XXII Generative Conference - GA2019

A Vision without a Sight: From 's Theory to the Dialectic of Programmed Images

Gaëtan Robillard, PhD student, visiting professor INREV, AIAC Université Paris 8 LDI ENSAD TALM-Tours Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée e-mail: [email protected]

Prof. Alain Lioret INREV, AIAC Université Paris 8 e-mail: [email protected] ______

Abstract inaugurates the Generative by a statement written by Bense, together with a set of computer drawings by the Based on semiology (Pierce) and mathematician and artist . Information Theory (Shannon & Weaver, From a historical perspective, these Carnap), Max Bense's is drawings are among the first programmed essential for understanding the beginning artistic images ever made public. Looking of in in the sixties. closer at Elisabeth Walther and Max However, Bense's programmed aesthetics Bense Estate archive at the Center for is primarily concerned with literature and text (Textheorie und Textästhetik).

Discussing numerical methods that are capable of "describing a text by means Art and Media Karlsruhe (ZKM), and that are nearly the same as those used by focusing especially on the documentation thermodynamics to describe a gas", of the Edition Rot – including its drafts – Bense, a poet and a philosopher, one discovers diagrams and notes which envisions the idea of a programmable text traces back editor’s views. Studying this synthesis. A critical reading of volume IV material notably enables us to understand of Aesthetica reveals that his approach, how the philosopher becomes an influenced by various experiments in instigator of Generative Aesthetics in the Europe, creates a parallel between visual . statistical science, programming and literature theory. But although referring to For pioneers of Computer Art, including the work of art, the philosopher does not and Georg Nees – both yet relate the term programming to image. attending lectures of Max Bense –

programming plays a role of formal In 1960 alongside Aesthetica IV, in description that precedes the , and together with his wife materialization of the image. In the Elisabeth Walther, Max Bense starts the discussion of these images, a problem Edition Rot, an experimental publication opens. While the generative work has that will progressively bring together already been described in the form of an concrete poetry, semiology, typography algorithm, how does one analyze the and cybernetics. In the famous nineteenth resulting image? What happens in the issue dating February 1965, Rot page 1

XXII Conference - GA2019 dialectic between the programmed concrete poetry whose editors are Max synthesis and the visual analysis of the Bense and his wife Elisabeth Walther. It is image? A possible answer is that it is in studied here, especially to point out this dialectic that a new thinking and a Bense's relation with the world of images. new mode of existence of the image occur. The hypothesis is that the The issue n° 19 [3] and its archived discussion of algorithmic image entails the material at ZKM is specifically analyzed reconsideration of how description and for it is the famous issue in which Georg analysis are articulated in the image Nees premiered his computer graphics. process. We will test this hypothesis by This issue also contains Bense’s studying the editorial engagement of Generative Aesthetics Projects. The study Bense, but also by studying the work of of the archive material reveals more Georg Nees and the theory of Frieder details about Bense's intentions while Nake. Here, Max Bense’s vision is editing programmed images. Nees's discussed from concrete poetry to the graphics are accompanied by the world of programmed images. presentation of the algorithm in plain text. Prior to the image, this description adds a Introduction new discursive dimension away from the sense of sight. Although it is text, the program already contains the image. On 28th of October 1960 the art magazine Kunstgespräch published a review of Max The main thesis – the dialectic of the Bense’s new book Programmierung des algorithmic image – is finally discussed by Schönen [1][2]. On the page succeeding observing on the one side the synthetical the editor’s note, Bense was theory of Max Bense and on the other controversially called the Muse Killer side the algorithmic thinking of Computer because of his emphasis on Art pioneer Frieder Nake. rationalization of aesthetics.

Max Bense's philosophy vividly nourished Programming the Beautiful the beginning of Computer Art in Germany during the sixties. At the crossing of Max Bense (1910-1990) studied Information Theory and , his mathematics, physics, geology and founding of Information Aesthetics and philosophy at the Bonn University where more specifically of Generative Aesthetics he gained his Ph.D. and Sc. in December connects him with what is now broadly 1937 [4]. Based on semiology and known as the digital arts. However, Information Theory, his philosophy is Bense's major contribution to Information essential for the understanding of the Aesthetics in Programmierung des beginning of Computer Art in Germany in Schönen is primarily concerned with the sixties. Not only Bense is significantly literature and text (Textheorie und inspired by Norbert Wiener's Cybernetics Textästhetik). but he also founds his philosophy of aesthetics on the relation between This paper looks at how his philosophy mathematics and the arts [5]. introduced the term programming into aesthetics and art. In order to understand In 1960, while a senior lecturer at his vision, his role as the leader of the the , Max bense intellectual circle of Stuttgart school and publishes Aesthetica IV: Programming of particularly his relation with publishing the Beautiful. Aesthetica represents a must be investigated. Rot is an body of four books that Bense started in experimental publication in semiotics and 1954. Aesthtica I deals with the

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XXII Generative Art Conference - GA2019

Metaphysical Observations on Beauty, In his introduction, Bense seems Aesthetica II is already concerned with impressed by various experiments in Information Aesthetics (1956), and Europe. In 1960, his theory in aesthetics Aesthetica III: Aesthetics and civilization is not unique. While discussing numerical (1958). Later, in 1965, the four books of methods that are capable of “describing a Aesthetica were reedited together in a text by means that are nearly the same as single book with few images under the those used by thermodynamics to general title Aesthetica. Introduction to the describe a gas”, Bense is conscious of the New Aesthetics [6]. In this last book, a fifth efforts of others in the information theory chapter was added. It comprises a discipline (in music with Abraham A. foundational text titled “The Project of Moles, also in journalism at Centre Generative Aesthetics” (originally International d'Enseignement Supérieur published in February 1965). du Journalisme in , …). Although it is mentioned that “at the Max Bense as a philosopher has Technical University in Stuttgart one tries established influential theory for the early (...) to achieve an aesthetic programming Computer Art scene of the sixties. His of texts and visual character complexes”, publications are found in the main it remains a question how familiar Bense international art events concerned with the was with the practical aspects of such Computer's Arrival in Art [7]. Together experiments at the time. In fact, in 1959, with Abraham Moles and Umberto Eco, Bense already published Stochastic Max Bense is staged in international Poems of Theo Lutz in his literary events in London and Zagreb as a magazine Augenblick [8]. In 1958, Bense forerunner of early Computer Art. hears about the attemps of Theo Lutz, a However Programmierung des Schönen is student, who uses a computer, model firstly concerned with literature and text Zuse 22 to compose texts. Bense theory: suggests him to program the computer with a selection of words from Franz “Max Bense's Informational Kafka as well as a simple grammar, which Aesthetics concludes with a General Text he will then publish. Theory, which, on the basis of statistical research by Fucks, Herdan, Mandelbrot, For Bense, the activity of programming is et al., can be understood as a model of dependent on literary theory. the new statistical aesthetics of sign. The Programming literature finds its general text theory refers to any kind of justification in the fact that there is a text, including the aesthetic theory of theory of literature. By extension, poetry and prose, but also of scientific programming becomes in itself a form a languages, advertising languages and literary theory. abstract languages, etc.” Translated from German. Reinhard Döhl, Aesthetica IV “It is not possible to explain, (jacket), 1960. understand, interpret, or program literature without the presuppositions of Through the book, Bense refers to certain theories, the task of which is to programming in different ways. What explain, understand, interpret, or follows is a critical reading focused on the program.” Translated from German. Max use of the word programming and its Bense, Aesthetica IV, 1960 derivatives. It will then discuss the notion of programming in Bense's perspective. In this perspective, it is the task of theory By extension, it will also enable a view on to program literature. The computer is not what is the relation of the philosopher with a tool for literary analysis, but for literary visual art and visual programming. and text synthesis (i.e. production) [Ibid.]. page 3

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Furthering his views on literature theory, achievable”. By principle of combination, Bense enlarges the category to text this system of text bears 8 Q properties theory. This theory has to embrace a (In fact two at the power of three). broader spectrum of texts including reportages, features, series, news, Later in the text, and by using the exact advertising, announcements and visual terms “logical programming”, Bense communication. Based on the Information specifically echoes the idea of Theory, every text can be understood as a constellation found in the concrete poetry message, both from an analytical and a of Eugen Gomringer. Through the idea of synthetical point of view. Also inspired by constellation, Gomringer offers a space authors such as Gertrude Stein, Joyce, for possibilities to happen: “The Ponge et al. and underlining the fact that constellation is ordered by the poet. He these authors have already opened a way determines the play-area, the field or force to the programmability of text, Bense finds and suggests its possibilities. The reader, in synthesis the promise for a new the new reader, grasps the idea of play, experimental discipline in the field of and joins in [10].” By writing in “a process aesthetics. of formal simplification" and with “a reduced number of minimal forms”, Logical Programming Gomringer constructs an “object of thoughts and a play of ideas” [11]. In Aesthetica IV (1960, p67), Bense also Certainly the formal reduction found in refers to the theory of Rudolf Carnap. Grominger's poetry echoes the needed Carnap was a philosopher who advocated reduction in modern programming logical positivism. For him, philosophy is language. But what are the differences the construction of language for science, between words chosen by the poet freed from metaphysics. In 1952, together suggesting a constellation of meaning and with Bar-Hillel, Carnap publishes at MIT the possible combination of words carried “An Outline of a Theory of Semantic out by an algorithm? How to Information” where he presents a algorithmically explore words’ distinctive approach to the then current combinations? We are testing here the Theory of Communication [9]. Whereas properties of Bense's example of the admitted theory (Shannon & Weaver) conjunctions. Our first step is to list and to treats amounts of information as a write all the possible conjunctions measure of the statistical rarity of a contained by P1•P2•P3, where the message, Carnap and Hiller build a theory predicates can be either negated or non- in which the concept of information carried negated. As an example, one of the out by a sentence within a given language possible conjunction should be P1•P2•- system is treated as synonymous with the P3. The practical realization of such an content of this sentence. Semantic example can require two distinctive information is explicated by various methods: iteration and recursion. An measures of this content. Taking on illustration is given here in Java- Carnap’s terminology for studying text Processing code. We are assuming P1, (molecular and atomic predicates), Bense P2 and P3 are tables of length two. takes an example from the theory of Carnap in the quantification of properties The code for quantification of Q (Q) for a conjunctive proposition such as properties: P1•P2•P3 where the predicates can be either negated or non-negated (e.g. –P1 String[] P1 = {"red", "blue"}; or P1). Bense applies the theory to a text String[] P2 = {"sweet", "bitter"}; example: “Red and sweet and String[] P3 = {"achievable", "unthinkable"}; page 4

XXII Generative Art Conference - GA2019 for (int i=0; i<=P1.length-1; i++){ thinking literature and text. At the same for (int j=0; j<=P2.length-1; j++){ time Bense maintained strong for (int k=0; k<=P3.length-1; k++){ relationships with visual artists. println(P1[i], "and", P2[j], "and", P3[k]); } Bense, Rot and the World of } } Images

The print function returns a list of all possible conjunctions (Q = 23 = 8): “There are red secrets in the world, really only red ones.” Translated red and sweet and achievable from German. Ernst Bloch, Edition Rot red and sweet and unthinkable (back cover), 1960-1997 red and bitter and achievable red and bitter and unthinkable blue and sweet and achievable blue and sweet and unthinkable blue and bitter and achievable blue and bitter and unthinkable

Of course such a programming language didn't exist when Bense was writing Programmierung des Schönen. However exploring values and combination of binary numbers is elementary knowledge in computer science. We could argue that Bense's interest in both Carnap and Grominger is rather focused on either the logical reasoning or the brevity and compression of information and meaning in text. But Bense's understanding of computer science and the practicality of programming yet remains uncertain. Fig1. Hansjörg Mayer, Rot, cover design, Bense’s sense of programming will version of 1965. evolve. In an unpublished dictionary of aesthetics dated after 1971, Bense et al. In parallel with the publication of define the term program in a now Aesthetica IV in 1960 Bense starts the commonly admitted manner: Edition Rot, based in St uttgart, which will progressively bring together concrete "Program, term of machine poetry, semiology, typography and (electronic) information processing. The cybernetics. program is a system of rules that the machine must obey in order to carry out “The series Red is used for the the intended result." Translated from publication of experimental literature and Gemran. Ästhetik Wörterbuch, Moderner graphics. At the same time, the concept of Ästhetik, unpublished [12] experiment is not narrowly conceived. We expect everything that includes the form Not far from an intuition, the effort of content and purpose of artistic production Bense in bridging programming and under the presupposition of a theoretically aesthetics in 1960 opened a new way for accessible aesthetic conception. page 5

XXII Generative Art Conference - GA2019

Experimental literature and graphics are seem surprising that the principle of a created, incorporating all stochastic programmed aesthetic only appears in a aleatory topological abstract and concrete minor way with two specific issues. techniques, and not limited to the natural Nevertheless, through each number, the modes of production of a creative text and image relationship progresses individual, but also counting on the dynamically and it is not uncommon for an artificial production of electronic entire issue to be dedicated to a body of computing equipment.” Translated from work that is only visual (e.g. Rot n° 27 in German. Edition Rot (promotion material). the spirit of New Realism with Max Bense, Elisabeth Walther, circa 1966 photographic work and collage by Reinhold Koehler). With its square format and its red dusk designed by Hansjörg Mayer, Rot is very Investigating the archive of Elisabeth recognizable from a distance (Fig1). Walther and Max Bense and specifically Radically exploiting the Futura typography the one of Edition Rot at ZKM (E. Walther without capitals, Rot completes with 62 and M. Bense Estate) reveals a dense booklets which are extending from 1960 to activity in publishing. How does Max 1997. Its categories are including poetry, Bense relate to the world of images prose, concrete poetry, philosophy, appears far more complex than it might be semiology, theory, photography, painting, expressed in Programmierung des drawing, typography, computer generated Schönnen, which as we saw focuses drawing, computer generated text, comic- mostly on literature and text theory. If strip and drama. The publication concrete poetry is literature, it certainly embodies the activities of intellectual also is an art of distributing signs in the group of Stuttgart which surrounded Max two dimensions of the page. Observing Bense and Elisabeth Walther. Among the publishing practices in Rot shows the published authors we find (in no specific attention of Bense to visual space. order): Jean Genet, Abraham A. Moles, Charles S. Pierce, Hansjörg Mayer, Georg Moreover Bense wrote numerous texts on Nees, Yona Friedman, Francis Ponge, fine art [8]. And it is also worth to notice Dieter Roth, and many others. The journal that not only Elisabeth Walther was a is essentially concerned with concrete semiotician, but she also was a poetry and alternates frequently with photographer. Frequently, she shot issues dedicated to semiology and visual various trips of Bense and her. It seems art. Two issues, the 19th and the 50th, are obvious that she would have had an explicitly oriented on the programming of influential role on the reproduction of aesthetic forms, with respectively the photographic images in Rot (e.g. n° 60). generative drawings of Georg Nees (n° But how as an editor did Bense 19), and the poetry of Carole Sp. specifically relate to the image material Mccauley (n° 50). It is also worth noticing that was artificially or algorithmically that the number eight presents a text form produced? The archive reveals layers and Abraham A. Moles titled “First manifest of drafts that participate to the layout of pemutational art” accompanied by a various issues including the famous Rot reproduction of an image from Vasarely n° 19 [3]. [13] Computer-Grafik, Rot n° 19 In general Edition Rot presents an intellectual network linked by an interest in the text and the typographic sign. Given the involvement of Max Bense in the genesis of Computer Art, it may also page 6

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In the issue nineteen published in page borders the composition. The February 1965 under the title Computer- images that are presented are all made of Grafik, Rot inaugurates Generative black straight lines with approximately 0.5 Aesthetics with the publication of a mm stroke. These are verticals, statement by Bense himself [4]. In fact this horizontals, obliques. The shapes are issue is also dedicated to a text and a set either organized as patterns in a of computer drawings by mathematician seemingly repetitive grid or as full page and artist Georg Nees who works at shapes made from complex superposition in . From a historical of various line densities. It is not specified perspective, these drawings are counting in the publication: all images are originally among the first programmed and artistic ink drawings made with the help of an images ever made public [14]. Frieder automated pen plotter. Nake reports the public event that paralleled this publication at the Looking closer at Walther-Bense Estate “Studiengalerie der TH Stuttgart” as the archive at the Center for Art and Media first exhibition of Computer Art, “two Karlsruhe (ZKM), one discovers precious months before the famous Howard Wise material concerning the way Rot n° 19 exhibition in New York” (both the has been edited. Reproductions of the six exhibition at the Studiengalerie and the images can be found on free glossy paper publication of Rot n°19 are dated with various annotations in blue pencil February 1965). On the occasion of his from the hand of Bense. For 23-Edge Aesthetic Colloquium, Bense who has (Fig2.), it is worth mentioning that the last already been exhibiting artists in this shapes at the bottom of the image are space also presented the statistical crossed out. The signature of Nees which drawing experiments by Georg Nees. is also situated at the bottom is crossed out too. Two blue lines and a vertical In the first two pages of the booklet, arrow in the left margin seem to indicate Georg Nees presents a text “about the an instruction for cropping the image in programs of stochastic computer the final layout. graphics”. Not only we learn that every graphic has random parameters, but also Nees explains that each repetition of random parameters “produces the aesthetic improbability of the graphics”. After the brief introduction, the text presents five parts written in the form of a pseudo code. Each part relates to one or two images that will be discovered in the next few pages: "8-edge: (image1)", "23- edge: (bimage2)", and so on. In plain text – without specification of any programming languages – the descriptions are presenting the programmable instructions that generate aesthetic results. Fig2. Georg Nees, 23-Edge: detailed view from editor’s draft, Rot n° 19, 1965. In the following images, the layout is systematic: the image title (e.g. "image What were the intentions of Bense? Is it 1"), the image itself in full page top to because the name of Nees was appearing bottom, and the page number. A vertical in signature that the last line of shape was white margin at the center of the double removed from the edition? Or was it page 7

XXII Generative Art Conference - GA2019 simply for getting the grid of shapes closer would shift from being analytical to being to the square format of Rot? Although the synthetical and hence experimental. A exact answer is unknown; it is remarkable theory in aesthetics should be capable of that this simple gesture of framing artificially producing art. In the philosophy witnesses Bense's relation to authorship that Bense instigates, describing as well and to the new category of programmed as programming precedes the realization images. In this case, it's as if the abstract of the art work. signs algorithmically produced by Nees functions as characters that would have to Coming back to Nees's images in Rot n ° be selected yet again after they are 19 wich counts as an historical produced. It also significantly recalls inauguration of programmed aesthetics in Bense's interest in information and the visual realm; we are left with few new aesthetics realization as a process of questions. If Nees describes an algorithm selection: “Realization is an expression of and then exhibits the resulting image in a selection function” [2]. Moreover it also the next pages, how to analyze and reveals that Bense's purpose might not interpret the visual result? Is this about have been to publicly present Nees as an retrieving the formal that lies behind artist but rather to demonstrate it? What are the critical tools that would experimental application of his theories in enable a strong evaluation of the the visual realm. algorithm together with the aesthetic result? The thesis here is that a Dialectics in the programed image whether scientific or artistic constitutes a dialectical unit. It is programmed image precisely because algorithm and image are inseparable that together they For pioneers of Computer Art, including constitute a specific category of image. Frieder Nake and Georg Nees – both The image exists both as an algorithm mathematicians attending lectures of Max and as a visual material. Frieder Nake for Bense – programming plays a role of whom "computer art is conceptual art" formal description that precedes the precisely points out the dialectical tension materialization of the image. In the between the algorithm and the visual work discussion of these images, a problem that is carried out by the means of opens. While the generative work has computation: already been described in the form of an algorithm, how does one analyze the "When the computer executes the resulting image? What happens in the description, it reads it in its own, peculiar dialectic between the programmed way: it realizes exactly what the synthesis and the visual analysis of the description requires it to do, and nothing image? else. Reading always is interpreting. The computer, when reading the operational For Bense, computation, deduction and text, interprets it. Absolutely different from measure are processes oriented towards our interpretation, the computer’s future. In his vision, mathematical interpretation is a determination: no language enables the transition from freedom allowed. The computer interprets physical processes in the natural world to by determining the one and only one productive principles within the technical interpretation that makes algorithmic and artificial world. According to him, the sense." Frieder Nake, Paragraphs on Humanities should radically reconsider its Computer Art, Past and Present, 2010 generative forces: “the reality-setting [15]. power of the humanities has not been verified” [1]. With programing, Humanities page 8

XXII Generative Art Conference - GA2019

At the opposite end, we meet the visible he thoroughly defended didn't surface onto which the image comes to comprehend in detail the intricate and existence. By becoming visible the work didactical relation between algorithm and manifests itself in the material world, and image. “Think the image, don't make it!” because it is visible to the human eye it This proposition from Frieder Nake becomes subject to a new variety of expresses well the algorithmic dimension interpretation. Frieder Nake also adds that of computer generated image. Did by thinking in algorithmic terms we also Bense's vision lead to such a statement? share with the machine its one and only Partially. Not only Nake has been closely one interpretation: involved in the events where Bense instigated Generative Aesthetics, but the "The result of an effort in algorithmic synthetical theoretical means to thinking is an algorithmic system. As such, statistically realize aesthetic states offered it is in all its aspects unambiguous. This a strong basis for concentrating on the amounts to saying, there is one and only task of algorithmically describing the one interpretation of each execution of the image before its realization. Frieder Nake algorithmic system." Ibid. insists that computer art is also a form of conceptual art. Bense, who claims that The tension between algorithms and aesthetics must develop “under new aesthetics is not Bense's own formulation; aspects into a technical science” and who instead it is to be found in Frieder Nake's announces that programming meets theory and teaching [16]. Let's recall that creation, might not have fully foreseen the Frieder Nake has actively been taking part aesthetic tension these claims would in the Stuttgart circle. He has certainly create between the program and the been impressed by Bense's lectures he image; and the algorithm and the visible. followed as a mathematician student in Confronting Bense’s view to image the university of Stuttgart in the beginning synthesis and in particular to today’s of the sixties. In November 1965, nine practice opens up a rich discussion that months after the presentation of computer necessitates further research. graphic experiments at Bense's Studiengalerie mentioned above, Nake References and Nees have exhibited together at the Niedlich gallery (Niedlichs Buchladen und [1] Hamm, Peter. “Der Musenmörder.” Galerie), using the title Computer Grafik Kunstgespräch 1960, Frankfurt-am-Main, (slightly different from Rot n° 19). Since October 28 and 29, 1960. then, Stuttgart became a pioneering location for digital art and Bense's [2] Bense, Max. Aesthetica IV, impulsion in Generative Aesthetics have Programmierung des Schönen. been well followed and yet surpassed. Allgemeine Texttheorie und Textästhetik. Agis, Baden-Baden and Krefeld, 1960. Conclusion [3] Nees, Georg, and Max Bense. By following Information theory and Computer-grafik. Rot. 19. Stuttgart: Max semiotics, Bense's vision bridges text Bense, Elisabeth Walther, 1965. theory and programming. Because of the close relation he maintained with visual [4] “Elisabeth Walther: Max Bense’s arts, especially through the experimental Informational and Semiotical Aesthetics.” publication Rot, the philosopher also Accessed November 2, 2019. opened a way to image synthesis in art. https://www.stuttgarter- However the information aesthetics that schule.de/bense.html.

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[5] Konturen einer Geistesgeschichte der Walther. Ästhetik Wörterbuch, Moderner Mathematik, II. Die Mathematik und die Ästhetik. Max Bense and Elisabeth Kunst (1949). Walther, Unpublished (dated after 1971).

[6] Bense, Max. Aesthetica : Introduction à [13] A. Moles, Abraham. Erstes manifest la nouvelle esthétique. Editions du Cerf, der pemutationellen kunst. Translation 2007. monika bense, renate kübler, elisabeth walther. Rot. 8. Stuttgart: Max Bense, [7] A Little-Known Story about a Elisabeth Walther, 1962. Movement, a Magazine, and the Computer’s Arrival in Art: New [14] “Computer-Grafik (Nees 1965) | Tendencies and Bit International, 1961- Database of Digital Art.” Accessed 1973. Margit Rosen (ed.). Mit Press and November 17, 2019. http://dada.compart- ZKM Karlsruhe, 2011. bremen.de/item/exhibition/325.

[8] Rosen, Margit, et al. “Bense Und Die [15] Frieder Nake, Paragraphs on Künste: Eine Ausstellung Zum 100. Computer Art, Past and Present, London Geburtstag Des Philosophen Max Bense Conference, CAT 2010. (1910–1990)” – Liftlet of the Exhibition. ZKM | Medienmuseum, Projektraum, [16] “Introduction to Digital Media | Frieder 2010. Nake ꞏ Compart ꞏ Center of Excellence Digital Art.” Accessed November 17, [9] Carnap, Rudolf, and Yehoshua Bar- 2019. https://compart.uni- Hillel. “An Outline of a Theory of Semantic bremen.de/teaching/wintersemester-2019- Information.” MIT, Research Laboratory of 20/introduction-to-digital-media. Electronics, Technical Report, no. 247 (1952). Figures [10] “Eugen Gomringer. From Line to Fig1. Hansjörg Mayer, Rot, cover design, Constellation, originally published in version of 1965. ZKM | Center for Art and German in 1954”. Accessed November Media Karlsruhe / Elisabeth Walther- 17, 2019. Bense Estate / ZKM-01- 0129-02-0991-a http://www.ubu.com/papers/gomringer01. html. Fig2. Georg Nees, 23-Edge: detailed view from editor’s draft, Rot n° 19, 1965. ZKM | [11] Gomringer, Eugen. The Book of Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe / Hours and Constellation. Something Else Elisabeth Walther-Bense Estate / ZKM-01 Press, Inc. New York, Villefranche-sur- mer, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1968.

[12] "Programm, Begriff der maschinellen (elektronischen) Informationsverarbeitung. Das Programm ist ein System von Regeln, nach denen die Maschine arbeiten muss, um bestimmte Operationen, die zum gewüschten Ziel führen, auszuführen." Bense, Max, Wolfgang Berger, Felix von Cube, Ildiko Görhely, Rul Gunzenhäuser, Bernd Jobbich, Kathinka Huebner, Friederike Roth, Siegfried Maser, and Elisabeth page 10