the machine isn’t even the main point; the process or method of making marks can sometimes be as, or even more, interesting than the marks themselves. As for Perich, 30+ years later he’s still making big, complex paintings with his original machine. Sabrina Raaf’s “Grower” and Fernando Orellana’s “Drawing Machine 3.1415926 v. 2” are two machines that make marks that would be impossible for humans to make on their own, and both make nods toward early analog scientific recording equipment. Raaf’s machine is a robot that draws green marks (evoking blades of grass) on a wall, the heights of which correspond to the amount of CO₂ in the air. Over the days and weeks that the robot is working, it builds up a field of data-driven “grass” as it tirelessly treks back and forth along the wall.

Orellana’s machine is a lot like a mobile with a pen attached to it. But rather than just twirling in the wind, the pen’s position on the canvas is controlled by the local ambient sound, similar to the way a seismograph pen records shock waves moving through the Earth. Both works create a long-term record of their local environment, but in a highly stylized form meant to leave an impression, rather than an exact accounting of some environmental variable.

Hektor, a “graffiti output device” by Swiss artists Jürg Lehni and Uli Franke, uses a deceptively simple and elegant mechanism in a small, portable package. Two motors are attached to a wall with a belt hanging between them. A spray paint can and activator hang from the belt, and as the motors turn they pull the spray can around the canvas. Because the mechanism can bring the spray can to any point, the content of the paintings is separate from the machine’s mechanism, making Hektor the equivalent of an enormous general purpose plotter (it’s even driven by Adobe Illustrator). The catch is that despite its elegant design and vector-based data, Hektor’s fuzzy, dripping output is far from pristine. It’s another take on the tension between com-puter-based precision and real-world grunge.

Some people make machines with outputs that are simply expressions of their own construction (Jonah Brucker-Cohen’s simple plastic-cup-and-motor “drawbots” are a good example of this). Others focus on environmental inputs, or algorithmic control, or AI, or … well, the list goes on. Finally, some people just want to make a machine that makes pretty pictures. There’s room for everyone in the world of mark-making art machines. What’s yours going to do?

Top: Hektor enjoys painting both landscapes and portraits. Middle: Orellana’s Drawing Machine and Raaf’s Grower sense the world and then leave their marks. Bottom: Perich’s steampunk painter is half airbrush, half sewing machine.

Douglas Irving Repetto is an artist and teacher involved in a number of art/community groups including dorkbot, ArtBots, organizm, and music-dsp.

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