Intro to Visual Practice / Fall 2010

I took this project very literally, trying to simply create a machine that would make an interesting drawing. I tried and failed to use my car to make patterns on the road with paint, and ended up using the fan in my room to make my machine. My initial idea was to tie a bunch of markers to my fan and see if I could record the path it made by holding paper up to the fan.  But after trying this, I noticed that the markers changed paths in a way that I hadn’t envisioned and that I couldn’t track them with paper, since they were making a 3-D, and changing, shape. (They started out hanging, then as the fan sped up they moved outwards and finally were moving at the same level as the fan.) So I tried instead to imagine, that if the markers were drawing in space, what that drawing would look like. Then, for my project, I thought of three different artistic tools you could attach to the fan, and thought about what patterns they would create. The three tools I used were markers, dripping paint brushes, and spray paint cans (pressed down on hold so they would be constantly spraying). All of these products, when attached to the fan, would create different patterns and paths (or “drawings”) of color. To show these ideas to the class, I drew (in photoshop) the products that each tool + fan combination would produce (that is – what pattern it would leave in the air or on the wall), so people could get a visual. The point of my project ended up being thinking of how to make a machine that makes one path (the fan) into something more complex by attaching different drawing tools to it. If you used all three tools I tried at once, tying each drawing tool on at a different length, you could almost fill the entire room with color.

Below are my photoshop drawings of what each drawing path would look like.

1) Markers attached to fan:

2) Dripping paint brushes attached to fan:

3) Spray paint cans tied on to fan with the spray button pushed down.