Logical Moments in Color (L.M.C.), 1975 – 1977

The L.M.C. program stems from the book "Informatrix”, consisting of a folder containing 64 pages with numbers and figurative elements. Any element, randomly chosen from one of the pages, refers to another element on a different page. After drawing the shapes on a transparency and replacing pre-established rules with new ones, users create their original compositions. It is like creating a story about three geometrical characters – the triangle, the rectangle and the circle – by changing their size and configuration, as well as their position and direction.

With Informatrix we shift from a combinatorial mode to a compositional process. The grid thus becomes a network, it changes from a formal structuring element to a procedural structuring element. By interacting with T.V.C., for instance, we can experiment with combinatorial variations simply by filling in the cells on the grid with square elements. By interacting with the book Informatrix, we draw figures on the plane, following the navigational rules given by the book’s page-network.

The L.M.C. program, however, is different from Informatrix. L.M.C. may be thought of as a program derived from one of the possible readings of the book and realized with the use of a computer. L.M.C., for example, has kept the non-linear navigation method of the book and most of its relational rules, but has eliminated or modified certain rules and added new ones in relation to a theme and a context that are not part of the book. The theme proposes the visualization of certain aspects of formal logic within the context of color-compositions of figures on the plane.

The theme stems from the analogy between the binary system that underlies the computer as well as formal logic, and the binary nature of the concepts underlying the work of three of the masters of the historical avant-garde: Paul Klee, Kazimir Malievic, and Piet Mondrian. This determines one of the fundamental rules of L.M.C.: only two out of the three elements will be used; the triangle as opposed to the rectangle, excluding the circle. In practice, logical propositions become visible through Venn diagrams, consisting of two or more overlapping figures on the plane. Like in Venn diagrams, superimposition is given as a rule in L.M.C. and becomes a combinatorial constant. A triadic system of relationships thus emerges based on the qualitative interrelations between a “host” figure, a superimposed “guest” figure and the background. And finally, in analogy to the fundamental polarities informing the works of the three aforementioned masters, the following rules are added:

1. The binary relation, “dividual-individual”, proposed by Paul Klee, opposes dividual compositional aspects to individual ones and implies

rules that allow single figure compositions as opposed to serial compositions.

1. The binary relation “figure-background”, proposed by Malevic, implies compositional rules of an individual kind, and is already comprised in the superimposition rules. 2. The binary relation “space-matter” proposed by Mondrian, implies compositional rules of a dividual kind, with vertical axes opposed to horizontal ones and the addition of color, which is no longer absolute– as given by Mondrian by opposing color (red, yellow and blue) to non-color (white, black, grey) – but is extended to the triadic system of qualitative relations in chromatic terms as well.

The compositional dimensions of the system are further evidenced by the delegation to the computer of numberless random choices on a statistical basis. These probabilities are constrained within certain non predefined limits, so that progress towards a selective organization varies from composition to composition. Therefore, each composition can be seen as an original, autonomous image, as well as a snapshot revealing a dynamic complex of evolving formal relations showing, in turn, the state of the whole system, as seen at a particular circumstance.

The list of programs created in Trieste in the 1970s can be roughly included between the T.V.C program– starting in 1970 – and the “Matrix” idea, which was also started in 1970, and was followed by the book Infromatrix in 1972. “Informatrix” was subsequently used as a theoretical basis for three further programs developed in cooperation with M. Hmeljak: the L.M.C. program, from 1975 to 1977, the “Scherzo for Matrix and Figures” program (S.M.F. 1), created in 1977 – 1978 and the S.M.F. program 2 in 1978 – 1979, which coincides with the publication of the book. Two ideas developed in a decade, which are followed by the extension of form and color in time, starting in 1980.

The extension into the time dimension was already implied in the COMP3 exhibition, with an animation illustrating the different combinatory strategies underlying the compositions. Furthermore, the COMP3 catalogue included two pages with detachable elements, which could be combined and recombined at will by the users, on the grid given on the back cover, one of the first examples of interactive participation.

Since then, I have been working using a computer intermittently: either for the composition of forms and colors in time, or for interactive projects, by delegating control to the users in real time. These are two different, but interchangeable aspects of one and the same problem. In 1996 I created and published a version of “Informatrix” online. I am currently working on new developments in collaboration with colleagues from the fields of computer science, cognition and complex systems.

(Edward Zajec)
http://www.thebrainproject.eu/e_2006/zajec.php#zajec