Dejan Grba | Chronology of Digital Art, Culture and Technology

Dejan Grba Chronology of Digital Art, Culture and Technology

This is a parallel chronology of the events in science, technology, education, art and culture that contributed to the establishment of contemporary concept of information, and influenced the emergence of digital culture. Chronologies by other authors can be found in the section Chronologies and Histories of Digital Art, Culture and Technology, while Digital Art Exhibitions section features a more thorough chronology of digital art exhibitions.

year science and technology art and culture

Joseph Marie Jacquard invents the mechanical loom that simplifies the process of manufacturing textiles with complex 1801 patterns. The loom is controlled by punched cards, based on earlier inventions by Basile Bouchon (1725), Jean-Baptiste Falcon (1728) and Jacques Vaucanson (1740).

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce produces the 1826 first permanent photograph.

Charles Babbage designs the Analytical Engine, a mechanical general-purpose computer. Babbage owned a 1839 promo portrait of Joseph Marie Jacquard, woven in 1833 silk on a Jacquard loom using 24,000 punched cards, which inspired him to use perforated cards in the later versions of Analytical Engine.

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (née Byron) publishes what is considered to be the 1843 first computer program in her notes with a translation of Luigi P. Menabrea’s paper on an Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine.

Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the 1859 Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

Gregor Mendel publishes Experiments on 1866 Plant Hybridization (Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden).

Christopher Sholes designs the typewriter. It 1868 was produced by Remington in 1874. Dejan Grba | Chronology of Digital Art, Culture and Technology

Alexander Graham Bell invents the 1876 telephone.

1877 Thomas Edison develops the phonograph.

Clément Ader demonstrates the first two- 1881 channel audio system in Paris.

Etienne Jules Marey invents the 1882 chronophotographic gun.

Thomas Edison patents the motion picture 1887 camera.

Eadweard Muybndge publishes his series of chronophotographs, Studies of Animal Locomotion. 1888 Louis Le Prince makes the earliest surviving motion picture, Roundhay Garden Scene.

Louis and Auguste Lumiere produce one 1895 of the earliest motion pictures, Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory in Lyon.

Thaddeus Cahill developes Telharmonium 1897 (also known as the Dynamophone), an early electronic musical instrument.

Guglielmo Marconi transmits Morse code 1901 across the Atlantic Ocean.

Using the process of shooting through red, green and blue filter that he patented 1902 in 1899, young British photographer and inventor Edward Raymond Turner makes the first known color films.

Thomas Hunt Morgan shows that genes 1910 reside on chromosomes.

Italian Futurist painter and composer Alfred Sturtevant makes the first genetic map 1913 Luigi Russolo writes the manifesto The of a chromosome. Art of Noises (L'arte dei Rumori).

1916 Dada movement is initiated in Zürich.

Walter Gropius establishes the Bauhaus 1919 school in Weimar. Dejan Grba | Chronology of Digital Art, Culture and Technology

Leon Theremin creates the Theremin, an electronic musical instrument based on an 1920 oscillating circuit, which is controlled by hand gestures.

Julius Edgar Lilienfeld invents and patents a 1925 field-effect transistor, a semiconductor used to amplify and switch electronic signals.

Philo Farnsworth transmits the first 1927 television picture.

Austrian mathematician Kurt Gödel proves the two incompleteness theorems of mathematical logic that establish inherent limitations of all but the most trivial 1931 axiomatic systems, to completely describe the phenomena they relate to. He thus showed that Hilbert’s project of complete and consistent set of axioms for all mathematics is impossible.

In his text On Computable Numbers with Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, Walter Benjamin publishes The Work of Alan Turing defines a concept of the Art in the Age of Mechanical 1936 programmable, universally applicable Reproduction, which postulates that computing machine whose first version technology will inevitably alter the way art operated with letters, similarly to the is perceived. typewriter, and later with numbers.

John Vincent Atanasoff & Clifford Berry start developing Atanasoff-Berry digital computer 1937 at Iowa State University (it was completed in 1942).

Konrad Zuse creates Zuse Z1, a floating point binary mechanical calculator with limited 1938 programmability that, in later versions, read instructions from a perforated 35mm film.

Television debuts at the New York World’s John Cage creates the first in the 1939 Fair. Imaginary Landscapes series.

Development of a ground-based radio navigation systems, the predecessor of GPS, 1940 such as LORAN (LOng RAnge Navigation) and Decca Navigator System.

IBM develops a precursor to MODEM 1943 (Modulator/Demodulator). It transmitted the punched card data at 25 bits per second. Dejan Grba | Chronology of Digital Art, Culture and Technology

Vannevar Bush outlines the in an 1945 article entitled , published in Atlantic Monthly.

Electronic Numerical Integrator And 1946 Computer (ENIAC) is built using 18,000 vacuum tubes.

John Bardeen, William Shockley and Walter 1947 Brattain invent bipolar point-contact transistor at Bell Labs.

Claude Shannon publishes A Mathematical Theory of Communication, a study of the methods for calculating the price of telephone calls for AT&T in which he sets up the basics of information theory. In it, he uses the term informative entropy to designate the relation 1948 between the content and its meaning expressed as a degree of unpredictability of a given signal (e.g. the letter or the voice in verbal communication). Norbert Weiner publishes Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine.

Pierre Schaeffer makes musique concrète 1949 using magnetic tape at Office de (cca.) Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (ORTF).

Harry Chamberlin develops Chamberlin, the 1949 musical instrument that used tape loops. He introduced the first model in 1956.

SAGE Air Defense computers convert radar signals into computer graphic images. Ben Laposky makes Electronic Compositions (later renamed Oscillions) 1950 Norbert Weiner publishes The Human Use of using oscilloscopes to display waveform Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society at patterns that he then photographed. MIT Press.

Geoff Hill, a mathematician, programs the Commercially available general-purpose first Australian digital computer CSIR electronic computers reach the market with Mk1 (Council for Scientific and Industrial the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation Research Automatic Computer) to play UNIVAC (UNIVersal Automatic Computer), popular musical melodies. 1951 and more successful Ferranti Mark 1 and The oldest known recordings of computer Lyons Electronic Organizer LEO I. music are made, played by the Ferranti The first public demonstration of graphics Mark 1 computer at the University of display is shown on a vectorscope connected Manchester. to a Whirlwind computer at MIT. Ferranti Nimrod, the oldest known digital computer game system. Dejan Grba | Chronology of Digital Art, Culture and Technology

John Cage creates 4:33, and a series of Working with UNIVAC-I at the Remington early electronic music works and Rand corporation, Grace Murray Hopper performances. creates A compiler, the first operational compiler. She later worked on the A quarterly journal Scripta Mathematica development of COBOL (COmmon Business- publishes Oscillon photographs by Ben Laposky. He exhibits Oscillions in his solo 1952 Oriented Language). exhibition Electronic Abstractions at The light pen is introduced, within the Sanford Museum in Cherokee, Iowa. Whirlwind project at MIT. Alexander Shafto Douglas creates the first Tom Cranston, Fred Longstaff and Kenyon graphical computer game Naughts and Taylor, working on the Royal Canadian Crosses for EDSAC computer in Navy’s DATAR project, invent the trackball. Cambridge.

James D. Watson and Francis Crick publish the double helix model of DNA structure in Karlheinz Stockhausen experiments with 1953 the journal Nature. electronic music in Pierre Schaeffer’s Colour television becomes available in the studio. U.S.

Marshall McLuhan publishes Understanding Media: The Extensions of Texas Instruments produces the first silicon Man, a pioneering study in media theory 1954 transistor. proposing that media themselves, not the content they carry, should be the focus of study.

General Motors' Research division produces GM-NAA I/O for its IBM 704, which is generally thought to be the first widely usable operating system. Ampex develop Mark IV, the first Herbert Franke’s first experiments with 1956 commercially available videotape recorder computer graphics. with a price of $50,000. Ray Dolby, Charles Ginsburg and Charles Anderson establish the International Society for the Systems Sciences at Stanford.

A team led by Russell A. Kirsch at the National Bureau of Standards develops the first image scanner for use with a computer. IBM develops the first FORTRAN (The IBM 1957 Mathematical FORmula TRANslating System) compiler. Max Mathews at Bell Labs writes MUSIC, the first computer program for direct digital audio synthesis. Dejan Grba | Chronology of Digital Art, Culture and Technology

David Paul Gregg and James Russell invent laserdisc technology, based on a transparent disc. Jack Kirby demonstrates the first working Experimentale Ästhetik exhibition shows Oscillion and other Ben Laposky’s works 1958 integrated circuit at Texas Instruments. at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Publication of ALGOL 58, originally proposed Vienna. to be called IAL (International Algorithmic Language). John McCarthy invents LISP at MIT.

Wolf Vostell uses a film projection of 1959 manipulated TV screen in his installation (cca.) Deutscher Ausblick.

C.P. Snow gives The Two Cultures lecture at the annual Rede Lecture at the First COBOL (COmmon Business-Oriented University of Cambridge. It focused on 1959 Language) programming language the breakdown of communication specification is created. between the sciences and the humanities — as the major hindrance to solving the world’s problems.

William Fetter uses the term computer graphics for his cockpit drawings at Boeing. Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline coin the term cyborg to refer to the concept of an John Whitney Sr. founds Motion Graphics 1960 enhanced human being who could survive in Inc., and makes animation experiments extraterrestrial environments. using a mechanical analog computer system he created from machinery that was used for an M-5 Antiaircraft Gun Director, and later M-7.

John Larry Kelly, Jr and Louis Gerstman use In Catalogue, John Whitney Sr. an IBM 704 computer at Bell Labs to demonstrates the animation effects he generate vocals in the song Daisy Bell, with produced on his analogue computer 1961 musical accompaniment by Max Mathews, in equipment. an early example of computer-based speech Steve Russell develops Spacewar!, a game synthesis. for the DEC PDP-1 computer at MIT.

Edward Zajac, a physicist at Bell Labs, produces the first computer-generated film. It demonstrates a gyroscopic system his group had devised to keep an orbiting satellite pointing toward the earth. at the Augmentation Research Center (ARC) at the Stanford 1962 Research Institute (SRI) publishes the framework for the NLS (oN-Line System), a revolutionary computer collaboration system that included links, the mouse, raster-scan video monitors, information organized by relevance, screen windowing, presentation programs, and other modern computing concepts. Dejan Grba | Chronology of Digital Art, Culture and Technology

Nam Jun Paik makes Random Access, a generative installation in which the visitors produce sound by swiping the tape head over the sets of magnetic tape. His ParticipationTV of the same year is a sound-triggered generative video American Standard Code for Information installation. Interchange (ASCII) is adopted as a standard for computer text. Charles Csuri makes his first computer- generated artwork at the mathematics Doug Englebart and Bill English create the department at Ohio State University. first prototype at Stanford 1963 Research Institute. A. Michael Noll creates Gaussian Quadratic. Ivan E. Sutherland presents Sketchpad, a program for interactive computer graphics, at U.S. journal Computers and Automation the Fall Joint Computer Conference (he sponsors the first computer art begun working on it at MIT in 1961). competition (won in 1965 by A. Michael Noll, and in 1966 by Frieder Nake). Theodor Nelson coins the terms hypertext and hypermedia. The first PhD thesis in computer graphics was defended.

Bell Labs starts an informal artist-in- Thomas E. Kurtz and John G. Kemeny at residence program in which Stan 1964 Dartmouth College invent programming Vanderbeek and Ken Knowlton produce language BASIC. the programmed computer animation Poem Field.

A. Michael Noll and Beta Julesz create stereo computer animations at Bell Labs in New Jersey. Using Sony Portapak, one of the early consumer-grade portable video cameras and recorders, Nam June Paik records the Pope Paul VI’s motorcade in New York City, and later that evening shows the video to his friends at Cafe a Go-Go. Stan Vanderbeek builds Movie-Drome. IBM launches System/360, the first widely The first computer art exhibition, 1965 marketed general purpose digital computer. Generative Computergrafik, organized by Frieder Nake, Michael Noll and George Nees, opens in Technische Hochschule, Stuttgart. Computer-Generated Pictures, the first computer art exhibition in the U.S., with A. Michael Noll and Bela Julesz, opens at Howard Wise Gallery, New York. Max Bense opens Computergrafik exhibition, with Frieder Nake and Georg Nees, at Galerie Wendelin Niedlich, Stuttgart.

John Whitney, Sr. produces Lapis with 1966 his analogue computers. Charles A. Csuri makes the computer- Dejan Grba | Chronology of Digital Art, Culture and Technology

animated film Hummingbird which is later purchased by Museum of Modern Art for permanent collection. Ken Knowlton and Leon Harmon at Bell Labs create Studies in Perception I, an image constructed from the alphanumeric characters of an ASCII printer.

Sony launches TCV-2010, the first videotape Robert Rauschenberg and Robert recorder intended for home use. Whitman with the engineers Billy Kluver 1967 Wally Feurzeig and Seymour Papert create and Fred Waldhauer found Experiments Logo programming language at Bolt, Beranek in Art and Technology (EAT) in New and Newman (BBN) research firm. York.

John Whitney, Sr. creates the computer- animated film Permutations. Frank J. Molina publishes the first issue of Leonardo magazine. Douglas C. Engelbart and his 17 colleague The first issue of bit international researchers in the Augmentation Research magazine is published in Zagreb (9 issues Center (ARC) at Stanford Research Institute were published until 1973). (SRI) in Menlo Park, CA, make a 90-minute tendencies 4. Computers and Visual live public demonstration of the NLS (oN- Research exhibition and the colloquy Line System), they had been working on since open in Center for Culture and 1962. Known as The Mother of All Demos, it Information, Zagreb. was the public debut of a number of Cybernetic Serendipity: the Computer computer interface innovations such as the and the Arts, curated by Jasia Reichardt, computer mouse, hypertext, object opens at the Institute of Contemporary 1968 addressing and dynamic file linking, shared- Arts (ICA) in London. screen collaboration, networked audio and video conferencing. Machine As Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age exhibition, curated by Hewlett-Packard introduces the Hewlett- K.G. Pontus Hultén, opens at the Museum Packard 9100A, the world's first marketed, of Modern Art in New York. mass-produced . John Lansdown, an architect, and Alan Ralph Baer creates the Brown Box, a working Sutcliffe, a pioneer of computer music, prototype of the first home video game form The Computer Arts Society as a console (released in 1972 as Magnavox branch of the British Computer Society. Odyssey). Jack Burnham publishes the book Beyond Modern Sculpture: The Effects of Science and Technology on the Sculpture of This Century, and the article Systems Aesthetics in Artforum.

Peter Grogono, David Cockerell and Peter 1969 Zinovieff develop the first digital audio (cca.) sampler EMS Musys system.

Advanced Research Projects Agency Network Myron Kreuger develops one of the first (ARPANET) is set up by the U.S. Department prototypes of virtual reality. of Defense. 1969 tendencies 4. new tendencies 4 exhibition Willard Boyle and George E. Smith at AT&T opens at Museum for Arts and Crafts, and Bell Labs invent the charge-coupled device tendencies 4. Computers and Visual (CCD), the most important invention for Research exhibition opens at Gallery of Dejan Grba | Chronology of Digital Art, Culture and Technology

digital photography. Contemporary Art, Zagreb. Bell Labs develop the first frame buffer which Andy van Dam founds Association for allows the storage of a single digital image. Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie begin the Group on Computer GRAPHics and development of C programming language at Interactive Techniques (ACM Bell Labs. SIGGRAPH) in New York. The Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (STEIM) is established in Amsterdam. Georg Nees publishes Generative Computer-Grafik, the first doctoral dissertation on computer art. It was submitted to Universität Stuttgart and supervised by Max Bense. Mathematical Applications Group, Inc. (MAGI) creates the first computer graphics for commercial purposes - an ad that flew 3D letters out of an IBM office machine.

A team led by Steve Geller and Ray Holt at Garrett AiResearch develop the first microprocessor (a whole CPU integrated onto Charles Dodge uses a computer to a single chip), the Central Air Data Computer translate astrophysical data into for use in the early versions of the US Navy’s electronic sounds in his composition F-14 Tomcat. Earth’s Magnetic Field. Software, Information Technology: Its 1970 General Electric produces the first high definition colour computer graphic New Meaning for Art exhibition, curated workstation Genigraphics. by Jack Burnham, opens at Jewish Museum, New York. Xerox establishes the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) at Stanford University. The launch of Radical Software journal on art and video. Niklaus Wirth publishes Pascal programming language.

Herbert Franke publishes Computer Graphics - Computer Art. Michael Shamberg and Raindance Corporation publish GuerrillaTelevision, with a proposal for the decentralization of TV networks. Intel releases the 4004 microprocessor, and Texas Instruments releases the TMS 1000, The first museum-based solo exhibition of 1971 the first microcontroller (microprocessor that computer generated art by Manfred Mohr includes RAM, ROM and I/O support on a opens at Musee d’Art Modern, Paris. single chip). Nutting Associates release the first commercial, coin-operated video arcade game Computer Space, created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Bushnell and Dabney leave later that year and found Atari which develops the Pong video game.

MCA and Philips make the first public 1972 demonstration of the videodisc. Dejan Grba | Chronology of Digital Art, Culture and Technology

SIGGRAPH organizes its first conference in Boulder, Colorado. Xerox produces an experimental workstation The first International Computer Art called Alto, one of the first computers Festival opens at The Kitchen, New York. intended for personal use (similar to the 1973 Efrem Lipkin, Mark Szpakowski, and Lee concept of the personal computer). It was the Felsenstein in Berkley, California create first computer with graphic interface, desktop , the first and mouse. computerized bulletin board system (BBS) and a precursor to computer-based social networking.

Peter Foldes produces computer animated film Hunger at the National Film Board of Canada. 1974 Barry Vercoe hosts the first International Conference for Computer Music. Kraftwerk release the album Autobahn.

Kodak researcher Steve Sasson events the digital camera. IBM introduces the IBM 5100 Portable Computer, a predecessor to the IBM PC. IBM releases the first commercial laser printer, Model 3800. Martin Newell creates the 3D computer A New Mexico electronic firm MITS offers the image of a teapot at University of Utah. 1975 kit for home assembly of the Altair, the first Kraftwerk release the album Radio- personal computer. It was named after a Activity (Radio-Aktivität). planet in Star Trek TV series. Bill Gates founds Microsoft. Benoit Mandelbrot, working as IBM Fellow at the Watson Research Center, develops fractal geometry and publishes Les objets fractals, forme, hasard et dimension.

Apple, founded in 1975 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, releases Apple I computer. Richard Dawkins publishes The Selfish Gene in which he views genetics and 1976 Harry Mendell creates Computer Music evolution from the perspective of Melodian, the first commercially available information theory. sampling synthesizer.

David Behrman makes one of the earliest interactive computer music compositions, On The Other Ocean, in which the performers improvise based on the Home computers, the affordable and easy to sounds created by the computer, which in use class of microcomputers, such as Sinclair turn generates sound based on what the 1977 ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Apple II, performers play. enter the market. Documenta VI holds the first live international satellite telecast by artists, including Douglas Davis, Joseph Beuys and Nam June Paik. Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz Dejan Grba | Chronology of Digital Art, Culture and Technology

initiate the Satellite Arts Project. Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) opens in Paris.

David Behrman makes Cloud Music in The Architecture Machine Group at MIT which the music was digitally generated creates the Aspen Movie Map, a video disk- by the variations of the skylight caused by based, computer controlled interactive video the shifts in cloud formations. system. 1978 John Bischoff forms the League of Tim O’Reilly founds O’Reilly Media, a media Automatic Music Composers, the first company publishing computer books and web computer network musical ensemble. sites, and producing conferences on computer technology. Kraftwerk release the album The Man- Machine (Die Mensch Maschine).

Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie, the founders of Fairlight, design the first polyphonic digital sampling synthesizer, the Fairlight Computer Musical Instrument CMI. Philips demonstrates a prototype of an Lynn Hershman Leeson creates Lorna, optical digital audio disc at a press conference 1979 one of the first art videodisks. called Philips Introduce Compact Disc in Eindhoven. Ars Electronica Festival starts in Linz. Bjarne Stroustrup at Bell Labs starts the development of an enhancement to the C programming language named C with Classes, and later renamed C++.

Quantel introduces Paintbox, a computer Nicholas Negroponte and Jerome 1980 graphics workstation for TV. Wiesner found the MIT Media Lab.

Xerox Corporation introduces the Star workstation (Xerox 8010 Information System), the first commercial system to The Chaos Computer Club (CCC), one of incorporate a bitmapped display, a - the world’s biggest hackers organizations, 1981 based GUI, icons, folders, mouse, Ethernet is founded in Berlin. networking, file servers, print servers and e- Kraftwerk release the album Computer mail. World (Computerwelt). IBM releases the first IBM PC, with 16-bit Intel 8088 processor.

Harold Cohen exhibits the works produced by his AARON computer The U.S. Department of Defense declares program at Tate Gallery, London. Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) as the standard for all Robert Adrian produces The World in 24 military computer networking. Hours, one of the first global telecommunications art events. 1982 Silicon Graphics, Inc. launches IRIS 1000, a series of high-performance graphics Roger F. Malina founds the International terminals. Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (Leonardo/ISAST). John Warnock and Charles Geschke found Adobe Systems. Steven Lisberger writes the screenplay for and directs Tron, the first feature film based on digital computer animation Dejan Grba | Chronology of Digital Art, Culture and Technology

combined with classical animation and live action shots. It was also the first feature film that thematized video games and computer-based virtual reality.

Publication of Musical Instrument Digital Yoichiro Kawaguchi creates Growth, the 1983 Interface (MIDI) specification 1.0. first in a series of computer animations.

William Gibson coins the term Apple releases Macintosh, the first cyberspace in his novel, Neuromancer. 1984 commercially successful computer with graphic user interface and mouse. Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz co- found the Electronic Cafe Network.

Commodore International Limited launches the Amiga computer. Les Immatériaux, exhibition curated by 1985 AT&T develops the TARGA 16 graphic card, Jean-François Lyotard, opens at Centre allowing for 16-bit images and 32,000 Georges Pompidou, Paris. colours.

Working at IRCAM, Miller Puckette creates mid- Max visual programming language that later 1980’s develops into Max/MSP.

Nicolas Schöffer receives the Frank J. Malina Lifetime Achievement Award. David Rokeby creates Very Nervous System, an interactive sound installation in which the body movements in space are used to produce sound and music. Sony/Phillips introduce the Digital Audio ZKM (Zentrum für Kunst und Tape (DAT). Medientechnologie) project is initiated in Daniel Langlois founds Softimage in 1986 Karlsruhe. It opens in 1997. Montreal. French students led by David Assouline Barry Vercoe introduces Csound, the first use Minitel (a pre-World Wide Web interactive music programming language. online service, based on Videotext accessible through the telephone lines) to coordinate a nation-wide series of protests at state universities against the change in emission policies, demonstrating an early form of network- based activism.

Ars Electronica Festival introduces Prix CompuServe introduces the GIF bitmap Ars Electronica to recognize significant image format. achievements in cyber arts. 1987 The Joint Photographic Experts Group School of Visual Arts in New York initiates introduces JPEG image format. the first Computer Art Master of Fine Arts degree program in the U.S.

Pixar releases the Renderman 3D shading The first International Symposium on language. Electronic Arts takes place in Utrecht. In 1988 Joe Becker from Xerox publishes a draft 1990, it transforms into the Inter-Society proposal for an “international/multilingual for the Electronic Arts (ISEA) association. Dejan Grba | Chronology of Digital Art, Culture and Technology

text character encoding system, tentatively The Australian Network for Art and called Unicode”. Technology (ANAT) is established. Cynthia Pannucci founds Art Science Collaborations Inc. (ASCI) in New York to support technology-based art.

IBM creates the world's smallest image, an IBM logo composed of Xenon atoms. 1989 Tim Berners-Lee proposes a global hypertext project, the World Wide Web, at CERN. Adobe releases Photoshop software.

Tim Berners-Lee sets up the first web server 1990 and creates the first web browser, the WorldWideWeb.

William Latham produces the computer Tim Berners-Lee issues the first public animation Mutations, at IBM UK. description of Hypertext Markup Language 1991 (HTML) in a document titled HTML Tags. Blackhawk and Wolfgang Staehle set up The Thing, a bulletin board service Fraunhofer Institute develops the MP3 digital focusing on contemporary art and cultural audio compression format. theory in New York.

The Xerox PARC starts its artist-in- residence program. Global Positioning System (GPS) achieves Karl Sims creates Genetic Images, a series initial operational capability with a full of software-based works. constellation of 24 satellites, providing the 1993 Standard Positioning Service (SPS) for The first New York Digital Salon opens at civilian use. the Art Directors Club in New York. NCSA releases Mosaic, the first graphical web The launch of the Arts Catalyst, a London browser. institution which commissions contemporary art that experimentally and critically engages with science.

Antonio Muntadas, Alexei Shulgin and Heath Bunting make the first net.art web sites. Netscape Communications Corporation Chrtsta Sommerer and Laurent introduces the Netscape Navigator web Mignonneau create A-Volve, the browser. interactive real-time environment. Rasmus Lerdorf creates PHP/FI, a precursor 1994 Joachim Sauter and ART+COM create to PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor). Terravision – The Whole Earth Linus Torvalds releases Linux 1.0 operating Installation, a virtual, navigable system. representation of the earth based on Jeff Bezos founds Amazon.com, Inc. satellite images, aerial photos, altitude and architectural data. Joel Chadabe establishes the Electronic Music Foundation in New York.

RealNetworks introduces the RealAudio Char Davies creates Osmose, an 1995 format which allows for streaming data over immersive interactive virtual reality the Internet. They introduce RealVideo environment. Dejan Grba | Chronology of Digital Art, Culture and Technology

shortly after. The foundation of nettime mailing list Sun introduces Java programming that promotes international networked environment. discourse. Brendan Erich at Netscape invents JavaScript DIA Center in New York commissions (originally called LiveScript). web art projects.

Miller Puckette creates Pure Data visual programming language at IRCAM. mid- The beginning of the Dot-com bubble in 1990’s which the rapidly emerging internet-based companies get into the focus of speculative financial sector.

The U.S. President Bill Clinton issues a policy directive declaring GPS to be a dual-use John S. Johnson founds Eyebeam in New system, available to military and civilian York. users. Mark Tribe founds Rhizome.org as a The first Digital Versatile Disc / Digital Video platform for the global new media Disc (DVD) players and discs enter the community. 1996 market. Postmasters Gallery in New York starts Larry Page and Sergey Brin initiate Google as promoting digital art with the exhibition a PhD research project at Stanford Can You Digit? University. Vuk Ćosić coins the term net.art at the 3d studio max is officially announced at Net.art Per Se meeting in Trieste. SIGGRAPH.

Center for Arts and Media (Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie – ZKM) The IBM chess-playing computer Deep Blue opens in Karlsruhe. 1997 defeats the reigning world Chess Champion Garry Kasparov. Steve Dietz establishes Gallery 9, a net.art gallery at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

Char Davies creates the 3D virtual reality Alias|Wavefront releases Maya software. immersive environment Ephemere. 1998 Frankfurt-based media collective MESO Wolfgang Lieser founds the Digital Art develop VVVV toolkit. Museum [DAM] in Berlin.

Paul Debevec uses image-based rendering to produce the animation Fiat Lux. Shawn Fanning, John Fanning, and Sean Rafael Lozano-Hemmer creates Vectorial Parker release Napster, generally credited as 1999 Elevation which allows Internet users to the first peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing control a light installation in Mexico City. system. John Klima creates Glasbead, an interactive musical interface.

Justin Frankel and Tom Pepper of Nullsoft Joan Hemskeerk and Dirk Paesmans create Gnutella, Jed McCaleb creates found Jodi. eDonkey2000 and Ian Clarke creates Freenet, 2000 SymbioticA research laboratory opens at the first decentralized P2P file sharing the University of Western Australia in networks. Perth. Macromedia releases AcrionScript, an object- Digital Art Museum [DAM] becomes an Dejan Grba | Chronology of Digital Art, Culture and Technology

oriented scripting language. online museum.

Erwin Redl shows Matrix IV installation at the Whitney Museum of American Art The Human Genome Project and Celera in New York. Genomics simultaneously release the first Alexander R. Galloway and Radical draft sequences of the human genome. Software Group create Carnivore 2001 Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger launch software. Wikipedia. Bitforms Gallery, featuring digital art, Ben Fry and Casey B. Reas create Processing opens in New York. software. DA2, digital arts development agency is established in the UK. Creative Commons is founded.

UNESCO Knowledge Portal includes DigiArts website. 2002 Whitney Museum of American Art in New York launches ARTPORT, the portal to net.art and digital art.

New York Digital Salon celebrates its 10th anniversary with VECTORS: Digital Art The Human Genome Project is completed of Our Time exhibition at the World 2003 with 99% of the genome sequenced to a Financial Center. 99.99% accuracy. Linden Lab launches Second Life, a virtual world online environment.

Tim Berners-Lee starts working on the The first Beijing International New 2004 Semantic Web project. Media Arts Exhibition and Symposium.

Google introduces Google Earth, a virtual globe, map and geographical information 2005 program, and Google Maps, a web mapping service application.

Jeff Howe coins the term crowdsourcing in an article for Wired Magazine. Networked Open Distributed Events London (NODE.London), a series of media art events and exhibitions, takes 2006 place in London. New York Digital Salon debuts the Abstract Visual Music website, exhibition and events. Julian Assange founds WikiLeaks.

The Zürich University of the Arts, the Institute of Cultural Studies, and the 2007 Bundesamt für kultur initiate Artists in Labs (AIL) program for promoting knowledge transfer between artists and Dejan Grba | Chronology of Digital Art, Culture and Technology

scientists.

Barrack Obama’s presidential campaign has a strong emphasis on the use of social networking sites such as MySpace and 2008 Facebook.com, whose co-founder Chris Hughes works as a coordinator of online organizing of the campaign.

MakerBot Industries produces Cupcake CNC, an affordable, open source 3D printer and The Swedish Pirate Party (Piratpartiet) receives 7.1% of the vote in the 7th June 2009 rapid prototyping machine. election, and wins a seat in the European Bitcoin, the decentralized P2P electronic Parliament. currency is introduced.

Zachary Lieberman, Theo Watson and Arturo 2010 Castro develop openFrameworks toolkit.

The German Pirate Party (Piratenpartei Deutschland), with 8.9% of the votes wins 2011 15 seats in the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin.

The numerous worldwide protest against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act) include coordinated service blackouts by 2012 Wikipedia, Reddit and cca. 7,000 smaller websites, Google starting a petition drive with over 7 million signatures, boycotts of companies and organizations that support the legislation, and an opposition rally held in New York City.

People of more than 200 European cities 2012 protest against ACTA (Anti- Counterfeiting Trade Agreement).