pioneers and pathbreakers Historical Pers P e c t i v e The Pioneer of generative Art Georg Nees F R i ede R n A k e The pioneer of computer art Georg Nees passed away on 3 January computer’s output in turn controlled a drawing machine. Its 2016, at the age of 89. He was the first to exhibit computer-generated final products were drawings on paper. Programmed auto- drawings, in Stuttgart in February 1965. Influenced by Max Bense’s matic drawings! A sensation. information aesthetics (a rational aesthetics of the object based on ABSTRACT Bense had recently published the fourth volume of his Shannon’s information theory), Nees completed his PhD thesis in 1968 (in German). Its title, Generative Computergraphik, is an expression rationalist aesthetics, under the title Programming the Beau­ of the new movement of generative art and design. Trained as a tiful. When he learned that Nees was creating drawings by mathematician, Nees participated in many early, but also recent, computer with a high degree of randomness involved, Bense displays of computer art. After retiring from his research position at immediately invited Nees to write a short paper, and to ex- Siemens in Erlangen, he again concentrated on computer-generated art hibit those drawings in Stuttgart. Now those drawings ap- and researched issues of digital coloring but also wrote several novels peared in public space and generated an event of significant expressing his philosophy of a nonreligious, human-made culture. impact beyond the local context. Already, in December 1964, just a bit before the show, Nees’s short article “Statistische Grafik” appeared in Bense’s PioneeRing geneRATive ART avant-garde journal, Grundlagenstudien aus Kybernetik und On 4 February 1965, the first exhibition of “Generative Art” Geisteswissenschaft [1]. This paper was probably only the opened in the seminar rooms of the Institute of Philosophy third (more or less scientific) publication on algorithmic art and Theory of Science at the University of Stuttgart in Ger- (then usually called “computer art”). Before it, an article by many. The director of the Institute, Professor Max Bense, Arnold Rockman and Leslie Mezei had appeared in Cana­ regularly used those rooms for exhibitions of experimental dian Art under the title “The Electronic Computer as an Art- and concrete art. ist” [2]. Mezei had written another note in Computers and About a dozen drawings in small formats were displayed Automation [3]. on the walls: black-and-white drawings of a geometric na- The exhibition in February 1965, however, was the first in ture, straight lines in appealing arrangements, grids filled the world of computer-generated algorithmic drawings. We by small fanciful polygons. The drawings were not strictly do not know whether Nees and Bense were aware of this constructed but rather were playful, with apparently random historic fact when they put up the show. features; the rigor of straight lines, combined with simple As he usually did, Bense opened the show with one of his random features allowed for never-ending variation and often-provocative short speeches. This one had the title “Pro- surprise. Georg Nees was the artist—an artist who was not jekte generativer Aesthetik” (Projects of generative aesthet- an artist by profession but rather a mathematician. He was a ics). At the exhibition, it was available in print as issue no. 19 mathematician on his way to becoming an artist, a biography of an avant-garde series of booklets under the title rot. Today, he shared with some others. we may consider this short programmatic essay as the first Someone had told Bense that there was a mathemati- manifesto of computer art. cian, Nees, working for Siemens in Erlangen, Germany, who A sizable group of artists from the Stuttgart Academy of had generated drawings by programming a computer. The Fine Arts was present when Bense read his essay. They usu- ally followed Bense’s activities in the arts that focused mainly Frieder Nake (artist, researcher), Universität Bremen, FB 3, Postbox 330 440, on concrete art and poetry. The announcement of this par- D-28334 Bremen, Germany. Email: <[email protected]>. ticular event may have aroused their curiosity even more See <mitpressjournals.org/toc/leon/51/3> for supplemental files than usual because of the claimed involvement of computers associated with this issue. in acts of drawing. ©2018 ISAST doi:10.1162/LEON_a_01325 LEONARDO, Vol. 51, No. 3, pp. 277–279, 2018 277 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01325 by guest on 25 September 2021 PATHBREAKERS After Bense’s remarkable presentation, Nees got up to ex- against bombings. He learned much about physics while AND plain in simple and sober words what was required to prepare he experienced the bombing of the city. He finished high a digital computer to make drawings. At that time, no one school by the end of World War II and studied mathematics had yet imagined or believed that computers might be pro- and physics at the University of Erlangen from 1946 to 1951, PIONEERS grammed for such a purpose. Computers were supposed to graduating with the degree of a Diplom-Mathematiker. Nees calculate and not to draw. Was drawing a kind of computing? was married in 1949, and in 1950 and 1955 his two sons were Such an idea was hard to grasp for the artists as well as for born. The Siemens Schuckertwerke (later Siemens AG) in the rest of the audience. Erlangen hired him right after graduation. When Nees ended his largely technical explanations, Until 1959 he calculated the physics of high-voltage trans- one of the artists (it was Heinz Trökes) asked him: “This all mission lines. Because of his interest in computers, he even- sounds quite interesting—but tell me, can you also make tually became the lead specialist on technical problems at your machine paint the way I do it by hand?” Comparing the Engineering Computer Center. Siemens was interested the drawings on the walls with the paintings of the artist, any in engineering graphics, which, at that time, meant develop- such comparison would appear as nothing but ridiculous. ing every piece of software from scratch. Nees acquired for Trying to give an answer to this obviously provocative Siemens one of the first Zuse Graphomat Z64 machines. This question, Nees pondered for a moment, but then said: “Oh flatbed plotter, the last invention of Konrad Zuse, was capable yes, of course I can do this—under one condition: you must of generating high-quality drawings. For this, Nees created tell me how you yourself do it, painting!” the first library of drawing routines in Algol 60. He and his In retrospect, this was an absolutely fantastic and deeply team had to solve hardware problems, such as balancing out insightful reply! At this very first moment of computer art’s the trembling of pens when they moved too fast and started appearance in public, Nees’s daring answer summarized in to deviate from drawing straight lines. one sentence the problem inherent in all machinic art: No Nees recognized the potential of the new technology not operation can be implemented on a machine unless it has only for technical applications but also for the arts. Because been described explicitly beforehand. Making something ex- of his position at Siemens, he was allowed to use the Grapho- plicit is the first and necessary step to formalizing it, which, mat at night for his artificial art. During such nights, he cre- in turn, is the precondition for turning it into a computable ated the drawings that he later sent to Bense to present at the form. Nees had given the answer to all speculations about first exhibition in Stuttgart. what computer software could or could not do. At various occasions in West Germany (as, in parallel, in The artists present at the event, however, did not appreci- the United States and elsewhere), a discourse soon emerged ate the intellectual rigor of Nees’s answer. It is, of course, about possible future scenarios for the arts and beyond. In unknown to which extent they understood the depth and the 1960s, Nees discussed with Herbert W. Franke simulated impact of the remark. It seems that they found it outrageous, 3D worlds and games. Could this become appealing and en- if not an insult, for they left immediately, slamming doors. gaging entertainment, or would it rather be peril? For auto- Bense rushed to hold them back, telling them that it was only mating industrial processes, Nees drafted an early specialized “Artificial Art” that they saw here. Was he aware that, in this programming language. He saw the necessity for industry crisp moment of art history, he was coining another term of, standards and was for years engaged in international stan- perhaps, interesting distinction for the fine arts? Did he do it dards development. in agreement to “Artificial Intelligence,” then nine years old? In computer graphics, one of Nees’s main interests was In any case, his attempt failed to bring the artists back to the exploration of the creative potentials of randomness. This show. They had disappeared. had to be algorithmic randomness, of course, a contradiction Computer art, however, would proceed on its slow but in terms: pseudorandom numbers. For example, he gener- steady and eventually broad path to success. Nees stood in ated orange areas by randomly positioning yellow and red the center of events during its origin. But another first is also dots. Irregular patterns looked better than regularly placed connected to his name. In all likelihood, he later presented smooth colors. the first doctoral dissertation on computer art, under the title In 1977, Nees became an Honorary Professor of applied of Generative Computergrafik.