rot 19 - computer-grafik by Georg Nees, 1965

rot 19 - computer-grafik

Georg Nees Max Bense Computer: Siemens 2002

1965

Book

32-page, A5 brochure
Stapled booklet
From an edition of 300
21 cm x 21 cm

The Library Historical Firsts The Ragnar 100

Description

A brochure created by Georg Nees and Hans Bense, rot 19 - computer-grafik is the earliest stand-alone publication devoted entirely to computer graphics. The artists made it to introduce Bense’s information aesthetics theory to a wider audience, and to publish Nees’s algorithmic images for the first time. The creators presented the computer as collaborator of the publication by emphasizing its role in randomizing the imagery, with a line reading “Computer: stochastische Grafik.”

The brochure accompanied Nees’s groundbreaking exhibition “computer-grafik,” which took place at Studien-Galerie at Technische Hochschule Stuttgart in February 1965. This exhibition is considered one of the first in the world to showcase computer art.

Both the publication and the exhibition helped normalize the idea that a machine could claim co-authorship of artworks.