prehysteries of new media: >> Katherine Nash, Richard H. Williams, ART1 (1970)

<< preface

this blog is nina wenhart's collection of resources on the various histories of new media art. it consists mainly of non or very little edited material i found flaneuring on the net, sometimes with my own annotations and comments, sometimes it's also textparts i retyped from books that are out of print.

it is also meant to be an additional resource of information and recommended reading for my students of the prehystories of new media class that i teach at the school of the art institute of chicago in fall 2008.

the focus is on the time period from the beginning of the 20th century up to today.

2008-07-03

>> Katherine Nash, Richard H. Williams, ART1 (1970)

from wikipedia:

In 1970, Nash then of the University of Minnesota and Richard H. Williams then of the University of New Mexico and later the University of Minnesota published Computer Program for Artists: ART 1. The authors described three approaches an artist might take to use computers in art:

The artist can become a programmer or software engineer
Artists and software engineers can cooperate, or
The artist can use existing software. At that time, ART 1 existed and she chose this path

"Twenty years of a computerized society make it apparent that twenty years hence no artist can ignore the computer. He will have to adjust to it, cope with it or use it. He cannot reject it. It will influence his creative thinking, as all aspects of society have always influenced the artist. The computer will be another tool for creativity." (*)

ART1 is the result of a collaboration between an artist and an engineer, developed at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of New Mexico.

"ART I in all its detail is somewhat involved. It contains approximately 350 separate statements
written in FORTRAN IV, a programming language. An artist, however, need not concern himself with programming complexities, since the entire program is stored in the computer's memory bank. The program may be obtained by simply using one card that had been key-punched:
/INCLUDE ART1

(*) Computer Program for Artists: ART 1, Katherine Nash and Richard H. Williams, Leonardo, Vol. 3, No. 4 (Oct., 1970), pp. 439-442 (article consists of 4 pages)