You are browsing an archived site for a previous Northern Spark event. To visit the current site click here.

You are browsing an archived site for a previous Northern Spark event. To visit the current site click here.

Roman Verostko,
Three-Story Drawing Machine
  • Photograph Dusty Hoskovek, courtesy NorthernLights.mn
  • Photograph Dusty Hoskovek, courtesy NorthernLights.mn

At dusk Roman Verostko’s Three-Story Drawing Machine will begin creating an algorithmic drawing guided by his coded drawing instructions. The drawing ratio, scaled for a three-story wall, will be coded for completion at sunrise at the end of a 705 minute drawing session. The drawing machine, as it traces each line in the artist’s studio, will be projected in real time, drawing on MCAD’s three-story wall.

As each stroke traces its path, viewers experience sound aligned with the speed and direction of the drawing path. Gradually the disciplined logic of the algorithm and the poetry of form merge. This process marries mind and machine. The completed work, as “Algorithmic Poetry”, complements the artist’s recent show at the Digital Art Museum Gallery, [DAM] Berlin. The digital art pioneer, Frieder Nake, for a public dialogue with Verostko in Berlin, viewed this series as the “Joy of Digital”, a celebration of the charm and grace of algorithmic form.

Roman Verostko

Roman Verostko, born 1929, a founding member of the algorists, best known for his richly colored algorithmic pen and brush drawings,
maintains an active studio in his Minneapolis home. Primarily a painter in his pre-algorist work, he also created electronically
synchronized audio-visuals in the 1960’s and exhibited his first fully algorist work, “The Magic Hand of Chance” in 1982. His generative
software controls 14 pen plotter stalls achieving exquisite penmanship and expressive brush strokes guiding both ink pens and brushes
with plotters. Recently he merged his past and present work by transforming his 1970’s drawings into a stunning array of digital
images for an Upsidedown Book and Mural for the Fred Rogers Center, Latrobe, PA.

Distinctons: 2009 SIGGRAPH Distinguished Artist Award; ”
[ddaa]d.velop digital art award” Nominee, 2006, 2010; Honorable Mention
Artec ’95, Nagoya Japan; First Prize, Golden Plotter Award, Germany,
1994; Professor Emeritus, MCAD, 1994; Prix Ars Electronica,
Honorable Mention, 1993; Director, ISEA’93

Exhibitions: Verostko’s algorist work has been invited to many
international shows including “The Algorithmic Revolution” (ZKM,
Karlsruhe, Germany), “The Digital Pioneers” (Victoria & Albert
Museum, UK); “Feedback” (Laboral, Spain); “Code: the language
of our time
” (Ars Electronica, Austria), “20th Century Computer Art:
Beginnings & Developments
” (Toma Art University Museum, Tokyo).

Presentation of Three-Storey Drawing Machine at Northern Spark is made possible in part by a grant provided by the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature from the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.