The Ball Point Texture in Green and Blue, 2020
Plotter drawing in Pen on Yupo
41.9 × 29.9 cm
Signed
Collection of Bre Pettis
CA.2020.006
Description
Simon Kirby is Professor of Language Evolution at the University of Edinburgh and maintains a parallel practice in machine drawing, sound, and installation. He works with an AxiDraw plotting robot fitted with ordinary office ballpoint refills, using elastic bands to regulate the pen's pressure on the paper — a deliberately humble setup that yields dense, shimmering fields of accumulated ink. His Ballpoint Texture works, offered in blue and green, build these textures stroke by stroke over hours of machine time; this drawing pairs the two colors. Kirby's plotter works frequently encode personal data such as geographic locations and field recordings into the generative systems that drive the machine.