Random Walk Kennedy (after CTG, 1968)

Kazufumi Oizumi Haruki Tsuchiya Computer Technique Group (CTG)

1968/2016

Mixed Media

Laser-engraved transparent acrylic sheet

The CTG Collection

Description

Random Walk Kennedy was the first of the Computer Technique Group's Kennedy portraits. Using a set of 2,452 points, Haruki Tsuchiya's program generated ten further points by random number around each data point and joined them in order. The image was first published in November 1967 as the central image of the IBM poster Computer Design Series No. 2, followed by a silkscreen in 1968, and was shown at Tokyo Gallery and the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, that year and at Galería Bonino, Buenos Aires, in 1969.

Kazufumi Ōizumi, author of the 2015 monograph on the group, reconstructed the work from the surviving program listing and data and re-executed it using Processing. This sheet was made from that reconstruction. The output has been laser-engraved on the reverse of a transparent acrylic sheet.