From 1972, using perforated computer paper, the artist developed an original formula for works comprised of two layers: the primary one derived from the non-artistic realm—prints from an Odra computer were used—while the secondary one, different each time that method recurred, was dictated by the author’s intention.

In these works, discernible portions of code—either programmed as per the artist’s concept or random—appear along with prints or handwritten texts.

The use of computer paper, featured in numerous concurrent series (Paper Art, Projections, Notations, and The Artistic Program Centre Duniko prints, among others), is to be seen as exhibiting an ambivalent fascination with computers being employed in the creative process.

In 1972, for the work titled Album A, Duniko commissioned an idiosyncratic computer program: the resulting perforated card—the data carrier of that time—contained a useless record, non-conformant to the rules of coding grammar followed by programmers. The multiplied sequence “KRAJOBRAZ KOMPUTEROWY” (as in the title: Computer Landscape, 1974), also generated by interfering in the operation of the computer, and the landscape drawing, lithographically reproduced in the lower part of the tapes, exemplify a tautological method employing image and text.

Resemblance to mathematical formulae, understood in the artistic process as principles of operation of the medium or determinants of the artist’s proceedings, can also be found in the Notations series—these were printed with alternating plates, on computer paper as well (e.g. System of Notations, Triangles, 1979).

Written by Krzysztof Siatka