UV Light Choreogramme

1966

Oscilloscope/Light Photo

Highlights The Ragnar 100

Description

Otto Beckmann’s UV Light Choreogramme represents a defining partnership of early computer art by two pioneers who were both scientists and artists.

In January of 1966, Frieder Nake held his second one-man show of plotter graphics at Galerie auf der Mathildenhöhe, Darmstadt. Austrian sculptor and light-film experimenter Otto Beckmann—who was fascinated with randomness in art, and especially with randomness in dance—read a report about the show and immediately wrote to Nake in Stuttgart suggesting that they cooperate on a project.

The two agreed. Nake created a series of computer-driven algorithmic plotter drawings (now called the Nake Spirals) on a Graphomat Z64. He sent these plotted random paths to Beckmann, who then used them as a foundation for his UV-light animations or Choreogrammes.

Beckman used ultraviolet rays emitted through plexiglass in the same pattern as the drawings, creating a series of mechanical “dances” made of light. These “time-path images of movements” were a new art form he called “light ballets.”

The corresponding Nake plotter drawing is also in the collection.