Autotrace is series of works in which we use software to trace jpegs of paintings. The resulting vector graphics are used to create new artworks. Thursday night at Winkleman Gallery, we presented the 4th piece in the series as a part of #class.



In the heart of the Autotrace #4 performance, we asked the audience to pick one painter. They selected Louise Fishman. Then, from a Google Image search, one jpeg of her work to Autotrace. They selected the painting Moving and Being.



Using customized software to automate Adobe Illustrator, we have distilled the tracing process down to a simple drag-and-drop action. In this one action, the jpeg of Fishman’s “Moving and Being” was dropped onto the Autotrace software. The script launched, the software centered the image, traced each brush stroke and shape in the painting creating vector graphics for each, matched a color to each vector graphic, picked one random shape from the painting, deleted the other shapes and finally scaled-up the selected vector graphic to the size of the projection screen.

To output this new work we picked a stick of chalk that was close in color to it and I traced the outline of the shape onto the chalkboard-painted gallery wall.



Once the image was one the wall, T.Whid deleted all traces of the work from his computer’s hard drive. The artwork, now erased from the gallery wall, exists only in written and photographic documentation.



Thanks to
#class,
Winkleman Gallery,
Jennifer Dalton,
and William Powhida

so, remember kids…



Update - Here is some video posted by Kai Vierstra
(Note: T.Whid copy-edited this a tad after publication.) permanent link to this post

a day late but by popular demand (and by that i mean at least tim seems to have noticed it was missing ) here is your random friday mtaa-rr post

although the random friday post are for the most part random, this one points to the reason the random friday post is late.

coming up next week, the random friday post goes on the road to troy, ny permanent link to this post

I guess M.River’s ‘random Friday’ posts really are random as he missed yesterday :-(

M.River’s random Friday… permanent link to this post

• Adobe® BrowserLab
  test layouts in different browsers (via Barry Hoggard)
  (tags: adobe browser webdesign webdev development resources)
• All Raise this Barn, West - 2010 01SJ Biennial
  We'll be doing this in September.
  (tags: mtaa press 01sj art10 participation)
• Art in Review - ‘#class’ - NYTimes.com
  (tags: nyt art review)

permanent link to this post