Military Agencies Create Early Computer-Generated Art

These objects are some of the first creative computer-generated imagery along with A. Michael Noll’s Patterns by 7090 from a year earlier in 1962.

They may, however, be the first objects created with the intention of being fine art by a digital computer. Noll considered his work “patterns” at the time to avoid scrutiny. But as of 2023 in a conversation with me, he declared Patterns by 7090 to certainly be works of art. We will share this conversation with Dr. Noll soon.

Splatter Pattern won first prize and Stained Glass Window second in the Computers and Automation computer art contest of 1963, both plotted on an Electronic Associates DATA PLOTTER.

The United States Army Ballistic Research Laboratories (BRL) was a scientific research institution established in 1938, primarily focused on the development of ballistic technology for the U.S. military.

During and after WWII, it would also be a key contributor to the computing revolution.

In the 1960s, the BRL became involved in the development of computer graphics and, thus, digital art, with its attempts to visualize missile trajectories. The creations were produced just one year after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

One of the BRL’s contributions to the field of computer art was the creation of the “splatter pattern” technique. This technique involved using a computer program to randomly generate patterns of dots and lines, which were then printed out on a large format plotter.

It’s telling that some of the first machines capable of creating digital computer art were used to do so. BRL not only helped to establish computer-generated images as a viable form of artistic expression, it also paved the way for the development of the computer, computer graphics and animation.

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