“I studied architecture in Stuttgart. Max Bense lectured in what was then known as the Studium Generale. I don't believe something like that exists anymore. People from all kinds of faculties gathered there. It was really exciting. There were no exams like in statics, building law, design, and so on. It was about questions concerning the art form of concrete poetry, which was fashionable at the time, about the types of language that might be used there, and about the more general question of when something is art. When does something stop being art?

Bense's answer, very briefly: Avoid the term art altogether. The term art is far too loaded, Bense said. Therefore, introduce the term 'aesthetic event.'

The design of YELLOW TREE comes down to just three decisions: the design of a piece of code that makes use of randomly generated, but somehow predefined, polygonal lines; a color for the object generated; and a color for the background. In my opinion, it is the strictness and simplicity of this setup that are of interest for its qualification as an ‘aesthetic event.’”

– Hans Dehlinger

YELLOW TREE (2001) by Hans Dehlinger is a print of a coded vector file that was originally written for and executed on a pen plotter. A great number of polygonal lines consisting of straight line segments originate in a very small square area at the bottom of the page, a symbol for the "root area" of the tree.

The blue background color is a reference to a wide blue sky in summer. The yellow reminds us of the time of harvest from the soil of the earth. The first instance of each line is always generated vertically and upwards—the "stem of the tree". The lines further unfold and spread upward into the entire drawing area and are clipped at its borders.

EXPANDED.ART'S PIONEER GRAILS is a series of 72-HOUR OPEN NFT EDITIONS presenting paradigmatic artworks from key figures in the history of digital art.

Edition 49 / Open Edition

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