IN THE BEGINNING. BY

WHICH WE MEAN 1976.

ARTISTS SAT IN BASEMENTS AND PAINSTAKINGLY

CREATED THEIR VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS. LIKE

CAVE PAINTINGS. AND THE WORK WAS SO SLOW THAT THEY GREW BEARDS THAT THEY WOULD THEN

STRUGGLE TO RENDER FAST ENOUGH TO KEEP UP WITH!

It is very rare this book. And that is becuase it is very, very good and very important. And despite our jokes about cavemen and facial hair, we are very serious about how seriously great it is. 
 

It is full of proper art. That being the artist expressions of mathematicians and computer scientists. Typically associated with creative people, art actually comes out pretty good in the hands of 1970's super geeks. Sphereless is by Manfred Mohr. As he said in 1975: "I consider the computer as a legitimate amplifier for our intellectual and visual experiences." And that turned out to be true. 

Slightly over-obsessed with the rogue extra dot on the right of this Joy Division / Peter Savillesque execution. It might be a printing error. How would you know? The work is by Aaron Marcus. Photoprint, 1972.
 

Passport photo failure but aesthetic super success nonetheless. Ed Manning's Blockpix portraiture. "The total output of the processor is 1200 sqaures. The information in a field of daisies is so overwhelming that all we get are blobs of color. On the other hand, a single rose looks like a rose." Poetic too. 
 

Ouch. Way before there were illegal techno warehouse raves in need of such fantastic flyer artwork... a computer painting from 1975. Duane M. Palyka made this one. 
 

This is actually quite nice. It was made in 1972 by Ruth Leavitt who also authored this book. A note to NFT artists of 2022 that they don't all have to be completely horrible to look at :)
 

Back with Manfred Mohr. He pioneered the use of algorithms - which no doubt produces a groan now but he wasn't to know that his delightfully complex artwork above would go on to decide which Fruit Corner yoghurt advert you will see next on Facebook. 
 

"No computer will take the place of an artist" Yes and no Instagram account will take the place of real, brilliant and exceptionally rare, superbooks. The real thing on the pink button below.