Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 5: Artist-Programmer Era (1970s)
1978
Thomas DeFanti, Jay Fenton and Nola Donato Develop Zgrass
An extension of Defanti’s GRASS, ZGRASS was used for generating 3D imagery and developed to be used on smaller, personal computers and gaming devices. In an effort to better control images and make electronic visualization easier, Thomas DeFanti developed ZGRASS with Jay Fenton and Nola Donato for the Bally Home Library Computer. It would go on to be used as a programming language for artists and educators in the 1980s. For example, pioneering animation artist Larry Cuba completed his film Calculated Movements on ZGRASS. Victor Acevedo would use it for his experiments in the mid ’80s he told Peter Bauman via a call 11 July 2023. Copper Giloth was the first artist to work with ZGRASS.
Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.
Sources
- DeFanti, Tom, Jay Fenton and Nola Donato. "BASIC Zgrass: A Sophisticated Graphics Language for the Bally Home Library Computer." ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics 12, no. 3 (1978): 33-37. https://doi.org/10.1145/965139.807366
People
Copper Giloth, Jay Fenton, Larry Cuba, Nola Donato, Tom DeFanti, Victor Acevedo
Movements
computer art, Technology and Art, Video Game Art
Filed under
- Ideas
- education, Technology and Art, Video Game Art
- Technologies
- 3D Graphics, Bally Home Library Computer, computer animation, computer art, GRASS (Graphics Symbiosis System), programming, Zgrass
- People
- Copper Giloth, Jay Fenton, Larry Cuba, Nola Donato, Tom DeFanti, Victor Acevedo
- Works
- Calculated Movements
Related moments
- 1980 · Video Art: The Electronic Man at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
- 1985 · Calculated Movements by Larry Cuba
- 1973 · Thomas DeFanti Develops Animation Language GRASS (Graphics Symbiosis System)
Echoes across time
- 2021 · Garden, Monoliths by Zancan
- 2007 · Casey Reas and Ben Fry Publish Processing Textbook
- 1990 · Emerging Forms 3 by Hillary Kapan
Le Random editorials
- Larry Cuba on Choreographing Form, Peter Bauman, July 1, 2024
- Copper Giloth on Video Games to Video Art, Peter Bauman, September 22, 2025
- Jane Veeder on Loving Change, Copper Giloth & Peter Bauman, April 27, 2026
Le Random podcast
- Timeline Ch 6—Personal Computer Era (1980s) with Mark Wilson, Copper Giloth, Dan Sandin, David Em, William Latham, Stephen Todd, Darcy Gerbarg & Geoff Davis — listen with transcript on Le Random (08 Feb 2024, 85 min). Featuring Copper Giloth. Apple Podcasts · Spotify
- Timeline Ch 5—Artist-Programmer Era (1970s) with Joan Truckenbrod, Hans Dehlinger & Anika Meier — listen with transcript on Le Random (14 Jan 2024, 65 min). Chapter 5’s episode. Apple Podcasts · Spotify