I'm Targz

Pronounced however makes you happy

I’ve always been fascinated by technology. I had my first gaming console in the 80s, my first computer in the 90s, and since then I’ve been an early adopter of any new emerging technologies.

Those nerdy passions, my taste for geometric shapes and my career in creative programming eventually led me to generative art and all sorts of exploration. Later on I discovered the pioneers of Op Art and pen plotting, such as Vera Molnar and Bridget Riley that made me want to design my own patterns.

Practice

At some point in my creative process, I discovered that I have some weird ability to see “things” in abstract shapes that apparently not everyone sees, a process likely akin to pareidolia. I call them artefacts.

Since then I tried to surprise myself, I never know if or when I’ll “see” an artefact, but I’m seeking them, and each time a new one appears it always gives me a huge emotion, like my brain was waiting to see it.

I’ve developed a lot of different generative pattern algorithms in the process, oscillating between very abstract things, artefacts that feel more like a concept or a feeling, and much more literal things like portraits.

Technique

I build my own generative tools and a custom pen plotter made of a mix of off-the-shelf materials and a custom 3D printed plotting head.

The plotter and the pieces are tied together. The algorithm outputs vector information, then I go through pens or brushes, each with its own constraints, to get the result, I have to translate those points in space to the paper using pen and brush, the same generated pattern can have a very different output depending on the medium used. The type of medium, the speed, the paper, the order of the lines drawn can change everything. And a small glitch I don’t like in the result can lead to a lot of optimisations and tweaks.

This can range from tuning the machine, to designing pen holders specific to each technique, all the way down to the motion control software. This approach is a long process with many steps, each piece has potentially required months of adaptation, trial and error.

It’s something that is hard to document and explain. My generative tools, algorithms, machine tweaks, and gcode are the things people have a hard time seeing as an artistic process.

Showing the work

All of this has taken me to places I wouldn’t have expected. Art Capital at the Grand Palais, twice. Sharing the work is satisfying and terrifying, every single time. What I love most is what comes after: the discussions, the critics, the encounters.

My Training

I never formally studied any of this. No art school, no engineering degree, no programming courses. Everything I know comes from the community, from open source tools, and from open-minded people willing to share their knowledge.

A huge shout out to the pen plotter community. Kind, helpful, deeply involved, endlessly creative, always sharing art and tips, and collectively incapable of not buying every single art supply that exists on earth. I love you guys.

A non-exhaustive list of tools and people that have made my work possible

• Bantam Tools. My first machine, thanks for all the support.
• Penplotart. The Instagram account that you need to follow to see the best of the pen plotting art.
• Drawingbots. The go-to resource for everything pen plotter related.
• Drawingbots Discord. A great place to share and get help.
• vpype. This is a must have, best tool for post processing and amazing support.
• grbl. Open source CNC firmware that many DIY plotters run on.