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The Human Printer Featuring Print is Dead

This published conference paper discusses Laidler’s research into the process of creating hand-rendered artworks from an initial low-resolution digital file, which reverses the conventional relationship between an existing artefact and its reproduction. The resulting series of paintings and drawings, Print Is Dead, could only ever be copies of the original file, yet were themselves unique objects. Occupying a liminal space between the analogue and the digital, the works raise questions about their status as artefacts and the nature and function of printmaking itself as a craft practice in the digital age. The paper analyses these issues and the challenges they pose for conventional assumptions about originality and authenticity, authorship, and the relationship between the artist and the printmaking studio, including the role of the printmaker. It explores the ways in which the discipline of printmaking is engaging with the inherent qualities and evolving nature of digital technology as opposed to re-mediating analogue practices.

The paper was presented at the IMPACT 7 conference, Monash University, Melbourne, (27-30 September 2011) and published in Luke Morgan (ed.) Intersections and Counterpoints -Proceedings of the IMPACT 7 International Multi-Disciplinary Conference (Victoria, Australia, 2013). Laidler also discussed these issues in a lecture to students at Queensland School of Art, Griffith University, Brisbane (4 October 2011) as part of his artist’s residency, and at the Pratt Institute, School of Art and Design, Brooklyn, New York (3 November 2011). He was invited to give a lecture on Print Is Dead, for the Talking Prints event, University of Central Lancashire, Preston in conjunction with DA3 at the Harris Museum as part of its ArtLab Contemporary Print project (14 November 2011). Aspects of the research, its challenge to craft practices, were published as ‘Human Automation’, Printmaking Today (Winter Edition, 2011).