Tatlin and Rodchenko Found Constructivism

Named by 1921 and led by Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko, Constructivism is arguably the most influential movement of the first half of the 20th c. on digital and generative art.

Influenced by Picasso’s Cubist constructions and the techo-inspired Manifesto of Futurism, Tatlin and Rodchenko believed art should directly reflect the modern industrial world.

Besides its importance in the development of kinetic and electronic art, Constructivism was highly influential on early, particularly European, computer art and Herbert W. Franke. Franke recognized that Constructivism’s visual language of lines and basic geometric forms lent itself naturally to code-based and computational art. Franke wrote that “the aim of many supporters of constructivist tendencies - a rejection of the personal element; a crystal-clear, objective presentation; the maximum precision - can be realized by the computer in a hitherto unparalleled degree.”

Beyond Franke, computer pioneer researchgate.net:

“I (that is, Ernest Edmonds) had been committed to painting since my early-teenage years, strongly influenced by the constructivists. I started to use a computer in my artwork in 1968, when I wrote a program that searched for an arrangement, a layout, of a given set of picture elements.”

An example of the Constructivist machine aesthetic can be found in Auro Lecci’s computer-generated Slant One.