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Computer & computer art history

A set of links related to computer & code history (english and french links)

Sketchpad
Ivan Sutherland — Sketchpad

Computer graphics & generative art history

  • Thomas Dreher — History of computer art
    The early use of mainframe computers to generate texts provides us with one prehistory of computer graphics.
  • Christoph Klütsch — The Concepts of Information and Aesthetic in Early Computer Art (1964-71)
    Pictorial information as part of a communication channel can be broken down to repertoires - a level of information theory - and be transformed by generative aesthetic to create macro aesthetic states.
  • Sher Minn Chong — History of computer art -- part 1 : computer graphics
    I’m writing a series of blog posts on computer art history from the 1960s onwards. This is the first part and we’ll talk about the early beginnings of computer graphics. This is part of my work during a week-long programming retreat at the Recurse Center.
  • Prehystories of new media
    "Prehystories of New Media" class at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), Fall 2008 + 2009, instructor: Nina Wenhart
  • Gérard Verroust — Histoire, épistémologie de l'informatique et Révolution technologique
    • La formalisation du calcul d'Al Khorizmi à TURING
    • Les instruments de calcul analogiques et numériques
    • L'histoire des automates et de l'horlogerie
    • La révolution industrielle et ses limites : Charles BABBAGE
    • L'évolution technologique jusqu'à la synthèse de Von NEUMANN (1947).
    • Rappels fondamentaux sur le fonctionnement d'une machine de Von NEUMANN ou ordinateur
    • Les "générations" d'ordinateurs : grandes étapes des techniques électroniques
    • La conquète de la mémoire
    • Les grandes classes de langages de programmation
    • Le dialogue homme-machine de la carte perforée à la réalité virtuelle.
    • Cybernétique et Systémique, automates neuronaux & connexionnistes
    • Le calcul en temps réel, la conduite de processus industriel, la robotique.
    • Révolution informationnelle, travail, production
    • Révolution informationnelle & éducation, vie sociale, familiale, culturelle.
  • Computer Drawing
    Ce carnet de recherche interroge sur le plan des arts les fondements du graphisme l’écriture du signe plastique et le design de données dans l’environnement numérique et dans une perspective d’analyse critique historique des formes de transcodage des données, sans se limiter au réseau internet et à l’écran.
  • Les pionniers du Computer Art
    Les origines du Computer Art remontent aux années cinquante et soixante. Pendant cette période se sont déroulées les premières expérimentations graphiques d'« oscillographie géométrique » réalisées avec des écrans de radar, des oscilloscopes cathodiques et divers instruments électroniques. L’esthétique de « oscillographie géométrique » est marquée par les formes abstraites, les grilles géométriques, les « courbes de Lissajous » (superposition de courbes sinusoïdales) ainsi que des mouvements relativement simples.
  • Marie Lechner, Inke Arns, Sarah Garcin — Computer Grrrls
    Les femmes ont historiquement travaillé avec des machines, qu’elles soient dactylos, télégraphistes, opératrices de téléphonie, mécanographes, programmeuses. Elles ont souvent constitué une avant-garde temporaire dans le développement de technologies novatrices, avant d’être remplacées par les machines qui ont pris leur nom. Le terme “computer”, bien avant qu’il ne désigne l’ordinateur, qualifiait la personne, souvent une femme, qui faisait les calculs à la main.
  • Jean-Noël Lafargue — Histoire de l'informatique
    Diaporama
  • George Dyson — The birth of computer
    Historian George Dyson tells stories from the birth of the modern computer -- from its 17th-century origins to the hilarious notebooks of some early computer engineers.
  • Casey Reas — 50 Years of Software Artists: Plotter Drawings to Non-fungible Tokens — Fall 2021
    Hybrid studio-style examination of the history of artists working with software from the 1960s to the present. Exploration of artists who have written their own code to explore media including plotter drawings, film, CD-ROMs, websites, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Discussion of readings, exploration of artworks, and discussion of student-made experiments. Students will read, watch, and create a series of code experiments.
  • Amy Goodchild — Early computer art in the 50’s & 60’s
    Computing and creativity have always been linked. In the early 1800’s when Charles Babbage designed the Analytical Engine, his friend Ada Lovelace wrote in a letter that, if music could be expressed to the engine, then it “might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.”
  • Le Random — Pre-Modern Era
    Spanning tens of thousands of years, we begin by surveying the advancements in art, mathematics, science and computing history that led to the modern era of generative art.

Computers

  • When was the first computer invented
    There is no easy answer to this question due to the many different classifications of computers. The first mechanical computer, created by Charles Babbage in 1822, doesn't resemble what most would consider a computer today.
  • Punch card
    Punch cards (or "punched cards"), also known as Hollerith cards or IBM cards, are paper cards where holes may be punched by hand or machine to represent computer data and instructions.

Computer pionneers

Ada Lovelace

  • France Culture / Ada Lovelace, la grande ordinatrice
    Quelle a été la vie de la comtesse anglaise Ada Lovelace ? Quels ont été ses recherches et travaux qui ont fait d’elle la première personne de l’Histoire à avoir créé un programme informatique ? A quelle machine s’intéressait-elle, à quels problèmes mathématiques ?
  • Stephen Wolfram — Untangling the tale of Ada Lovelace
    To some she is a great hero in the history of computing; to others an overestimated minor figure. I’ve been curious for a long time what the real story is. And in preparation for her bicentennial, I decided to try to solve what for me has always been the “mystery of Ada”.
  • Two-Bit History — What Did Ada Lovelace's Program Actually Do?
    In fairness, Lovelace’s program is not easy to explain to the layperson without some hand-waving. It’s the intricacies of her program, though, that make it so remarkable. Whether or not she ought to be known as “the first programmer,” her program was specified with a degree of rigor that far surpassed anything that came before.

Alan Turing

Turing machine
  • Interstice.info — Comment marche une machine de turing ?
    Essayons de faire quelque chose de paradoxal : montrer concrètement comment marche une machine abstraite ! Car c’est bien une machine abstraite qu’Alan Turing a inventée pour expliquer la notion de « procédure mécanique » : on parle d’algorithme. Cette machine est la plus élémentaire possible destinée à mettre en œuvre ces mécanismes de calcul, numériques ou symboliques, comme le font notamment les ordinateurs.

Generative art pionneers

  • 📽 New Tendencies
    During the period 1961-1973, five international exhibitions were organized under the title New Tendencies in Zagreb, Croatia/Yugoslavia. They continued the development of ideas raised by Exat 51 during the 1950s, and formed part of the broader European post-informel art movement in the 1960s and 70s.
  • A longer history of generative art
    One of the world’s leading scholars of computer art, Nick Lambert, traces a history of generative aesthetics up to NFTs
  • When the artists met the algorist
    After a pioneer of generative art reached out to RCS, the community jumped at the chance to talk to Roman Verostko
  • 📽 Generative Art Exploration Chapter I Tracing the Roots: The History of Generative Art
    Embark on a captivating journey through the history and evolution of Generative Art. In the first chapter, delve into its rich history, exploring pioneers and the transformative power of algorithmic creativity. Discover the underlying principles and concepts that drive Generative Art, witnessing the remarkable synergy between human ingenuity and digital innovation. Learn from experts in the field, gaining insight into the profound impact of algorithmic creativity on the artistic landscape.

Colette & Charles Bangert

Herbert W. Franke

  • AB 101: Historical Figures in Generative Art — Herbert W. Franke
    erbert W. Franke is many things — among them, an early computer art pioneer. His resume includes accomplished academic, teacher, fiction writer, cave researcher, computer artist, collector, and theoretician.
  • Math goes art / A solo show | Kate Vass gallery
    The emergence of art is associated with man's desire to learn about the world around him. Art became a powerful tool in the struggle for existence. It helped to create a model of the world, to study it and identify relationships. As human developed, he took art to a new level, which promoted a man to a new development stage.

Desmond Paul Henry

Gallery on Flickr
Desmond Paul Henry (1921-2004) ranks among one of the few early British pioneers of Computer Art/Graphics of the 1960's. During this period he constructed a total of three mechanical drawing machines (in 1960, '63 and '67) based around the components of analogue bombsight computers.

Manfred Mohr

  • Art & Algorithms : the work of Manfred Mohr
    Mohr had been an abstract painter and a musician before he turned to computers. He played the tenor saxophone and oboe in jazz clubs across Europe and was a member of the band Rocky Volcano.
  • In the studio with Manfred Mohr
    AAA (American Abstract Artists) member and digital-art pioneer Manfred Mohr shares his studio practice, processes and stories in a short film by Christian Nguyen.

Manfred_Mohr

Vera Molnar

Michael Noll

Lillian Schwartz

  • Video / Lillian Schwartz
    Here's OCR's interview with computer art pioneer Lillian Schwartz, filmed at her home in Manhattan in April, 2014. Video produced by the Office for Creative Research for the 2014 Eyeo Festival.

Wacław Szpakowski

  • Rhythmical Lines
    Working in isolation, Wacław Szpakowski made mazelike drawings from single, continuous lines.

Joan Truckerbrod

Exhibitions

Archives & Museums

  • Compart
    The compArt database Digital Art (daDA) is a growing repository on digital art. It currently focusses on five top categories: people (in their roles as artists, authors, gallerists, etc.), works, events, publications, and institutions.
  • Digital Art Museum
    Digital Art Museum is an online resource for the history and practice of digital fine art. It informs on historical and on contemporary positions choosen by an advisory panel. It exhibits the work of leading Artists in this field since 1956.
  • The Anne and Michael Spalter Digital Art Collection (Spalter Digital),
    The Anne and Michael Spalter Digital Art Collection (Spalter Digital), is one of the world’s largest private collections of early computer art, comprising over 750 works from the second half of the twentieth century. Spalter Digital, which focuses on plotter drawings but includes other 2D media as well as sculpture and 16mm film, is home to major and iconic examples from key artists in the field.
  • The Recode Project
    The ReCode Project is a community-driven effort to preserve computer art by translating it into a modern programming language (Processing). Every translated work will be available to the public to learn from, share, and build on.

Generative art

Truchet tiling

Languages + tools

  • Strange Loop 2019 - Recreating forgotten programming languages, for art!
    The early beginnings of computer graphics in the 1960s saw the birth of a number programming languages that were created specifically for making animations and graphics.
  • Video / The mother of all demos
    The Mother of All Demos is a name given retrospectively to Douglas Engelbart's December 9, 1968, demonstration of experimental computer technologies that are now commonplace. The live demonstration featured the introduction of the computer mouse, video conferencing, teleconferencing, hypertext, word processing, hypermedia, object addressing and dynamic file linking, bootstrapping, and a collaborative real-time editor.
  • Video / The incredible machine
    Interesting old film detailing advancements in computer/digital technology, featuring the 'Graphic 1' computer system at Bell Telephone Laboratories.
  • Video / Sketchpad
    Demonstration of Ivan Sutherland's classic Sketchpad system. Sketchpad, and its associated thesis, is one of the most influential theses in computer science, and it laid the foundation for a very large part of what we take for granted today (and then some) from the perspective of how we interact with computers
  • PAST AND FUTURE TURTLES: THE EVOLUTION OF THE LOGO PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE
    That afternoon in 1981, I had learned some of a programming language called Logo. The father of Logo was a mathematician and philosopher named Seymour Papert. Interested in learning how to improve mathematics education in young children, in the early 1960s, he had studied under Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist who championed a philosophy of learning known as constructivism.

Books

  • Casey Reas / list of books
    I spent a ton of time this year writing about "Code Art" from the olden times to the present. I'm going to share some of the bibliography for the olden stuff over the next few days... for fun :)
  • Raphaël de Courville / list of generative art books
    I believe that successful #generativeArt collectors will be the ones who understand the history of computer art 🤓 Here are some good reads / coffee table conversation starters to get you started.

Magazines

  • Computer Graphics & Art
    Computer Graphics & Art was an excellent quarterly publication highly focused in computer graphics and computer artists who were using and experimenting with this media back in the 70’s. It was produced in Chico, CA and published by Berkeley Enterprises Inc.

  • The Art Of Computer Designing: A Black and White Approach / Osamu Sato
    The computer is a magic box. Many graphic images are hidden inside it. This book is a beginner's introduction to calling forth these images as author Sato shows how to create figures with basic shapes - i.e., lines, arcs, squares and circles - and does so simply, clearly, and above all very logically.

Generalist articles