Untitled Plotter

Name: Ragnar Digital, LLC
Price range: $

Peter Struycken

1980

Plotter Drawing

Description

One of the first Dutch artists to use the computer as a medium for artistic expression, Peter Struycken turned to code in the late 1960s to systematize his earlier explorations of form and color in painting. By 1980, he shifted from black-and-white compositions to colorful ones made with his proprietary DOTS program.

This untitled drawing from 1980 was generated by a plotter holding colored felt-tip pens, guided by DOTS. The program translated vertical sine waves into two-dimensional fields of points, which the plotter inscribed on the page. Patterns emerge as the waves intersect, creating recurring almond shapes and elongated circles.

The work embodies Struycken’s interest in how simple algorithms could produce visual complexity. Colored dots form a rhythmic arrangement of orange, red, and blue that repeat with slight changes in spacing and position, creating tension between structure and disruption. The program’s parameters are printed in the lower left corner, showing the variable values used to generate the composition. By including this data, Struycken makes the computational process visible, revealing how the code is not separate from the image but an essential part of the artwork.