Untitled Computer Ink Plot

1985

Serigraph

Description

This is a 1985 serigraph of a plotter drawing by Holger Bäckström and Bo Ljungberg. The duo made work together under the name Beck & Jung, forging a reputation for their experiments with various emerging computer technologies.

Beck & Jung’s collaborative practice began in 1965, and they first worked with computers the following year. Bäckström’s artistic background and Ljungberg’s mathematical training are both evident in the system-based approach to geometric abstraction that they developed.

In 1972, the duo started using a machine called the Color Ink Jet Plotter: the world’s first color plotter, developed at Lund University, in the city where the artists lived and worked. To produce the compositions they used Color, a program specially designed for the plotter, on a UNIVAC 1108 computer. The “computer ink plots” (as they called them) were then distributed as prints in series focusing on particular motifs.

This serigraph is from the “Dendra” series, consisting of arrangements of two hexagonal forms.