Year of conception: 2009
24 computer generated prints

Technique: German edging mounted on aluminium
two size: 60cm x 60cm 110cm x 110 cm

Each print is a unique example
author: LAb[au]

The chronoPrints forms part of the similarly named project cycle 'chronos' which is based on the principle of assigning the basic units of time (hours minutes and seconds) to the primary colours of light (red, green and blue). This association leads to a process of colour surfaces continuously filling the colour space according to the rhythm of time: each second a blue line, each minute a green line and each hour a red line is added. This principle leads in time to overlapping colour surfaces, areas where, due to their additive blending, the secondary colours yellow (red plus green), cyan (green plus blue) and magenta (blue plus red) appear.

A print is consequently a colour plot of one hour of a day, starting with its first second at the left upper corner, until the last; 3600th one, at the right bottom corner. Each horizontal line of a print displays the 60 seconds of a minute while the entire 60 lines display the 60 minutes of an hour. Each of the 3600 separated squares is itself divided into solid delineated colour surfaces corresponding to the time-based additive colour system.

The process is based on the 'American' 12-hour system dividing a day into two periods (am / pm). This logic finds its expression in the direction in which the process evolves adding colour between noon and midnight and subtracting colour from midnight to noon. Consequently a complete white colour

space appears at midnight, when all hours, minutes and seconds are completed and a complete black colour space appears at noon, when all colours are reduced to zero. This division into two cycles is formalised by a white and black background corresponding to the final point of the additive or subtractive colour system.

This division of day and night relates the generative system to the circadian rhythm of the earth's course around the sun on which the 24 GMT zones = /- 12 hours are based. This association embeds a spatial logic in the time-colour system and gives each print a specific cardinal direction. This direction defines the hanging order at any exhibition space. In this manner the prints bring to the subject a fundamental theme of painting: the relation of light, space and time reduced to their most elementary units. From this parametric set of rules emerge colour patterns best described as chromatic textures of time and space.

The artwork is an example of LAb[au]'s research on parametric settings and their ability to form a visual language. As a systematic approach to art the meaning of the work lies in the set of rules. As a method it is also valid in traditional media and as such subscribes to the pictorial culture of concrete, minimal and conceptual art, while confronting it with programmed art.