Monoprints and NFTs
Materials
Graphite on paper
Information
Series of A4 graphite rubbings of a Lichtenberg Figure created using high voltage electricity (approx 3000volts) channelled through a circuit built by electrical engineer R Kimmlingen. The work is a stage of an investigation into the landscape and printmaking. The experimental physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799) studied the branching discharge patterns on dielectrics, now named Lichtenberg Figures. Lightning, that surges the skies and strikes the landscape occasionally leaving temporary traces on the skin of those surviving a lightning event, is a 3D Lichtenberg Figure. Through his dielectrical experiments Lichtenberg also discovered the basic principle of modern xerography used in copy machine technology. He also proposed the standardisation of paper sizes which are now used almost globally and of which A4 is the most commonly used, and forms the dimensions of the prints. The Dissipation Series is offered as an NFT on the OpenSea platform as part of the energy circuit embedded in the artwork. The carbon in the original tool and its fractal burning transitions and multiplies in the energy required to position its digital minting on a blockchain.
The physical prints will be exhibited until the point they are purchased as NFT’s, after which they will be destroyed by fire and exist only as documentation and NFT.
Currently one has been destroyed after being exchanged for an NFT by Josh von Staudach from his No Voltage Pylon series. In this series high voltage transmission towers are mangled in a process of aerial photography, AI photogrammetry and transferal to polygonal clusters. The one selected #11 No Voltage Pylon is from Bottrop, Germany, which used to be a heavy coal mining area with many factories to produce coal-tar derivatives.
The development of this work has been made possible via a working grant from the Ministerium für Wissenschaft Forschung und Kunst Baden-Württemberg (MWK)
Dimensions
A4
Exhibited:
Carving the Landscape at Gedok, Stuttgart 2022
Carving the Landscape Kunstvarteret, Lofoten, Norway 2023
Photo credits
Traci Kelly