Computer Composition with Lines by A. Michael Noll

One of the computer art pioneer’s legendary pieces, Computer Composition with Lines won Computer and Automation’s first prize in 1965.

Most famously, Noll used the piece in his Mondrian experiment, seeking to pit a machine’s creative power against a human artist’s. He placed his own Computer Composition with Lines alongside Mondrian’s Composition with Lines and asked his colleagues which they preferred between the two. According to Noll himself:

“The conclusion of these investigations of computer-generated two-dimensional pictures is that the exciting potential of computers in art consists in their capability of producing mixtures of random elements with mathematically specified formulae for order.”

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

Image is copyrighted by A. Michael Noll and courtesy of The Anne and Michael Spalter Digital Art Collection.