Bell Telephone Laboratories (Bell Labs)

Bell Telephone Laboratories (Bell Labs), was one of the first places where digital computer art was developed. From 1962 to 1968, researchers used mainframe computers and custom-built software to generate still images, stereoscopic pairs, and early computer animations. What began as tools for scientific visualization quickly became a way to explore aesthetics, perception, and composition. The resulting works included abstract line drawings, algorithmically generated forms, mosaics made from electronic components, and 3D stereo images that combined precision with experimentation. Some were shown in major exhibitions like Cybernetic Serendipity and MoMA’s The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age.

A. Michael Noll, Kenneth Knowlton, and Leon Harmon were central to this work. Noll programmed some of the earliest algorithmic artworks and 3D computer animations, including a ballet of stick figures and a rotating four-dimensional hypercube. Knowlton developed BEFLIX and TARPS—early languages for bitmap animation—and collaborated with VanDerBeek on the PoemField films, which combined animated text, color, and sound. With Harmon, he also created The Nude, a pixelated image built from electronic symbols that drew national attention. All of this was made using an IBM 7090 computer and the SC-4020 microfilm plotter machines, designed for science and adapted to make art.

Bell Labs supported a number of artists-in-residence during this time, including Nam June Paik, Stan VanDerBeek, and Lillian Schwartz. Through Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), co-founded by Bell Labs engineer Billy Klüver, artists and engineers collaborated on projects that expanded what both fields could do. The lab actively made tools available to artists and welcomed them into a space normally reserved for scientific research.

The lab fostered a culture of curiosity and exchange. Researchers had the freedom to test ideas across fields. That approach helped shape a new kind of creative process, one grounded in access to cutting-edge tools and a willingness to explore how technology could support artistic thinking.

Bell Labs has been at the forefront of innovation since 1925, contributing breakthroughs such as the first long-distance television transmission and the invention of the transistor. Over the years, it developed key technologies including digital computing, communications satellites, and influential programming languages that have shaped modern telecommunications. In 2016, following Nokia’s acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent, Bell Labs was rebranded as Nokia Bell Labs, where it continues to advance research and development in digital and network technologies connecting people and devices worldwide.