When:   July 13 - August 24, 1996
        Gallery hours
        July:      Tuesday - Saturday 11am - 5pm, and by appointment.
        August:    By Appointment: (609) 921-1142/wmgallery@aol.com
        September: Regular hours resume September 10
        Contact: Mary Lou Bock

The Squared Quarter, Andor Orand.

Beginning on July 13 at The Williams Gallery of Princeton, a selection of works by Andor Orand will be on display. Included are digital silk screen portraits from a series titled "The Scientists" of world famous members of the Institute for Advanced Study (Einstein, Oppenheimer and others) , layered with historical documents from their archives. Also exhibited is Orand's "Squared Quarter", a computer generated transformation from circle to square of the US 25 cent piece, along with a presentation of documents about it's design and productions process. The Squared Quarter was minted in a small limited edition in 1984 and immediately attracted nationwide attention. The dies now reside in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

About the Artist:

Andor Orand Carius, U. S. citizen and resident of Princeton, NJ , completed his education in philosophy and social sciences at Heidelberg University. 30 years ago he adopted the name Andor Orand as his artist's name, thereby signifying that from then on his main artistic concern would be exploring and mapping the digital world. He calls this name-game the 'Automythography of Analoging Digital'.

Although his first name is indeed Andor, his last name, Orand, was taken as a symbol of the mathematical logic functions "and" and "or", which organize the the ones and zeros that make up computer bits - the core elements of digital technology. His name symbolizes his philosophy to retain human qualities in his digital art. (excerpted from "Fine Artists Discover the Benefits Of Digital Technology", Micro Publishing News, February 1996)

For over 30 years Andor has been a multi media artist, artist/philosopher, writer, musician, composer and event maker, and has traveled widely presenting performances, creativity workshops, and multi media events. He has had many installations and events at New York's Avant Garde Festival, and has worked with scientific research laboratories in visualization and sonification of diagnostic data. He is currently president of a consulting firm (Meta Media) for systems design and integration.

About the work

PORTRAITS: In work on display at The Williams Gallery, all of the depicted scientists were members of the Institute for Advanced Study. The library of the Institute gave access to the available documents, some of which are used as different layers of the 'print collages'. The edition consists of only three pieces per print.

In creating these as well as other historical portraits, Andor conducts research on the person's life and work. From archives and public records, he collects copies of relevant documents and period paraphenalia, often disregarded and forgotten, that can bring out new and interesting aspects. The images are captured through photography, printing, video, copiers, scanners, computer - each medium of reproduction using picture elements of different shapes. Each image is composed of many "dots" in different shapes, tiny squares, rectangles, etc. He takes images back and forth between various tools and scans the documents into the computer with a video and/or flatbed scanner. He continues working with the different media and patterns until the resulting image communicates something essential and interesting about the person or situation to be depicted.

THE SQUARED QUARTER: In 1982 , long before morphing programs were available, Andor employed the computer in the money making game to design the "Squared Quarter", a computer generated circle to square projection of the US 25 cent piece. The Squared Quarter with its fascinating imagery attracted nationwide attention. The press referred to it as pop art piece, coin art multiple, satirical coin-token, sci-fi coin, coined cartoon, funny money, etc.

It was issued and marketed in two versions, a 1/4 oz. pure silver piece in an edition of 1300 and a 1/2 oz. piece in an edition of 600. In 1985 sale of the piece ceased, and the dies were disabled and donated to the Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution.

In the current exhibit both at the gallery and on the world wide web, the Williams Gallery has rediscovered and presented an item from the early history of digital art, the Squared Quarter. This event is in keeping with the gallery's strong interest in and support of digital art, and with the awareness that over the last three decades Andor Orand has gained the distinction of being among the world's first computer artists.

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