Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 3: Analog Era (1950s)
1953
Jikken Kōbō’s Fifth Presentation Introduces the Autoslide Works

As proto-video art, this exhibition was an important precursor to electronic art. It combined experimentally composed music with surrealistic visuals. As told by Jikken Kōbō co-founder, Yamaguchi Katsuhiro: “Asahigraph editor Izawa Tadasu introduced Kōbō to the Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation (later SONY), which had developed an “autoslide projector,” a slide projector with synchronized sound. The group established a relationship with the company, and the Kōbō members worked together to create an audiovisual piece for this device.”
Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.
Sources
People
Katsuhiro Yamaguchi, Tadasu Izawa
Movements
New Media Art
Filed under
- Ideas
- music, video art
- Technologies
- autoslide projector
- People
- Katsuhiro Yamaguchi, Tadasu Izawa
- Works
- Electronic Art, Visual Music Orchestration
- Organisations
- Asahi Graph, Jikken Kobo, Jikken Kōbō, Sony, Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation
- Places
- Japan, Tokyo
Echoes across time
- 1979 · The First ARS ELECTRONICA Festival Takes Place in Linz, Austria
- 1970 · Journal Radical Software Begins Publication
- 1988 · Nam June Paik Builds Media Tower for Seoul Olympics
Le Random editorials
Le Random podcast
- Timeline Ch 3—Analog Era (1950s) with Georg Bak — listen with transcript on Le Random (10 Aug 2023, 65 min). Chapter 3’s episode. Apple Podcasts · Spotify