Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 4: Digital Era (1960s)
1961
Variations luminodynamiques by Nicolas Schöffer

The founder of Cybernetic Art, Schöffer’s pioneering work of video art was an experimental program broadcast on French Television. The Surrealistic 9 min and 10 second film is in the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou.
Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.
Sources
People
Movements
computer animation, video art
Filed under
- Ideas
- Cybernetic Art, light art, Lumino-Kinetic Art, video art
- Technologies
- computer animation, cybernetics, television
- People
- Nicolas Schöffer
- Works
- Variations luminodynamiques
- Organisations
- Centre Pompidou
- Places
- France
Echoes across time
- 1982 · L’Art et l’ordinateur in Paris
- 1927 · Philo Farnsworth Invents the Image Dissector
- 1922 · Thomas Wilfred Begins His Lumia Public Performances
Le Random editorials
Le Random podcast
- Timeline Ch 4—Digital Era Pt I (1960s) with Dr A Michael Noll — listen with transcript on Le Random (07 Sep 2023, 60 min). Chapter 4’s episode. Apple Podcasts · Spotify
- Timeline Ch 4—Digital Era Pt II (1960s) with Michael Spalter — listen with transcript on Le Random (21 Sep 2023, 77 min). Chapter 4’s episode. Apple Podcasts · Spotify