Peter,

Yes, frustrate is a good way to describe this
situation, and in particular the 'frustrated haptic'.
I see the gap as an opportunity for creative practice,
but one that is not without cost. 

The machine/ software components are
semi-prescriptive, and never in error (they do what
they do passively according to logic), but not
necessarily in accord with one's intentions.

What is interesting to observe is how one's own
intentions are influenced by the framework being used.

To take ideas about drawing and encode them
algorithmically, results in your having to confront
that same idea as a set of tools to draw with. 
Sometimes that is a difficult situation to accept, but
there is a stage further along where one's intentions
seem to be in accord with the framework and things
just seem to flow, as if it were all somehow
inevitable; this is where the framework seems to
function as a kind of creative prosthesis.

One framework I made uses a moving ground that
continually wraps around itself, so there are no
edges, and no real center, that is of course until you
reproduce the image. But because you can reproduce the
image at any point, there are a near infinite number
of centers and images to select from (or you reproduce
all of them!). This takes some getting used to, when
you have been schooled in drawing on rectangular
pieces of paper. Imagining a post-paper situation can
be a useful trick. 

The groundless part of drawing, is that unless you
reproduce it, you have nothing but information stored
in a file. This information is interpreted by one
software framework or another, which is why we are
able to see it in one software package and get nothing
but gobbledy gook when opened in another, or you
realise that what you're hearing is some kind of
musical score that with a few adjustments can be
reproduced and given to a group of musicians.

It's drawing's amenability to inter-semiotic transfer
that really interests me in all this.

Mark. 




--- Peter Hall <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Mark
> 
> Thanks, that is much clearer. I now not only
> understanbd
> but am intruiged.
> 
> Can I ask this: does the gap between gesture and
> mark
> frustrate? (I presume, perhaps in error, that the
> machine acts in discord to an artist's intent).
> 
> Another question: can "groundlessness" be turned to
> artistic
> advantage?
> 
> I will resist asking further questions - though I
> have many.
> 
> Finally, it turns out groundlessness has analogy in
> other
> disciplines (there is nothing new under the sun, one
> recalls).
> 
> best - and thanks again
> Peter
> 
> > Peter,
> >
> > Sorry if my explanation is less than clear. Let me
> try
> > again.
> >
> > The idea (in plainer English) is that the majority
> of
> > tradtional drawing media more or less involve
> direct
> > contact between pen and ground. In software this
> is
> > not the case, as we have to rely on computer
> > algorithms to interpret our gestures. As a
> programmer
> > and artist, I indentify this as a gap: the
> distance
> > between a gesture and the resulting authographic
> mark.
> > The frameworks I have developed make use of a
> variety
> > of technological apparatus and software processes
> to
> > move drawing about in order to do things with it
> that
> > you couldn't ordinarily do without assistance.
> While
> > drawing is being shoved about in this way, I refer
> to
> > it as being groundless, it's just information, and
> it
> > is only when reproductive processes become
> involved
> > that it is made into a static object again;
> > intersemiosis.
> >
> > So really, it's about peeling drawing from one
> kind of
> > surface, doing something with it (groundless), and
> > then applying it to another.
> >
> > Is this making it any clearer, because as you say
> it
> > ought to have a simple explanation.
> >
> >
> > Mark.
> >
> >
> > --- Peter Hall <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> >> I confess I have no idea what "groundlessness"
> is.
> >>
> >> Any idea that has merit has a simple explanation,
> >> even that explanation is only by analogy.
> >>
> >> I am afraid Marks explanation cast no light at
> all
> >> for me.
> >>
> >> At this point in time the term appears have more
> >> wind
> >> than substance - but I'm willing to learn.
> >>
> >> I would need a _clear_ explanation, rather than
> one
> >> which
> >> a contender for a prize from the plain English
> >> society.
> >>
> >>
> >> Peter
> >>
> >
> >
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> >
> >
> 


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