Pearson's Looking Through the Canvas with Patrick Frank & The Earliest Computer Art
Explore early computer art from 1965-1975. See how artists used primitive computers to create diverse abstract works, pioneering AI-assisted creativity and paving the way for modern digital art.
Patrick Frank, Author
Join author Patrick Frank in our Looking Through the Canvas webisode series where he will discuss the earliest computer-generated art and how far it is has come.
What did the first art created by a computer look like? Computers in 1965 were as large as several refrigerators, had no monitor, only 128 kb of memory, and were programmed with punch cards to drive a one-color pen plotter. Still, pioneering artists over the next ten years managed to create abstract works that showed a variety of individual approaches. Moreover, the artists programmed the computers to make some of the decisions by themselves, sharing the creative process with the machine. See many of these works and learn the stories behind the ancestors of today's digital movies.
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About the speaker
Patrick Frank, Author
Patrick Frank has taught in many higher education environments, from rural community colleges to public and private research universities. Most recently, he was Regents’ Lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles. His specialty as a scholar is modern art of Latin America, and he has authored or co-authored 6 books in this field. Most recently, he edited and translated Manifestos and Polemics in Latin American Modern Art, published in 2017 by University of New Mexico Press. He earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at George Washington University in Washington, DC.