#generativeart and #conceptualart didn’t just come out of nowhere. Here’s Brian Eno speaking about his early art educational experiences in the 1960s: “The first art school I went to was a very, very unique and interesting one. It was run by a man called Roy Ascott, who had previously started another art school in London which Pete Townshend studied at, and quite a number of other interesting people….
…they’d quite effectively tried to work out a new policy of art education, with the idea that art had an important cultural role and wasn’t just to do with people making pictures. It was a center for creative behavior really”
This was Ipswich Civic College where #royascott founded a second version of his Groundcourse, based on concepts of cybernetics and group dynamics. Conceptual artist Stephen Willats taught on it. Willats had been a student at the first incarnation of Ascott’s Groundcourse at Ealing College of Art, London in 1963-4.
You can learn the full story - and more - in my book ‘A Computer in the Art Room’ (ebook only £4.99 & $5.99 from Amazon) 🔗 in profile
Really looking forward to watching the new Brian Eno documentary by @gary_hustwit & @brendandawes (sadly missed the UK premier) - apparently it’s generative and every screening is a unique cut.
@Brianeno quote from ‘How People Like Brian Eno Come Into Existence’ @wireduk : March 7, 2009, by Bruce Sterling
📷 Eno at Ipswich in chapter 4 of ‘A Computer in the Art Room: British Computer Arts 1950-1980, by Catherine Mason
#brianeno #computerarts #cyberneticart #artschools #historyofart #historyofarteducation #arteducationrevolution
My new book about the history of art & technology, computer arts and generative art is out now! Featuring George Mallen, pioneer of creative computing since 1964, cybernetics and Gordon Pask, artist Stephen Willats, the Royal College of Art the history of @computerartssoc , the Ecogame, generative poetry and much more from the 1960s - 1970s
Ask your university or institution if they have a Springer subscription & you can access the ebook free! @springernature
➡️ Use code SPRAUT for 20% discount:
https://bit.ly/3xdOE58
Thank you to @jpbowen1956 for the Foreword, Nick Lambert for the Introduction & @stepboydd for a great chapter on the @royalcollegeofart ! 💫
#historyofart #artbook #academicwriting #artswriting #computerarts #generativeart #digitalart #aiart #bookrecommendations #bookstagram
#Proceduralart #Visualart #Programmedart
#New_media_art #mediaarthistory #arthistorystudent
Do you want to find out about the early use of computers in art? My book was the first comprehensive account of the history of computer arts in Britain. Discover the stories of more than 50 pioneers of this medium - who made what, where, and most importantly, why!
This survey of the history of British computer art first came out in 2008 and is now updated as an inexpensive ebook, 📲 for @amazonkindle and on @applebooks@kobobooks
🔗 Link in bio.
📷 Front cover shows Entropy, 1975 by Julian Sullivan (1938-83) - an early British example of digitally-driven interactive installation art.
#digitalarthistory #computerartssociety #womenindigitalart #artandtechnology #earlycomputerart #earlycomputing
Happy to be working with Professors @williamlathamart , Frederic Fol Leymarie and all in the departments of @gold.computing@goldsmithscomparts at @goldsmithsuol
Looking forward to writing, research and events with artists and fellow art historians 📚✍️💻
👀 Follow me so I can see your art! 🎨🤖
#computerarts #historyofart #digitalart #aiartcommunity
Really recommend Mark Levinson’s award winning film “The Universe in a Grain of Sand” @mlquark which takes the viewer on a journey of tool use by scientists and artists, especially sand (which equals silicon), moving from light to Quantum. Full of wonderful historic #computerart & contemporary #digitalart
✍️ The title comes from the famous #williamblake poem:
To see the World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour
🌱🎨
❓What is lost when we just have the digital experience? If we want to understand the human experience then we need both digital and analogue.
Here are a few things that caught my eye… Including Stan VanDerBeek, John Whitney,
Lillian Schwartz, Larry Cuba, Charles & Ray Eames, Andy Warhol, Jennifer Reeves @jenniferreevesfilm , Alan Berliner, Kristen Roos @kris10roos , Ksawery Kirklewski, Sabrina Ratté @sabrina_ratte , Basma al-Sharif… and much more!
🎦 Available to stream on Kinema 🍿
Do you remember the Micro Gallery @nationalgallery in the 1980s❓- an early example of a “computer information room” within museums.
The research centre had terminals in the gallery building (an integral part of the new Sainsbury wing) that allowed visitors to search for artworks & genres in the collection, cross-reference themes & artists, and create a personal tour of where to go in the gallery to view the paintings. (You purchased a smart card that allowed you to print out a map).
I enjoyed hearing about this highly innovative digital art history initiative at a session “The National Gallery Micro Gallery: A Roundtable 35 Years On”. Created by @cogapp the whole system ran on 1.8 gig hard drive with a touch screen interface. It received massive and extraordinary funding of £1million from @americanexpress who took a gamble on this new type of visitor experience in a museum. It was a great success and the system has now been migrated to a more recent Mac enabling it to be archived. So much of these early digitisation projects have been lost.
📷 Visited by Queen Elizabeth II
Thanks to @dfherrmann for the invitation 🙏
#digitalarthistory #museology #digitalarchive
Congratulations to our longtime member @paul_brown2018 on his one man show @nrcgballina ! Paul is a pioneer of computer-generated art inspired by a-life, since the mid-1970s. A graduate of the @sladeschool , he won the @acmsiggraph 2023 Distinguished Artist Award.
👀 Download a pdf of the catalogue 🔗 in profile (if you don’t see a two-page spread, please download and view locally) & check out his website ➡️ https://paul-brown.art
📸 photos of the opening by Paula Cordeiro @eco.textilestudio 🙏
#computerart #creativecomputation #digitalart
Congratulations to @paul_brown2018 on his solo show @nrcgballina ! I was honoured to write the catalogue essay, “Making Visible Abstract Thoughts: Paul Brown’s Art as Process” - I’ve known Paul since 2002, and have always eagerly awaited his latest work 💫
➡️ Short excerpt: “Paul Brown has spent over six decades exploring the intersection of art and technology through systems based on mathematical logic. A pioneer of computer-based art since the 1970s, he was an early adopter of artificial life principles (a-life) and the learning systems that anticipate today’s artificial intelligence. Rather than depicting the natural world, Brown studies its processes by devising mathematical systems that generate entire universes of new form and composition. For him, process is both a way of thinking and a means of creation - mathematics becomes not just a tool but a language for communicating ideas about humanity’s relationship to the ordered cosmos. He makes intangible ideas visible, transforming the unseen laws of logic into palpable artistic experiences.”
👀 download free pdf 📲 🔗 in profile (if you don’t see a two-page spread, please download and view locally)
Glorious colour! 🎨🤖
#alife #computerart #creativecomputation #mathematicalart #abstractart
#DavidHockney #LondonExhibition @serpentineuk “A Year in Normandy” (2020-21), paintings made on the #iPad and with acrylics. The artist writes, “everything on a flat surface is abstraction”.
🖼️ (detail) David Hockney “Abstraction Resting on a Red and White Checkered Tablecloth”, 2025
Acrylic on canvas
91.4 x 121.9 cm
Courtesy of the artist
🎨 Show runs until 23 August
#historyofart #vibrantcolours
Delighted to be featured in Catherine Mason's great "A-Life and AI" article in the new edition of The AI Art magazine, covering the relationship of historical Artificial Life art to current AI Art. Featuring the work of Edward Ihnatowicz, Paul Brown, William Latham, Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau.
Image: Mutation Y1 on the Blue Plane of Infinity Raytraced (zapxcov). William Latham 1992. Software Mutator and FormGrow in collaboration with Stephen Todd at The IBM UK Scientific Centre in Winchester, UK. Magazine Cover image by Sougwen Chung.
#art #aiart #HumanAICollaboration #londonexhibitionss #GoldsmithsUniversityofLondon #digitalart #computergraphics #ModernArt #GenerativeAII #londongeometry #computerart #london #brighton #generativeaiart #SIGGRAPH #3dmodeling #conceptart #vrart #mutation #IBM #artmagazine
Issue 3 of @the.ai.art.magazine is out now! This one comes with a large poster & my article about the relationship between #alife and #aiart, mentioning @williamlathamart@paul_brown2018@christasommerer & #EdwardIhnatowicz
I highly recommend this magazine, produced with love and care by artists and without advertising 💃🕺
➡️ purchase : https://www.art-magazine.ai
featuring @sougwen on the cover 🦾🎨
#historyofart #digitalart
Fight back because our technology is killing us! Is this the first time a ‘robot’ (played by actors) appears in a film? 🎞️ The recently discovered and restored “Gugusse and the Automaton,” was made by legendary French filmmaker Georges Méliès in 1897. Méliès was a pioneer of special effects and directed the famous 1902 film “A Trip to the Moon.”
🎥 Clip shown here, see full film on @librarycongress
Méliès, “A Trip to the Moon,” 📷 Bettmann via Getty Images 🙏
#robot #filmhistory
