Peter Beyls (Belgian, b. 1950) RPX, plotter drawing, 1974
Felt-tip pen on paper (pen plotter)
36 × 27 cm
Signed
Collection of Bre Pettis
PION.2018.013
Description
RPX (1974) is among Peter Beyls's very first plotter drawings, made the year he began programming machines to draw while studying music and computer science at Ghent University — his site records the 1974 works as plotter drawings in felt tip on paper. Peter told us he didn't have any way to see the artwork in totality, he had to scroll and see each line at at time while plotting this work. Custom rules govern repetition, variation, and chance; the network of forms that results reads as both mechanical and organic. Fifty years of treating the computer as a creative collaborator start with sheets like this one.