Page 62 - Studio International - June 1972

Five Tyres

remoulded

Richard Hamilton

In an issue of a magazine called Technique et and publisher of Eye Editions, visited my University, May 1967, is a general programme,
Architecture published around 1951 (I was studio. While looking through some old prints written in FORTRAN, which offers the
then nominally its London correspondent) he brought up the possibility of completing the essential notions as to how instructions to the
there was an illustration of five tyres in a row (I). `Five Tyres' project, using a computer to plot plotter may be stated, together with card-coded
On the centre of each tread was a panel the perspective. The suggestion was exciting commands which provide the potential for the
labelling it with a date — 1902, 1905 and so on to and we decided to investigate the practicability generation of any line drawing. This
1950. The picture stuck, as sometimes happens. of the technology for my purpose. Carl Solway presumptive space awaits the addition of
I looked at it often, made a projection slide, was to try to find someone in the US competent specific data applicable to the particular
used it in talks with students over the years. to undertake the programming. The search configurations to be described. Sherrill Martin
The attraction of the image is hard to explain. narrowed down after some false leads to MIT received my data and proceeded to modify
It is a cut-out half-tone block in black and and the Cambridge, Mass. area, and finally to CAPER so that it would tell a plotter how to
white from a retouched photograph of the Sherrill F. Martin, manager of computer draw the required perspective. A series of
tyres. It expresses in very simple, essentially animation at Kaye Instruments Inc. encoded messages was then converted into a
visual, terms the historical progress of a Computers have been used by artists ever deck of punched cards. An IBM 360/75
technical quest. The problem involved pattern- since they discovered that a computer can computer read the deck and generated signals
making—the patterns being about motion and instruct a drawing machine just where to place on a magnetic tape to control the movements
friction (traction). The patterns are disposed, in its point and inscribe a line. Most often the of a pen on a drafting machine. In this case a
relief, on a group of toruses in sharply-angled uses to which the computer has been put by Calcomp 763 was used, which co-ordinates
perspective, of which the perimeters (the artists develop out of properties peculiar to rotary movements of the paper with lateral
treads) confront the viewer. that device which enable it to produce a set of movements of the pen along the axis of the
As time went by I became increasingly instructions to effect transformations of a given cylinder to produce any figure.
intrigued until, in 1963, I began to make a image, or develop sequences of kinetic patterns. Because the original hand-drawn
perspective drawing of the subject. As an There is a tendency to ask it to perform what perspective of 1963 had required the
exercise in perspective it is as tough as any that it most likes doing, or at least what it does most preliminary projection of radial sections of the
might be engaged in. Rectilinear objects of fluently, so we have come to recognize a tyre casings, and also lines defining the major
great complexity can be fairly easily rendered in computer graphics style. The use of a computer circumferences on which to lay the treads, a
classical perspective. Simple curves such as to make a conventional perspective projection network of sections (4,5) was programmed for
arches and domes are also straightforward puts no claim on its capabilities as an image each tyre to provide these on the plotted drawing
enough, if time-consuming. There was no creator—that is to say the stylistic qualities are though the final image did not demand this
intrinsic difficulty in representing the tyres not prompted by the tool. This kind of problem information nor was it required to be made
except that to use idealized perspective might have been posed by anyone since Piero explicit in the programme. Removal of hidden
projection of a standard Renaissance type for della Francesca and its solution can be precisely lines is a complication in perspective
this particular geometry was exceptionally foreseen. What the computer provides is an programmes : excessive superimposition of
laborious. After working for a good many inhuman speed which makes possible the front and back of the tyres was avoided by
weeks it became clear that to continue in the formulation of this complex image in its plotting the treads through only 180 degrees.
rigorously accurate manner that alone made purest terms. At this stage the original idea of producing
the task worthwhile would require such an The objective was to take to completion the an embossed print on paper was modified to a
abundance of time that I would have to consider drawing begun in 1963, following its proposal to cast the relief of the treads integrally
whether the result could possibly merit such dimensional character closely, so the first step with a sheet of cold curing rubber. I filled in
devotion. It was when I regretfully decided was to provide information in a form suitable the linear drawing (6) by hand with the intention
not to complete the drawing that the word for the programmer. All the basic dimensions of etching a metal plate to serve as a mould.
`abandoned' was added to its title Five Tyres. of the tyres and their relationship to vanishing Etching proved unsatisfactory so the mould was
It had been my intention to plot the faces points were to be repeated. The major part of mechanically engraved in a brass plate.
of the treads and then to etch them deeply into the work, at this stage, was to convert the pattern Machine cutting permitted a variation of relief.
a copper plate, like an impossible imprint in of the treads into an accurately dimensioned To take advantage of this a further drawing
mud. The uninked plate would then have been development. Thus the tubular ring of the designated depth of cut in tenths of a
put through an etching press to emboss paper moulded tyre was imagined as cut and flattened millimetre. The 'print' (7) is 'cast' by spreading
with the forms. The paradox of a shallow relief into a two-dimensional sheet. I bought a small on the plate a silicone elastomer (manufactured
print of a perspective projection was the main electronic calculator and made the conversions as a flexible mould material), then reinforcing
interest of the project. My original drawing of necessary to take the patterns from three with a nonwoven Terylene/cotton fabric. q
the tyres had demanded the use of coloured dimensions to a flat surface (3).
pencils as an aid to separating out the various Major computer programmes usually have
overlying parts of the projection. Simplified wider applications than that of giving an answer Five Tyres remoulded and recent work are being
tracings of each colour provided positives from to the specific problem in hand. CAPER shown at Nigel Greenwood Inc. Ltd., 41 Sloane
Gardens, London SWi until 24 June. Nigel
which to execute a screenprint (2), dated 1964, (computer aided perspective), itself an Greenwood Inc. have organized a further exhibition
for a group of graphics distributed by the ICA. extension of CALD (computer aided line to run concurrently at the ICA called 'Richard
In 1970 Carl Solway, an American art dealer drawing) by S. E. Anderson of Syracuse Hamilton—Print and Process'.

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