Computer art

'Computer art' is the generation of aesthetic objects with the aid of software on a digital computer. Its history started in 1965. Three exhibitions took place that year, which are acknowledged as first public presentations of digital art: Georg Nees at the Studiengalerie of the University of Stuttgart (5-19 February 1965); A. Michael Noll and Bela Julesz at Howard Wise Gallery, New York (6-24 April 1965); Frieder Nake and Georg Nees at Galerie Wendelin Niedlich, Stuttgart (5-26 November 1965)... The picture changes slightly, when we closely look at the time when these researcher-artists started their experiments in algorithmic art: Noll in 1962, Nake in 1963, Nees in 1964. All these dates refer to "digital" art and computers. Ben F. Laposky had started to work with analogue equipment in 1952. Herbert W. Franke followed in Austria in 1959, and Kurd Alsleben in Hamburg around 1960."
– Frieder Nake

Artists, Events

• Kurd Alsleben
• Radu Bagdasar
• Horst Bartnig
• Juraj Bartusz
• Otto Beckmann
• Max Bense
• Vladimir Bonačić
• Martijn van Boven
• Ileana Bratu
• Zdeňka Čechová
• Savel Cheptea
• Harold Cohen
• Compos 68
• Computer and Art
• Computer Art in ČSSR and in the World
• Computer grafik
• Computer Graphic
• Computer Graphics Art (Prague, 1982)
• Computer Graphics in Fine Arts
• Computerkunst - On the Eve of Tomorrow
• Computers and Automation
• Waldemar Cordeiro
• Charles Csuri
• Cybernetic Serendipity
• Digital Pioneers
• Stanisław Dróżdż
• Sherban Epuré
• Peter Foldes
• Helmar Frank
• Herbert W. Franke
• Roland K. Fuchshuber
• Aldo Giorgini
• Karl Otto Götz
• John Halas
• Desmond Paul Henry
• Grace C. Hertlein
• Jiří Hůla
• Ideas Before Their Time
• Mihai Jalobeanu
• Jozef Jankovič
• Jankovič - Graphics
• Béla Julesz
• Hiroshi Kawano
• Miroslav Klivar
• Ken Knowlton
• Zenon Kulpa
• Ben F. Laposky
• Radomír Leszczynski
• Dominic Lopes
• Solomon Marcus
• Viktor Ernest Maşek
• Florin Maxa
• Leslie Mezei
• Petar Milojević
• Manfred Mohr
• Abraham Moles
• Vera Molnár
• Ivan Moscovich
• Motif Edition
• Mihai Nadin
• Frieder Nake
• Georg Nees
• New Tendencies
• A. Michael Noll
• Jan Pamuła
• Cord Passow
• Alexandru Patatics
• Sergej Pavlin
• Rosen Petkov
• SCAS
• Kubo Pišek
• Programmierter Zufall - Computergrafik
• Vladan Radovanović
• Zoran Radović
• Lillian F. Schwartz
• Martin Šperka
• Alan Sutcliffe
• Zdeněk Sýkora
• Yasunao Tone
• Jiří Valoch
• Roman Verostko
• Visions of the Present
• Tamás Waliczky
• Peter Weibel
• Ryszard Winiarski
• XCoAx
• Gerard Zieliński
• Stanislav Zippe

Resources

• Database of Digital Art, founded by Frieder Nake
• The Recode Project, An active archive of computer art. A community-driven effort to preserve computer art by translating it into a modern programming language (Processing).
• Early beginnings of (digital) computer art, maintained by Christoph Klütsch
• Copper Giloth, Lynn Pocock-Williams, A "Selected Chronology of Computer Art: Exhibitions, Publications, and Technology", 1990. [1]
• How Computer-Generated Animations Were Made, Circa 1964 - AT&T Archives
• selected works

Catalogues of group exhibitions

• Computer Graphics, ed. Jiří Valoch, Brno: Dům umění města Brna, 1968, 16 pp. (Czech)
• Cybernetic Serendipidity: The Computer and the Arts, ed. Jasia Reichardt, London: Studio International, Jul 1968; 2nd ed., rev., Sep 1968.
• Tendencije 4: Zagreb, 1968-1969, ed. Božo Bek, Zagreb, 1970, 146 pp. [2]
• Interactive Sound and Visual Systems, ed. Charles A. Csuri, College of the Arts, Ohio State University, 1970, 31 pp.
• Arte y cibernética, Buenos Aires: Centro de Arte y Comunicacion (CAC), 1970. (Spanish)
• Software: Information Technology: Its New Meaning for Art, New York: Jewish Museum, 1970, 71 pp.
• Computer Art, ed. Laxmi P. Sihare, New Delhi: National Gallery of Modern Art, 1972, 57 pp.
• Computer Graphics in Fine Arts / Počítačová grafika vo výtvarnom umení, ed. Martin Šperka, Bratislava: Academy of Fine Arts, 1993, 8 pp. (English)/(Slovak)

Magazines

• rot 19: "Computer-Grafik", eds. Max Bense and Elisabeth Walther, 1968. (German)
• Bit International: teorija informacija i nova estetika, 9 numbers (7 issues), ed. Božo Bek, Zagreb: Galerije Grada Zagreba, 1968-72. (multiple languages)
• PAGE, London: Computer Arts Society, 1969-85 & 2004-11.

Literature

• J. R. Pierce, "Portrait of the Machine as a Young Artist", Playboy 12:6 (1965), pp 124-5 & 150 & 182 & 184.
• Dick Higgins, Computers for the Arts, Somerville, MA: Abyss Publications, 1970, 17 pp.
• Ruth Leavitt (ed.), Artist and Computer, Harmony Books, 1976, 121 pp.
• George Stiny, James Gips, Algorithmic Aesthetics: Computer Models for Criticism and Design in the Arts, University of California Press, 1978, 220 pp.
• Ivo Janoušek, Slovníček pojmů elektronického a multimediálního umění, Prague: Národní technické muzeum, 1994, 18 pp. (Czech)
• Stuart Mealing (ed.), Computers and Art, 1997; 2nd ed., Intellect Books, 2002, 159 pp.
• Nick Lambert, A Critical Examination of “Computer Art”: its History and Application, Oxford University, 2003. DPhil thesis.
• Paul A. Fishwick (ed.), Aesthetic Computing, MIT Press, 2006, 457 pp.
• Christoph Klütsch, Computergrafik: Ästhetische Experimente zwischen zwei Kulturen. Die Anfänge der Computerkunst in den 1960er Jahren, Springer, 2007, 288 pp. (German)
• Dominic Lopes, A Philosophy of Computer Art, Routledge, 2009, 160 pp.
• CAT 2010: Ideas Before Their Time: Connecting the Past and Present in Computer Art, eds. Nick Lambert, Jeremy Gardiner and Francesca Franco, BCS – The Chartered Institute for IT, 2010, 192 pp. Conference proceedings.
• Thomas Dreher, Geschichte der Computerkunst, Munich, 2012. (German)
  • History of Computer Art, Munich, 2014.
• Grant D. Taylor, When the Machine Made Art: The Troubled History of Computer Art, Bloomsbury, 2014. Based on 2004 PhD dissertation.
• Carolyn L. Kane, Chromatic Algorithms: Synthetic Color, Computer Art, and Aesthetics After Code, University of Chicago Press, 2014, 343 pp.

More

• Publications on computer art at Monoskop Log

Bibliography

• Bibliography compiled by Christoph Kluetsch

See also

• Computer art in CEE, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria.
• Further bibliography.