Machine Drawings by Tristan Perich

"The machine—a pen, suspended horizontally by fishing line connected to two motors mounted on a wall and held taught by gravity—is overwhelmingly simple, and this simplicity allows me to make the process used to create the drawings transparent. The two motors, each allowing winding and unwinding of the fishing line, suggest four possible movements of the pen. The machine is echoed in the drawings: there are no straight lines, only the partial arcs of giant circles, centered around each motor, formed by one motor rotating at a time. At all times, the pen is either moving continuously or randomly changing direction.

All of this is controlled by a microchip. I program the composition for each drawing: how large it is and which regions of it will consist of random or ordered movement of the pen. This is my role as the artist. Then I let go and let the system and its indeterminacy take over. The motors, the geometry, the code, the pen, the paper or wall, all are married in the drawings. The final drawings are studies of how randomness inside a structured composition can be beautiful."

http://www.tristanperich.com/Art/Machine_Drawings/