Erased Several Robots 2008 January / February

Erased have a historical reference in the piece by Robert Rauschenberg known as the Erased de Kooning Drawing from 1953. In that year Rauschenberg bought a drawing by Willem de Kooning and erased it, showing that the destruction of an artwork can be considered an artwork in itself. In my series, the erasement is done by a robot. Based on its color sensibility, the robot tends to cover certain parts of the painting and not others. If the image is chromatically too homogeneous then the robot covers nearly everything. My painting robots act accordingly an emergent behavior, in which color triggers a positive feedback action. An empty canvas needs an initial random color seed, but an image is in itself already a seed to which the robot responds adding more color. Hence, in the Erased series the final composition corresponds to the robot’s interpretation of the given artwork, as a kind of cadavre exquis. Except for a real work by Rauschenberg, in fact a print, all the other samples from this series are made over art reproductions from well-known artists. In this sense, Erased describes a process in which robot creativity stems from the destruction of human creativity. Erased [Frida Kahlo], 2007, acrylic on canvas, 160 x 130 cm Erased [Van Gogh], 2007, acrylic on canvas, 170 x 130 cm Erased [Amadeo], 2007, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 130 cm Erased [Warhol], 2007, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 130 cm Back