60-4-AC-1975 / Digital Moment in Color

Name: Ragnar Digital, LLC
Price range: $

Vilko Žiljak

1975

57 X 76.5 cm
Edition 2/10

Description

This group of four prints from 1975 exemplify the interdisciplinary work of Vilko Žiljak, who is recognized in Croatia for his contributions across several branches of computer science, from mathematical modeling to computer-generated graphics and typography.

Žiljak, who had trained as a musician, started learning programming in 1969 while studying experimental physics at the University of Zagreb, where he made use of an IBM 1130 at the electrical engineering faculty. He began making computer graphics the following year. “I had always been in love with maths. I wondered: how can one see complex abstract mathematical relations?” he later explained. Recalling his musical background, he likened programming to composing.

The works here were created several years into Žiljak’s exploration of computer-generated graphics. By then he had moved from line-printed black-and-white ASCII images to full-color vector graphics, converted to rough raster images, to allow for greater detail and tonal variety. He used a UNISCOP 100 computer at INA Naftaplin, an oil company which owned a gallery where he had his first solo show in 1975. Among the works exhibited were a set of offset prints from his _Simulation of Transition _series, produced by the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Zagreb.