H.P. Peterson

H. Philip Peterson, born in 1931, was an American computer programmer and artist. He worked at the Digigraphics Laboratories of Control Data Corporation in Burlington, Massachusetts, where he was involved in research related to computer-controlled image scanning and digital image processing. Peterson developed methods for converting visual information into numerical data, contributing to some of the earliest experiments in computer-generated imagery. As part of this work, he designed a custom set of numeral symbols that translated tonal information into computer-generated images. 

Peterson is best known for Mona by the Numbers (1965), also known as The Digital Mona Lisa. Created from a scanned image of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, the work translated tonal values into numerical data that were rendered through a custom set of digit-based symbols. Using a Control Data scanner, a CDC computer, and a plotter, Peterson produced an image composed entirely of numbers. Peterson described Mona by the Numbers as a "pure" digital artwork because of the numerical process used to create the image. He later applied the same process to a portrait of cybernetics pioneer Norbert Wiener. 

Mona by the Numbers appeared on the cover of the December 1965 issue of Computers and Automation and was accompanied by Peterson's article "The Digital Mona Lisa." His portrait of Norbert Wiener was included in Cybernetic Serendipity in 1968, one of the earliest major exhibitions devoted to the relationship between computers and the arts. Peterson's work is held in the collections of the Computer History Museum and the ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe. He passed away in 1996.