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Throughout eight weeks from 4 November to 3 January I will explore the potential of machine generated drawings along the walls of the Window Gallery at Phoenix Art Space. This is a unique opportunity to experiment with a whole range of techniques I have worked with over the last years, to combine what I perceived to be separate genres: to blend ‘old fashioned’ drawings created by a mechanical machine with light, video and sound overlays and live stream the work in real time on social media. This is only the beginning of a journey to determine boundaries and congruencies within my practice, work on long standing themes and finding ways of pulling my ides and techniques together - and also expressing some thoughts and issues I encounter in everyday life, wherever I go.
There's this growing feeling of a ubiquitous presence that dominates life, that more than I can ever grasp is happening at the same time and everyone takes the need to be present on many stages for granted; to deal with all the simultaneously incoming information and responding in 'real time', trying to optimise everything from keeping the body in optimal condition, being creative and good at multitasking, maintaining the perfect work flow and manage all personal and professional affairs in the most effective way. I often hear ‘time is of the essence' and feel the expectation to completely merge life in a 'normal' physical world with the vast digital world of simultaneousness, where the noise of the swarm is deafening.
The sudden break we are all experiencing right now, the void into which society seems to be falling, swiftly shifting into slow motion and retiring into the work from home mode is a fascinating moment. Machines are taking over even more of what we used to be quite happy to do ourselves. The digital helpers, our friends we all take pride in using to the best of our knowledge are filling the gap, while we take a step back and reevaluate the analogue world we come from, adjusting our domestic conditions to the new challenge. I am filling the void in our empty studio building with my examination of what is real, finding the cornerstones and how I can respond in my work to the questions I see everywhere.

Day 1:
This break opens up an empty space for me to try some ideas without time pressure, to set to work in the deserted Window Gallery and start from scratch: using my tools to find out whether a machine can produce a valid drawing. Putting mechanical bits together and see if they can speak a language. Testing my basic skills to create something like a poem along a wall, get this whole contraption to draw lines that bear secrets. Watching the clumsy movements of the first rods mounted and being pushed by little DIY motor units, the clunking and rattling of the marker along the white wall, I register the first encouraging signs that tell me there's more to gain from this skeleton-like technical apparatus: a quite fragile and sensitive line that, in its nonrepresentational mode of drawing responds in a quite unexpected precision to its creator's mistakes and technical blunders. Overlaying the first machine drawing with a live projection of the street scene outside through a cctv system creates a new and strange context to explore.
So I order new materials and try to focus on the next steps:
to give the machine better conditions for its art job!