Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 2: Modern Era (1850–1949)
1897
Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard (A Throw of the Dice will Never Abolish Chance) by Stéphane Mallarmé
This poem was one of the very first intimate and intense marriages of free verse and typographic freedom. It served as the precursor not only to twentieth-century avant-garde poetics (from Futurists and Constructivists, via Appolinarie and Dada to Surrealists then later to Visual, Concrete…) but also the birthplace of the artist’s book as well as concept albums. -Vuk Ćosić
Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.
Sources
People
Movements
Chance Art, Computer Text, Generative Poetry, Material Generative Art
Filed under
- Ideas
- avant garde, chance, Chance Art, Computer Text, Generative Poetry, Material Generative Art, poetry, typography
- People
- Stéphane Mallarmé, Vuk Ćosić
- Works
- A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance, Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard
Echoes across time
- 2002 · Christian Bök Publishes The Piecemeal Bard is Deconstructed
- 2015 · Oscar Schwartz gives a TEDx Talk on Computational Poetics
- 1961 · Grand tir–séance Galerie J by Niki de Saint Phalle
Le Random editorials
Le Random podcast
- Timeline Ch 7—Net Era (1990s) with Auriea Harvey, Joshua Davis, LIA, Scott Draves & Vuk Ćosić — listen with transcript on Le Random (11 Apr 2024, 77 min). Featuring Vuk Ćosić. Apple Podcasts · Spotify
- Timeline Ch 2—Modern Era with Kate Vass — listen with transcript on Le Random (20 Jul 2023, 58 min). Chapter 2’s episode. Apple Podcasts · Spotify