In my previous instalment, I considered how much the term 'computer art' actually meant, not least because a whole range of artforms were shoehorned into this rather vague and ill-defined category. I shall expand on this idea by looking at the origins of 'computer art' in several quite different streams of art, all of which came to include computer-generated forms in their repertoire of practice. This does not necessarily indicate that the computer art practitioners were major exponents of these artforms, but rather that they perceived connections between themselves and earlier artists who explored the same range of compositions and forms, not to mention the underlying concepts and ideas that informed them. The point that I am trying to make is that the computer entered art practice for a variety of different reasons and thus from the very start there was no one approach to using it in the visual arts. A major concern of mine is to understand how and why artists use computers and what is the significance of this for art as a whole? I remember being told by one eminent figure that usage is unimportant and that if he decided to hurl a computer through a window then this too should be considered 'Computer Art'! That involves using the computer itself as an art object, but I have always been more interested in the computer as a system. This reference to 'the' computer is slightly misleading because we treat it as a monolithic thing, a habit derived from its own physical existence. Yet the physical computer, in whatever form, is the gateway to a range of possible systems, each with its own consequences for art. I would like to simplify this multiplicity of possible computers into four artistic approaches: firstly, the 'self-build' approach favoured by the pioneers, who were of course working in a completely new area; secondly the 'program yourself' approach used especially during the 1960s and 70s; thirdly the 'direct drawing' which is possible with a Graphical User Interface, or GUI and came into its own in the mid-1980s; and lastly the interactive networked approach of Net Art which is the most recent development] Thus the successive developments of Computer Art may be heavily simplified into four paths that roughly succeed each previous one. Whilst the first of these is now virtually extinct, there are still representatives of the second path making art and the third and fourth may continue indefinitely. In other words, once a new form of computer art has arisen it tends not to directly replace its precursor but to expand into new areas, or appeal to new artists, which amounts to the same thing.

The first path of artistic experimentation with computing devices began in the late 1940s and led from Laposky and Bute's experiments with oscilloscopes, through John Whitney's animation and the 'drawing machines' of Ravilious and others, to analogue computers and video synthesisers like Dan Sandin's video processor and the Scanimate. These all generated images through a combination of self-built (often quite extraordinary) hardware and an aesthetic that owed much to Abstract Animation and Constructivism. Although they involved some programming, this whole class of analogue computing combined real-time image virtuosity and an artistic approach to hardware. These artforms required both an artistic and technological comprehension of the system and its results. Each image system was unique to its builder, thus continuing a tradition of innovative artist-linked hardware laid down by the pioneers of Abstract Animation at the turn of the 20th century. Though the hardware was overtaken by general-purpose digital computers, many of its distinctive effects have survived in Photoshop-style programs and animation packages. A simultaneous path of 'self-built' systems led to computer-controlled installations and robotic sculptures such as Edward Ihnatowicz's Senster of 1971. Again, these required artistic immersion in technology and engineering. The second path arose quite independently in America and West Germany in the early 1960s as a variety of artists and engineers realised that digital computers could be programmed to artistic ends. The art they made often consciously referred back to Abstraction and Constructivism, especially Mondrian and Klee. This programming-based art arose through a confluence of available hardware, graphical experimentation, general interest and the fact that the art of the day was receptive to technological forms, as shown by Experiments in Art and Technology and other groups. This type of computer art was prominent throughout the 1960s and 70s, but had seemingly declined by the early 1980s. At this point, however, computer graphics technology had advanced to a point where it was much more widely available and the older programming paradigm was being supplanted by the Graphical User interface. However, it is continued today by a number of computer artists, some of whom came together as a loose federation called the Algorists in the late 1990s, named for the algorithmic processes they deploy. The third path, then, was that of the desktop computer, paint package and GUI which became the most widespread vehicle for Computer Art until the arrival of the Internet and its associated artforms. Although the concept of realtime computer interaction dates back to the MIT Whirlwind of 1948, and drawing software to Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad of 1962, it took two generations of computing advances to make these ideas widely available in the early 1980s. The GUI was much more attractive to artists who preferred to utilise the computer as an extension to their current practice than to learn programming; Andy Warhol and David Hockney both tested computer paint systems in the mid-1980s. Seen in the context of wider GUI graphics usage, presaged by the first Apple Macintosh and the Commodore Amiga, it is unsurprising that artists decided to make use of the computer as a tool. By the early 1990s computers began to enter mainstream art schools as graphics workstations. The fourth path I will hardly touch upon because it is still developing, but it is arguably the most prolific contemporary use of computers in art. This is of course Net Art, which has proliferated since the Internet became a truly graphical medium in the mid-1990s. This requires a technological basis of suitably fast connections, faster computers and Web-specific graphics platforms like Flash. Building on previous advances in computer interactivity, Net Art is usually centred on websites that allow viewers/users to modify and respond to dynamic artworks presented over the Net, or collaborate on sprawling multi-user projects.

* * * * * The computer was adopted into visual art because it seemed to lend itself to the practice of several existing artforms & movements that could accommodate it. These artforms included Abstract Animation, Constructivism and the Bauhaus, Kinetic Art and the wider concerns of Art & Technology in the 1960s. Each of these areas incorporated a technological or systematic aesthetic that lent itself to development on early computers, especially because their primitive graphics systems were suggestive of linear abstract art. In fact, Computer Art was preceded by a variety of technologically-informed artforms that subsequently found expression on the computer. For instance, Constructivism and Kinetic Art already had exponents using mechanical systems, incorporating machines or mechanical forms, and could be readily adapted to the new format. Additionally, Abstract Animation was influential because several pioneering computer artists transferred its style to the computer; and various mathematical artforms took advantage of the computer's processing and symbolic power. Several artists near-simultaneously began to utilise the computer for artistic ends: Ben Laposky and John Whitney in the USA and Herbert Franke in West Germany, all between 1950 and 1956. At this stage, 'the computer' denoted a range of devices, some analogue, some mechanical and some digital; the latter were huge and expensive installations, the former often cobbled together by artists themselves. The most intriguing aspect of all this was that the primitive graphical capabilities of the computer coincided with the linear qualities of abstract art. This should not detract from the entirely new aspects of computer graphics that attracted artists in the 1960s. However, these features were comprehended by reference to previous technologies and were often adapted to imitate them. In some cases the resemblances were entirely visual, such as the adoption of geometric and repeat patterns by certain artists. There are also polemical connections, such as the widespread references to the Constructivists and other early 20th century proponents of machines in art. In a slightly different way, the use of projective geometry as the basis of 3D graphics was a structural resemblance with earlier artforms that led to visual resemblances through the pursuit of photo-realistic graphics. The concepts used by GUI-based graphics packages, including their mimicking of tools like airbrushes and pens, are metaphorical resemblances. To understand the trajectory of computer-based art from the early 1950s until the mid-1970s, one has to appreciate its position in the current of art/ science interchange which was prevalent throughout the 1960s. Another important factor is the isolation of the earliest pioneers such as Laposky and Franke; yet their perception of the computer's potentials in visual art seems remarkably close. Also of interest are the continuities that computer artists drew between themselves and movements such as the Constructivists and the Bauhaus; they were often aware of their artistic forebears, or would stretch the polemical connection to cover Computer Art. Some theorists attacked computer artists who simply imitated previous artforms instead of developing something computer-specific. The pioneering, or experimental, period drew to a close in the early 1970s for a variety of reasons

In many cases, disparate individuals made the conceptual leap of using a computer for 'Computer Art' because it produced something that looked like contemporary abstract art. Thus in terms of its visual resemblances along, the various forms of computer art could be said to originate in a variety of pre- existing artforms, carrying with them a body of expectations inherited from the artistic culture of the 1960s and before. Indeed, there was a close interrelation between the advancement of early graphics technology and the earliest computer art. As Lynn White remarks, technical innovations often prefigured, indeed enabled, the scientific discussion to explain their properties. [White 1978: 331] Likewise, the computer's role in art was often prefigured by developments in computer graphics. Serendipitous realisations of their resemblance to 'art' led to certain engineers attempting to make Computer Art. The outstanding example of this is when A. Michael Noll, a computer programmer at Bell Labs, looked at a malfunctioning print-out in 1962 and grasped its similarity to contemporary abstract art. This chance revelation inspired him to experiment artistically with the computer. As Noll said of this seminal event:

a computer-generated plot of data had gone astray because of some programming error. We joked about the abstract computer art that he had inadvertently generated. It then occurred to me to use the computer, an IBM 7090, and the Stromberg Carlson plotter to create computer art deliberately. Thus my experiments in computer art began in the summer of 1962 at Bell Labs. [Noll 1994 : 39]

[Plate VI: A. Michael Noll, Gaussian Quadratic, 1962.]

Apart from such accidental discoveries, artists turned to the computer to fulfil specific needs, often experimental and novel, not because it presented a complete and coherent visual solution. They often looked to the computer as a way of making art that could not be achieved otherwise. In Noll's case, this art presented itself in the course of using the computer; this was unsurprising at a time when the computer was hardly an obvious avenue for artistic experimentation and its visual properties not widely appreciated. The adoption of the computer for art was not in general the result of a particular theoretical stance, but rather due to a simple desire for experimentation and pushing its boundaries. That last is very much in keeping with the technological attitude identified by White. The experimental nature of early Computer Art meant that it was often regarded as an adjunct to 'computer graphics', a term coined by William Fetter of Boeing in 1960 to refer to the aircraft simulations he was developing. Indeed, the first 'Computer Art' competitions were hosted by computer graphics magazines, and often produced art that consciously imitated the abstract forms current in the early 1960s. For instance, Noll claimed that he found Gaussian Quadratic, his first serious piece of computer art, reminiscent of Picasso's cubism: 'Since there was no physical reality to motivate the work, it can perhaps be considered a combination of abstraction and cubism.' [Noll 1994: 41] Early Computer Art was inextricably linked with the advance of graphics technology, and although the two became more distinct with the passage of time, techniques developed by artists were often influential in the wider area of graphics. At this point, when computer knowledge was generally restricted to universities and research centres, there was a considerable overlap between artists and computer scientists. Many artists needed to collaborate with technicians in order to use the computer, a situation which the Experiments in Art and Technology (EAT) group attempted to formalise. However, these collaborations often resulted in an unequal weighting being given to the artist's contribution, sidelining the necessary technological input from the engineer. The Bell Labs researcher who supported many computer artists in their work, Ken Knowlton, eventually became dispirited with this inequality and left the field. Suffice it to say that 'art' is generally tied to a single artist ' even when it is patently a group work' whereas a design project is somehow larger and more inclusive, often the product of a team and recognised as such. Also, the promotion of much graphics work as 'Computer Art' led some to question the artistic status of computer images. The most satisfying artwork seemed to come from artists who learned to program and - in at least one case - engineered their own computers. Advances in Computer Art often supported and furthered computer graphics; whilst (as Gary Smith and Leslie Metzei pointed out) examples of 'graphics' were often accepted as 'Computer Art'; the boundaries were permeable. Since this time, computer artists have sought to distance themselves from 'graphics'. As mentioned above, computer graphics is often identified with extravagant demonstrations of visual tricks and the pursuit of realism, and commercial rather than artistic goals. The theorists of the first period of computer-based art believed a true 'Computer Art' movement would appear, similar to Art & Technology in its scope and result, but their hopes faded as interest in Computer Art waned in the early 1970s. Reasons for this included the difficulties of programming, the problems encountered by artist/engineer collaborations, the lack of progress in computer graphics hardware, and the eventual rise of the Graphical User Interface allowing for other ways of working with digital images. The Computer Art that appeared from the mid-1980s was heavily based around GUI machines and marked the start of a new approach to the visual computer. Ultimately, the very fact that Computer Art now flourishes whilst other technological artforms from the 1960s failed is due to the open-ended nature of the computer itself. It bears reinvention and reinterpretation. From its inception, the reception of Computer Art in the mainstream has been limited, whilst its proponents have often kept it somewhat at a distance from the art world. It has had to overcome a general prejudice against computer-based art and certain aesthetic problems deriving from its computational origins. Also, legitimate artistic uses of the computer are critically contrasted against the promotion of computer 'graphics' as 'art.'

Computer Art as an inevitable outcome?

Early Computer Art took its inspiration from a variety of artistic precursors: this is why Reichardt saw it as 'the last stand of abstract art'. Other technological artforms played a role, and I also think the general current of art/technology experiments such as EAT provided a cultural climate in which Computer Art could flourish and develop. Was there a degree of historical inevitability to the computer's utilisation in art? It would seem that it fulfilled the expectations of several very different groups, from abstract artists with mathematical leanings, to the Abstract Animators who were looking for ways to systematise form and colour. Perhaps its own characteristics could only become apparent once these early expectations were taken on board and modified through experience with the computer. Artists not only had to be aware of the existence and potentials of the computer (and of course be sympathetic towards them), but also had to have access to computer facilities - a huge problem when computer time was strictly allocated because of limited resources - and then either be able to control the machines themselves or find computer operators willing to assist them. The requirements were so complex that it is unsurprising that few artists before 1960 were involved with computers. When one sees the interfaces of early computer systems, one appreciates the huge leap of imagination and intellect that was needed to convince an artist of the computer's graphics potential: it was an intimidating bank of switches and panels that had to be controlled with punchcards; and also lacked any sort of screen. Prior to the early Sixties, all computer output was either in the form of printed sheets or images recorded onto film, for there was no way of interacting with it in real time. The challenge which faced early computer artists: to get any sort of image created with a machine whose primary function was to deal with numbers and characters, rather than the elements of a picture. The artistic ideas of postwar America seemed favourable to the concept of machine-generated art. In part, the strong influence of abstract art and especially two-dimensional geometric art proved decisive; also, the connections between computers and university research institutes were fruitful, as was the amount of open-ended research (funded by the US military) that went on in the 1960s and 70s. Several Computer Art pioneers came from within universities and research facilities: two American examples are Charles Csuri, long associated with the University of Ohio, and Michael Noll, an engineer at Bell Labs. Noll's case is especially interesting, since unlike Csuri he did not have a background in art. Rather, it was a chance association of a faulty plotter output with contemporary abstract art that made Noll grasp the potential for computers to make art. In this, he had no obvious antecedents, though idea had occurred simultaneously to Herbert Franke and others in Germany, working in the same field. Even though no unbroken evolutionary line can be traced to specific pre-Computer Artforms, it seems that the conceptual association of computer image output with contemporary art was more important than existing mechanical art at least for those engineers who were to style themselves 'artists' in the decade leading up to the seminal exhibition 'Cybernetic Serendipity' in 1968. However, the computer's use in art was prefigured by a variety of technological artforms and by a number of recurrent artistic interests in art machines. A key question for my own research is whether the artists consciously adopted a form that was appropriate for the computer systems of their day, or whether their art was realised through the computer because it presented itself as the best way of doing so. If the former is true, then the resultant art could be described as a 'native' form of Computer Art, because its visual realisation is somehow inherent in its computer-based conception.

Conclusion:

In its earliest years, then, Computer Art was part of a wider technological- artistic culture. Yet it managed to outlive the contemporaries that had flourished in the late-60s climate then withered away as interest waned. This is most important when considering current approaches to Computer Art: it began in an environment that was conducive to technological artforms, but survived through their decline and re-emerged in the 1980s. Although Computer Art also suffered from a decline in the mid-1970s, it recovered when the technology of computer graphics made spectacular advances. Just as importantly, the computer itself became widely available. The resurgence of Computer Art in the early- to mid-1980s is partly a consequence of the Graphical User Interface, which opened up the machine to artists who preferred to adapt their skills rather than learn a programming language. This may point to a deeper reason why the computer, as a polymorphous tool, remains current in art whilst many 1960s interests are now period-pieces. It is fundamentally open-ended; it can be utilised in a variety of ways, unlike the limited drawing-machine or the cumberous kinetic sculpture. This in itself may point to the development of computer-specific artforms which owe little to historical art movements. However, Computer Art sprang from a confluence of art and technology that owed much to the general culture of postwar America. The most interesting aspect of Computer Art is that unlike almost all of the other technological artforms mentioned above, it has proved to be more than a passing fad. Perhaps it is because all these artforms have been unable to expand beyond their inherent physical boundaries or limitations of their processes. So drawing machines, holograms and myriad mechanical devices have had short vogues, then vanished again.

Computer Art in the broadest sense of art produced with the computer has already outlived the first flush of modernist-inspired art/technology collaborations and will undoubtedly survive the current climate of post-modern fragmentation and the visual diaspora. That it has continued whilst previous forms of technological art, exemplified by those gathered together by Frank Malina in Kinetic Art, have faded into the shadows, is a testament to the computer's increasing attraction for, and relevance to, the artist. Whilst each piece of software and hardware is limited, if only by the artist's ingenuity, taken as whole the computer is fundamentally open-ended. Any limitations are not so much inherent in the medium as in the artist's approach and understanding. Its interactions with, and realisation through, physical materials are only just beginning to be explored. The digital space, existing somewhere between mental image and reality, is the focus of great expectation. Even as specific areas of Computer Art have fallen by the wayside, they have contributed both forms and practices to the overall collection of Computer Arts imagery. Indeed, even some very early paths of Computer Art practice remain open for further exploration, and those which are currently closed by fashionable prejudice may yet appear as possibilities in the future. Computer Art's inherent flexibility stems from the basic nature of computer programs: their existence as information processes that are executed and stored on the computer, which is a physical platform for these non-physical entities. Crucially, computers have developed standard hardware, unlike the many custom-built machines that preceded them (including Whitney's early analogue rigs) yet they run many different programs. The hardware and software develop at different rates and spur each other to new innovations. Though some styles of art seem better suited to a mechanical form, this is more about cultural conditioning and association of hard-edged geometric images with mechanical (though not necessarily computational) power. As I have tried to show, this is an artistic legacy of the early 20th century rather than an inherent computer-based visual form.

Jasia Reichardt noted that great works of Computer Art have yet to appear and this artform's principal interest lies in the opening of new frontiers. Reichardt (1971 : 7) Some may believe this is still the case, but I contend that so long as Computer Art is valued only for its potentials, its full realisation will never take place and it is doomed to remain embryonic. Computer artworks should instead develop alongside long-term artistic attempts to investigate the computer as a platform for art. The most successful computer artists have followed this approach.

Nick Lambert

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