Harold Cohen

Into the early 2000s, digital increasingly assumed a role within the global art landscape, and
Harold Cohen redirected his focus again, this time taking a more analogue path in designing new
painting brushes and pens, shifting autonomy away from the computer in the later years of his
life. Under Waterfront Park, 2014, is a great example of his late collaborations with AARON, as the
algorithm became more focused on abstraction and Cohen resumed his role as theorist, analysing
furthermore how one can be guided by the lines of the machine in order to play with positive and
negative space on canvas. Right up until his passing in 2016, Cohen remained deeply rooted in
the traditions of abstraction and saw machines as an extrinsic force. Throughout his career his
experiments with how line, shape, and colour can be co-authored remained consistent pushing the
visual and technological characteristics of his work.