The Art Of The Passing Moment

By Kolleen Roberts, Inside IT: Information Technology On-line Magazine
September 2001

A deep appreciation for what is small is one of the characteristics of Japanese art. This sensibility is found in the compactness of thimble-sized jade carvings called netsuke, in the cultivation of miniature bonsai trees, in the brief lines of haiku poetry. The expression of the artist offers to the viewer an opportunity to seek a reflection of the greater world in a microcosm, to find what the Western poet William Blake described as "the universe in a grain of sand . and eternity in an hour."

Jean-Pierre H�bert has made a claim on this tradition in his piece "Ulysses," which is currently on view in the Computing Commons Gallery. "Ulysses" is the focal point of H�bert's exhibit "Traces on Sand and Paper," which will be on display through October 12. The artist visited ASU to lecture on his work on August 30.

In the strictest terms, "Ulysses" is an artistic tool, a machine for creating drawings. It is a beautiful tool, constructed of a square, terraced, three-step mahogany base polished to a high shine, and a central well filled with finely ground white silica. When not in use, it resembles an elegant, grown-up version of a child's sandbox.

Out of sight within the base are a computer system, two servomotors, and a magnet. The magnet travels around the box along a series of cables, driven by algorithmic formulas in a software program H�bert has written. The artist places a steel ball upon the sand and, with what seems to be a cheerful determination of its own, the little ball rolls resolutely through the powder following the hidden magnet, until it has drawn the pattern the artist had in mind.

The designs created by "Ulysses" tend to be elaborate geometric ornaments - interlocking spirals; or a metagon, an open polygonal figure proposed by Max Bill; or a twirling pattern of hexagons inscribed inside other hexagons.

But "Ulysses" can also be programmed to draw around obstacles such as stones, and thus to create H�bert's conception of a dry garden, or karensansui. This is a Japanese landscaping technique that is many centuries old, and one that is associated with Buddhist philosophy.

A karensansui makes use of large, well-weathered rocks placed in a field of gravel. Many such gardens are found in Japanese monasteries, where it is the task of the monks to sweep the gravel into swirling patterns around the rocks, using a rake.

Dry gardens are said to suggest islands rising from the waves of the sea, or mountains in the midst of flowing rivers. They are meant to imply the impermanence of a visible world that is ever changing, and to be a starting point for achieving serenity and awareness through contemplation.

The idea for his machine, according to H�bert, came while reading a book on the ways man has tried to shape the earth and make marks on it throughout history. The first generation of the device, "Sisyphus," was developed in 1998 and 1999 during a collaboration with Bruce Shapiro.

Born in Calais, France, in 1939, H�bert is an engineer by training. He worked for IBM during the early years of FORTRAN language programming, and among his first computer drawings were diagrams on financial arbitrage. He said he recognized quickly that the computer could be a powerful means for self-expression. It also gave him an outlet for the interest in art he'd had as a child.

"Traces on Sand and Paper" includes a selection of H�bert's line art in India ink, acrylic, and watercolor. The prints, created with a pen plotter, are composed from continuous lines that H�bert described as being literally miles long, lines which double back recursively, as if covering the surface of the page in sewing thread.

H�bert's command of his technique is such that with slight variations in the position and density of the lines, he can suggest that the viewer is really seeing folds of cloth, or a dappled texture like rainwater on stone, or a cotton-like cloud of fog out of which the outline of a nautilus shell slowly appears.

H�bert has extended his programming process to carving wood with routers, and to etching patterns on glass. The evolution of his work into different media has been partly prompted by the fact that plotters are becoming an extinct species - they are no longer manufactured.

H�bert said he believes in applying programming to something physical, that computer art should be grounded in the real world. "We can't just look at our monitors all the time," he said.

And yet there is, one senses, a pursuit of something intangible as well. "Ulysses" is named for a character in Greek poetry, a hero of the Trojan War who wandered the earth after becoming lost while sailing home. "Sisyphus" is another character from mythology, one who was said to spend eternity rolling a rock uphill and then watching it roll back down. H�bert makes clear in his essays that the achievements of his machines are no less fleeting.

At the opening of the exhibit, the artist reserved for himself the task of smoothing out the sand after each demonstration of "Ulysses," using a small flat brush and wooden rake. He noted in all seriousness that one of his favorite parts of the artwork is erasing it once it is completed.

"There is much that is similar in what I do, and what the monks do, in how we approach this," he said.