Makoto Ohtake

Makoto Ohtake is an aeronautical architect and a member of the Computer Technique Group (CTG), a pioneering Japanese collective founded in 1966 that brought together artists, designers, and engineers to explore the creative possibilities of computers. He worked at the IBM Scientific Data Center in Tokyo alongside CTG members Masao Komura, Haruki Tsuchiya, Koji Fujino, and others.

His architectural background informed several of CTG’s most recognized works, including Running Cola is Africa (1967/68), where he provided the data structure behind a computer-generated transformation of a running man into a cola bottle and then into the shape of Africa. The piece was programmed in Fortran IV on an IBM 7090 and plotted on a Calcomp 563. Ohtake also contributed to Deformation of Sharaku (1968), a collaboration with Fujino and Tsuchiya that applied mathematical coordinate transformations to a traditional Ukiyo-e portrait. This work was exhibited in Cybernetic Serendipity at the ICA in London, the first major international exhibition to showcase computer art as part of the contemporary art conversation.

Ohtake participated in CTG’s solo exhibition Computer Art: Media Transformation through Electronics at Tokyo Gallery in 1969, which featured APM No.1, an automatic painting machine that used a plotter-like spray system to generate images with CMYK acrylic paint. CTG’s work was also shown internationally at the Venice Biennale, Paris Biennale, and Electromagica ’69, and won the 6th annual Computers & Automation computer art contest. Though the group disbanded in 1969, Ohtake’s contributions remain foundational to the history of early computer art.