Spirales Carrées 1982/1984, sin_d1

Name: Ragnar Digital, LLC
Price range: $

Pierre Braun

1982

Plotter Drawing

8.25"x11.75"
Made with a Texas Instruments plotter
Black ink on A4 Clairefontaine
Signed on verso

Description

_Spirales Carrées 1982/1984, sin_d1 _is part of the _Sinusoïdes & Modules _series that Pierre Braun created in the early 1980s. At the time he was working in François Molnár’s psychophysiology of perception laboratory at the University of Paris 1, where he met and collaborated with Vera Molnár. Their work in the 1980s explored how computer programs and plotters could translate instructions into complex visual outcomes. He wrote a program that defined a square spiral unfolding in right-angled steps, with variations introduced by adjusting parameters such as spacing and rhythm. The coded instructions were processed on a computer and executed by a Texas Instruments pen plotter.

_Spirales Carrées 1982/1984, sin_d1 _displays twenty squares arranged in a grid, each featuring the appearance of spirals amid many intersecting lines. Some spirals open into wide lattices, while others tighten until the lines strain against the borders, creating a sense of sideways pull. Viewed together, the grid reads as a sequence of transformations, demonstrating how one rule can generate a range of visual effects. At a time when artists and researchers were excited about the new possibilities in hyperrealist graphics, Braun continued to investigate the computer’s vocabulary of abstraction.