Hummingbird by Charles Csuri

One of the earliest computer animations, Csuri moved away from the geometric abstraction of his European computer art peers, introducing figuration to computer art.

Csuri generated more than 14,000 frames in which the bird is exploded, scattered and put back together, outputting them to 16mm film.

Csuri’s figurative work highlights the breadth of computer art’s capabilities, showing the world a computer could produce more than the abstract visualization of mathematical formulae. This piece is in the MoMA permanent collection and is one of the earliest computer-generated works to enter its collection.

Image is copyrighted by Charles Csuri and courtesy of The Anne and Michael Spalter Digital Art Collection.