Thomas Dreher History of Computer Art Impressum Thomas Dreher History of Computer Art First published on IASLonline Lessons/Lektionen in NetArt. URL: http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/links/GCA_Indexe.html Copyright © (as defined in Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial 1.0) by the author, October 2011–December 2012, 1st Update September 2015 (German version); August 2013-2014, 1st Update September 2015 (English version). This work may be copied in noncommercial contexts if proper credit is given to the author and IASL online. For other permission, please contact IASL online. Cover Illustrations: Draves, Scott: Electric Sheep, internet-connected personal computers, screensaver, 1999. Screenshots of two succesive phases (March-April 2012). Thomas Dreher History of Computer Art History of Computer Art Table of Contents I. Introduction II. Cybernetics II.1 Basics of Cybernetics II.1.1 Ballistics II.1.2 Stochastics II.1.3 Information II.1.4 Feedback II.1.5 Homeostasis II.2 Cybernetic Models II.2.1 Homeostat II.2.2 Memory II.2.3 Path Finding II.3 Cybernetic Sculptures II.3.1 Pioneer Works II.3.1.1 Gordon Pask´s "Musicolour System" II.3.1.2 Nicolas Schöffer´s "CYSP 1" II.3.2 "Cybernetic Serendipity" II.3.2.1 The Exhibition in London II.3.2.2 Edward Ihnatowicz´s "SAM" and "Senster" II.3.2.3 Gordon Pask´s "Colloquy of Mobiles" II.3.3 Light and Sound Installations of James Seawright and Vladimir Bonacic II.3.4 Nicolas Negroponte, the Architecture Machine Group and "Seek" III. Information aesthetics III.1 Computer Literature III.1.1 Word Processing III.1.2 Christopher Strachey´s "Love-letters" III.1.3 Stochastic Texts III.2 Computer Graphics III.2.1 Analog Graphics III.2.2 Digital Computer Graphics IV. Images in Motion IV.1 Video Tools IV.1.1 Video Cultures IV.1.2 Video Synthesizers IV.2 Computer Animation IV.2.1 The Development from the Sixties to the Eighties IV.2.1.1 An Outline IV.2.1.2 The Sixties IV.2.1.3 The Seventies IV.2.1.4 The Eighties IV.2.1.4.1 Film Sequences IV.2.1.4.2 Music Videos IV.2.1.4.3 Demoscene IV.2.1.4.4 The Techno-Imaginary IV.3. Evolutionary Art IV.3.1 Biomorphs IV.3.2 Evolution and Processing IV.3.3 Fractal Flames IV.3.4 Emergence V. Reactive Installations and Virtual Reality V.1 Operations of Observers on the Interface to the Image Simulation V.2 Seamless Total Simulation versus Interface Architecture VI. Net Art: Networks, Participation, Hypertext VI.1 Computer Networks VI.1.1 From Timesharing to the Internet VI.1.2 Participation in Networks of the Eighties VI.2 Hypertext VI.2.1 "As We May Think": From Vannevar Bush to Ted Nelson VI.2.2 Hyperfiction for CD-ROM and the Web VI.2.3 Collaborative Writing Projects in the Web VI.3 Net Art in the Web VI.3.1 Web: Hypertext, Protocols, Browsers VI.3.2 HTML Art VI.3.3 Browser Art VI.3.4 Net Art, Context Art, and Media Activism VII. Games VII.1 Computer and Video Games VII.1.1 Early Computer Games VII.1.2 Arcade Games and Consoles VII.1.3 First Person Shooter & Third Person View VII.1.3.1 Ego Shooter VII.1.3.2 God Games VII.2 Pervasive Games VII.2.1 Spatialization VII.2.2 Game-oriented World-Interface VIII. Summary VIII.1 Three Modes VIII.2 Interface-Model IX. Bibliography I. Introduction Books on the history of computer art discuss either the developments being contemporary at the time of their publication 1, or they integrate computer art into histories of new media art. 2 After five decades of computer art more detailed reconstructions of the development lines of the use of computers and computing processes in artists´ projects are helpful for being able to recognize computer art as a distinct field of media art. Computer experts experimented in the fifties and sixties for the first time with mainframe computers and developed several ways to use them in art and entertainment. Several projects of pioneers have been developed further by younger artists profiting from the progress of technology producing smaller and smaller computers. These works constitute a dense field of possibilities that contemporary artists can take up and evolve further. Meanwhile in the sixties and seventies information aesthetics offered a goal turning working with computing processes into a project shared by many artists, after the postmodern criticism of such dominant `projects´ a plurality of technological configurations has been developed complicating the effort to present an overview: We are faced with an advanced stage of the differentiation of computer art. This overview integrates animation and games as relevant development lines of computer art and doesn´t avoid confrontations between corporative organized and distributed arts on one side and on the other side artistic developments beside the interest of investors and corporative organized production methods, because both sides realize different aspects of "computational aesthetics". 3 To avoid artificial separations between three- dimensional visual simulations in digital film animations and computer games on the one hand and in computer art on the other hand these developments are discussed as being equivalent, complementary, or paradigmatic. Computer art evolves partially in simultaneous development lines: The evolution of computer art is multilinear. Each of the chapters features one of these lines. The sequence of the chapters results from the dates of the early mature projects being examples for the main characteristics of a line in a trailblazing manner. The successors of the first mature projects are not included in this outline of the history of computer art. Some development lines have longer evolution phases provoked by the evolution of computer technology from mainframe computers to personal computers (see chap. IV.2.1, VI and VII). The development lines are sketched out hereinafter, and the succession of the chapters helps to get a survey of the overal development. Cybernetics thematise characteristics common to technic and biologic systems (see chap. I.1). William Ross Ashby´s "homeostat" and the self navigating robots constructed by William Grey Walter are technical models whose characteristics to react to external factors are to find in biological systems, too (see chap. I.2). These cybernetic models are technical demonstrations for systems navigating themselves in environments under changing conditions. Ashby´s und Walter´s models prefigured cybernetic sculptures. Cybernetic sculptures differ from three-dimensional kinetic art with moving parts 4 in its capabilities to react to environmental influences with programmed elements (see chap. II.3). The capabilities of mainframe computers to combine signs following programmed rules demonstrate texts that have been generated for the first time in the fifties (s. Kap. III.1). The combinations of letters to build words, combinations of words, parts of sentences, and sentences prefigure a method to organize computing processes that was used and modified in the sixties in computer graphics to generate configurations with a repertory of visual signs. Computers are used as instruments to generate partial realisations of the possible combinations of a visual system´s elements. The results of the computing processes are printed by plotters. The cybernetics-based information aesthetics offer ciriteria for combinations of visual elements avoiding over- as well as undercomplexity of a print´s appearance. Meanwhile works of Serial-Concrete Art are composed by rules combining visual elements without derivations 5, computer graphics combine serial with pseudo-random procedures (algorithmic procedures to generate non-serial events). Information as a measure for visual perception (see chap. II.2.2) is added to "information" as a measure for technical procedures (see chap. II.1.3). In the seventies the arising video cultures follow political and formal experimental tendencies. A part of the last tendency are the developments of video synthesizers beginning with analogue components and using digital components since the end of the seventies. Artist use the video synthesizers for the production of 2D-video films (see chap. IV.1). Simultaneously in the seventies methods for 3D simulations with digital mainframe computers are developed and at the beginning of the eighties it is possible for the first time to produce the figures and spaces of sequences for movies exclusively with computer animation (see chap. IV.2). In the eighties animation procedures for virtual bodies and surfaces are integrated in Evolutionary Art by borrowing from theories on evolution (see chap. IV.3). Since the end of the eighties reactive installations offer interfaces for real-time navigation in simulations of three-dimensional worlds to visitors of art exhibitions (see chap. V). In the eighties on one side mainframe computers offer 3D real-time animations, meanwhile on the other side personal computers are used (simultaneously with consoles) for games with still rudimentary 3D simulations (see chap. VII.1.3). In the eighties programs are developed in the demoscene for introductions (intros) to cracked games using codes for scroll texts and moving graphics to control directly the graphic chips of personal computers (see chap. IV.4.3). In the nineties on one side the 3D animation for personal computers in games, demos and others becomes usual, on the other side a culture of linked (parts of) texts is created by the web´s combination of hypertext and telecommunication (see chap. VI.2.2, VI.2.3) with possibilities to embed low resolution images and short films. In the web of the nineties images and films can get no other than accompanying functions because the transmission time still stretches the users´ patience. The personal computer culture in bulletin board systems was a precursor of the web in the nineties.