By popular demand, here is the print on demand.

Figure 1: Paul Laidler, Digital image file for the Print is Dead series

OPD (On Popular Demand)

The series of paintings described in this post is an ongoing body of work that I started in 2010. Over the past couple of years I have written and talked about the series intermittently, from a variety of different perspectives and for different audiences. Subsequently and somewhat to my surprise I have received a number of requests to make the work/text available online. Given that the series has been published 'in print' this version has been edited and refocused.

Printed Paintings
The post discusses the themes of printmaking, collaboration, process, and the digital age as a series of concepts toward the initiation and production of a digitally mediated ‘print’ series ‘Print is Dead’ (figures 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5). Here the preoccupation with production and process is emphasized over the end product as a means to address the collaborative print process and the conceptual considerations for the work, engaging with printmaking themes. Whilst the resulting works are not prints in the truest sense, printmaking is imbedded as a means to consider the broadening definition of ‘print’ in the digital age. In this instance printmaking is considered as an expanded term through the production of paintings whilst the digitally mediated ‘print’ is realised through the Print on Demand model - a facility synonymous with digital technology. Collectively the themes and production processes highlight the often de-emphasised collaborative undertaking by printers for artists, and the subsequent acknowledgement of this art category, whilst the resulting artworks challenge assumptions of authorship and originality in the production of artworks for artists.

Introduction

Historically within the fine arts, print was used as a means to reproduce other works of art such as paintings - a medium of seemingly higher esteem. Although the premise of the reproduction was often for disseminatory and financial reasons, the quality of execution was still important. The reproduction was dependent upon the original source material, the skill of the engraver and techniques developed over the years to accurately transcribe and replicate. 

The transcription processes used to produce the Print is Dead series differ from the historical rationale for replication in art. Instead the work can be seen as an examination of a process rather than the reproduction of a subject; elevating the 'reproduction' to the status of an 'original'. For instance, the dependence upon an original source for accurate replication becomes impractical in this context - the source image exists as only an infinitely reproducible digital file that is susceptible to a number of transformations in appearance, both on screen and as a printed image. The resulting series of individual artworks can only ever be copies of the original digital file, yet remain unique in their systematic production. 

The allusions to production processes within the Print is dead series are considered in much the same way. The artwork is conceived by thinking about the print medium in terms of a process rather than producing printed artworks; the medium is addressed in relation to print’s inherent relationship with reproduction, where the Publish-on-Demand facility becomes the appropriated tool. The content arises from the seamless integration of digital technology within pre-digital processes, practice and media. 

The resulting (non-digital) artworks can be seen as a response to Marshall McLuhan’s “rearview-mirror view of the world” observation, that we are initially numbed by new technology until it has been completely superseded its predecessor. McLuhan states that in this transition period of ‘the present’, our senses become overwhelmed so much so that we go from the unfamiliar back to the familiar. We attach ourselves to the objects and atmospheres that characterise the past where we feel a compulsion to make the old environment more visible. 

The resulting non-digital artworks reflect McLuhan’s technological transition period in that the field of printmaking is still awaiting the arrival of its digital natives. The process and production of the Print is Dead series is representative of this current juncture between technologies and conscious of the fact that it is an analogue work within a digital age. 

POD

The POD (Print-on-Demand) facility is a relatively new addition to the artist’s possibilities for producing printed artworks via digital means. The development of the technology is a product of the digital revolution that has democratised the opportunity to self-publish. The democratisation has been possible because of the technology’s economic potential to reduce the costs previously incurred through mechanical printing processes such as offset printing. A large percentage of the POD industry caters for book and artist's book publishing, although there are a growing number of POD facilities that specialise in fine art, digital prints for both artists and publishers. 

From the self-publishing artist's perspective, the process follows a system-based procedure through a set number of options for printing a digital image. These options often include a choice in scale and substrate before remotely uploading the digital image (via the Internet) to a POD facility server. Once stored on the server, the digital image is then downloaded and printed to the previously established print options. Because the digital file can be reproduced and stored indefinitely, the edition size may be left open allowing for further renderings of the digital file at the client’s request – hence print on demand. 

The democratisation of digital technology and the marketing potential of the POD facility developed the idea of the ‘personal factory, where you can make almost anything – including electronics, homeware, fashion and furniture’. Consumers in search of bespoke designs can now access digital fabrication technologies through companies such as Anyline , imaterialise, Ponoko and 3DDC using a range of Laser cutting, rapid prototyping, 3D rapid printing and surface coating options. 

Although the Print is Dead series does not directly use digital fabrication technology, the artwork shares similarities with the fabrication process as part of the artist-fabricator approach to making. These associations consider the human crafting approach as part of a systematic and automated method to making, by employing the technical skills of others to help realise the work that informs the idea. 

Unlike most POD facilities that produce printed images for clients, the facility that I chose for the reproduction of The Print is Dead series use the hand-rendered method of painting as processes to reproduce a digital image. 

Figure 3: Paul Laidler, (order272)completed.jpg, Painting produced by Odsan Gallery, China

Figure 4: Paul Laidler, (order542)completed.jpg, Painting produced by Odsan Gallery, China

Replica Factory

Figures 3 and 4 are oil painting's on canvas produced through Odsan Oil Painting Gallery in Dafen, China. The company is one of many in the region that employ academy-trained artists within a factory-line approach to reproduce vast numbers of old master oil paintings. The act of copying great masters’ works by artists has been a continued practice throughout the ages. Conventional practices have often required that artists access the original painting to capture the intricacy, scale and presence of the work. I do not profess to being a master artist - the idea of having a work reproduced in paint that contains none of the traditional precedents for reproduction was what interested me.

More specifically the conventional reproductive process becomes inverted as the facility takes a digitally printed image and reproduces it by hand - in essence the machine and human exchange places. The use of a digital image also highlights the problematic situation of what is being copied and therefore; what is believed to be the original work?  If we consider that a digital image is susceptible to scale and colour changes through different computer monitors and print devices then the work becomes less concerned with reproducing a subject but examining a process.

Figure 2 Printed image used by Odsan Gallery to create figure 3

Perpetual Painting

The Odsan Gallery's reproduction process functions in the same manner as the POD facility when offering a client the possibility of ‘self-publishing’. As previously stated this involves the transfer of a digital image (figure 1) that is rendered to the specifications of the client. Figure 3 was created from a digital print (Figure 2) made from the low resolution digital file (figure 1) that was requested by the Odsan Gallery to create the artwork.  In this situation, the rendering is by hand, not restricted to the scale of a print device and can be reproduced in a range of different painting styles. The resulting painting for the Print is Dead series, is a photo-realistic style reproduction of the digital print that was used as the source image for the work. In this instance the reproduction of the source image contains a magenta hue produced by the printing of the digital file. 

The inclusion of the colour cast in the painting is not seen as a fault with the reproductive artwork but as a reminder of the parameters of the tools and processes we use. In his article The Aesthetics of Failure, the American composer Kim Cascone discusses the positive outcome of imperfection:

'Indeed failure has become a prominent aesthetic in many of the arts in the late 20th century, reminding us that our control of technology is an illusion, and revealing digital tools to be only as perfect, precise, and efficient as the humans who build them'. (K. Cascone,  “Post-Digital” Tendencies in Contemporary Computer Music’. Computer Music Journal, Volume 24 Issue 4, 2000, p.12)

Figure's 4 and 5 are painting's also created from photographic sources although these photo's are taken by the Odsan Gallery to show the client the painted image before posting the actual canvas. In essence the photos are proofs that need to be approved by the artist/client before the next stage can be implemented. By photographing the painting and e-mailing the digital image for approval a perpetual system for further paintings is developed. These approval photos are then used as the source image for the next painting and so on and so forth. Despite the absence of print production in the appearance of the paintings, the association with the reproductive process is embedded within to the content of the work. The possibility of an indefinite number of copies remains, although the reproductive endeavour is one of human automation or human printers.

Figure 5: Paul Laidler (order547)completed.jpg, Painting produced by Odsan Gallery, China

Further (extended) texts relating to the Print is Dead Series can be found in:

Laidler, P. (2011) Human Automation. Printmaking Today, Vol 20, No 4. Winter 2011, p. 28 ISSN 0960 9253

Laidler. P. (2012) The Human Printer featuring the Print is Dead series. (Impact 7 Printmaking Conference, 27th - 30th September 2011, Monash University, Faculty of Art & Design, Melbourne, Australia) Monash University Publishing ISBN: 978-1-921867-576

Them's fighting words

Brendan Reid, No more heroes anymore, 3D Polymer Print, 2010

The printed works of artist Brendan Reid are developed through formal explorations of oscillating spaces. Reid's 3D printed knuckle duster No more heroes anymore, 2010 initiates a shifting from graphic image to graphic object and back again.

Already made

Rob Myers, Urinal, 3D file

Like Duchamp Myers has enabled an art work to exist by an idea alone. In keeping with Duchamp's iconic Fountain (1917) the artist (Myers) has removed his hand from the work - albeit by employing another to create a potential object to exist, rather than appropriating an existing object and nominating it as art.

Myers Urinal was created by Chris Webber a software engineer who generated the model as three dimensional image so that the digital file could be physically rendered by a 3D printer. The file has been made available by the artist for anyone to download, print and sign (see thingverse download page). Alternatively (if you don't happen to have a 3D printer to hand) Myers 3D printed Urinal is also available to purchase through shapeways. Although technically Duchamp did not completely remove the Urinal's possible function I do believe Myers Urinal to be purely ornament.

The Pond of Tranquility

Matthew Day Jackson, Reflections of the Sky, 2010

With presentation cue's to Monet's Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond Jackson's Reflections of the sky depicts a surface area of the moon that has been rendered by laser etching gypsum board (wallboard or Drywall) - a mass-produced material often used within domestic interiors. The etched pits and troughs that create the images surface topography also retain a gritty interference quality that exists somewhere between the production process and the transmission reception of such distant images.

Loom Moon, I saw you standing alone.

Jeff Sanders, Moon, 2007, Jacquard tapestry, 72 inch x 8 inch depth, Edition of 12

Published by Magnolia Editions

Jeff Sanders Moon 2007 is a tapestry work constructed from a digital image. Using a series of interwoven threads the tapestry has been rendered by a specialized, electronic Jacquard loom. To get a better view of the Moon see the work at Magnolia Editions.

Another wry smile

Mike Ruiz, Replaced Mona Lisa, 2011, Oil on Canvas

As described by Mike Ruiz;

The Mona Lisa with the lady selected then put through Content-Aware Fill (a Photoshop CS5 tool that automatically generates content based on the existing surrounding content of the image and fills in selected area). The resulting image is a potential landscape as interpreted by the software. The image was sent to a painting manufacturer in China where an oil painting was produced.

Pretty fly for a print guy

3D Printed Hovering Ornithopters

Project by Charlie Richter, Floris van Breugel, William Regan, Zhi Ern Teoh

The Ornithopter project uses 3D printing technology to construct complex wing structures that replicate 'natures design'. See video here

The Human Printer: A Namesake Production

Paul Laidler, The Human Printer.tiff, Produced by The Human Printer, 2010

“We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.” (M. McLuhan, 1964)

The Human Printer.tiff is part of a series entitled Print is Dead and was produced by a group called The Human Printer. The group consists of eleven individuals who specialise in reproducing by hand, the digitised rendering of a half-tone image that is normally associated with mechanical print processes. The Human Printer group has adopted the remote Print-on-demand facility for transferring digital files, although the potential to rapidly produce large editions is somewhat limited due to the extensive labour involved and the small-scale production of the studio. The Human Printer.tiff (see source file here) took just over two weeks from order to receipt.

In keeping with the mechanised half-tone print process, the digital image is printed as colour separations using the four printing channels of CMYK. To produce the final drawn image, each colour separation is traced individually on to a single sheet of semi-transparent paper so that collectively, the channels register with one another. The layering order of each colour follows the half-tone print procedure using four different coloured pens that correspond to each of the separate colour channels.The Human Printer’s transcription process includes the visual descriptions associated with reproduction through the mechanised image. The Human Printer’s rendering of a coarse photographic half-tone and its associations with automation are reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s 1963 comment “I want to be a machine”.

Further overtones of convergence between humans and technology reference a (hypothetical) Post-human future where a biological generation of humanity ends and technological one begins. The influence of science and technology upon the human condition has been a constant source of inspiration for the field of science fiction. In more recent times the fictional associations with phenomena such as implants, smart materials and cloning have accelerated the science fiction world toward are own.

The idea that a fiction can become functional through an associated process has been incorporated in to the selection of a specific technology for the work entitled Stretch out with your feelings.

The Human Printer.tiff is part of larger series of work entitled Print is Dead that continues the theme of humans as printers and the broadening definition of the print medium in the digital age. Collectively these works have contributed toward the development of paper for the Impact 7 2011 printmaking conference in Australia - further details can be found here.

Back to the Future

Xavier Antin, Just in Time, or A Short History of Production

Magenta (Stencil duplicator, 1880)

Cyan (Spirit duplicator, 1923)

Black (Laser printer, 1969)

Yellow (Inkjet printer, 1976)

Dynamic Print

Tree of Codes by Jonathan Safran Foer from Visual Editions on Vimeo.

Jonathan Safran Foer, deftly deploys sculptural means to craft a truly compelling story. In our world of screens, he welds narrative, materiality, and our reading experience into a book that remembers that it actually has a body.

-Olafur Eliasson

Richard Hutten, Playing with Tradition

Hutten plays upon the historical relationship between looms and computers, comprising the appearance of stretched pixels within the woven thread design.

Also see other analogue designs that invoke a digital process: Beam me up Scotty, I'd Buy that for a Dollar and Edges of a Hardcore

Beam me Scotty

Gareth Neal, Anne Chair

Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculpture to discover it. Michelangelo

Gareth Neal combines traditional techniques and forms with modern technology. Carved/ milled with a CNC machine the Queen Anne-style console 'sits' within its digitally rendered case. It is as if Neal's chair has been teleported from the Star ship Enterprise. Neal's Anne Chair image resembles the re-materialization status of an object in teleport where both matter and information momentarily coexist.

Digital Recliner

Nina Saunders, 'ever onwards' 2001

The interventionist work by Saunders and in particular 'ever onwards' presents the physically rendered form of Photoshops liquifying filter. The extrusion of the chairs arm beyond its usual form literally creates a slippage from one space to another.

以古讽今 (yi gu fen jin)

Yao Lu, New Landscapes

Joke about the present by referring to the past - Chinese proverb

A life in print

Built to be seen

The Cartel, Ray Kinsella 2009, 3D Plaster Print - produced on a Z Corp Z printer

The model is an in between form, it shifts between disciplines

Ian Kiaer, 2009

Source: Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) in the 1989 movie Field of Dreams.

Ray Kinsella is part of Build it and they will come a collaborative project between Paul Laidler and Brendan Reid that refers to architectural practice within a fine art context. The work contains a series of four quotes that have architectural connotations and are printed using rapid prototyping technology to create 3D text-based objects. The 3D printing process is used as device to create a series of self-referential dialogues within the work.

The work:

Kinsella (a crop farmer) is walking through his crop field one evening where he here’s a voice uttering the words ‘If you build it, he will come’. After pondering the meaning of the words Kinsella decides to construct a baseball pitch in his cornfield, despite the financial risks to his farm and family. Not completely assured as to why he is making the pitch the compulsion to do so out ways any thoughts of purpose or economic return for the pitch.

The compulsion to make has many parallels with art and its intended function (to be received by an audience). Toward the end of the film the baseball pitch becomes an attraction as it is deemed that ‘people will come’. Ray Kinsella was the first text piece that started this project and similar to the situation of the charactor Ray Kinsella the work had no intended audience, it was just a feeling that something had to be realised. In this instance the realisation was due to the fact that for the idea to function as an artwork it had to be more than an idea. As an idea the words ‘built and they will come’ remained a solitary and silent voice. For the idea to be ‘heard’ the text requires audience participation, therefore the work refers to itself as an object for exhibition - to physically exist in a space where ‘people will come’.

Also see the work in the exhibition 3D 2D: Object and illusion in Print at Edinburgh Printmakers

Digitally Remastered!

Paul Laidler, Is it a game, or is it real, Unlimited (Hardback & soft cover versions), Produced through Blurb.com

The book work Is it a game, or is it real is a reinterpretation of David Bischoff's War Games. In this instances a remake of the Penguin book that uses the film adaptation of Bischoff's novel as the cover image. The visual reference of the film as a printed cover image is employed by publishers as marketing tool to sell more copies of adapted novels. Marcella Edwards, senior commissioning editor at Penguin Classics sees the film’s influence as a way to tap into new markets. The film image appears to make some classic texts more approachable for these new audiences. Edwards describes this phenomena where the text “becomes less classic, less difficult. You don’t need a PhD to read this stuff - it’s readable". Here the novels text is proceeded by its cinematic cover image a reinterpretation that for many becomes the original, diluting any beginning or end - and somewhat ironically, a reality made out of fiction.

Here the reinterpretation/remake foreground's the digitized theme of the novel, period and production process. Firstly the work presents the digital pixel aesthetic of the 1980's although in this instance the digitization is not screen based but instead simulated by printed dots that construct the appearance of pixels. For instances the book work Is it a game, or is it real is a digitally recorded version of the (1983 Penguin) publication although the transition from physical to digital becomes pronounced through the flatbed scanning of the books three dimensional form and the pixellated appearance of both text and image. The book has been recorded using the different resolution sizes of 12, 32, 42 and 52 ppi (pixels per inch). These resolution settings assigned to the recording of the book are purposely set below the standard amount of pixel information required for reading digital images on screen (72ppi) and in print (300ppi). 

I might add that when using automated POD facilities for producing work, low resolution preference generally sit outside of the systems approved optimum print settings. Subsequently the 'computer says no' the system breaks down and you need to convince a human directly (via the online help desk) that you want pixelation.

Is it a game, or is it real? by Laidler | 
To purchase signed copies contact the artist directly

As well as the physical, printed edition of the book, the Blurb facility also offers a virtual rendering of the book format that can be considered as a digital edition in the truest sense. The electronic format otherwise known as an e-book, allows the user to view the on screen flipping of pages as animated actions that refer to the experience of its physical counterpart. Although the e-book phenomenon engages with the dynamic potential of the Internet and allows publishers to reduce publishing costs, it does not currently provide the best reading experience to the customer.

The pixellated appearance of Is it a game or is it real? as an e-book initially makes the viewer question the technology as a reliable tool for reading digitised information. Viewed on screen the image appears to have become corrupted, or the correct resolution setting has not been assigned to the digital file. The assumption that the e-book is not a true representation of the printed version is re-addressed once seen in conjunction with the printed, signed edition. As an artist’s book, the signature confirms the intentions for the final printed results and the subsequent reading of the physical work as an 'unsophisticated' e-book facsimile. In one sense, the book fails to function before the concept reveals the object’s primary function as an artwork that appropriates the formal designs of the book format.

The appropriation and function distinctions resonate with Michael Craig-Martin’s thinking of real objects as if they were art. Here Craig-Martin considers utilising the characteristics of objects rather than the Duchampian idea of art by nomination, “The defining aspect of an object is what it is used for e.g. scale, material, look – using their functionality as a device to make art from.” (Cork, Michael Craig-Martin, p. 43.) However, the resulting book as an art object is not in the strictest sense a direct appropriation of a previously existing object. The work is an appropriation of an object’s function that is conceived and realised in conjunction with the object’s associated on screen presence. 

And finally, like the film/novel the artist book has distopian undercurrents concerning digital technology and our trust in its utopian design. The POD facility Blurb highlights the relative ease with which one can copy, reproduce, store and send digitized imagery/objects without any concern for origins or authenticity. Further more the rapidity with which this technology moves raises archiving issues concerning the compatibility and 'readibility' of digital information between old and new software. Data is either lost or interpolated - are we preserving the past or distorting it?

Is it a game, or is it real fuses past, present, text, image, fact and fiction as an artwork that is interpreted through its mediation. Subsequently the work invokes a self-conscious presence, perhaps referencing Bischoff's vision of computer consciousness. Also see Edges of a Hardcore for further usage of the pixel aesthetic and ISSUU (an alternative e-publication platform) utilised for a digital Panorama workshop.

Is it a game, or is it real is in the artist book collection at the V&A