Killing Time, 1 June 2020

Mike Nelson RA (b. 1968)

RA Collection: Art

Mike Nelson, whose usual medium is installation, chooses a circular chart pressure recorder paper as his work. The Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company produced a circular piece of paper, which then could be spun and used to record data. What the artist does is he seems to use a black pen to draw patterns, which would have been otherwise done by a machine. All of the lines create a vortex, that goes against the lines of the chart originally printed on the paper. It is uniform in ways that actual data reading would most likely not exist. Moreover, the preassure used to draw the lines with the pen can be noticed, as well as gaps, further proving the man-made nature of the pattern. Nelson uses the same pen to sign his name and the varnishing day date in the middle of the chart.