Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 6: Personal Computer Era (1980s)
1984
Art and the Computer by Melvin Prueitt

Artist Melvin Prueitt’s well-received publication explained how computers were being used at the time to create art. It also included a variety of computer-generated work. According to Grant Taylor in When the Machine Made Art, the book “reflected a newfound optimism in computer art.” [Taylor, 160] Taylor continues about Prueitt’s work: “The book follows many of the computer graphic publications of the period, which outline the different techniques and their application in science, business, and entertainment. Although Prueitt’s publication was concerned mostly with art, scientists and technologists produced much of the work, and the publication had a tendency to view the imagery through scientific paradigms and metaphors.” [Taylor, 160]
Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.
Sources
- Taylor, WMMA, 160
People
Grant Taylor, Melvin L. Prueitt
Movements
computer art
Filed under
- Ideas
- art and science
- Technologies
- computer art, computer graphics
- People
- Grant Taylor, Melvin L. Prueitt
- Works
- Art and the Computer, When the Machine Made Art
Echoes across time
- 1967 · The Science of Art by Robert E. Mueller
- 1967 · Research Center Art Technology and Society Founded in Amsterdam by Robert Hartzema, Tjebbe van Tijen
- 1968 · First Publication of Leonardo