Drakula

Name: Ragnar Digital, LLC
Price range: $

Herbert W. Franke

2023 (from a 1971 drawing)

20"x13.75"

Description

Herbert W. Franke’s “Drakula” series of 1970/71 emerged from—and for him exemplified—the artist’s “rational theory of art,” which contends that aesthetic creation and perception can be quantified using the mathematical discipline of information theory.

The name of the series is composed from the first, third, and seventh syllables of the computer program created to generate the works, Drachenkurven, überlagert (Dragon curves, superimposed). First discovered by NASA physicists in 1966, the dragon curve is now a well-known type of fractal curve.

Franke was not yet coding himself so he collaborated on the program with computer scientist Josef Vordermaier. The graphics, consisting of whole or fragmented dragon curves in various configurations, were generated on the Siemens 4004 computer and printed with a plotter.

In some cases Franke created multi-color drawings or lithographs, although this example (one in an edition of 200 historical prints) retains a monochromatic simplicity.