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In-Depth Information
Fig. 3.6
Manfred Mohr.
Left
:
P-18
(
Random Walk
), 1969.
Right
:
P-707-e1
(
space.color
),
1999-2001 (with permission of the artist)
which Mohr's fascinating generative art emerged. From his very first programmed
works in 1969 to current days, he has never betrayed his striving for the greatest
transparency of his works. Never did he leave any detail of his creations open to
hand-waving or to dark murmurs. He discovered the algorithmic description of the
generative process as the new creation. The simplest elements can become the ma-
terial for the most complex visual events.
After about four years of algorithmic experiments with various forms and rela-
tions, Manfred Mohr, in 1973, decided to use the cube as the source of external
inspiration. He has continued exploring it ever since. There are probably only a few
living persons who have celebrated and used the cube more than him (for further
information see Keiner et al.
1994
, Herzogenrath et al.
2007
).
Figure
3.6
shows one event in the six-dimensional hypercube (right), and one of
the earliest generative graphics of Mohr's career (left).
When we see a work by Mohr, we immediately become aware of the extraordi-
nary aesthetic quality of his work. His decisions are always strong and secure. The
random polygon of Fig.
3.6
is superior to most, if not all, of the others one could
see in the five years before. The events of the heavier white lines add an enormous
visual quality to the drawing, achieved in such strength here for the first time.
The decision, in 1973, to explore the three-dimensional cube as a source for
aesthetic objects and processes, put Manfred Mohr in a direct line with all those
artists who, at least for some part of their artistic career, have explored one and the
same topic over and over again. It should be emphasised, however, that his interest
in the cube and the hypercube
16
does not signify any pedagogical motif. He does not
intend to explain anything about spaces of higher dimensions, nor does he visualise
16
The hypercube is analogous to a three-dimensional cube in four or more dimensions. It is recur-
sively defined as an intricate structure of cubes.
