Aquatint Explosions

Abstract
Devastating explosions in 19th century print shops were replicated. Printing plates were exposed to these explosions and prints were made from them. None of these prints captured the physical or psychological violence of an explosion. Further analysis may be pursued with musical composition and mapping.

Introduction
Francisco Goya pioneered a revolutionary printmaking technique that he used to quickly produce half-tones and create his monumental The Disasters of War.¹ This technique is called aquatint. To create an aquatint Goya used a box filled with resin that could be spun like a hamster wheel and then stopped and held in place. After spinning this box, the dust-like nature of the resin meant that it would slowly drift down to the bottom of the box. The bottom of the box was accessible via a door. The entire printing plate would be put through this door and placed on a grating inside the ”aquatint box”. After a light dusting of resin fell on the plate, it could be removed. The plate was then carefully heated over a burner so that the resin would adhere evenly to the plate. Once the plate cooled it could be placed in acid. Acid would eat away at the parts of the plate not covered by melted resin. The resin would protect small islands of metal surrounded by the areas of unprotected metal that were eaten away by acid. When ink was applied to this plate, it would remain in these recesses and could be wiped off of the islands. This contrast between white islands and black recesses produced an even gray-looking "halftone" on the paper when printed.

While quick and easy this technique did not come without dangers. The spinning of the aquatint box could create sparks that would ignite the volatile resin dust. This would result in a devastating explosion. This principle was demonstrated in research conducted by the PBS Nova program, “Kaboom!” This program shows how flour sprinkled down a tube can be ignited if a lit candle is placed under this tube. The work discussed in this article is based on the assumption that if a benign substance such as flour can be ignited with such a device, an explosion would be forthcoming using a more volatile dust.

Combining Nova and Kauppila’s scientific research with an obsolete printmaking technology, an experimental methodology was developed to attempt to create a new mode of representation. Hopefully such a form of representation could effectively critique the dominant techno-scientific paradigm and some of its shortcomings. Goya’s series of prints, “The Disasters of War”, is considered by some to be the most powerful statement on war ever created. To quickly create these images Goya employed the aforementioned aquatint technique. Shortly after Goya's time an even faster means of pictorial representation was developed: photography. Goya was trying to capture the violence of war through a representational process that was itself potentially violent. In the decades after Goya technologies were invented with a mind to avoiding as much as possible the violence and physical stresses of the representational process itself. Over time explosive-proof aquatint boxes were designed. Instead of sitting for days for a painting you needed to sit only a few minutes for a photograph. The physical awkwardness and the danger is nearly gone. Jumping to the present day, to develop digital photos one needs not come in contact with the noxious substances that chemical photography necessitates. For those wealthy enough to possess this technology, the dangers of the representational process has gradually been eliminated, this violence being dispaced instead to the factories in which cameras and computers are made. This displacement has facilitated unfettered visual representation for those wealthy enough to participate in these new technologies.

The conceit of pictorial and photographic representation is that of the ability for visual similitude to communicate reality. Technology has eased and made painless the process of creating this visual similitude. Yet it remains unclear if an easy and painless representational technology can truly communicate violence. While photos of office workers jumping out the windows of the World Trade Center, Holocaust survivors walking away from concentration camps, and the tender bathing of a deformed victim of nuclear radiation do document horrors, they do little more than repose the laments Goya wrote out on the bottom of prints in his Disasters of War: “This too I saw”, etc...

Following the Manhattan Project, another group of representational researchers attempted to understand not how to rip apart molecules, but how to understand a world that had been, and could be again, ripped apart in such a manner. These Abstract Expressionists created their own representational technologies to carry out their work. Computer analysis of the work of Jackson Pollock has proven the incredible sophistication of his technique, a sophistication that appears to have consistently created similar fractal patterns, a similitude undetectable to the naked eye. Yet these representational technologies were created with the intention to create something that could represent the violence and non-logic ushered in by the atomic age. What about the logic that ushered in the atomic age itself?

Scrupulous, often scientific, methodologies and the way in which these systems can be used to commit large-scale acts of violence often go un-represented or misrepresented. By starting where Goya’s laments and his technology left off and using the scientific method that led to the creation of the atomic bomb, it may be possible to more accurately understand how knowledge becomes power, and how the abuse of this power can go unaccounted for.

Materials and Methods
What was used:
• 10 cm diameter tubes of varying length (cardboard works, but coffee cans are ideal)
• Candles
• Tape (to connect the tube lengths together)
• 1 Lighter
• Knife (to clean off candle when it is covered with hardened resin dust)
• Resin and printer toner (in place of flour)
• Flame-resistant gloves
• Eye Protection
• Pliers
• 6 copper plates, 20cm x 20 cm
• 6 copper plates, 10cm x 20cm
• Ink (All Charbonnel): Black RSR ink, Geranium Red, Permanent Yellow, Ocean Blue

The apparatus used to create aquatint explosions consisted of various lengths of tube set over a lit candle. The tube was placed so as to maintain a small gap between the bottom of the tube and the ground. A handful of resin was then placed onto a small plate. One hand held the small plate while the other held the clean printing plate. It was necessary to use a pair of pliers to hold the larger plates. One hand was then used to sprinkle the resin down the tube, while simultaneously the other plate was held over the tube so as to be exposed to the ensuing explosion.

Six explosions were first created using tube lengths of 50, 75, 100, 150, 200, and 250 cm in which one 10 cm x 20 cm plate was exposed to each of these explosions. Three 20 cm x 20 cm were then exposed to explosions from the 50 cm tube, and three more to explosions from the 250 cm tubes.

After exposure all copper plates were placed in Ferric Chloride for 2 hours. The Ferric Chloride ate away at the copper that remained uncovered by the resin. All twelve plates were then inked with black ink on Summerset paper intaglio style, meaning ink was rubbed into the recessed parts of the plate and the surface of the plate was wiped clean.

The two sets of 20 cm x 20 cm plates, one exposed to the 50 cm tube and the other to the 250 cm tube, were then further printed with color ink. Of each set, one plate was printed with yellow ink, one with red ink, and one with blue ink. These plates were printed onto the same piece of paper, so that the three images would align with one another.

Results
As expected, the resin powder did explode and these ignited particles did project out of the tube and adhere to the copper plates. It was possible to “bite” these plates in Ferric Chloride. It was also possible to ink and print these plates in the intaglio manner. The ability of these prints to communicate the chaotic, unattended results of a scientific methodology was more difficult to determine.

Figure 1: The six prints from the six plates produced by the explosions emitting from the 50, 75, 100, 150, 200, and 250 cm length tubes. Printed with black ink.

The printed sequence of six plates resulting from the six different tube lengths did effectively demonstrate the nature of these explosions. It was possible to see how each explosion gradually changed as progressively longer tube lengths were used. It could be seen that more resin powder was ignited and that this resin powder hit with more and more force the longer the length of the tube. However, comparing the effects of different explosions conceals the random violence resulting from these explosions, effects which are much more obvious when identical explosions on identical plates are compared.

Figure 2: The three prints from the three plates created by the 50 cm explosions, printed with black ink.

The three plates created from the 50 cm explosion when printed separately in black were very similar. Differences probably resulted from the way the plate was held above the tube and the amount of resin which actually ignited.

Figure 3: The three prints from the three plates created by the 250 cm explosions, printed with black ink.

The three plates created from the 250 cm were similar, but the differences were more pronounced. The fallout on the plates also seemed to go to one side, this was probably due to the direction the wind was blowing.

Figure 4: The print resulting from the three plates exposed to the 50 cm tube explosions combined. Printed in yellow, red, and blue.

The random nature of identically executed explosions is more pronounced when these prints are superimposed with different colors. It can be observed that while the explosions produce similar effects, they do not produce identical effects.

The print resulting from the three plates created by the 50 cm explosion printed in color produces an almost stereoscopic effect because of the explosions don't quite line up. Again, while the effects of these explosions are similar, they are not identical.

Figure 5: The print resulting from the three plates exposed to the 250 cm explosions combined. Printed in yellow, red, and blue.

The print resulting from the plates created by the 250 cm explosion shows how different the effects of these explosions were. Indeed, it was necessary to offset these plates so that these explosions could be compared at all. These differences, and the necessity of offsetting the plates, is perhaps due to either the wind or the difficulty of reaching up and holding a plate over such a long length of tube in a consistent manner.

Discussion
It is not conclusive that combining an obsolete printing technology with a scientific methodology can create a more perfect means of representation. And why should it? Photographic technology is explicitly directed towards the way in which the human eye perceives light. These prints are directed towards the effect of an explosion on a plate. Whereas a photograph is seeking to mimic the way in which light is reflected into the eye in a particular situation, no parallel process is occurring with these prints. There is only the event of the explosion and the evidence of the explosion left on the plate. A parallel process would mean exposing oneself to the explosion. There is very little correlation between the effect that explosion would have on a person's body and the effect that it has on these plates. While photographic film directly exposed to an explosion would be destroyed, the copper plates retain abstract evidence of violence. This abstract evidence may do more to explain the reality and persistence of violence than a photograph.

Notes:

1. The Disasters of War series can be seen in its entirety at http://www.galleryone.ca/Goya/Goya.htm; the shaded background in images 4 and 7, just to pick two, are clear examples of Goya's use of aquatint.

Jesse Kauppila has worked in print shops in the Denmark, Italy, and the U.S, where he has worked in many media, particularly intaglio and letterpress printing.