Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 4: Digital Era (1960s)

1963

compArt ER 56 series and Random Polygon Move Signal Frieder Nake’s Entrance into Computer Art

Artwork

Frieder Nake’s plotter drawing 6/7/64 Nr. 20 (Random Polygon), made with his compArt ER56 program on a Standard Elektrik Lorenz ER56 computer driving a Zuse Graphomat Z64 plotter.
Frieder Nake’s plotter drawing 6/7/64 Nr. 20 (Random Polygon), made with his compArt ER56 program on a Standard Elektrik Lorenz ER56 computer driving a Zuse Graphomat Z64 plotter. Frieder Nake, 6/7/64 Nr. 20 „Zufälliger Polygonzug“, 1964. Kunsthalle Bremen. Image: compArt database Digital Art (dada), University of Bremen.

1963 marks the year that Nake, the computer art pioneer, began making computer art.

His compArt ER56 series refers to the program created to produce his work from 1963 to 1965.

Random Polygon Move, the earliest catalogued example dating from July 1964, is an early plotter drawing similar in style to Noll’s Gaussian Quadratic with lines connecting points determined by a random number generator.

Listen to Peter Bauman’s interview with A. Michael Noll (transcript).

Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.

Sources

People

A. Michael Noll, Frieder Nake

Movements

computer art, generative art

Filed under

Ideas
generative art, randomness
Technologies
computer art, plotter, Plotter Art, random number generator
People
A. Michael Noll, Frieder Nake
Works
compArt ER56 series, Gaussian Quadratic, Random Polygon Move
Organisations
Entrance

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