Page 71 - The MoMA/ Guggenheim issue of World of Art magazine (2003)

sorin AlbU
The year 1965 marks the birth of
computer graphics. it was then that,
simultaneously and yet independently
from one another, Frieder nake, georg
nees, and a. michael noll discovered that
the computer could be set up to compete www.artsoral. com
with the classical tools of art as a new m U ltimedi A
and unconventional instrument. The art
critics and artists took up the challenge.
heated discussions followed regarding
the definition of art and the question
of whether a graphic produced by a
computer can be considered art. Today,
this question is still undecided, but one
of the more heartening consequences of
this conflict has been the spanning of a
bridge between the traditional and the
technical sections of our culture.
it would make little sense to develop a
computer program to produce a single
graphic. but they are at least written
to allow one to change a range of
parameters, and in many cases the
palette of options is so great that
individual realizations from the same
program are often scarcely recognizable
as such. Strictly speaking, this is the
reason that the single image is not an
adequate form in which to present
computer art; it is much better depicted
as a series, if, from one picture to the
next, one makes only small adjustments
to the parameters, the result appears
in phased images that can be seen as
sequences of movements. They provide
the raw material for computer films;
thus working with computer systems
makes a step appear obvious that
conventional art was not able to take.
What is meant here is the transition
from a non-representational picture to
a moving form of depiction, as we find
analogous to the auditory field of music.
even if computer art did not
accomplish anything else, this alone
would be adequate compensation for
the effort. What has only been vaguely
hinted at in fireworks, waterworks, and
kaleidoscopes, has now matured into a
manageable form of representation, it
is, however, still so strange and unusual
that it will certainly take centuries
before these new possibilities can be
fully exploited.
curtsey herbert w. franke, visual computer
art, art Electronica: facing the future /art
Electronica center

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