Yesterday I went back to Aldo’s studio and explored the “art room” that consists of a wall with a custom made PVC pipe array. The “pixels” of the wall stored the majority of Giorgini’s Legacy. Unfortunately, some of the large (4m X 1.50m) original photographic transparencies have masking tape stuck to them. After careful exploration, it may come off. There are materials that have been stored inside other paper rolls and are in good condition. This transparencies were the result of photographic enlargements of the plots. Giorgini decided to work in a medium scale and enlarged the computer plots through taking film pictures of them. Photography was a passion for Giorgini. A collection of about a thousand slides are a time machine to Giorgini’s vision. His photo documentations are intriguing. Very few of them show people or events, suggesting Giorgini’s uttermost visual interests. The themes are: bridges, Lafayette, computer art, architectural, travel, home, class materials.
Giorgini had an admiration for the Italian renaissance in the work of Andrea Palladio. To Giorgini, bridges were constructions that succeded Palladio’s theories for architectural exploration. It is natural that Giorgini was fascinated by bridges, he was a Civil Engineer that enjoyed mathematical calculations to create shapes.
An envelope with black and white pictures show intriguing models of buildings and bridges with custom made computer aided patterns. I did not find this originals anywhere yet! But they were the “Swiss cheese” and “Checkerboard” among others that are in his catalog of artworks. The majority of computer aided, enlarged transparencies on mylar are original pieces of art that often times were hand painted and exhibited. Other times they were used to make reproduction of the pieces. By this means, Giorgini created his “Surfaces” series, a run of 200 hand numbered print portfolio of five images. Did he actually make other bigger prints? Did he attempt to make prints with his gigantic screens? The majority of prints he made at his studio are for Surfaces, or at least no other evidence of test runs. Giorgini had an almost exaggerated sense of printing lots of copies of his art. There are currently about 30 thousand prints of his art, specially the ones created with FIELDS and the “Surfaces” print portfolio.
Were the missing works purchased or donated to people and institutions? Which works are in the collection of the Smithsonian and Carnegie Melon?
Pictures, slides and film negatives reveal Giorgini’s process of computer aided art. His computer plots varied in size from 8 in x 17 in to 20 in x 30 in. Sometimes they were colored and then photographed and some other times they were painted over the mylar or paper using black markers or photographic emulsion in the case of the transparencies. When you see the murals of the “Light” series, photography comes to mind. A perfectly defined and focused intricate pattern of alternating and almost glowing by photography: perfect black and the shiny white of it’s matte paper. The “Light” murals make me wonder how to make a print of this dimensions. This images were made in a photographic lab in a similar manner than a photogram. Photograms are an early photographic technique that consists of laying objects over photographic paper. A timed light exposure and an immediate development in a dark roomcreate contours of opaque objects in black and white. Giorgini used the modules to do a multiple exposition in the paper, and be able to create a large image. This process was not easy, and it probably required the aid of professional expertise. I imagine it would be hard to avoid double exposures and matching the image prior to developing it… It needed careful calculation. Maybe if he was living he could tell me how he accomplished this, probably in a very logical and practical solution. At this point the work has evolved from math to computer code to plot to photo to paint and then to photo again. The goal was to create a perfect image.
Notes:
Other important software discoveries: Stretch ( use to make lots of works) and other 2 that can’t remember! in adition to FIELDS, Palette and Light. Is there one called Surfaces?
The other art prints come from the Bridges as sculptures paper.
Chastique prior to computer art – connection to hydrology