The densest chapter in this story, the ’60s sees the birth of digital generative art, the work of the first computer artists and a golden age of technology and art. It also tells the story of how cybernetic, conceptual and kinetic art combined in shows like Cybernetic Serendipity, perhaps the most significant event in our story.
From Le Random’s Generative Art Timeline. Original moment texts by Peter Bauman.
Computer images enter the gallery
The Georg Nees exhibition in Stuttgart and Computer-Generated Pictures at Howard Wise Gallery are two precise entry points into 1965. The first presented Nees’s computer graphics; the second brought A. Michael Noll and Béla Julesz’s work to a commercial gallery in New York. The archive distinguishes these exhibitions from earlier demonstrations, making it possible to follow public presentation without compressing every beginning into one event.
Cover and title page of rot 19: computer-grafik, the booklet accompanying Georg Nees’s Stuttgart exhibition, 1965. Georg Nees and Max Bense; rot series edited by Max Bense and Elisabeth Walther. Reproduction in Frieder Nake, Information Aesthetics: An heroic experiment (2012), figure 1, p. 70. Image source.
Opening 4 February and running from the 5th to the 19th, Computergrafik was the first of the three 1965 computer art exhibitions globally. Invited by Max Bense to show the graphical work Georg Nees had been working on, Computergrafik was held in the Studiengalerie of the Technische Hochschule Stuttgart. Nees was the only artist on display. The February exhibit was the first gallery exhibition…
On display in April 1965, the legendary Computer-Generated Pictures introduced computer art to the broader public, especially in the United States. The second of the three computer art exhibitions of 1965, Computer-Generated Pictures was the first in North America and the first held in a commercial gallery. The show was held by artist-researchers A. Michael Noll and Béla Julesz spanning several years of their…
Nake won the first prize of the 1966 Computers and Automation contest with an untitled drawing of small squares, recorded by Compart as Zufällige Zeichenverteilung (1965). Nake then wrote about his other significant 1966 work, Walk-Through-Raster (plotter drawings). Underscoring the importance of mathematics in his work, Nake wrote about Walk-Through-Raster: “The secrets behind algorithmic art can really be fathomed only when we allow for…
Sol LeWitt’s 1967 writing on conceptual art gives the prior idea or instruction a central role. Hans Haacke’s Condensation Cube instead exposes a physical process: environmental conditions change the water patterns inside the work. Read together, these entries explain why this digital-era chapter also includes practices without computers. Their shared relevance is the organization of a process, even when their materials and artistic concerns differ.
Wikipedia. 2023. "Sol LeWitt." Wikimedia Foundation. Last modified September 6, 2023. en.wikipedia.org.
In his essay “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,” LeWitt fixed the term in art-world usage, famously writing that “the idea becomes a machine that makes the art.” LeWitt continued: “I will refer to the kind of art in which I am involved as conceptual art. In conceptual art the idea of concept is the most important aspect of the work.”
Condensation Cube (1963–65) is a sealed transparent acrylic cube containing a small quantity of water. The temperature differential between the inside of the cube and the room causes water vapour to condense and run down the inside walls in continually changing patterns. The rate of condensation and evaporation is affected by the temperature and humidity of the environment, resulting in an ever-changing and unpredictable…
Tokyo’s Computer Technique Group framed the artist as a maker of systems and brought art and engineering students together. In Zagreb, Tendencies 4 connected computer graphics with a longer program of visual research. These entries broaden the route beyond a small set of laboratories and show how exhibitions and collectives helped different practices meet.
Spalter Digital. 2023. Return To Square (No. 1 in the Metamorphoses Series). spalterdigital.com
Computer Technique Group, a Tokyo-based student collective, was founded in 1966. They would pioneer the concept of the artist-as-system-creator and are one of the most important groups in generative art history (digital or material). This collective of art and engineering students, founded by Masao Kohmura and Haruki Tsuchiya, emphasized the role of the artistic expression in the group. The CTG manifesto explains how the…
The two-panel poster for Tendencije 4 / Tendencies 4, its field of black-and-white dots printed in the manner of a computer output, with the Croatian and English programme text at the foot of each panel. Poster for Tendencije 4 / Tendencies 4, Zagreb. Image: compArt database of digital art (dada), University of Bremen.
Tendencies 4: Computers and Visual Research was a groundbreaking exhibition held at the Gallery of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, today the Museum of Contemporary Art, showcasing the convergence of art and digital technology. It featured the latest computer graphics and computer-programmed work of the time, featuring prominent artists such as Frieder Nake, Georg Nees and A. Michael Noll. The previous three Tencencies exhibitions earlier in…
Cybernetic Serendipity, Jasia Reichardt’s landmark international exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, ran from 2 August to 20 October 1968 and was computer art’s first international exhibition. But it was also so much more than that. With cybernetic theory (Cybernetics Is Born) as an overarching theme, the exhibition probed the relationship between creativity and technology. It “aroused world-wide interest for computer art…
This guide connects selected entries from Le Random’s archive of 1,147 moments. Dates follow the individual records. The excerpts, source references and image credits come from those records; follow a moment to read its full account and related interviews.
The archive includes historical precursors and surrounding developments as well as generative artworks. Inclusion does not mean that every object or event was described as “generative art” in its own time.
