The Graffitizer project, by Daniel Berio, consists of a series of machines capable of generating abstract drawings associated with a sub genre of graffiti aesthetic known as Wildstyle. The style is characterised by a complex futuristic angular writing of overlapping letters and shapes, illusions of 3-dimensionality and decorated with multi-directional arrowheads and spikes. While the drawings are made with a computer-controlled vintage pen plotter in black ink on paper, the colouration fills are projected onto the drawing via a mounted compact projector. This means that although the drawing structure remains fixed once drawn, the colours can be dynamically shifted and recombined. In one iteration of the Graffitizer project, the property of ink dripping is simulated by the modification of a pump marker pen. Here the sharp graphic computer-defined strokes are broken by long drips, refreshingly compromising the 100% pure digital aesthetic of the drawing. The early lineage of elaborate and complex styles that led to the development of Wildstyle in New York in the 1970s and 80s, had numerous names including ‘mechanical letters’ and ‘computer rock’. The style has therefore always been aesthetically associated with the process of computation, mechanisation and procedurality. Paul Prudence

 

Graffitizer 2.2 Test