Four More Trees by Nathaniel Stern (installation and video artist, net.artist, printmaker and performance poet) is described as a performative digital scan turned into an aquatint etching, engraving and drypoint, produced at the David Krut Print Workshop. The work formed part of his Compression Studies series, described by AOP Gallery’s press release as follows:
“Stern compresses’ bodies, spaces and objects by traversing their surfaces with an image scanner, virtually ‘tracing’ or performing their various 3-dimensional shapes. After these have been compressed into digital images the size of a small sheet of paper, the files are stretched, cropped and digitally colour manipulated. These digital images are used as his ‘performative’ prints. They are ‘collected’ by hand with a custom-made scanner appendage and battery pack, often strapped around his neck, with which Stern scans images in straight, long lines…The images become a digital archive from which Stern draws and selects and manipulates, to print with various photographic and inkjet processes. These images have … been ‘iterated’ or repeated, utilizing traditional techniques such as etching, aquatint, engraving, monotype and lithography. Stern sometimes affectionately refers to these as ‘retro-Compressionist prints,’ produced with a ‘500-year-old digital process.’ On show are 17 archival lambda prints on metallic paper, as well as 13 hand-made works using traditional printmaking techniques.”
(Quote from artist’s website: www.nathanielstern.com)