Week 4

While we were getting more and more used to the Arduino board, I wondered what the first steps in Digital Arts were, how it all began and the conditions the artists worked in.

On http://www.dam.org/ there is a very useful and elaborate timeline presenting individual artist as well as key events.

Ben F. Laposky was an American mathematician and artist experimenting who was one of the first computer Art innovators. He was the first creating images generated by an electronic machine (1950).

http://dam.org/laposky/index.htm
“His electronic oscilloscope imagery was produced by manipulated electronic beams displayed across the fluorescent face of an oscilloscope's cathode-ray tube and then recorded onto high-speed film. He called his oscillographic artworks 'oscillons' and 'electronic abstractions'. The mathematical curves that were created by this method were similar to the lissajous wave form.”

http://apolide.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/img16.jpg

Similarly to Laposky, the Austrian Herbert W. Franke explored electronic abstractions. His book ‘Computer Graphics - Computer Art’ was the first book published on that subject.

http://translab.burundi.sk/code/vzx/1953-5.HerbertFranke+AndreasHubner.lightforms.gif
http://www.dam.org/franke/images/IMG0066.gif
http://web1w4.nfrance.com/~wb60204/wp-content/uploads/herbertfrankeelectronicgraphics.gif

The third computer graphics pioneer I had a look at is Charles Csuri. In contrast to the other artists, he studied Computer Animation and Digital Fine Art too.

http://www.siggraph.org/artdesign/profile/csuri/artworks/analog/oilpainting.html

These paintings were made in1964. Csuri made experiments with analog computer devices based on the concept of transformation. Moreover, he was fascinated by anamorphosis. Anamorphosis is a technique used to create an image that appears distorted, but by viewed at a certain angle looks normal.