Diamond 2D design

Name: Ragnar Digital, LLC
Price range: $

Ruth Leavitt

1975

Plotter Drawing

14"x11"
Continuous-feed paper
MIT ACM label affixed

Description

With a background in Abstract Expressionist painting, Ruth Leavitt brought a sense of freedom to her computer art, even as she worked within geometric systems. Diamond 2D design exemplifies her style.

Diamond 2D design is one of Leavitt’s early plotter drawings. A program defined the diamond-based pattern that was processed by a computer and rendered with a pen plotter in black ink on continuous-feed paper. The paper bears the letters “AAD” in the lower right corner, an abbreviation that likely stands for algorithm-aided design, situating the work within the emerging field of computer-aided graphics in the 1970s.

Several polygons combine to form a tilted square that appears to expand outward from the center. The placement of the geometric structures creates a three-dimensional effect, projecting the image of a disjointed pyramid. The lines that make up the work are precise, imbuing the drawing with a mechanical quality, while the incomplete shapes at the edge break the sense of order and symmetry.