Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 5: Artist-Programmer Era (1970s)

1971

Franke: The Program Is the Art

Event

Black plotter lines form an interlocking, branching dragon-curve pattern on white paper.
Herbert W. Franke, DRAKULA series, 1971, programmed by Josef Vordermaier; reproduced as the frontispiece of the 1985 second edition of Computer Graphics—Computer Art. Artwork: Herbert W. Franke; programming: Josef Vordermaier; Siemens System 4004 and CalComp drum plotter, 1971. Reproduction: Springer-Verlag, 1985. Image source.

Grant Taylor in When the Machine Made Art explains the importance of programming in computer art. Taylor describes how Herbert W. Franke believed that, “it was not the ‘individual productions but the programs that are the real results of creative activity.’”

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

Sources

People

Grant Taylor, Herbert W. Franke

Movements

computer art

Filed under

Ideas
authorship
Technologies
computer art, programming
People
Grant Taylor, Herbert W. Franke
Works
When the Machine Made Art

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