The History of Digital Art for Crypto Explorers

The very beginning of computer art can be traced back to the 1950s. During that period artists were exploring mechanical devices and analogue computers, creating works that paved the way for the development of what the early digital pioneers of the 1960s would generate.

Ben F. Laposky (1914–2000) was an American artist, mathematician, and draftsman. He is regarded as a precursor of the work carried out by the early digital pioneers who made an impact in the 1960s. In his practice during the early 1950s Laposky used analogue electronic equipment, specifically an oscilloscope as a tool able to modulate electronic waves, which he subsequently photographed in different combinations. He named his images “Oscillons”.

Herbert W. Franke (b. 1927) is an Austrian physicist, scientist, writer, curator and one of the early pioneers of computer art. During the 1950s he experimented with oscilloscopes and cameras to create patterns of sets of lines. He brought significant contributions to the development of computer art, both artistically and academically.

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

The 1960s and 1970s play a significant role in the history of digital art. During that time art started to intersect with technology and artists began experimenting with computers, often in collaboration with engineers. Some of those who left a strong impact in the development of digital art, include Georg Nees, Frieder Nake, Kenneth Knowlton and Leon Harmon, Vera Molnár and Lillian Schwartz.

Georg Nees (1926-2016) was a German mathematician and academic. He studied mathematics, physics and philosophy. He was the first person to publicly show art that was generated by a computer – computer art, which is today generally called digital art, generative art and in his specific case we would refer it as algorithmic art.

Frieder Nake (b.1938) is a German mathematician, computer scientist, regarded as one of the pioneers of computer art. In the 1960s he created an algorithm to explore Paul Klee’s use of vertical and horizontal lines. His source of inspiration was Klee’s 1929 painting Highroads and Byroads. Nake’s ultimate goal was not that of creating an exact reproduction of Klee’s artwork. He rather explored ideas about possible algorithmic art forms.

Ken Knowlton (b.1931) is an artist, mosaicist, portraitist and a computer graphics pioneer. He used to work at Bell Labs. Leon Harmon (1922-1983) was a researcher in mental/neural processing. In 1966 Knowlton and Harmon experimented with photomosaic and made the first experiment to scan a photograph into a computer, recreating it with a different range of grey generated by mathematical and electronic symbols. Their famous image of a reclining nude is what Knowlton and Harmon defined as “computer-processed creatures”.

Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) was a collective set up in 1967 in New York to foster collaborations between artists and engineers. This organisation was originally founded by engineers Billy Klüver and Fred Waldhauer, and artists Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Whitman. It gave rise to installations and performances incorporating new technologies.

E.A.T served as a source of inspiration for many artists who continued to explore the intersection between art and technology. In 1969 American artist Allan Kaprow (1927-2006) created his famous artistic TV happening, an interactive experience between groups of people and television technologists.

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

Desmond Paul Henry (1921-2004) is one of the early British pioneers of computer art in the 1960s. He is renowned for having constructed three mechanical drawing machines from bombsight analogue computers, which were used by fighter pilots during World War II. Henry’s machine-generated effects present complex abstract and curvilinear graphics and are considered early examples of computer graphics.

Lillian Schwartz (b.1927) is an American artist, regarded as a pioneer in computer art. She was a member of the collective Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) in the 1960s and collaborated with engineers on different projects. She brought significant innovations to the field of computer art during the 1960s and 1970s and contributed to the developments of graphics, film, video, 2D/3D animation and special effects.

Paul Brown (b.1947) is an Anglo-Australian artist, writer and educator who has been focussing on art, science and technology since the 1960s and on computational & generative art since the 1970s. Between 1977 and 1979 he studied at the Slade School of Art in London, one of the few institutions which fully incorporated the use of computers into art during the 1970s. He is an internationally recognised artist.

Vera Molnár (b. 1924) is a French artist of Hungarian origin. She is regarded as one of the pioneers of computer and algorithmic arts. In the 1960s she started creating algorithmic paintings with simple geometrical forms and co-founded the group “Art et Informatique” in 1967, investigating the intersection between art and computing. As explained in “Digital Art: Painting with Pixels” by Ron Miller, Vera Molnár believed that:

Robert W. Mallary (1917-1997) was an American artist, renowned mostly for his Neo-Dada, “junk art” sculptures, which he created from different materials and urban rubbish during the 1950s and 1960s. He is also remembered for his major contributions to computer art and for having created one of the first sculptures generated by computer in 1968.

Manfred Mohr (b. 1938) is a German artist regarded as one of the pioneers of digital art. Initially an action painter and a jazz saxophonist, he turned to computer art in the late 1960s. He transposed the rhythm, energy and sense of improvisation gained from making music to creating algorithmic art. He has been based in New York since 1981.

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]

During the 1980s digital technologies were no longer associated mostly with engineers – they became part of everyday life. Computers started to spread outside of scientific laboratories and they became employed both for business and personal use. While not a comprehensive list of artists, this post highlights some the main artists who brought significant contributions during the 80s and 90s.

Harold Cohen (1928-2016) was a British-born artist, renowned for having created AARON, a complex computer software program to generate art autonomously. Cohen’s work combined artificial intelligence with art. His major contributions in the field of digital art led his work to be displayed in many museums exhibitions, such as the Tate Gallery in London. Besides his interest in new technologies, Cohen was also a painter.

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) created a series of digital works on a personal computer, the Amiga 1000 model, in the middle of the 1980s. These works were made by the pop artist as part of a collaborative project with Commodore Amiga and had been left on Amiga floppy disks for nearly 20 years before they got found and recovered by the Andy Warhol Museum. The digital images included doodles and revisitations of Warhol’s existing artworks, such as the acclaimed Campbell’s soup can, and Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus.

Kenneth Snelson (1927-2016) was an American sculptor and photographer, who also gave contributions to the development of digital art. He is renowned as the Father of Tensegrity, described by the artist as “solid elements set in space and supporting each other through tension”.

His famous image “Forest Devils’ MoonNight” was created with a 3D computer animation program and was part of the artist’ exploration into computer imagery.

Peter Struycken (b.1939) is a versatile artist from the Netherlands, regarded as one of the pioneers in the field of digital art in his country. He is mostly renowned for having created the digital portrait of Queen Beatrix used for Dutch postage stamps. The image was made of digital-shifted dots, evoking a sort of “digital pointillism”.

James Faure Walker (b. 1949) is a British artist whose repertoire encompasses oil painting, watercolour and digital art. Since the end of the 1980s, he has been incorporating computer generated images into his painting, blending the diverse features of the digital and the physical paint to the extent that it’s often hard to discern which one is which.

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

*This article is for non-profit educational purposes. We do not represent or work with any of the featured artists. The copyright of all images belong to their authors. We aim to contribute to the research in the field of digital art and hope our readers will find this article beneficial to their learning.