Re: can inkjet and inkjet paper be used for alternative processes?

[Judy Seigel <jseigel@panix.com>]

On Tue, 30 Dec 2008, Pacific New Media wrote:

> Yes that is what I think - use refillable ink cartridges and put sensitizer 
> into the cartridge. Using inkjet spray the sensitizer so it will form a 
> quality emulsion on the paper, with thickness of the emulsion can be 
> controlled.
>
> May be I can even print the image onto the paper and save the printing frame 
> and contact printing. Just put sensitized inkjet prints under the Sun or UV 
> light and it will show the image. There is no need to generate digital inkjet 
> negatives if this works.
If I understand this discussion correctly (and of course I may not) what's 
being discussed is the possibility of making an "archival inkjet print" 
(now pretty much a standard descriptor on announcements and ads for 
artwork throughout the gallery system and art press)  with our own 
chemical mixes, mixed and filled by ourselves and then exposed to light. 
Because if one simply wanted to make, say, an all blue or all brown 
print, programming a line or two in the printer dialog box would do it.

Of course it would be an interesting exercise, like the Double Crostic in 
the Sunday Times, which took (I haven't seen it lately) a quotation from 
"the literature" as its "solution", though you had to fill in the blanks 
from clues to read it -- a challenging and often rewarding way to get 
through a Sunday without one's office cronies. But if the goal was the 
cited quotation, that could be achieved in, say 50 seconds, rather than 
the half-day (or half week !) the puzzle could require.

PS. I have a ad clipping in hand (I forget from where) showing a wonderful 
print by Kiki Smith ("Sitting with a Snake," 2007), footnoted as "digital 
acid-based injet dyes on silk charmeuse, 69-1/2 x 48 1/2 inches, edition 
of 18, Pace Editions, Inc.")

J.