Early Computer Art

Documentation from What is the Digital Draw?
Mon 18 April 2016 : 10:30am – 6:00pm

Early Computer Art
Douglas Dodds, Senior Curator of V&A Digital Art Collection

Computer art of the 1960s and 1970s is an important precursor to contemporary digital art practice.Here, Dodds provides a brief history, looking at how digital pioneers worked directly with computer hardware and software to create increasingly sophisticated images. His talk focused on artists such as Frieder Nake, Vera Molnar, Manfred Mohr, Harold Cohen, Paul Brown, Darrell Viner and Roman Verostko, all of whom used drawing machines to create their artworks. Dodd's presentation was followed by a Q & A session.

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What is the Digital Draw? took place Monday 18 April 2016. Bringing together key thinkers in the field, the day-long seminar featured presentations and panel discussions exploring what ‘the digital’ means for drawing today. Speakers examined topics including: the aesthetics of drawing in the post-internet age; the open-ended nature of digital practice; the use of the Internet as a medium; approaches to ‘drawing’ with data; and histories and technologies of computer art. 

Contributors included: James Bridle, writer, artist and technologist; Douglas Dodds, Senior curator of V&A Digital Art Collection; Mary Doyle, Drawing Room co-director; Rachel Falconer, independent writer and curator; Paul Flannery and Tim Steer, Opening Times co-founders; Rozsa Farkas, Independent curator and founding director of Arcadia Missa; Professor Frederic Fol Leymarie, Professor of Computer Games and Entertainment at Goldsmiths College; Margarita Gluzberg, artist and reader in Contemporary Visual Production at the Royal College of Art, London; Charlotte Webb, artist and researcher; Lucy Sollitt, Creative Media Manager for Arts Council and an associate for Rhizome; Klaus Speidel, art and image theorist, art critic and curator; Nimrod Vardi, curator and director of arebyte gallery. What is the Digital Draw? was programmed by Laura Eldret, artist.

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