The Hole is proud to announce our third solo exhibition by new media artist KATSU, a one-name moniker that comes from graffiti practices describing this Japanese-American artist. Since his first show in 2015 where he debuted paintings made by flying a prototyped drone, the artist has researched and developed more sophisticated ways of painting in this manner: two years ago he debuted programs that allowed the drone to write text, last year in collaboration with Tsuru robotics in Moscow developed fully autonomous painting drone systems. In this series the artist seeks a machine-based abstract painting whose composition and style is dictated by his drone process.

This exhibition is a total installation, hanging seven blank white canvasses and then destroying the room with drone spray. Using new tech he developed in Russia with programmers and engineers, KATSU can fly the drone to spray a programmedly random pattern of dots. The installation was completely laid out by drone including the composition of each painting. Extracted from their enameled environment, as is the work on the rear wall, the paintings can be considered like a traditional work of abstraction, perhaps part of the lineage of Warhol’s mediated and mechanized practice. But even when literally removed from their process-driven context, there are visual clues in the finished painting that suggest the works were not made by hand—or human.

KATSU (b. 1982) developed his art and technology practice as a research fellow with Free Art and Technology Lab, a collective of creative technologists and hacker artists (2007-2015). He has exhibited work at Fondation Cartier, Eyebeam, Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Coney Art Walls, “Beyond the Streets” curated by Roger Gastman, and numerous other exhibitions. His work has been written about in publications from Wired to the New York Times.

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