The Personalised Surface within Fine Art Digital Printmaking.
Interview with Tim Head, Eli Zafran and Paul Coldwell
Slade Digital Studio, Slade School of Art, UCL. 11th November 2007.
Paul Coldwell It’s very interesting to look at these new prints and have an opportunity to discuss the making of them. As you quite rightly said when I first spoke with you, they are impossible to reproduce. Can we first talk about the discussions you and Eli had about formulating the programmes.
Tim Head Well these two sets of prints that you are looking at now appear in hindsight as if we could have arrived at them straight away.
Eli Zafran But it started completely differently. We had a lot of discussions around the currency of decisions within the work. What is a decision in the work? Can we control the amount of decisions per decision? So after doing some tests, we said, ok let’s now change different decisions, so as time passed those sets of programs actually accumulated from those conversations. At the end we have a set of programs that evolved and reflected our conversations.
TH But it was all aimed to make a simple and direct image and we discarded a lot on the way
EZ There is a contrast between the simple visual image and the complexity to make it. We found that when we started to reduce information everything that’s left became even more crucial.
PC It’s interesting that you talk about the nature of conversations between you in formulating these prints because on another level, the work is a conversation between the code and the machine. You have made an equivalent for a conversation in code so that the computer can address the printer within a language that it understands.
TH Except you have to remember that the machine can only do what it is programmed to do while our conversations can meander. A lot of decisions were on the level of, lets try this out and see what it looks like because in the end it’s a visual language I’m interested in. We did lots of things where we had different spacing of lines and we had some with different colours on each line and, while they were interesting, they produced a more familiar image, for example one looked like a stripy tee-shirt. The strength of the image got in the way of allowing the stuff of the medium to come through as a raw entity.
EZ We wanted it to be like looking at noise, like the noise on TV.
TH And these prints are about the intrinsic quality of inkjet. They couldn’t be anything else, not a screenprint or painting, they are purely inkjet.
PC They are also about that moment of contact between the ink and the surface of the paper.
TH Thats right. It also goes from being code into a physical object, the result of ink being spat at the paper. We could have said from the outset that we didn’t mind what the prints looked like. In one sense that is there but on the other hand, a lot of the ways things looked got in the way of this very direct approach that we were taking. In the end the final look has to mirror that, so for us it was important how it looked.
EZ There’s a counterpoint between where we have control and where we loose control
TH Eli worked over one summer and worked out in the machine (printers) code what made everything work, what all the components were and which bits related to what.
EZ So to begin with we printed a single dot that was magenta, pure magenta. We succeeded in printing one line of magenta, and turning all the other colours off. And we printed one dot in the centre of the paper. Its hyper control over the printer in the end, full control.
PC So you were really going under the bonnet of the machine
Th Yes but we are not cannibalising it and we are not customising it. We are simply using what’s there
EZ We are using its language, communicating with the machine in the machine code that it expects and can read.
PC So it’s not like John Cage modifying the piano?
TH No we are not changing what its doing
PC You are controlling and reorganising the information?
TH Well the main thing is we are bypassing the whole process of it looking at an image and interpreting that. We’ve skipped that. We’ve gone straight into telling it what to print.
EZ So for example if you take a digital photograph, a tiff or a jpeg, you pass that information through a number of colour corrections, so when its printed, it’s not really the image you took. It’s the image plus all the formulae that the colour scientists have put on top. When you take a picture in raw, a raw picture won’t have all those. It will just have all the information as taken… then you can decide if you need any corrections, so its closer to the image that you took. So in our case, instead of being dependent on the Epson driver.. Lets say you have a photoshop image; the Photoshop produces your printable image. What we are doing is we are saying that we are not going to use any third party software in order to produce this file.
We are going to produce this file ourselves, bit by bit. Anything that can be sent through the wire, those sequences the printer will start printing from and this is the information we are actually sending to make these prints…
We start by letting the program calculating the dots per raster and then send those sequences to the printer. Usually we let it run for about an hour to accumulate enough information on the spool and then we release it to the printer
PC Does that mean that the print is the result of an hour worth of data going to the printer?
EZ It’s an hour of processing. Eventually the printer will keep up but the processor is slower than the printer.
TH We found that if we start them together the printer catches up with the programme and stops.
EZ That’s why we start the processor first. It stabilises the process
TH Basically the programme is just generating numbers, which go off into the ether, they are not saved, so all you see are masses of numbers reeling off the screen, disappearing and the printer is just printing that.
PC So the printer is capturing the information as it passes through.
EZ That’s it. It’s a c program, which generates the numbers; it sends them to the spool, which holds it for a while before delivering them to the printer. What we are actually writing is the spool file, which is not translated in any way. We are not letting the printer driver change anything; we are sending it bit by bit. So we generate certain information, which realises each of the colours, in this case, six colours, black, yellow magenta, light magenta, cyan and light cyan.
PcC And you determine these colours?
TH No, no. These are simply what the machine gives you.
EZ Well we completely code it. So in this case, this specific programme will produce a specific set of prints.
TH After 3 years of endless tests I’ve ended up with two sets of prints.
This is from the first set of prints. Each print is given a different maximum number of dots per line which gives each print a different weight. In this case it’s 2480.
So on each line the programme is selecting a random number between zero and 2480 for each colour on each line so each line has a different amount of, for example, cyan. Each colour has a different balance within each line. Which means in this set of prints you see the lines because they have different weights of colours in them. If you go beyond a certain value (above 5120), the print loses its neutrality, somehow when the colours add together beyond that point they turn a murky green! They lose their clarity.
EZ Its also relates to how the paper is dealing with that amount of ink.
TH Yes, it happens after a certain weight of dots. It also depends on the paper.
EZ What Tim has said is to do with the accumulation of ink so we control the amount of ink to stop it at the point where the image has overall grey neutrality. When you look at the prints close up with a magnifying glass each one of the dots is very distinct.
TH You can see the separate colours though they merge to create secondary colours.
The type of ink has a dramatic effect. Half way through doing these prints, the inks were changed to a pantone system, which seemed to have a greater spectrum but we didn’t know what it would do for us. In fact, compared to the Epson inks, they were much more neutral, the Epson inks give a slight magenta bias.
EZ The nice thing about it is although we are starting with something that looks like a calculated generated process, the way the different papers react and the effect of different coatings, turns it into something very physical.
TH (looking at the monitor) You can see the programme is now running
EZ We are now in line 97!
PC How many lines in total for these prints?
TH 27648. But first to do a test, Eli sets it for say 200 lines so we get a test strip to check it fits the paper and everything is working ok. The final prints are about a metre square.
PC How did you determine the square?
TH Its determined by the number of dots we can fit onto the width of the page which comes out at 98.6 cms wide so we make that the length as well which feels logical. So these prints are as big as we can get on this machine…
So basically after hundreds of tests it comes down to two sets. The first set which is the one where there are different amounts of colour on each line and it goes from 0-256 colours per line to 0-5120, which gives you the overall density of the print.
In this print there can be as little as 1 dot per colour on a line and a maximum of 2480 of dots of that colour per line and that will vary on each line, so you do get the impression of lines on the print, but overall you get what appears to be a grey of a certain tone. But as I said if you go beyond a certain point it turns green. So that determines the maximum value and we started with 256 as the lowest value.
And the second set, instead of varying the numbers of colours on each line, the number remains the same, the same number of dots per colour on each line, except of course they are in a random position on that line.
PC So every line has the same colours, just arranged differently?
TH Yes in this second set there is the same number of each colour on every line whereas in the first set, the numbers for each colour vary. That’s why in the first set you get an impression of lines whereas in this set the colours are more evenly distributed so the lines are not so apparent. You also get a sense of texture because of the varying size of the inkjet dot, which we’ve randomised for every printed dot. You get a variety of dot size from minute pinpricks through to these larger dots. Looking at them closely you see that they are very uneven, quite organic.
PC They are quite sharp, they are squares and lozenges.
EZ This is what Tim meant by the moment that the paper couldn’t hold any more ink without the distinctiveness of each dot being lost. These prints are just before that moment.
TH For me the ideal would be to keep everything as neutral as possible. It is to allow the process to do what it does and to be as visible and transparent as possible.
PC To avoid any reading of emotion?
TH Well we do get very emotional, but the machine couldn’t give a dam. I think that’s part of it. The machine is set up to do its job and does it very well, very efficiently, very precise. But for me it’s bringing something out of that process that one responds to as a human being.
EZ When they are displayed, they are very quiet, and you do get drawn into them.
TH With these prints people either walk by them or get drawn into them. If you spend a bit of time you do start to see all the details of these millions of colours. The important thing for me is that I am not giving a preset image for people to think about. The viewer starts from a ground zero where they are just invited to look.
PC I remember reading about Carl Andre at the time of the ‘bricks at the Tate’ and he said something to the effect that he felt sculpture had become decadent and he simply wanted to strip it down to its basics again so that the language of sculpture could be renewed. It struck me as being quite a modest/humble aspiration. Do you feel in some ways, with the mass of digital printouts, that these prints of yours represent a form of purification?
TH I suppose it’s a counter to the overload of demanding images that are presented to us every second, 24hrs a day. So in a way it’s an antidote to that. It provides a brief pause.
These prints are also slow. Slowness is part of it. Advertising images need to be taken in fast. If you take these prints fast, you just skid across it, you ignore it, that’s fine. But to look at them requires time. Curiously they take longer to print than an ordinary print.
And these prints are also fixed in size. Their scale is one to one. Actual size. They are at the scale of the inkjet dot.
PC They are fixed and concrete. They are not scaled up or down.
TH That’s right.
EZ A dot is only a dot.
PC They are not an illusion or a representation of anything but themselves?
TH They’re no longer tied to the reproduction of an external source – an image. Instead they’re the direct outcome of the medium’s own internal characteristics.
PC You mentioned that these prints are made in real time, this makes them more concrete. They are made in the time that’s required to make them.
TH The program is calculating numbers now as we speak, nothing is recorded. Its not like most digital prints that are printed from a pre recorded file.
PC So you can’t reproduce the data?
EZ That’s right. Different prints might have the same visual look but they would be completely different.
TH There are so many million dots, so in every detail it’s completely different. But if we did another print after this one, if we looked at it from a distance, they would look the same overall average tone, but as you get closer every detail is different.
EZ It’s almost like looking at the shoreline, one square of sand may look the same as the next but its not, it’s completely different.
PC The notion of print is that there is always a matrix from which a multiple can be pulled. But you are using this technology to make something completely unique.
TH It does it within its own rules. It can’t go beyond a certain point; it can’t suddenly start producing different types of things.
PC If I understand rightly about your program, you can produce equivalents, but not identical images, whereas, for example with the monotype, after each print you have to start again, the information doesn’t carry forward.
EZ In this case the information does carry forward as well. The difference is the set of decisions will apply to the next print but if you are looking at the sequence of dots, each sequence will be completely different. I think sequence is actually a key word here. The information is sequentially processed rather then kept or processed in parallel.
PC So you could see these as the manifestation of a performance by the machine?
TH Yes
PC And if you take the metaphor of the performance, then for example a dancer can perform the same dance in principle, follow the same instructions and the dance can be almost identical but in essence totally different each time.
TH The only reason ours will be different is we have given the machine random numbers, to pick randomly between these numbers. We could have programmed it so that each would be identical. This is the reason why each print is unique. Each time it makes a decision, it makes a different decision, which is what we have told it to do.
EZ In our program we are consciously choosing different numbers, so we don’t want the same sequence, we only want to repeat the same decisions.
TH My notion of the idea of random is that it allows things to be what they are. To take John Cage’s example, it’s a way of letting the world enter into the work, instead of the artist insisting on complete control.
©Tim Head, Eli Zafran & Paul Coldwell
*Eli Zafran is Research Associate to the Mediatised View, Design Department, Goldsmiths, University of London, The Leverhulme Trust.
