DM
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DM was made for a high-resolution touchscreen using Python and Raspberry Pi. Here, it is presented using the JavaScript version.
DM begins as a matter painting: a black canvas, scored with vertical ridges of gestural white impasto along which words are inscribed. The work, however, only reaches its final intended form in its digital expression.
For this piece, the artists have invented a technique combining photographic process and code that renders the light in the image responsive to the viewer’s touch. When they tap the left side of the screen, the light shines from the left, leaving the words in shadow. As their finger glides along the screen, the light shifts with it, gradually revealing the words. The artists also play on visual elements that evoke physical materials like thermal paste, ink, and paper to create a craggy landscape that throws into relief the flatness of the screen. As text and texture come to light, meaning begins to surface.
In a nod to Yves Klein and his patenting of the technique used to produce his celebrated ultramarine blue, Wen New atelier has registered the LucenTouch technique with INPI, the French National Institute of Industrial Property. Klein pursued the immaterial effect of pure blue through a material invention that fused pigment with synthetic resin to preserve its intensity. Likewise, the immateriality of light in DM is mediated through the material technique of LucenTouch, underscoring the paradox of the material foundations of immaterial effects.
Date:
May 22, 2025
