Jochem Hendricks

Dr. Grether (Detail)

Jochem Hendricks is a German artist who experiments with technology and science as a means to create art. He created his series of "Eye Drawings" in the mid 1990's using various infrared and video cameras to follow the movements of his eyes. He then transfers the pattern into a digital image, creating something that is not a drawing, nor a photograph, but a combination of them both.

These "Eye Drawings" have a radical effect on the way we perceive art. The actual construction of his pieces are created by viewing what is around him, which is explores the deep link between the eye and art. It allows the eye which is usually pushed to a secondary position behind the hand in artistic creation to the forefront of the process.

Hendricks pushes this idea further by using this process to draw images which are not classically thought of as art at all. He records his eye movement while doing everyday activities, such as reading, in order to get visual representations of the movement the eye does naturally. His work also explores what happens to human sight when exposed to light and after various periods of time, as shown in Nothing.

Nothing

The intrinsic connection of experiencing and creating art is fascinating, and I think that Hendricks work opens up even more questions as to what it means to be an artist, and what it means to take in art. By Hendricks ability to take mundane tasks such as reading a bill and turn it into a piece of artwork we have to reconsider if our classical ideals of beauty and artistic subjects are not outdated.