Digital Art Museum
 
Essays    
 

Overviews

A range of essays on digital fine art are included here, some by the artists themselves, others by art theorists.

The essays have been selected to give both an overview of the impact of computers on fine art practice, and also to illuminate individual genres and practices.

[Some of these essays are taken from the arts and technology journal Leonardo, and reproduced by their kind permission (particular thanks to Roger Malina and Norah Piehl). Visit the Leonardo website for more information on the journal.]

NB Starred items (*) are abstract only, due to pending permissions.

    
     
1971 Jasia Reichardt Extract from The Computer in Art* Overview on the early development of computer art from the then Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London
1981 Susanne P�ch Report on the Ars Electronica 80* This report details one of the first major international digital art festivals, this one an annual event in Austria.
1985 Herbert W Franke The New Visual language: The Influence of Computer Graphics on Art and Society A Leonardo paper by one of the earliest pioneers of computer art.
1986 Frank Dietrich Visual Intelligence: The First Decade of Computer Art (1965-1975)* A thoughtful summary of the major development in computer art up to that time by a leading theoretician.
1987 Herbert W Franke The Expanding Medium: The Future of Computer Art Franke develops his ideas on computer art in this second Leonardo paper.
1987 Frank Dietrich The Computer: a Tool for Thought-Experiments A Leonardo paper by Dietrich with a strongly philosophical basis, drawing on Hegel amongst others to contextualise some important computer artists.
1988 Richard Wright Some Issues in the Development of Computer Art as a Mathematical Art Form One of a number of valuable essays in Leonardo, Electronic Art Supplemental Issue, 1988. Wright provides important insights into the role of mathematics in art.
1988 John Lansdown Introduction to Arnolfini catalogue of William Latham's work* Lansdown is remembered as a great British pioneer of computer graphics education, and in this introduction he writes illuminatingly on the work of William Latham.
1992 Herbert W Franke and Horst Helbig Generative Mathematics: Mathematically Described and Calculated Visual Art* A Leonardo paper in which Franke and his colleague Helbig set out a manifesto for art derived from mathematics.
1993 Timothy Binkley Refiguring Culture* Binkley provides a media-theoretical perspective on computer art.
1994 A. Michael Noll The Beginnings of Computer Art in the United States: A Memoir* This important essay documents early developments in the States, in particular the seminal work done at Bell Labs.
1995 Rejane Spitz Qualitative, Dialectical and Experiential Domains of Electronic Art* A Brazilian perspective on computer art, questioning the social inequities behind the pursuance of such a discipline in a developing country.
1995 Mike King Programmed Graphics in Computer Art and Design A Leonardo paper exploring the role of programming for artists at a time when so much ready-made and high-quality art and design software was beginning to appear.
1996 Paul Brown An Emergent Paradigm A thoughtful article by an artist and electronic arts educator and commentator who has been part of the international scene for many years.
1997 James Faure Walker Algorithmic Art* One of Faure Walker's regular contributions to CGI magazine. He is both a long-term committed digital fine artist and a critic with a dry and penetrating wit.
2002 Mike King Computers and Modern Art: Digital Art Museum An essay specially written for Digital Art Museum, tracing the relationship between the Pioneers of computer fine art and Modern art movements.