Running Cola is Africa

Masao Kohmura Makoto Ohtake Koji Fujino Computer Technique Group (CTG)

1968

22.4"×29.9"
Signed by Kohmura

The CTG Collection

Description

Running Cola is Africa is Perhaps CTG's most famous work. A running man becomes a Coca-Cola bottle becomes the map of Africa. The top half shows the three source outlines with two intermediate figures between them; the lower half shows the fuller transformation, the computer interpolating between the images in steps. Three members share the credits: idea by Kohmura, coordinate data by Makoto Ohtake and Kohmura, program by Koji Fujino. The work was computed in late 1967 or early 1968 and is an early landmark of shape-interpolation.

The image exists in at least three print formats: the unsigned Motif Editions lithograph published in London, the signed edition of sixty printed under Kohmura’s own supervision, and a larger 70 × 90 cm silkscreen (the format of the MOT Tokyo copy).

The image ran in the Spring 1969 Whole Earth Catalog and again inside The Last Whole Earth Catalog of 1971. The Computer Arts Society’s bulletin PAGE reviewed the work (1970): “‘Running Cola is Africa’ announces that a System exists and does it in a way far more impressive than words.”

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