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I got back into zine making in January 2020 starting with a generative art zine "frameRate(0)". Because the frameRate(0) zine is generative, each page of each copy is unique and different from all the others in the run. Generating a bunch of different screen images just wasn't satisfying my soul and the zine format is perfect for transmuting screen images and ideas into finger-touchable objects. My first zine "Playing with Blocks" riffs on the classic, pioneering work of Georg Nees, namely his "Schotter" piece.

There are many reproductions and many derivatives of Schotter, I know I've made a few dozen, like the ABC blocks above, because it is visually compelling, understandable, simple, and highly adaptable. The basic algorithm draws 12 columns and 22 rows of squares. Progressively by row, the rotation and “jitter” or offset applied to the square increases. 

I go into much more detail about Schotter as the graphic equivalent of "Hello World" in another post. Schotter is more than just a "this works" kind of "Hello World" because it is so versatile and alterable because of the xy grid layout. The combination of the square grid and repetitive use of shapes or lines is so simple yet rich with possibility.

However, not all critics agree that the grid is as beneficial to art making. The sharpest criticism of the grid was laid out in depth in Rosaline Krauss’ 1979 essay “Grids”.

    …the grid announces, among other things, modern art’s will to silence, its hostility to literature, to narrative, to discourse. The arts, of course, have paid dearly for this success, because the fortress they constructed on the foundation of the grid has increasingly become a ghetto… It is not just the sheer number of careers that have been devoted to the exploration of the grid that is impressive, but the fact that never could exploration have chosen less fertile ground…and modernist practice continues to generate ever more instances of grids. – Rosaline Krauss (1979), Grids 4

The beautiful book “10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10”2, while illustrates the beauty of the grid with pages of graphics and thoughtful text, also also offers a defense of the grid saying:

    “…the structure of the grid is what makes it possible to focus on the variability created through random operations.” 

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