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Contents

Technical

Classification

History

References

Notable Algorithm Artists

External links

Technical

'Algorithmic art', also known as 'algorithm art', is visual art explicitly generated by an algorithm.

Classification

'Algorithmic art' is a subset of generative art, and is practically always executed by a computer. If executed by a computer, it is also classed as computer-generated art. It is usually digital art, although a number of artists work with plotters. Fractal art is an example of 'algorithmic art'.

History

The earliest known examples of 'algorithmic art' are artworks created by Georg Nees and Frieder Nake in the early 1960s. These works were executed by a plotter controlled by a personal computer, and were therefore computer-generated art but not digital art. The act of creation lay in writing the program, the sequence of actions to be performed by the plotter.
Aside from the ongoing work of Verostko and his fellow Algorists, the next known examples are fractal artworks created in the mid to late 1980s. These are important here because they use a different means of execution. Whereas the earliest 'algorithmic art' was "drawn" by a plotter, fractal art simply creates an image in computer memory; it is therefore digital art. The native form of a fractal artwork is an image stored on a computer - this is also true of very nearly all equation art and of most recent 'algorithmic art' in general.

References

★ The Science Of Digital Media - Jennifer Burg, Wake Forest University

★ Algorithmic Art: Composing the Score for Visual Art - Roman Verostko

★ Grau, Oliver (2003). ''Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion'' (Leonardo Book Series). Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-07241-6.

★ Wands, Bruce (2006). ''Art of the Digital Age'', London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-23817-0.

Notable Algorithm Artists

★ James Faure Walker

★ Jean-Pierre Hébert

★ Remko Scha

★ Roman Verostko

External links

★ The Algorists by Roman Verostko.

★ Database of Virtual Art Pioneer Archive of Digital Art since 1999. Editors-in-Chief: Oliver Grau; Christian Berndt; Wendy Coones.