Olympiad

Name: Ragnar Digital, LLC
Price range: $

Ken Knowlton Lillian Feldman Schwartz

2000

Description

This print is taken from a 1973 film, also titled Olympiad, created by Lillian Schwartz and Ken Knowlton. In an effort to bring new geometries into Schwartz’s video work, the two computer artists collaborated using an IBM 360/50 computer to create the Explor programming language: a “system for computer-generation of still or moving images from explicitly defined patterns, local operations, and randomness.” Explor generated rectangular arrays of 240-by-340–unit binary black-and-white images which were outputted to microfilm using a Stromberg-Carlson Datagraphics printing machine.

While in the 1973 film the runner—who Schwartz described as “a man made up of octagons”—was shown in motion and with the addition of color, here each frame is depicted in continuous sequence, with the figure cycling through its full range of movements. If multiple copies were placed end-to-end, the runner would extend their efforts indefinitely. Despite their pixelated form, the figure’s movements are still recognizable as originally belonging to the 19th- century photographer Eadweard Muybridge’s famous motion series—another technical innovation that had a profound impact on the art that followed it.