Heart Calligraphy

Rogier Arents completed his MA at the Man and Well Being Department of the Design Academy Eindhoven, where he developed an interest in the use of images within scientific disciplines. As such, his work attempts to translate scientific knowledge into accessible visual languages.

To increase cardiac self-awareness, his project Heart Calligraphy alerts participants to their heart rate. The viewer places their hands a table, their heartbeat is read, and the subsequent data directs a drawing machine. With no noticeable delay, every beat is converted into a pen movement, which leaves an ink trail on a piece of paper. While the viewer follows their heartbeat, gradually an image of the heart’s rhythm appears, enabling them to discover influences on their heart rate. The work is reminiscent of an action painting; it is an abstract portrait depicting the subconscious processes of the subject’s body.

A Sequence of Operations

During his artist residency at Print Lab Daglicht, Arents explored new ways to work with silk screen-printing and developed the project A Sequence of Operations. He challenged himself to find a technique for creating a series of unique prints from one silkscreen. In doing so, he approached the silkscreen printing process as a kind of computer program: a formula with variable inputs and outputs. In this way, he applies the principles of the digital algorithm to screen printing’s analogue working method; each step leads to a new composition, resulting in 50 unique artworks.

Made in collaboration with Grafisch Atelier Daglicht, and New Window.