wk2 09.30/10.02: Early References

[lpfreiburg]

Vera Molnar

Vera Molnar seemed like an interesting choice, so I decided to look at her work for this reflection. I first took a look at https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-edi ... bstraction, which was provided in the links for this assignment. This takes a look at the late artist's work; she unfortunately passed away in 2023, just shy of her 100th birthday. Her algorithm work began in the 1960s with "Imaginary Machines," Where she would create rules for herself, like "Setting guidelines and restrictions that limited the set of possible marks and then creating iterations of a specific pattern or shape."



But this quickly progressed to actual machines after she found an early IBM. One such piece was Molnaroglyphes (1977 - 1978), which takes an orderly grid of squares and then deforms the image to create new images that are much more exciting, in my opinion.

I was able to find it after a quick Google search: https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en/ressou ... vre/car8G9

I also decided to take a look at her piece: "My mother's Letters." She took her mother's unique and beautiful script and used various geometric transformations to distort the original image. She, of course, apologized to her late mother in the paper she wrote about it afterward.



https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/6/article/607013/pdf

I love how her work takes the ordinary and transforms it to create new things based on established rules. There has been a lot of talk recently about how machine learning cannot create anything new, and these works nicely blend the line with that. It makes me wonder in parallel about the Ship of Theseus" thought experiment. At what point would you say a transformed object no longer resembles its original? There are many Topological ways to transform objects mathematically as well as artistically. Maybe not even just pictures, projecting audio into a visual medium could also work as a transformation. Perhaps one could take the music of the time period a particular art piece was created, translate it to a visual picture, and then use that to modify the piece. In my opinion, this would be a great area to research further.

[zixuan241]

I am interested in the artist Hiroshi Kawano.

Hiroshi Kawano (1925–2012) is frequently among the true founders of computer-generated art. Most interestingly, he was a philosopher-turned-artist. Influenced by information aesthetics by Max Bense in the latter half of the 1950s, Kawano did not just see computers as technical instruments but as a medium of inscribing such philosophical ideas as order, chance, and aesthetics. Notable for combining rigorous philosophical theory and visual experimentation, Kawano pioneered generative art when few artists were in touch with computers.

Hiroshi Kawano. The Philosopher at the Computer, September 24, 2011 – January 29, 2012, exhibition view. / © ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Photo: Tom Hahn

Like the images that I provided, Hiroshi Kawano always employs simple rules and random processes to generate forms, thereby blurring the boundary between human subjective intent and machine autonomy.

Hiroshi Kawano, 1967.
HITAC 5020, FORTRAN IV.

Design 3-1. Data 4, 5, 6, 6, 6

Kawano's work is directly related to the Media Arts and Technology Program, as it is one of the earliest efforts to combine philosophy, art, and computational technology—an area of research we still commit to today. In an era when computers were not yet advanced, Kawano was faced with many technical hurdles in his experimentation. Today, we can employ more advanced tools—like AI, machine learning, generative design, and interactive media—in further inquiry into these problems and more unification of artistic fields with technology.

At the same time, when I saw Kawano's algorithmic computer-generated geometric compositions, it struck a chord with my personal background in interior design. It was a reminder of how contemporary space designers use parametric instruments such as Grasshopper or Rhino to design kinetic space forms that can respond to regulation limits or user input. Kawano's demonstration brought home that computational aesthetics is much more than two-dimensional print, entering into spatial design and actual architecture.

Work Cited
“Simulated Color Mosaic.” ZKM. Accessed October 8, 2025. https://zkm.de/en/artwork/simulated-color-mosaic.
“Hiroshi Kawano: Database of Digital Art.” Hiroshi Kawano | Database of Digital Art. Accessed October 8, 2025. http://dada.compart-bremen.de/item/agent/234.

[felix_yuan]

Manfred Mohr is a pioneer of digital art, or in his words, an algorithmic or generative artist. Manfred Mohr is born in 1938, Pforzheim, Germany. Growing up, he developed interests in music and high-frequency engineering, and chose fine art as his life-long enthusiasm. After discovering Max Bense’s information aesthetics in the early 60’s, his idea of art changed radically, and his work transformed from abstract expression to computer generated geometry.

To add a little background, Max Bense was a German philosopher. He estalished Information Aesthetics with Abraham A. Moles. He published Information Aesthetics in 1950s, followed by a series of book namely Aesthetica I, II, III, IV and Aesthetica - Einführung in die neue Aesthetik. He put out the term of Generative Aesthetics at the first exhibition of algorithmic, which is now often referred to as the first manifest of computer art. He considered the objective measure of an artefact and believed every object is open to aesthetic analysis and mathematical evaluation. He divided aesthetics into micro and macro aesthetics, where the former refers to the concerns the indirect relationships between artwork and theory, and the latter refers to the perceptive reflection of an artwork hence its relations within the work. To Max, “The aim of generative aesthetics is the artificial production of probabilities of innovation or deviation from the norm.”
http://dada.compart-bremen.de/item/agent/209

Manfred’s works focus on using computer algorithm to explore the possibilities and aesthetics of all kinds of geometries. There’s mainly four themes on Manfred’s works.

Form 1970 to 1976, he focused on Edges of Geometric Objects used as an Alphabet, where he explored the edges of squared, triangles, and cubes used as an alphabet.

https://www.emohr.com/themes/linesAsAlphabet.html

From 1970 to 1978, he also focused on the theme Linear Transformations (Translation), where he created a series of surfaces, patterns and explored their transformations.

https://www.emohr.com/themes/linearTran ... ation.html

From 1980 to 1997, Manfred explored n-dimensional cube and used rotation for creating shape and content in 2-dimensions on the theme Shaped Canvases and Reliefs Generated by an Algorithm, where my favorite works of him come from.

https://www.emohr.com/themes/shapeFromAlgorithm.html

This theme from Manfred Mohr is a perfect example of Informatics Aesthetics. Its aesthetics is not only able to be perfectly analyzed by rationality, but also inherently comes out of math and geometry. This work is a sign of its own language and a complete manifestation of co-materiality. Math, algorithm and generalization here can not be replaced, otherwise the artwork will not be possible to create. This is just as how we claim humanity can never be replaced in a good artwork, and this work find humanity inside math, machine and algorithm.

From 1963 - 2015, Manfred used combinatorics in his work in many diverse ways, which made the last theme Combinatorics.

https://www.emohr.com/themes/combinatoric.html

For me, Manfred Mohr’s work is very revolutionary for doing art that can barely be done without algorithm, and in the AI time today, is also very inspiring on how do we make a tool just as a tool, make the most of it, and create something that can not be done without. Digital art are already recognized for a long time, and Manfred’s work revealed the inherent beauty of it. We seem to be struggling to find the similar beauty that many of us would all agree on in AI art, but we’ve seen how digital art changes from simple random lines to the amazing work.

Source:
https://www.emohr.com/index.html
http://dada.compart-bremen.de/item/agent/209

[jintongyang]

The article I chose is Visual Intelligence: The First Decade of Computer Art (1965–1975) by Frank Dietrich. It traces the development of computer art from its scientific beginnings in 1965 to its artistic expansion in the following decade. The first computer art exhibitions, which were organized by scientists rather than artists, pioneered how algorithms, mathematics, and visual perception could be used creatively through computers. I find this shift fascinating because it shows how creativity was no longer limited to traditional artistic training, but could emerge from scientific curiosity and experimentation, blurring the line between art and research.

The three major exhibitions—“Cybernetic Serendipity” (1968), “Some More Beginnings” (1968), and “Software” (1970)—marked the growing artistic involvement with computers as creative tools and explored the philosophical questions of man–machine relationships. They also brought together pioneering artists such as Nam June Paik, whose Robot K-456 (1964) was featured in Cybernetic Serendipity, presenting a humorous yet critical reflection on the relationship between humans and machines (Fig.1). These exhibitions not only celebrated technological innovation but also revealed its fragility: in "Software", many works reportedly stopped functioning for weeks due to system failures. Such breakdowns, paradoxically, became part of the artistic statement—reflecting the instability, unpredictability, and evolving nature of art in the age of computation.

Fig.1: Nam June Paik and Shuya Abe, Robot K-456, 1964 in "Cybernetic Serendipity" (1968).


Set against the backdrop of post–World War II industrial and technological growth, computer art reflected a fascination with man–machine interaction. The article also discusses how the unequal relationship between programmers and artists shaped the aesthetics of early computer art. Because programming was highly technical, many artists depended on scientists to realize their ideas, which later encouraged some to learn coding or to build generative systems that produced visual results automatically. Cohen’s project AARON (Fig.2), developed at Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence Lab in the 1970s, exemplifies how an artist could teach a computer to draw in his own style, turning it into a creative partner. Similarly, artist Vera Molnár created algorithmic drawings such as Structure de Quadrilatères (1974), using simple computer code and geometric rules to explore endless variations within constraint—an early demonstration of how logic itself could become a poetic medium (Fig.3).

Fig.2: Harold Cohen, AARON, 1979. The 1979 exhibition Drawings at SFMOMA featured this “turtle” robot creating drawings in the gallery. Collection of the Computer History Museum, 102627449.

Structure.jpg (9.41 KiB) Viewed 2217 times

Fig.3: Molnár, Vera. Structure de Quadrilatères (Square Structures). 1988. Plotter and liquid ink on wove paper. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Image via Spalter Digital Art Collection.


The pioneers of computer art were motivated by the freedom of working in a new, undefined field, especially for artists who had limited technical knowledge and therefore sought resources in universities or collaborations with scientists. Without commercial pressure, they explored randomness, order, and structure as aesthetic principles. They saw computers not just as tools but as collaborators capable of transforming the creative process itself. I find this perspective deeply compelling because it shows that even fifty years ago, artists were already questioning what creativity means in the age of intelligent machines—a question that feels more urgent than ever today.

[gevher]

I’ve always had a particular prejudice towards simple shape based artworks. So, I wanted to get out of that headspace by choosing to read about Vera Molnar. The syllabus also directed me to her obituary https://news.artnet.com/art-world/vera- ... ry-2406136. This article had multiple hyperlinks, but the quote “The machine, thought to be cold and inhuman, can help to realize what is most subjective, unattainable, and profound in a human being,” led me to a more in-depth interview (accessible via: https://www.studiointernational.com/ver ... or-gallery).


Vera Molnar, Cercles et demi-cercles, 1953. © Adagp, Paris, 2024. Photo © Ville de Grenoble / Musée de Grenoble-J.L. LACROIX. Courtesy of the Centre Pompidou.


Here, she talks about how her life was and is all about “squares, triangles, and lines”, and tells a little story about how the effect of seeing Mt. Sainte-Victoire in her subconscious led her to discover her interest towards Gaussian curves. The emphasis in the interview on “drawing until the paper rips” shows the almost mechanised way of her streamlining a project from ideation to production. This ties in to her idea of the imaginary machine where she herself, in a way, is becoming the machine.

However, she also mentions that the concept she most values is “surprise”. This intrigued me, because I never associated the element of surprise with artworks adjacent to Suprematism. Especially with her concept of the machine imaginaire where she restricted herself to specific guidelines and repeating patterns. This is the part that connects everything to computation. She says that she saw the computer as both an agent that affected her way of thinking / working and a simple tool that carried out her commands. The surprise element came in when she wrote a program and it did something unexpected due to, say, a small error in syntax, or when she explored different ideas by experimenting with the code itself. This ties into the first quote I mentioned in the beginning, where the cold and inhuman machine helps you realise methods you maybe wouldn’t have been able to just by working by hand.

I would like to add her quote here that I think summarises the thought process, “...ultimately the intuition of an artist is the ‘random walk’ of the computer.” The computational mistakes were good surprises that she unfortunately did not keep, but certainly affected her workflow.




Interruptions 1968/69, Plotter drawing (ink on paper 28 x 28 cm)