The Paris-based artist and industrial designer Arnaud Pfeffer bestows a fluidity to mechanically-controlled illustration work that is rarely seen in either contemporary or industrial drawing practices. These pieces fit into the ambit of industrial art, or art serving the industrialised fabrication process, but are wholly more abstract. Pfeffer uses pen plotters, brushes, and other drawing tools in a manner that creates imperfections, which he considers to be representative of a human element, in otherwise mechanically precise drawings.
The French artist introduces himself to STIR, saying: “I studied mechanical engineering, which I completed with industrial design studies. I specialised in food and product design, where I work a lot with production and prototyping instruments, and design food products using industrial design tools, both mainstream and otherwise. I extend this work with machines into a more artistic and experimental approach as well.”
When Pfeffer shifts out of the role of a product designer to create industrial art, he uses drawing machines such as pen plotters—which are robotic, computer-controlled graphics printers that draw images from vector graphics files with ink pens—and thinks primarily from the perspective of a researcher: he is interested in better understanding the potential that mechanical tools offer for art production. Simultaneously, he is convinced that his forms can, in fact, be sensitive and “human.” In his words: “I try to bring out a sensitivity in my work, to show the human element that remains in a drawing made by a robot… my creative process starts with the graphic tool. I start by identifying the effects I want to create, then I create the digital art that will allow me to highlight these effects. Then follows a phase of iteration between the physical and digital drawing, to get as close as possible to the original intention.”
Beyond the seemingly regimented nature of his creative process, the artist maintains an element of randomness in how he negotiates drawing robotically. He does not wish to eliminate human error, but rather to find a sense of resonance between the person and the machine. Pfeffer tells STIR: “I see machines as being more than a production tool. Drawing with robotics is an exercise in understanding our relationship to the industrial world. It allows me to pursue an experimental approach and prompts me to consider the machine as more than an unchanging element, and as a tool of creation with its own vocabulary and its own rules.” The artist works with a large mechanical palette: he uses commercially available tools such as plotters, tools he “hijacks”, as he puts it, such as tattoo machines, and tools that he designs himself, like rotary brushes. He explains that “each has its own vocabulary and graphic potential”.
An exploration of Pfeffer’s oeuvre may lead one to wonder if glitch aesthetics have played a role in informing his practice. He tells STIR that within the digital world, a glitch is associated with a bug or a programming error. In traditional drawing, however, glitches also have their own place and are interpreted as burrs, erasures, poor ink flow, and so on. “Drawing with a robot involves dealing with these two worlds,” Pfeffer says. “I want to showcase the vocabulary of the tools through an infallible mechanical movement. Therefore, even if the machine always makes the same movement, each drawing will be different, because of the materiality of the graphic tools that went into the drawing: inks that dry up, pens that run out, a sheet of paper that warps with water, and beyond. And it is precisely this glitch in the trace that gives the drawing its sensitive character.”
The artist recently participated in Eau, an exhibition focusing on the water at See Galerie in Paris (March 15-May 6, 2023). Pfeffer presented the Automated Suminagashi series, which creates a link between the traditional Japanese art technique of marbling on water and automation through plotters customised by the artist. “Suminagashi is an art form that requires great mastery of gesture. A brush of ink and a brush of soapy water are brushed successively across the surface of the water. One brush pushes the other away, creating shapes and patterns. The art of Suminagashi lies in mastering gestures and playing with them to create shapes and patterns,” he tells STIR. Pfeffer is trying to add mechanical precision to the technique so that the materiality and unpredictability of the drawing resonate all the more within his results.
Pfeffer was recently also invited by the online fashion platform SHOWstudio to create artwork representative of the most striking moments at the Milan Fashion Week. “I wanted to highlight the textures, details, and emotions that could appear in the new collections and in that brief moment. This is shown through the final drawing and the movement of the robot that created it. Robotic drawing is also a performance art. I attach as much importance to the final drawing as I do to the movements that made it happen. There is something very satisfying, even hypnotic, about watching a robot work, especially if it does sensitive work.”
Discussing his plans for the future, the artist says he intends to continue expanding his explorations of the sensibility of mechanical forms. To this end, he has founded Mâche&Maché, a culinary design studio, in association with the chef Oriane Chu. Mâche&Maché acts as a platform for the artist and his co-founder to combine mechanical tools and culinary craftsmanship, to develop new food products. Pfeffer says: “Working with edible materials fascinates me because it opens up a whole new way of thinking about our food—technically, taste-wise, and aesthetically.”