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

1968

Schotter by Georg Nees

Artwork

Georg Nees's Schotter, the plotter drawing in which a grid of squares slips row by row out of alignment, from order at the top into scattered disorder at the bottom.
Georg Nees's Schotter, the plotter drawing in which a grid of squares slips row by row out of alignment, from order at the top into scattered disorder at the bottom. Georg Nees, Schotter. (c) Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

This iconic early computer-generated drawing features squares on a grid that become increasingly disordered from top to bottom, exploring what would become a central theme in computer generative art, the relationship between order and disorder.

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

Sources

People

Georg Nees

Movements

computer art, generative art

Filed under

Ideas
early computer art, generative art, geometry, grid, order and disorder, randomness
Technologies
computer art, computer-generated drawings, Plotter Art
People
Georg Nees
Works
Schotter

Echoes across time

Le Random editorials

Explore all Le Random editorials and artist interviews

Le Random podcast