KIKAIMAX MICHI

The idea starts with something I do whenever I draw: look, interpret and decide which elements of an image I want to bring onto paper. With X MICHI, I want to explore a similar process through software. I'm especially interested in using my own photographs and developing a way of interpreting them that feels close to my personal approach to painting and drawing, rather than reproducing them with the precision and coldness of a printer.

To do this, the system considers the relationships between figures and their backgrounds, contrasts and the forms that make an image recognisable. I want to explore different ways of constructing that image: with lines, variations in their intensity or repetition, washes and marks, and eventually layers of colour. Watercolour, one of the media I've worked with most, is an important reference for exploring how an image can gradually emerge through overlapping layers.

Moving from the computer to paper introduces something no calculated path can fully describe. In physical tests, I've seen how the same tool can produce very different marks depending on how it meets the surface. The paper itself also changes as the drawing develops, affecting the result even when the machine follows its planned path. I'd like to compare repeated executions of the same image, as with an edition of prints, and see what differences the process introduces.

With X MICHI, I'm not trying to make an automatic copy of a photograph, but to develop a personal way of interpreting it and giving it physical form. The project remains open, both in the ways it handles lines and in the possibilities of painting with marks, washes and layers. I want to explore what remains of the source image, what changes in translation and what part of the result comes from the relationship between software, machine and materials.