Leonardo

Toward a Cybernetic Art Corresponding to the Symbols of Our Early AncestorsAuthor(s): Manfred GraefSource: Leonardo, Vol. 19, No. 4 (1986), pp. 293-296Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1578373 .

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Toward a Cybernetic Art Corresponding to the

Symbols of our Early Ancestors

Manfred Graef

Abstract-The author describes how he developed esthetic rules using mathematic structures and explains his interest in cybernetic art. Impressed by Celtic linear art, he began researching prehistoric symbols. While. investigating early allegorical ornaments, he found a correlation between the formerly intuitive finding of a form and the research of the mathematics of sensations. Although his hard-edged linear artwork led him into computer graphics, he now uses big brushes and either oil on canvas or gouache on paper.

I. INTRODUCTION

I do not know if my artistic endeavors can be grasped without understanding my experiences during the war. I was born in 1928 in Germany, near the Rhine. When the Second World War broke out, I was 12 years old. At the end of the war, at 16, 1 was captured by American soldiers. When I returned home, I resumed se- condary school. I had acquired a compre- hensive knowledge about tanks, all kinds of flying machines and war in general. And I had experienced hunger firsthand.

When I saw paintings by Picasso for the first time, I was perplexed. Picasso troubled me a great deal, especially his artwork from 1939 to 1942. When I saw those contorted figures, I was just about to attempt cautiously to copy artists like Titian-my pencil dropped out of my hand.

The attempt to apply my newfound knowledge to my own artworks yielded a

simple, yet astounding, discovery: a single line. As I drew this line onto paper, my own imagination-as if echoing all the explosions during the war-suddenly exploded: I was drawing my own single line in red, yellow-blue ... and I could not get enough of it. Soon I was putting lines next to each other, assembling lines in crowds, drawing curves full of energy, placing straight lines as tangents to circles.

without making any mistakes. I left nothing to coincidence. Everything was set in order. Order was the content of my 'virtuoso' performance. I learned to place the boldest swings exactly at the intended point. After accomplishing a work, I

would look at it for hours. I used heavy blues, green-blue, blue-red.

When I began extending the range of colours, I discovered that I started to vary the straight lines more and more. After working with coloured constructions of

II. SEARCHING FOR ORDER

The drawing illustrated in Fig. 1 is one of the last linear works I made in the 1950s [1]. They were all drawn in India ink. To me it was most startling to see how they transmitted my complete con- centration: I meditated as I worked, drawing one coloured line after another,

Manfred Graef (artist), Joachim-Friedrich-StraBe 53, D-1000 Berlin 31, Federal Republic of Germany.

Manuscript solicited by Herbert W. Franke. Received 29 May 1985.

? ISAST Pergamon Journals Ltd. Printed in Great Britain. 0024-094X/86 $3.00+0.00

Fig. 1. Untitled, coloured ink on paper, 84 x 61 cm, 1959.

LEONARDO, Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 293-296,1986 293

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F F F Fig. 2. Untitled, ink and casein on paper, 40 x 40 cm, 1961. This assemblage of geometric series sei against each other horizontally and vertically was made by diagonal division of every secone

quadrangle into two triangles.

planes, I arrived at coloured spaces. I put arithmetic rows (which were developed by addition) into my work.

In 1961 I started to use geometric rows (which were developed by multiplication) in my image areas. This was hard work since electronic pocket calculators were not yet in use at that time. By applying this theoretical material to my artwork, I worked out mathematically conceived structures. The results frequently amazed me-for example, the work illustrated in Fig. 2, which I completed in 1961. Figure 2 is an assemblage of geometric series, set against each other horizontally and ver- tically. This figure is made by diagonal division of every second quadrangle into two triangles.

Kasimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian. I studied the work of Theo van Doesburg,

who in 1924 had already defined concrete art: "There is nothing more real, nothing more concrete than a line, a colour, a plane." To him the application of a straight line expressed the consciousness of a new culture: absolute clearness without drama, symbolism or even mytho- logy. This was the field of my work.

In the 1950s I had attended exhibitions of Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart [2], Almir Mavignier and Josef Albers, which Charles Maria Kiesel had organized at the Pfalzgalerie in Kaiserslautern, Federal Republic of Germany. The American '10th Street Touch', a New York school of painters who initiated the 'painterly abstraction', greatly influenced European painting. I was drawn to Helen Frankenthaler's brightly coloured planes and became absorbed in Rothko's emo- tional, heavy colours. During that time a great many new paintings were created in the Western art world.

Many years later, I came across Max Bill's Mathematical Way of Thinking in Our Modern Art [3]. Although I was not influenced by either his philosophy or his colours, I took a deep interest in his work, especially his plastic art. I agree with him that all our thoughts, which are expressed in a variety of forms, ideas and per- ceptions, correspond to the structures of the world and to our imagination of the world.

I worked with series, rows, repetitions of the same elements, progressions. I increased and decreased distances, used

III. INFLUENCES

International Art Cooperation

During 1961-1962 I was able to spend two winters in Spain. For the first time I was rid of the trauma of war and the disciplinary control of the Nazi state. I made friends and enjoyed my neighbors, most of whom were American artists. Amongst them was Hans Hinterreiter, a Swiss working on cybernetic art. I studied art theories and felt a deep solidarity with

Fig. 3. SO 2, silkscreen, 70 x 70 cm, 1974. A hexagon progresses on three axes from the center to the outside, changing into an exact circle.

Graef, Cybernetic Art

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294

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axial and radial symmetry, experimented with basic forms of the cross, quadrangle, triangle, circle. I always worked within squares. Despite, or perhaps just because of, the fact that I clearly put numerical data in the picture, my creation was in agreement with the outward appearance of nature.

During my search for an understanding of geometric form, I was concerned specifically with the coherence of form and its representation in enlarged and reduced constellations. This search often showed me how limited my knowledge of mathematics was. Yet sometimes, as in SO 2 (Fig. 3), I practically complemented mathematical rules.

In SO 2, a hexagon progresses on three axes from the center to the outside, finally changing into an exact circle. All the corners of the triangles are fixed, and the entire figure is not variable at any point. Although this might lack technical significance, I find the result esthetically pleasing and derive enjoyment from seeing something I had never seen before.

For many years I focused primarily on condensing the geometrical context into a collective plan. I searched for a generally valid syntax of the form, quasi a grammar of shaping, which I believe created a new intensity in my work.

Fig. 4. Untitled, computer drawing (plotter), ink, variable sizes and condensation, 1979. The plotter first draws the largest congruent lines, pauses, and then continues with the next series of congruent

lines.

Acknowledgment of An Electronically Visualized Microcosm

By 1957 the ideas of Herbert W. Franke had already had a significant influence on me. Hence, I aimed at finding a deeper sense within the geo- metrical structure. At this time Franke published Art and Construction [4] and The Magic of Molecules [5]. After meeting in 1958, we stayed in friendly contact and continued to exchange ideas.

All my works from the 1960s were influenced by perceptions gained through electronically generated picture material of the microcosm. The reflection of the increasingly opening microcosm and its presentation completed the knowlege I had gained earlier while working for the metal industries in the fields of material improvements. I was fascinated by photos of steel walls of heat- and pressure- resistant devices which had been measured supersonically. The electric fields of the intact steel jacket yield perfectly harmonic pictures. Electron microscopy of molecular structures show precise geometric forms which resemble symbols of early peoples, such as variations of the circle, triangle, hexagon.

The Intuitive Symbols of Our Early Ancestors

My work was also strongly influenced by my discovering Celtic ornaments in the mid-1950s [6]. In 1967 I started a thorough study of early ornaments. In the following years I did some research on the early Islamic ornament: the infinite truth of the symmetry of reflected images, the presentation of absolute harmony. One can detect a reciprocal influence between Europe and the Near East in the beginning of early ornamental art. In 1979, instead of publishing an exhibition catalogue, I published an interpretation of early symbols [7].

These studies and my hard-edged work with colours and geometric shapes led inevitably to computer work. Working with an information scientist, I elaborated computer programs for basic ornamental forms. A creaking, squeaking plotter drew geometric structures and combin- ations of prehistoric signs. We were pleased with the results.

Figure 4 illustrates a black-and-white drawing executed by the plotter. As a rule, such figures are drawn with coloured India ink. The plotter, following the program, moves from the outside to the center, first drawing the largest congruent lines, pausing, and then continuing with the next series of congruent lines.

IV. RESULTS OF OIL ON CANVAS

After 1980 I gradually went back to painting, responding to an urge to paint on big canvases. I simultaneously changed the materials I worked with: I put pen and ruler away and bought broad brushes. I stroked and painted for one entire winter with different kinds of colours and basic geometric signs, which meant an extreme consumption of material.

In 1983 [8] and 1984 [9] I exhibited large canvases as cloths without frames. Using the broad brushes and applying bright colours in a slow and methodical manner, I painted basic signs: codes of an ancient symbolic language without myths. People and nations had seized, changed and overlayed these signs with myths, but there is no known culture on earth, no race, that lacks abtractions [10].

V. PREHISTORIC SYMBOLS AND TWENTIETH-CENTURY

CYBERNETIC ART

From the beginning of humanity the language of symbols has been passed on. We can see that the origin of the first signs is based on the observation of nature. This observation is the basic component of the genesis of semiotics, the foundation of esthetics.

Graef, Cybernetic Art 295

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Human creativeness may have begun 300,000 years ago in the valley of Aisne, France [11], with the forming of balls of stone in the Stone Age. Balls of clay marked with fingerprints were found 18 m beneath the surface of the earth at Achenheim in the Alsace region of France [12]. On the surface of a 70,000- year-old bone found in Hungary, we see an accurately scratched cross within a circle [13]. It is a known fact that the Neanderthal man buried his dead in an east-west direction. Keeping in mind the pyramids, with their astronomically fixed alignment, and Roman and Gothic cathedrals, which are constructed in principle on an east-west axis, we can proceed on the assumption of M.E.P. Konig, that Neanderthal man expressed his own observation of the stars' move- ment in this east-west direction of burial.

In my work, I do not interpret or maintain old meanings attached to these symbols in ancient times, but I use them in their esthetic sense, as a game with colours and a variation with forms. "The old signs demonstrate an intelligence, logic, maturity of cultures as part of our history which had been lost because they had not been written down" [14].

During the 1970s I had combined several stays in Paris with visits to the many caves in the Forest of Fontainebleau [15]. These caves on the Ile-de-France are mostly rather small, but some of them are completely filled with old symbols. Today 1000 of them are known, and guides who explore the area are still discovering new

ones.

Designs found in the caves of the Ile- de-France are repeated on the coins of the Celts. The significance of this context forms the substance of my most recent

undertaking: a film with many newly discovered engravings. The film was done in cooperation with M.E.P. Konig, who has contributed greatly to the discovery of these caves. Mathematically conceived structures, geometric connections, can be traced back to the first abstract creations of our prehistoric ancestors. Prehistoric people raised the same questions we continue to confront in our modern age: the eternal question of space and time. The electronic pictures of modern physics often resemble the symbols of our early ancestors. The genesis of esthetics arises to our consciousness.

REFERENCES AND NOTES

1. As the postwar art world in Germany was only just slowly awakening, my early work was not published until some years later. See "Aus der Arbeit der Badischen Anilin- und Sodafabrik AG", Die BASF 2, No. 17 (1967); Wolfgang Gerstner, "Farbige Tinten und Tuschen" and "Manfred Graef, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein", Berliner Kiinstler der Gegenwart, No. 11 (1976).

2. Jean Arp once wrote of Vordemberge- Gildewart: "His works open windows within the four walls of understanding." I used this quotation as an epigraph for my autobiographic essay "Geometrische Bilder und Grafik", Eine Ausstellung des

Institutsfur Moderne Kunst, (Nurenberg: Institut fur Moderne Kunst, 1978).

3. Max Bill, "Werk", Die mathematische Denkweise in der Kunst unserer Zeit, Zurich, 36. Jg.,3 (March 1949) pp. 86-91.

4. Herbert W. Franke, "Physik und Mathe- matik als fotografisches Experiment", Kunst und Konstruktion (F. Brockman, 1957).

5. Herbert W. Franke, Magie der Moklekule (F. Brockman, 1958).

6. This was reflected later in the periodical ZAAZ, which was published in Berlin. A group of six artists and myself published monthly our drawings. See ZAAZ, No. 5 (1966).

7. Manfred Graef, Dasinntragende Ornament des prihistorischen Menschen (Berlin: Galerie Petersen, 1979).

8. Manfred Graef, One-Man Show (Paris: Goethe Institut, 1983).

9. Essay by Dietmar Kamper in Manfred Graef, Kunstler zu Gast in der Berliner Pfandbriefbank (Berlin, 1984).

10. Manfred Graef, One-Man Show (Schwet- zingen: Palais Hirsch, Kunstverein Schwet- zingen, 1984).

11. H. Jouillie, "Les spheroides de la Vallee de L'Aisne aux environs Vailly-sur- Aisne", Bulletin de la Soc. Preh. Francaise 60 (1963).

12. Paul Werner, "Les boules de Loess d'Achenheim et les 'Lihtee Mirr' ", Cahiers Alsaciens d'Archeologie, d'Art et d'Histoire (Strasbourg, 1961).

13. Laszig Vert6s, "Eine mittelpalaolitische Travertin-Siedlung in Ungarn", TATA (Budapest: Ungarischen Akademie der Wissenschaft, 1964).

14. Essay by Marie Luise Syring in Ref. [10]. 15. Marie E.P. Konig, a paleontologist who

has written several books on this topic, brought these caves to my attention. See, for example, Marie E.P. K6nig, Am Anfang der Kultur (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1972).

Graef, Cybernetic Art 296

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