Computer art

Computer art is any art in which computers play a role in production or display of the artwork. Such art can be an image, sound, animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, video game, website, algorithm, performance or gallery installation. Many traditional disciplines are now integrating digital technologies and, as a result, the lines between traditional works of art and new media works created using computers has been blurred. For instance, an artist may combine traditional painting with algorithm art and other digital techniques. As a result, defining computer art by its end product can thus be difficult. Computer art is by its nature evolutionary since changes in technology and software directly affect what is possible. Notable artists in this vein include Manfred Mohr, Ronald Davis, Harold Cohen, Joseph Nechvatal, George Grie, Olga Kisseleva, John Lansdown, and Jean-Pierre Hébert.

On the title page of the magazine Computers and Automation, January 1963, Edmund Berkeley published a picture by Efraim Arazi from 1962, coining for it the term "computer art." This picture inspired him to initiate the first Computer Art Contest in 1963. The annual contest was a key point in the development of computer art up to the year 1973.

The precursor of computer art dates back to 1956-1958, with the generation of what is probably the first image of a human being on a computer screen, a (George Petty-inspired)pin-up girl at a SAGE air defense installation.Desmond Paul Henry invented the Henry Drawing Machine in 1960; his work was shown at the Reid Gallery in London in 1962, after his machine-generated art won him the privilege of a one-man exhibition.

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