Intro
Hektor Meets Dexter Sinister
Swiss Institute, New York
6 September 2007
Content
Machine, man and mathematics united for a special 6-hr event. The painting machine ‘Hektor,’ brainchild of artist and designer Jürg Lehni, performed for a live audience, making a series of paintings on the walls in the Swiss Institute gallery. Consisting of a spray can, two small motors and a computer-coordinated belt, Hektor replicates the motion of a graffiti artist’s hand, making lo-fi graphics with digital brains. For its project at the Swiss Institute, Hektor painted ‘Lissajous curves’ – a term mathematician Jules Antoine coined in 1857 to describe the graph of the equations that define complex harmonic motion: x = Asin(at + δ), y = Bsin(bt).
