Autechre Oversteps Circles #5

If there are such things as TDR Holy Grails then these original paintings must be among them. Despite the mantra “Favourites Not Applicable”, its true to say that Oversteps, aesthetically and conceptually, is definitely up there for us.

At the core of what we do is making marks, and how, and where, and why we make them in the first place. This is the story of the Oversteps circles.

Why, when we humans have the most complex ‘computers’ already on board (if we choose to use them), are so many of us obsessed with replicating machine programmed output? What is it that technology can deliver that we, generally, can’t? Drawing perfect circles?

The design and artwork for Oversteps revolves around human attempts to draw perfect circles, in various physical media, to reference the unavoidable humanity permeating the coded sonics in Autechre’s programmed music. I worked out how many individual surfaces there would be across the album formats (the front and the back, the outer and inner covers, the box, the poster, the labels, the CD packaging, the digital ‘covers’, the ads, the OOH promo, the merch etc) and tasked the TDR™ studio with exactly that number of attempts to create perfect black circles using everything from gloss and poster paint (applied with various sized brushes), to Pantone markers, Sharpies and even resurrected Rotrings.

Each of the attempts was scanned and applied digitally to just one of the surfaces, so that across all formats, you would never see the same ‘circle’ twice.

These paintings are original artworks and are, in every sense, one-offs. They are also unique pieces of history / artefacts of TDR’s genre-defining work with Autechre and Warp Records. They were not created as artworks in themselves, just sheets of white paper found in the studio used to record human attempts to draw perfect circles.

1 of 8 unique works (sold separately) - Measures 640x900mm