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

1968

Lee Harrison III Builds Scanimate

Invention · North America

A Scanimate animation system with banks of knobs, patch panels and a color monitor showing an animated title.
A Computer Image Scanimate analog animation system, in an undated archive photograph. Computer Image Corporation, Scanimate. Photograph: Chilton Computing archive; photographer not identified. Image source.

The Scanimate was an analog computer animation system that succeeded Harrison’s earlier ANIMAC. From about 1969 until digital computer animation replaced it in the mid-1980s, the Scanimate would “produce a significant portion of the video-based animation seen on television in commercials, show titles, and other graphics.”

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

Sources

People

Lee Harrison III

Movements

computer animation, computer art, generative art, Motion Graphics, Video Synthesis

Filed under

Ideas
Analog Computer Art, generative art
Technologies
analog computing, ANIMAC, computer animation, computer art, network television, Scanimate
People
Lee Harrison III

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