Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 6: Personal Computer Era (1980s)

1980

Vol Libre – Loren Carpenter of Boeing

Artwork, Publication · Top Moment

A computer-generated mountain landscape beneath a blue sky, with a small yellow teapot in the foreground.
Loren Carpenter, Vol Libre (1979–80), film still from the artist’s published recording. Loren Carpenter. Image from the artist’s Vimeo upload of Vol Libre. Image source.

The first film to use fractals to generate graphics, this little-known animated short was decades ahead of its time and presaged the now ubiquitous usage of fractals in computer graphics and film. The animation was produced at Boeing, where Carpenter was employed. He created it to simulate backgrounds for images of experimental plane designs. This marks another innovation in computer graphics history from Boeing, dating back to the 1960s and William Fetter.

Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random.

Sources

People

Loren Carpenter, William Fetter

Movements

computer art, graphic design

Filed under

Ideas
graphic design
Technologies
computer animation, computer art, computer graphics, fractals
People
Loren Carpenter, William Fetter
Works
Vol Libre
Organisations
Boeing

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