One of today’s modern miracles is the design and fabrication of micro- processors. The American electrical engineer Jack Kelby created the first integrated processor in 1958 using one single transistor. Today we are able to create microprocessors with over 1,000 million transistors: a veritable feat in engineering and miniaturization. The science of photonics has been instrumental in devising fabrication methods for the creation of these intricate optically printed circuit boards; photolithography is used as a mask for a laser light that prints the circuitry’s patterns onto silicon chips. From automobiles to washing machines, from airplanes to cellular phones, the world we live in would not be recognizable without the advances in photonics and the application of light for printing the integrated circuits that activate our electronic age.
Atlas is a tribute to the invention of the integrated circuit, and is created with the patterns of hundreds of historic micro-circuits. Images of these integrated circuits have been etched onto the surface of stainless steel blocks, a process not too different to how the chips themselves are printed onto silicon wafers. Hundreds of small 4 x 7 cm metal blocks, each one etched with a pattern of a microchip, evoke city maps, modern transportation systems and other diagrams of our urban life. Atlas embraces these cartographic interpretations and strives to represent the topography of our digital world.
These blocks are reminiscent of relief metal plates, and evoke the history of printing techniques that in the past have allowed humans to reproduce multiple copies of an original image or text. Wood-blocks of early printing presses, letterpress printing, as well as the emergence of photography and its photomechanical processes, are all fundamental precursors of the printing techniques of today’s integrated circuits. To recognize this history is to understand the creation of micro-chips as part of the legacy of printing technologies through history.
Other visual references that have inspired Atlas include library stacks, hieroglyphs and patterned carvings on the walls of temples of the past. The final artwork is given an archeological aspect, its textured surface depicting symbols and codes that seem created by an imaginary lost civilization. In Atlas, circuit boards transcend their merely functional nature, and emerge as perhaps one of the most powerful symbols of our times. The artwork invites us to think about how the past has helped us build the present while also suggesting the future.
Atlas, 2024
Medium: Acid-Etched Stainless Steel Blocks
Dimensions: 22.24 x 20.47 x 6.10 in
Atlas is a tribute to the invention of the integrated circuit, and is created with the patterns of hundreds of historic micro-circuits. Images of these integrated circuits have been etched onto the surface of stainless steel blocks, a process not too different to how the chips themselves are printed onto silicon wafers. Hundreds of small 4 x 7 cm metal blocks, each one etched with a pattern of a microchip, evoke city maps, modern transportation systems and other diagrams of our urban life. Atlas embraces these cartographic interpretations and strives to represent the topography of our digital world.
These blocks are reminiscent of relief metal plates, and evoke the history of printing techniques that in the past have allowed humans to reproduce multiple copies of an original image or text. Wood-blocks of early printing presses, letterpress printing, as well as the emergence of photography and its photomechanical processes, are all fundamental precursors of the printing techniques of today’s integrated circuits. To recognize this history is to understand the creation of micro-chips as part of the legacy of printing technologies through history.
Other visual references that have inspired Atlas include library stacks, hieroglyphs and patterned carvings on the walls of temples of the past. The final artwork is given an archeological aspect, its textured surface depicting symbols and codes that seem created by an imaginary lost civilization. In Atlas, circuit boards transcend their merely functional nature, and emerge as perhaps one of the most powerful symbols of our times. The artwork invites us to think about how the past has helped us build the present while also suggesting the future.
Atlas, 2024
Medium: Acid-Etched Stainless Steel Blocks
Dimensions: 22.24 x 20.47 x 6.10 in