Simulation Piece II

(1985)

38.3 x 67.5 cm, computer drawing realized on a 128 KB Macintosh. The video images were digitized with MacVision, edited in MacPaint, enlarged and printed with a wide-format engineering Xerox on transparent foil. 

Tabea Lurk described it in her essay «Programmes as space for thought? - notes on the origins of Swiss computer art»: 

... The sequence reproduced here, «Simulation Piece I-III», combines three different graphic elements: a view of New York from the roof of a building on 817 Broadway, like a cut-out in the background with arched windows reminiscent of antique ruins. There is also a male nude seen from the back (proportion study) in which the artist schematizes himself, and finally a view of the moon where one can choose from different lunar phases. The graphic material in combination is a repeated motive in other work of that period. In «Simulation Piece I», one of the figures has been placed in a circle in such a manner that we cannot help but recall Leonardo da Vinci’s famous proportion study of Vitruve (1505). In addition to the use of different contexts for the graphic elements, the format and form are particularly striking. On the one hand, Alexander Hahn highlights the process of selection during composition by reproducing the different graphic elements to choose from on the right-hand border of the picture. The unused objects are crossed out and the template used is easily recognizable. On the other, the pixel structure is obvious once the image is enlarged, and we find ourselves agreeing with Robert A. Fischer (1942-2001), one of the most important theorists of the Swiss media art scene as of the 1970s, when he says that Alexander Hahn (works) “only with the tools of the digital age, like a painter with an easel.”. 

Simulation Piece III

(1985)

38.3 x 67.5 cm, computer drawing realized on a 128 KB Macintosh. The video images were digitized with MacVision, edited in MacPaint, enlarged and printed with a wide-format engineering Xerox on transparent foil. 

Tabea Lurk described it in her essay «Programmes as space for thought? - notes on the origins of Swiss computer art»: 

... The sequence reproduced here, «Simulation Piece I-III», combines three different graphic elements: a view of New York from the roof of a building on 817 Broadway, like a cut-out in the background with arched windows reminiscent of antique ruins. There is also a male nude seen from the back (proportion study) in which the artist schematizes himself, and finally a view of the moon where one can choose from different lunar phases. The graphic material in combination is a repeated motive in other work of that period. In «Simulation Piece I», one of the figures has been placed in a circle in such a manner that we cannot help but recall Leonardo da Vinci’s famous proportion study of Vitruve (1505). In addition to the use of different contexts for the graphic elements, the format and form are particularly striking. On the one hand, Alexander Hahn highlights the process of selection during composition by reproducing the different graphic elements to choose from on the right-hand border of the picture. The unused objects are crossed out and the template used is easily recognizable. On the other, the pixel structure is obvious once the image is enlarged, and we find ourselves agreeing with Robert A. Fischer (1942-2001), one of the most important theorists of the Swiss media art scene as of the 1970s, when he says that Alexander Hahn (works) “only with the tools of the digital age, like a painter with an easel.”.