Riso + Toner
Following the Shapes and Noise series, I was interested in finding new ways of expressing the ideas that had thus far only been rendered on a screen. I wanted to introduce imperfection to each composition, and to lessen the amount of control I could exert on the quality of each image.
Experimenting at first with the risograph process, I used the machines to make copies of designs printed with a budget laser printer. This printer was only about 5 years old, but its print quality was rough and grainy. Coupled with the risograph process, the gritty texture of each composition was now twice removed from the crisp polish of the digital source material.
Wanting to push the lack of control even further, I eventually opted to forego the riso machine as the last step in the process. Instead, I would use a solvent to burnish the laser printed toner onto a high quality bristol board drawing surface. This intensive hand working combined with things like solvent amount, burnishing tools and evaporation due to ambient temperature, obfuscated the roles of the machine and human in the process, leading to a surface quality only attainable through the combination of each.
