Vera Molnár Develops Molnart Software

Molnár developed “Molnart” with her husband François Molnár between the years 1974 and 1976. The software program enabled engagement in expérimentation picturale systématique (“systematic pictorial experimentation”). The program, written in FORTRAN, required a high capacity computer connected to a display screen and plotter. Molnart aimed to disrupt the monotony of regular, geometric patterns, achieving various “satisfactory…aesthetic states” by systematically modifying inputs step by step. Vera Molnár applies various techniques such as removing squares randomly, changing the probability of appearance for different-sized squares, introducing color and incorporating human-like irregularities. This approach was essentially what Molnár used to achieve (Dés)Ordres (1974). The generated images could then be drawn on paper. Vera Molnár reflects on the aesthetic qualities of the computer-generated images compared to hand-drawn ones and explores the possibilities of combining different methods.