Derived from Heidersberger’s mechanical light drawings, Andromeda was published as a fluorescent screenprint in 1973 and issued as a digital edition in 2023.
Provenance
Digital edition released by EXPANDED.ART through Pioneer Grails, 27–30 June 2023.
References
EXPANDED.ART, Andromeda. Publisher’s record of the 1973 composition, 2023 NFT release, edition size and contract.
Anika Meier, interview with Benjamin Heidersberger, The Transition from Analog to Digital, 2023. Discusses the rhythmograms and the later use of existing forms in color.
The image can suggest an orbiting structure or a twisting organism, although its form comes from the combination of oscillating movements.
Andromeda belongs to Heidersberger’s rhythmogram practice, in which a purpose-built apparatus translated pendulum motion into photographic light traces. Four pendulums controlled a mirror that directed light onto photosensitive material. This mechanical process linked artistic choices to the behavior of a repeatable system. The work’s apparent volume emerges from the spacing and intersection of lines across a flat image.
In 1973, Heidersberger used existing rhythmogram forms for two fluorescent screenprinted posters, Andromeda and Energy. Their inks responded to ultraviolet light. The present digital edition carries the color composition into an illuminated screen image. It is a fixed PNG, preserving a particular composition rather than running the original apparatus or generating new states.
EXPANDED.ART released the NFT edition through Pioneer Grails in June 2023, in connection with The Thinking Machine: Presenting Pioneers, 1953–2023, curated by Anika Meier and Georg Bak in collaboration with ELEMENTUM.ART. The 72-hour release resulted in an edition of 63..