The ’56 Brushstrokes’ are the product of a Painting Machine designed by Rosemarie Trockel. Seven rows of eight brushes are attached to shafts oufitted with steel rollers, which are drawn along a track approximately two meters long by a spool driven by an electric motor. The brushes are manufactured by Da Vinci, the painter’s brush factory in Nürnberg, with the hair of real artists. As they are pulled along, the brushes are first dipped in watercolors and then drawn over Japanese paper, so that they leave behind eight different brush strokes running in multiple broken “autograph marks” parallel to one another.
A sound activated tape recorder travels overnight through the UK Post Office. The dictaphone automatically edits the 15 hour journey down to a 72min recording, capturing only the significant sounds right up until the parcel is signed for at the end, where it is to be exhibited in a self storage building.
