What is Collection #2?
Hello world,
It’s been two months since I launched the Atlasautomata website, and I just wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone who visited, shared feedback, or encouraged me on this journey. After a slight delay due to a hectic month of travels between California, Colorado, and Texas, I'm excited to release the second collection of artworks; aptly named 'Collection #2'.
Collection #2 features eight new, unique pen-plotted artworks. This time around, the pieces are larger, (measuring 11" by 14") but still created on premium 2-ply Bristol Paper, and each includes a heat-printed certificate of authenticity on the reverse side. Although postage costs are slightly higher due to their size, I’ve lowered the pricing of the art itself a bit since these artworks required less drawing-time compared to the first collection.
The inspiration behind this set emerged during my initial experiments with the medium of pen-plotting, way before the idea for the first collection. Initially, I was fascinated with exploring the limits of how much ink I could lay down on paper. However, Collection #2 leans distinctly toward simplicity and minimalism.
Inspired by the universe's duality of matter and antimatter - where antimatter can mathematically be thought of as matter traveling backward in time. I found a cellular automaton capable of producing intriguing, ripple-like patterns when transformed into continuous vector forms. To create each piece, I generated two separate instances of these patterns, each with its unique random initial conditions. I then deformed both patterns into circular paths, mirrored one of them, and overlaid them, instructing the pen plotter to draw one pattern in blue and the other in red.
(I also experimented with other colour combinations; blue and red was by far the most compelling, but purple and green were a pretty striking combo too, so you might see limited editions with those colours in the future!)
What fascinates me most about these artworks is how the random initial conditions interact, spontaneously creating areas of purple wherever the red and blue lines cross paths. Small white spaces remain visible, reminiscent of destructive interference. This visual effect reminds me of the idea that random quantum fluctuations during the Big Bang resulted in a slight asymmetry between the amount of matter and antimatter - despite the underlying symmetry of the laws of physics themself. Almost all the sub-atomic particles annihilated each other, leaving behind a minuscule residual amount of matter that forms all of what's visible to us in the universe.
Cosmic inspiration aside, I’ve subtly integrated the golden ratio into the designs. But I'll leave it to anyone keen enough to figure out exactly the ways in which I've tried to do this.
Another thing I love about this process; is that even though each of the eight pieces is unique due to the different initial conditions that generated them, it's also uniquely different in how they are 'executed'. Small changes in the pressure applied to the pen can change how thick the lines come out, and even the pens themselves can have a distinct 'personality' due to tiny differences in the integrity of the nib for example. Hence why you might notice pieces 6, 7, and 8 look significantly more blue than the rest of the set, despite being created with the exact same process.
A quick note: Similar to the first collection, I'll eventually create eight additional pieces titled 'Collection #-2'. These will be exclusively available in person at things like art shows, or if I eventually set up a pop-up on Venice Beach or something!
Thanks again for supporting my work and checking out the new collection!
– Richard Ferreday [Atlasautomata]