The Mineral Prototype series by Julian Gachadoat experiments with the amount of control that an artist can give to the machine. Gachadoat’s generative drawing practice involves programming autonomous agents to move around a grid according to a set of simple rules.
Gachadoat set the program into action on screen to test how the system evolves within its constraints. Once he was satisfied with the results, he exported them as vector files for a pen plotter to trace. In Mineral Prototype 01, straight and wavelike lines spread across a yellow background, showing how agents build shapes and structures through systematic action.
Mineral Prototype consists of four studies that trace the shift in the artist’s programs from controlled explorations to systems capable of emergent behavior. It represents the early stages of the research behind Gachadoat’s Mineral series for “+GRAPH,” an exhibition of plotter art organized by the online marketplace Feral File.