Regularity

As mentioned above, motion and process are essential to 10 PRINT. The still images that archive as the program runs and are reproduced in this book are an incomplete representation. A full understanding of the program comes only through experiencing the pattern build one unit at a time and the surprise of the unexpected sequences and connections that form the maze as the left or right line are randomly drawn.

As we know, the traditional visual arts are static; think fresco, stone and bronze sculptures, and canvases. We create motion as we move around a work and our eyes explore the surface, but the object is still. The thrust of machines into life at the beginning of the 20th century was an inspiration to painters (the Futurists) and photographers (Étienne-Jules Marey, Eadweard Muybridge) and also to sculptors who used motors to create motion. The origin of integrating physical movement into artworks in the twentieth century is often credited to Naum Gabo for his Kinetic Construction (Standing Wave) from 1919-20. This sculpture created a virtual volume in space by mechanically hitting a metal rod near the base to send a wave through the object. Gabo was thrilled to bring motion into his art and his enthusiasm led to “The Realistic Manifesto”, co-written with his brother Antoine Pevsner in 1920. After rejecting the traditional foundations of art in an ordered list (1. Color 2. Line 3. volume, and 4. Mass) they declared:

5. We renounce the thousand-year-old delusion in art that held the

static rhythms as the only elements of the plastic and pictorial arts.

We affirm in these arts a new element, the kinetic rhythms as the basic

forms of our perceptions of real time. (Force Fields p. 228)

With kinetic rhythm as the base of all new art, Gabo's Kinetic Construction is an ideal demonstration. It's a machine without visual interest and no relation to the sculpture of the time. It performs the same motion precisely over and over. The work of art is reduced to a rhythmic repetition. While other pioneers of motion in art such as Marcel Duchamp and Alexander Calder worked with motors to create regular machines, by the middle of the century the dominant form of motion had shifted to the type of chance motion experience through the wind moving a Calder or Rickey mobile or the anarchic mechanical chaos of Jean Tingely. The essence of 10 PRINT is the relationship between both forms.

Piano Phase (1967) by Steve Reich is an iconic sound work built on repetition. In this approximately twenty minute composition, two pianists start by playing the same twelve-note melody continuously. One pianist plays the sequence faster so it moves out phase until they are back in phase, but the faster pianist is playing the second note, while the slower is on the first note. This continues until the faster pianist has looped so both are playing the same sequence at the same time. The piece iterates further from that point, but the same phasing technique is used until the end. In 10 PRINT, new forms emerge from the programs decision to display the left or right line, but in Piano Phase, new sonic forms emerge by playing the same sequence over and over, but with one musician at a different speed.

Step Piece by Vito Acconci is another performance work based on repetition that's interesting to compare and contrast with 10 PRINT. Acconci defined this work through a brief text:

An 18-inch stool is set up in my apartment and used as a step. Each morning, during

the designated months, I step up and down the stool at the rate of 30 steps a minute;

each morning, the activity lasts as long as I can perform it without stopping.

The ways that step piece are different from 10 PRINT reveals what is unique about each. The analysis of Step Pieces yields the question, “How is repeating the same thing over and over not repetitive?” Unlike a computer program, when a person performs the same thing, it's a little different each time. The photographic documentation of Step Piece show Acconci in action with one foot on the stool and the other on the way up or down. In relation to a screen capture from 10 PRINT, each photo is drastically different. Additionally, Acconci gets better at his repetitions in time while 10 PRINT writes characters to the screen at the same rhythm and in the same manner as long as the program runs. While some computer programs can improve over time (e.g. caching to improve download speed or machine learning algorithms), a one-line program like 10 PRINT is an exemplar of the legacy of computers as basic calculating machines.

The performance piece Dance, a collaboration between choreographer Lucinda Childs, composer Phillip Glass, and artist Sol LeWitt, is a work that integrates these performance strands together. Like all of the works discussed above, narrative was removed and the subject is literally movement, hearing, and seeing through variation and repetition. For three of the five sections of the performance, LeWitt created films of the dancers performing the same sequence of motions that they perform live on stage. He filmed them on top of a grid to reinforce the structure within the choreography. The film is projected onto a scrim at the front of the stage during the performance and it's synchronized to a recorded version of Glass' score. At times the projected image is enlarged and at times it is slowed down as the film echos the movements of the live performance. Glass's music for Dance features his signature style of repeating and transforming brief passages. The foundation of Dance is Lucinda Childs choreography which she has referred to as stripped down ballet. In the first and strongest movement, the dancers move along straight lines from left to right and right to left across the stage. As they quickly follow the line in a mix of running, skipping, and turning, they move through a series of tilts. The perception is they are moving through every permutation within the grammar of movements created for the dance. Like 10 PRINT, the sound and motion are hypnotic and emphasize the details of the variation rather than larger global structural changes. Unlike 10 PRINT, Dance works across multiple media to synthesize a powerful and at times overwhelming aesthetic experience.