Since the early 1980s Roman Verostko has been producing work that involves the use of code in its production.
To describe this work, he has coined the term ‘algorist’ art, from ‘algorithm’, meaning a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or undertaking a task, used in computing to refer to programming routines.
He uses a plotter linked to a computer running his own software, which controls multiple pens and ink-loaded brushes, as in the example on display. The books from Verostko’s Boole Edition are a limited edition of George Boole’s An Investigation of the Laws of Thought on which Are Founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities, one of the founding texts for symbolic logic.
They were pulled by hand at the St. Sebastian Press in Minneapolis in 1990. Each copy contains unique front and end pieces by Verostko, pen- and brush-plotted drawings executed in the artist’s studio, along with line-cut plates made from original pen plotted drawings.
Roman Verostko maintains an experimental studio in Minneapolis where he has developed original algorithmic procedures for creating his art. A 1949 graduate of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, his later studies included an MFA at Pratt Institute (Brooklyn), and work with Stanley William Hayter in Paris (1962).
An active exhibiting artist since 1963, his earliest programming with electronics consisted of synchronised audio-visual programmes dating from 1967 to 1968. Aware of the awesome power of algorithmic procedure he began experimenting with code and exhibited his first coded art programme, The Magic Hand of Chance, in 1982. His original software for driving ink pens was modified in 1987 to accommodate paint brushes mounted on a pen plotter’s drawing arm.
Director of the Third International Symposium on Electronic Art (1993) and recipient of the 1994 Golden Plotter award, his work has been included in many international exhibitions including Genetic Art- Artificial Life (Linz, 1993); Artec ’95 (Nagoya, Japan); ARTWARE2 (Lima, Peru); and Code: the language of our time (Linz, 2003).
Projects include an illustrated limited edition of George Boole’s Derivation of the Laws... (1990), and algorithmic murals at the University of St Thomas Engineering Center (St. Paul, Minnesota, 1997) and Spalding University’s Academic Learning Center (Louisville, Kentucky, 2006).
