'We speak of concrete and not abstract painting because nothing is more concrete, more real than a line, a colour, a surface.'
Theo van Doesburg in his 'Manifesto of Concrete Art', 1930.

The concept of 'Concrete Art' was coined by Theo Van Doesburg in 1930 in his 'Manifesto of Concrete Art'. It proclaimed an art based on reductionist principles of form and colour, organized in a systemic manner. Josef Albers' painting series 'Hommage to the Square' in which he researches the 'interaction of colours' to create the pictorial space is a strong example of these principles being put into practice. Albers employs simple geometric shapes and a systematic colour chart, a methodology he shares with a lot of other 'masters' at the Bauhaus, such as Johannes Itten and Wassily Kandinsky. This 'art of colour' actively involves the act of seeing into the conception of the artwork and marks the beginning of what we could call 'aesthetics of perception ', a central issue of kinetic and op-art. Such a 'concrete' use of colour is opposed to abstract use, since colour is not brought into service to tell us something about the world outside the painting, but is purely and only about the constituting elements of art, its grammar and semantics. This systemic art seeks to establish an artwork as having its own 'reality', rather than expressing, illustrating or imitating an external one.

'A pictorial element has no other significance than 'itself' and therefore the picture has no other significance than 'itself'
Theo van Doesburg in his 'Manifesto of Concrete Art', 1930.

The meaning of concrete art is grounded in the way the very elements of art are placed into 'picture', the arrangement, and the 'effect' they have on us. The differentiation of concrete and abstract allows us to define an artistic approach focusing on the specificities of a medium, having its own grammar; be it the one of painting, the one of light or the one of computation. Accordingly, 'concrete' stands for a common artistic approach - one of a systematic thinking employing the basic parameters (elements) of a medium.

'Our condition has changed. Our ethics and aesthetics need to change at their turn. The understanding of art evolves from 'pleasant utilitarian object' to 'l'Art pour l'Art' and from 'tasteful' to 'transcendent.'
Theo van Doesburg in his 'Manifesto of Concrete Art', 1930.

Triggered by technological progress, new codes (semantics) and methods (practice) are often revealed by the term that is used to qualify them. For example, the word 'design', which appeared at the beginning of the last century due to the shift from pre-industrial to industrial society. The emergence of 'industrial design' around the Bauhaus had the intended purpose of qualifying new artistic understanding and aesthetics in relation to the technological and social changes.

The new language of art based on the unity between form and function and rational aesthetics is coherent to an artistic practice which uses industrial production processes, methods and employing contemporary materials; it gave the Industrial Age an expression and a form. Just like ethics, aesthetics are the carrier of a meta-thinking which extracts and amplifies the zeitgeist. But as our society evolves, ethics and aesthetics change progressively along.

'Unity is the abstract essence of 'Beauty'; the very first level of sensitivity. Conceived artistically, unity is the artwork, and poetic equivalent to the World it represents.'
Victor Vasarely in his 'Manifeste Jaune', Galerie Denise René, 1955.

In the beginning of the text we introduced the concept 'concrete' as an artistic concept. Afterwards we outlined the research of fundamental aesthetic values as an investigation of contemporality. These two aspects are important to us when putting our work in perspective with the one of Victor Vasarely. We see our work in the continuity of the 20th century avant-garde, share artistic sensibilities and systemic thinking, and are influenced by kinetic, cybernetic and op-art; but to be truly contemporary one has to explore up-to-date tools and production processes as much as explore new cultural signs.

***************************************************************************************************

The Plastic Alphabet - towards a systemic and programmed art

Vasarely's painting series 'Plastic Alphabet' is based on a grid system which established modular relationships between forms and colours. Each painting is based on 15 root forms derived from the circle, square and triangle. Variations on these root forms are then developed and painted using colours from different colours values (scale) in a range of 20 hues. What Vasarely ultimately created was a programming language that allowed for endless permutations of forms and colours. Vasarely called them 'programs'. This approach is similar to Sol LeWitt's wall drawing based on what he called 'instructions' and witness of a kind of pre-algorithmic art. As member of the 'G.R.A.V' Vera Molnar's first attempts of an algorithmic art in the 60th, known nowadays as 'plotter drawings', certainly has been influenced by Vasarely's systematic approach.

The 'chrono.print' series, LAb[au] created in 2008, stands in tradition of algorithmic art. The process is based on the assignment of the primary colours of light, red, green and blue, to the basic units of time, hours, minutes and seconds. The progression of time leads to a successive filling of coloured surfaces whereas the plot of the process leads to chromatic textures of time. This relationship between colour and time follows a systematic exploration of a colour scale impossible to archive without a computer. The conception of such a system further requires describing the process in form of a precise and unified language, an algorithm. LAb[au] further developed this principle of a rule based art in its kinetic light art installation 'framework f5x5x5'. The geometric patterns and the motion of the 250 motorised black-white luminous tiles are determined by an algorithm. Each program is a composition which actively incorporates the parameter of time. Just like a notation system, known from music and dance, they allow us to think and create in time. The visual timeline of the frame's movement, presented under the name of 'framework notations', reveals - just like Etienne-Jules Marey's chrono-photography - the kinetic patterns at a glance.

***************************************************************************************************

Kinetics - the aesthetics of perception

For Vasarely 'painting and sculpture' become anachronistic terms: it's more exact to speak of bi-, tri- and multidimensional plastic art. We no longer have distinct manifestations of a creative sensibility, but the development of a single plastic sensibility in different spaces.'
Victor Vasarely in his 'Manifeste Jaune', Galerie Denise René, 1955.

The framework f5x5x5 installation is an example of a multi-dimensional artwork. The bi-dimensional surface becomes a tri-dimensional structure through the rotation of the frames. Through the time based programming and parametric algorithms it even incorporates more dimensions. The work of Vasarely is widely known for the creation of a spatial awareness through the interplay of colours, the alternating perception of shapes and the interference between patterns, known as a 'moiré effect'. In his 'Yellow Manifesto' he discussed his theories of colour and perception which lead him to explore the effects of motion. By requiring the viewer to move and shift viewpoints in order to fully appreciate his artwork, the artist incorporated temporality into his work. Although his mediums are fixed, his use of visual layers and rhythmic patterns has an inner dynamism. They are in motion or, as Vasarely insisted, they are ultimately kinetic to the extent that the eye never stops registering visual information.

'Colour - light. We finally have the tools, the technology and the knowledge to attemp the plastic-kinetic adventure.'
Victor Vasarely in his 'Manifeste Jaune', Galerie Denise René, 1955.

The use of optical effects and kinetics to intentional apply the 'act of seeing' in the artwork conception is widely present in LAb[au]'s work. The kinetic light art installation 'm0za1que 4x4x4' investigates the perception of colour according to motion. The tiles' movement leads to a play of coloured light and shadows composing and decomposing the primary colours of light; red, green and blue, to white and all secondary colours; yellow, magenta and cyan. Thanks to the programmed controls of the tiles' motors, infinite variations in the relief-patterns are achieved which immerse the viewer in a coloured light play.

The specific writing of the installation name 'mozaïque' , replacing the 'o' and 'i' by '0' and '1', refers to the binary, programmed, logic of the installation whereas the '4x4x4' refers to the resolution of the tiles' grid. The key notion here is 'tessellation', the tiling of a plane using one or more geometric shapes, called tiles. This principle includes regular shapes, such as a squares, rectangles or triangles..., semi-regular and irregular, so called aperiodic shapes. Most works of Vasarely use these geometric divisions to create his altering optical perception which demonstrates the impact of geometry on our spatial awareness.

The application of such spatial geometries can be found in LAb[au]'s kinetic sound art installation 'Tessel' , based on an aperiodic tessellation algorithm, as on LAb[au]'s recent work series: '0rigam1'. The works of this recent series are constituted of structures activated by shape memory alloys. Spatio-dynamic patterns emerge from the dialogue in between low and high tech and two-dimensional surfaces and three-dimensional spaces. The works investigate the relationship between shape and motion, and explore our research in elementary themes of art such as: light, colour and shape employing nowadays techniques and materials.

These programmed systems and materials demonstrate to which extend they allow us to re-investigate these elementary themes of art and affect our aesthetic understanding. They also stand for our desire to work with the materials of our time and to harness their unique characteristics and properties. In the context of 'aesthetics of perception' we like to use the expression 'from sense (semiosis) to sense (esthesis)' to classify and describe these concerns.

***************************************************************************************************

In between art and architecture

'The future takes shape with the new geometric, polychrome and solar city. There, art will be kinetic, multidimensional and harmonic. Definitely abstract and close to science.'
Extracted 'Victor Vasarely, Le Père de l'Op Art '

Our artistic background, as our group name 'laboratory for architecture and urbanism' already insinuates, is architecture. Unsurprisingly therefore our installations, such as 'binary waves' , our spatial integrations, such as 'm0za1que 16x25' or our public artworks, such as 'ƒlux' show our focus in relation to architectural and urban issues, as our artworks witness a strong architectural grounding. Consequently our work is situated in between art and architecture.

We share Vasarely's idea of multi-dimensional plastics rather than talking about sculptures, paintings... As such our ideas are close to the one of Vasarely considering a synthesis of the arts, a vision Vasarely expressed with his 'polychrome city'. The most significant realisation of his 'total art work' is without doubt his Foundation built in 1976. It projects a unique architectural vision as it demonstrates his capacities to fuse his art within the architecture, the so called 'integrations'. The conception of the Foundation marks an important point in the career of Victor Vasarely - from the bi-dimensional canvas, the painter, towards the multidimensional fusion of art and architecture, the 'plasticien'. Vasarely's temple of plastic-kinetic breaks down the barriers between art and technology and establishes relationships between the various branches of science, such as optics and cybernetics. It embodies new uses of form and shape, including industrial aesthetics, and demonstrates the extent Vasarely was influenced formed by the ideas of the Bauhaus to introduce art into daily life and the City - a social vision as an aesthetic concern.

In 2010 we had the unique chance to present our work inside the Vasarely Foundation, an exhibition we co-curated under the title 'From kinetic to digital art' . This first and profound artistic encounter with the work of Victor Vasarely allowed us to understand and experience his extensive vision. With great pleasure we were invited last year to participate in the 'Prix Vasarely', a competition for a public art work to be installed on the premises of the Foundation. Our proposal 'Spectra' was based on the relationship between the spectrum of light and colour with the spectrum of electromagnetic waves, to integrate art in the surrounding landscape. The work directly refers to Victor Vasarely's 'polychromic city' as to Nicolas Schöffer's 'cybernetic city'. In April this year we presented for the first time our works in a group show at Denise René gallery (Paris), where the cornerstone of op and kinetic art was established in the 1950s. Our exhibition 'Hommage to Vasarely' is another step in a fantastic exchange with the works and ideas of this great master of multi-dimensional plastics. Surprisingly or not, while working on this exhibition and essay, we received an invitation for a permanent artwork at the town hall of Maubeuge, the basement of which is marked by a huge fresco of Vasarely. We slowly start to share more than artistic ideas and convictions... Let the future be polychrome.

LAb[au], Brussels, July 2013.

***************************************************************************************************