MONOLINE, 2006-07
Degree Project at Art School Berlin
Sound: Daniel Weiß
A series of pencil drawings, used as electrical resistances, are connected to sound generators.
How do form, shape and density of the drawing influence the sound?
I begin the measurement series with technical experimental considerations: what relationship is there between the amount of resistance and the size of a drawing? How thick must the markings be? How long the line? Do the same laws hold true for lines drawn in parallel as for cables connected in parallel? And how are the amounts of resistance associated with the alteration in sound? The seven series of measurements should enable me to make a prediction about the changed sound my drawing will engender. At the same time, the drawing remains always a drawing, that is, a sheet of paper with an aesthetic value. It’s my hope that a unique graphic language based on technical laws will be generated.
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Technical analysis of my drawing style
Physicist Daniel Weiß analyzed my drawings using Mathematica software. Some results:The more graphite, the less the resistance. Pencils in the H category are such poor conductors that they are virtually useless for altering sound. With fewer than about eight layers, the surfaces don’t conduct at all. At about 20 layers, the paper reaches the saturation point. If one alters the size of the marked area, but leaves the relationship to the page unchanged, the resistance also remains unchanged.
The results are valid solely for my own drawing style; there would be other results with other draftspersons. The drawings cannot be standardized – despite compliance with all technical conditions.
The resistance of the hand drawing
In advance, I prepare an exact plan for the drawings: construct on paper, sketch on the computer. The drawing process doesn’t proceed as I’m accustomed to when drawing by hand, whereby a drawing is slowly built up and is constantly altered through repeated reworking. I begin the MONOLINE drawings in the upper left-hand corner and end in the lower right-hand one. I painstakingly protect the sheets of paper. I vacuum up the graphite dust with a hand-held vacuum cleaner so as not to smudge the drawings when blowing the dust off. The more often I make the same hand movements, the cleaner and more precise the drawings will be. My aim is to get a precisely calculated
value from the drawing – but my hand drawing balks against this technoid demand.
The formula for drawing involves no scientific precision, the resistance values achieved are in the range of hundreds of thousands of ohms. But still adhering to my self-imposed scientific rules, I obstinately continue to draw – a minimalist aesthetic emerges.
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Unplanned parameters
In the exhibition, the drawings finally go out of control. Their impulsively independent existence becomes evident: they react vociferously to the number of visitors in the room, to people’s proximity, they hiss in rainy weather or receive radio broadcasts. It is roaringly loud.
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