Matricism and the Pneumatic Paint Brush

8/9/2019 Matricism and the Pneumatic Paint Brush

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Matricism and the Pneumatic Paint Brush

It is paradoxical that in an attempt to simplify his art, Seidler ended up developing atechnique that is both complex and demanding. Historically he can be seen as falling into

the same trap as Seurat, Pissarro and other Pointillists. The demands of Matricism are

similar to the demands of Pointillism which so restricted the output of that movement in

painting. As mentioned above, Seidlers output of Matrix paintings was only a few piecesper year. Frustrated with the extreme demands of the form, in the late 1990s he

essentially abandoned the approach.

In 1999 however, in collaboration with myself and other technologists, Seidler was ableto exploit the systematic nature of Matricism and developed new painting tools which

have permitted this new language of art expression to survive and evolve as technology

has presented new possibilities.

In order to understand how technology has been used to aid in the production of Matrixpaintings, it is appropriate to give a concrete example of the creation of a Matrix painting

as Seidler has done it by hand. The first stage is painting a grayscale under painting. Thisis the brightness design. Seidler does this alla prima, with no drawn sketches to beginwith. He simply conceives of and paints with oil on canvas using ordinary brushes.

Figure 11A shows a completed under painting. This grayscale image is typically done

with relatively thin paints and provides little in the way of texture. The under painting isusually created with no obvious restriction on value.

A red and blue color matrix with the two hues and 15 values.

Next he creates a wavelength design. Often this is a series of lines, each in a principle

hue. The choice of three principle hues is typical but not universal. These lines are drawnon the under painting. Having selected the hues as part of the wavelength design, Seidler

selects the number and range of values. Once both hues and values have been selected,

the paints can be mixed to create the color matrix. An example of a two color 15 value

matrix is shown in Figure 10. Seidler will then pick a line in the wavelength design of a

particular hue and start applying dots of paint with his palette knife along the line. Alongthat line the dots will typically be the same size and spacing and will always be the same

hue. The value of the hue for each dot of paint is selected by Seidler to be as close aspossible to the value (graylevel of the under painting in the location of that dot. This

process is repeated for each line in the wavelength design until the painting is complete.

The manual process so easily described in the above two paragraphs requires an

enormous amount of painstaking labor that is taxing physically as well as mentally. As he


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works along each wavelength design line, the artist must keep the dot size and spacingconsistent. This is done by progressing along the line with each dot placed one after

another. This requires that all of the paint values of the particular hue to be available. The

artist must judge the value of the grayscale on the under painting and find the appropriate

matching color value. Unlike painting with a brush, where mistakes are easily paintedover, this process is very unforgiving. The thick dots of paint are difficult to remove once

applied to the canvas, so each dot must have its value carefully selected and must beaccurately placed. When tens to hundreds of thousands of dots must be applied to finish aMatrix painting, the manual and mental effort can be overwhelming.

Seidler applying dots ofpaint, one at a time with a pallet knife.

The salvation of this approach is that it is structured so that the choices that the artistmakes: principle hues, number of color levels, dot size(s, and dot spacing(s can be

applied to his designs in an algorithmic manner. This has allowed Technology to beinvented that enables the creation of original Matrix oil paintings. The advantage that this

technology was intended for was to reduce the time to produce a Matrix painting. In this

it has been very successful. The time to produce a Matrix painting of moderatecomplexity has been reduced from weeks to days. However, the technology has also

provided new opportunities for Matricism to evolve as we will explain in a later section.

The technology used to produce Matrix paintings includes digital imaging, image

processing, lots of programming, and a 21st Century paint brush. The process starts just

as it always did with Seidler creating the brightness design by painting a grayscale underpainting. The under painting is then digitized and stored in a Tagged Image Format (TIF

file in a grayscale mode. Normally there are 256 levels of gray in such an image file. The

artist selects the number of levels that he/she would like to use. Let us say that the artistchooses 11 levels. The image is processed to have only 11 gray levels instead of 256. One

way to do this is with the Posterize function in Adobe PhotoShop. The processed TIF

file is made up of pixels which represent spatial points of the image. Each pixel has one


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of 11 different gray levels. Figure 12 shows an example of a digital image shown before(A and after (B the gray levels have been reduced to a small number.

Figure 12 (A) Digitized image of a grayscale under painting with 256 gray levels. (B) isthe same image except there are now only 9 gray levels.

Next the artist creates the wavelength design. In this case we will consider a wavelengthdesign with 3 principle hues (red, purple, gray that is made up of lines. There will be

multiple red lines, purple lines, and gray lines. Instead of drawing lines on the under

painting, this can be done in a computer drawing program. Each hue gets its own TIF filemade up of lines. Shown in Figure 13 is a wavelength (color design of blue spiral lines.


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Wavelength design in blue spiral lines Detail of assigned dots along blue line. Note the

value of each dot is adjusted to match the grayscale of the under painting (brightnessdesign.

Very first test of the above pattern.


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The artist selects dot size, dot spacing, and several other parameters that affect theplacement of dots along the lines drawn in the wavelength design. These selections can

be different for each hue or even for lines individually. Based on these inputs, dot

positions are determined along the lines of the wavelength design. Figure 14 shows the

result of a particular dot size and dot spacing along the blue lines. Note that the computerhas adjusted the value of the blue dots to correspond to the grayscale value of the

brightness design for the location of each dot. The blue dots assigned along the blue lines.At the same time for each dot the gray level of the brightness design is determined in theposition of that dot. The end result of this process are files which contain the size,

position, hue, and value for each dot that will make up the painting.

The data for the dots is arranged into different groups with dots of a particular paint color

(hue and value) and within these groups into dots of the same size. Data in this groupingis what is used to create the Matrix paintings.

The Matrix Painting Tool (MPT) is a large scale XYZ positioning robot with the ability

to deposit paint on a canvas with control of the size and shape of the deposited paint. The

paint delivery mechanism is a paint filled cartridge that is pneumatically driven toextrude oil paint out of a tip. In these images you can see how individual colors are

loaded and delivered.

A painting is produced one bydepositing one paint color (hue

and value) at a time. Paint

cartridges are loaded one at a

time and the machineparameters are adjusted to

achieve a particular dot size

and texture. Once adjusted, alldots of a particular size and

texture are deposited

sequentially until all dots ofthat color are applied. This

typically proceeds through all

of the values of one hue before

another hue is applied. The order of paint application can make a difference particularlywith closely spaced or overlapping dots.


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It is tempting to think of the MPT as a large scale plotter or ink jet printer. However, it is

distinctly different from a printer or plotter because it creates three dimensional structures

of paint where printers and plotters create two dimensional images. This ability to depositpaint with control of the texture is what makes the MPT a 21st century paint brush rather

than a reproduction machine. While it is possible that this technology will eventually be

used to reproduce art, Seidler is adamant about never creating copies of any work. He hasstated are two many possibilities to explore to bother with creating more than one of any

Matrix painting.

While the MPT was created simplyto mimic Seidlers hand done Matrixtechnique, the use of the technology

immediately created new options.

The first realization was that the

creation of a Matrix painting nolonger required the under painting to

be directly used. A hand done piece

required the wavelength design to beplaced directly over the brightness

design so that both the location and

the value of each dot could bedetermined. The new technology

allows that determination to be done

in virtual space on a computer. Thedata produced by the process

captures the position, hue, value, and size of each dot, so the MPT can place each dot and

create a Matrix painting without the under painting beneath the dots of paint. This has


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allowed a single brightness design (grayscale under painting to be used in multipleMatrix paintings with different wavelength designs.

This possibility also created some new opportunities and problems. With wavelength

designs that do not completely cover the brightness design, the lack of the under painting

beneath the dots was an element Seidler had not dealt with before. In some cases it led to

an undesirable loss of definition of the brightness design. To deal with this change, thewavelength design was expanded to include a concept Seidler calls "negative space"

which refers to relatively large areas of space not covered by the wavelength design. Thiswas accomplished by defining a uniform background set of lines that allowed dots to fill

this negative space. In the first paintings done on the MPT these negative space dots were

kept grayscale to reflect the unseen under painting. Later, Seidler adopted the negative

space into the wavelength design using it as a background hue other than gray to fill inthe negative space.


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The first painting completed by the Matrix Painting Tool.

The absence of the under painting also provided a new freedom. The canvas can bepainted with yet another design. The principle restriction is that the design is executed in

paint with little texture so as not to negatively impact the significant texture of the dots of

the wavelength design. So far the independent design of the under painting has been

restricted to very simple designs of a principle hue. But this hue filling in the regionsbetween the dots, can strongly affect the overall tone of the composition. Seidler has a

tendency to use dark backgrounds even in his under paintings, but he has begun to

explore lighter tones and even bright colors for backgrounds of Matrix paintings.

The other significant development that the MPT enabled is new paint textures. The

original plan was to have the MPT deposit a dollop of paint that the artist would manually"smash" with a palette knife. However, Seidler immediately became enamored with the

variety of dots that were deposited directly by the tool. By changing the amount of paintdeposited and the tip height above the canvas, various shapes including spikes, little "Taj

Mahals", Hersheys Kisses, and pancakes. A fat Hersheys Kiss shape is a favorite of

Seidler and several paintings have been done with this texture exclusively. There aremany more opportunities for unique paint texture effects that are being explored.


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Another more subtle effect of the technology is a new method of creating abstract

wavelength designs that Seidler is now using to create some stunning landscapes. Theartist selects a uniform set of lines that cover the composition and a size and spacing for

all of the dots. Instead of assigning different hues to different lines, the artist selects a

number of hues and a ratio of the hues with respect to one another. For example the artistmight select purple and yellow as his hues and pre-determine that 70% of the dots will be

purple and 30% will be yellow. As the program places the dots along the lines, it selects

in a pseudo random manner (weighted to achieve the 70/30 split) between the purple andyellow dots. In addition, the artist may choose to add some randomness to the placement

of the dots to avoid the regularity of the dot spacing.

There has been some discussion that paintings done in this manner do not involve the

merging of designs. We beg to differ. Simply because the wavelength design is abstractand pseudo random nature does not change the fact that it is this design and not the under

painting that selects the hue, size, and position of each dot.


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The precision of the MPT is another new capability that the technology brings. It can beused to create uniformity and alignment effects that are impossible to create by hand.

Seidler has generally avoided exploiting this feature. We believe that this choice is at

least partially in reaction to the ire of anti-technology reactionaries. The complaint that

Matricism, when realized with technological tools, is "computer generated" art is to beexpected, but we believe is misguided criticism. The artist is in control of the

composition. He paints the brightness designs and draws the rudiments of the wavelengthdesign. He selects the color matrix that is the hues and values. He selects the size,spacing, and placement of the dots. The computer and robotics simply reduce some of the

labor involved. To those who say that it is not original art because technology is making

its realization easier, we suggest that there must have been similar complaints whencommercial oil paints became available. It may have been said that a "real" artist mixes

his own paints. It is an interesting historical note that the innovation of premixed oil

paints in tubes was a factor that allowed the Impressionists to take painting outside wherethey were able to capture the transient effects of light and atmosphere.

The introduction of power tools to stone sculpture has been accepted for some time now.

Few people begrudge a modern sculptor using power tools to save time instead of using ahammer and chisel. The MPT is simply the first power tool for oil painters.

We believe that real art is created by the heart and mind. The question of the importanceof Craftsmanship in art is an interesting one, especially with regard to the technical

innovations of Matricism. If one believes that craftsmanship is not important, then why

bother about what the artist uses as a tool? If you believe that craftsmanship is important,then why deny the artist a superior paint brush?

Dr. John Randall

1995 Chairman of the International Conference on Electron Ion and Photon BeamTechnologies and Nanofabrication.

1998 Chairman of the International Conference on Electron Ion and Photon Beam

Technologies and Nanofabrication.

International Steering Committee of European Micro- Nano-

Engineering Conference.

US Associate Editor of Micro Electronic Engineering Journal.

1978-1981: Instructor in Electrical Engineering Dept. Univ. of Houston.1981-1985: Member Technical Staff, M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory

1985-1996: Senior Member Technical Staff, Nanoelectronics Branch Texas Instruments.

1996-1998: Senior Member Technical Staff, TI Assignee to IMEC in Belgium.

1998- 2002 Senior Member Technical Staff, Kilby Research Center Texas Instruments.2002- present VP Zyvex Corporation, Dallas, Texas

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Matricism and the Pneumatic Paint Brush