Step

1994, Amsterdam

etching, paper, gravure printing ink

Step

etching, paper, gravure printing ink
1994, Amsterdam
cca 32 feet x 20feet (10m x 6m)

The artwork

The print was made by three clichées, they were the visible sides of the axonometric cube. It was printed in Amsterdam, in the graphic workshop of the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten. The artwork won the bronze prize of the Osaka Graphic Triennale.

The system

The step warps into a cubus. The placing of the unity cubes are determined by a mathematical method. Its important element is the random. There was very probably, that the steps will turn into the cubus, but the single cubes were randomly placed. Like a hourglass: Clear, that every grain of sand goes to the lower pot, but there is quite hard to know, in which order.

Amsterdam, 1994

The math behind Step

The first example is a model of a single dice. A dice produces numbers from 1 to 6. The chance of these numbers are exactly the same. The example records the results of the dice. The columns above the numbers represent the cases when the dice turn to that number. The chanche is the same, so as the number of cases grows, the difference becomes smaller between the columns.

throw once throw 1000 times clear

The second example is a model of two dices. It throws two dices, add the results and records the sum. In this example the middle numbers have bigger chance, than the small and huge numbers. (We get numbers from 2 to 12. To get number 2, all the dices have to turn to number 1. To get number 12, they have to turn to number 6. To get number 7, they can turn to 6+1, 5+2 and 4+3. Consequently number 7 has three times bigger chance, than number 2 and 12.)

As the number of cases grows, the columns show the curve of the chances.

throw once throw 1000 times clear

This final example builds up the model of the artwork. (It builds a possible model, thus, the artwork could be like that.)

build artwork