Drawing/Print
Four different drawing projects
Installation view Katrin von Maltzahn: "Alphabet", Brandenburgischer Kunstverein Potsdam

Datenbotanik (2012)
Ballpoint pen on paper, 35 pieces, each 29,7 x 21cm.

I sketched the folder structures of my hard disk. The diagram-drawings show subjective representations of the found file systems and data collections.

Spam (2005-2008)
Acrylic paint on wall, 220 x 1100cm / ink on Japanese paper, 48 x 2000cm.

In March 2005 I disabled all the filters that protect my computer and me from unwanted spam messages (said to make up as much as 50 % of all email traffic). Instead I collected all spam directed at me and saved its subject lines in chronological order. The resulting catalogue of text is transformed into a large-scale wall painting, a 20-meter long ink drawing on Japanese paper. It also filled many pages of the experimental poetry magazine OEI #22 #23 2005.

Plots (2005-2007)
Pencil on paper, each 56 x 76cm.

A plot can be a secret plan, a story line, a piece of ground, a diagram, and a mark on a chart. The act of drawing and writing has something in common – especially when I reduce myself to pencil on paper. These drawings consist of letters and codes. But the letters are hardly recognizable. They serve as material equivalent to paper and pencil. Each drawing has started with a “story” – a “plot” in my head. Mostly I have forgotten my initial stories. In the process of drawing – the sentences and words in my mind are taken over and continued by my expressions on the paper.

Suomen Kieli (2003)
Charcoal on paper, 2 pieces, each 300 x 450cm.

“Suomen Kieli” means “the Finnish language”.
I spent the summer of 1997 in Finland – I hardly learned a word of Finnish. I could speak English with most people except for one: Sarah a nine-year-old girl. During a trip over midsummer we were sitting in the back of a car together for several hours. The result was several sheets of sketches about the basics of the Finnish language. Sarah taught me a survival package of words.