UV Light Choreogramme

Name: Ragnar Digital, LLC
Price range: $

Otto Beckmann

1966

Oscilloscope/Light Photo

Highlights

Description

Otto Beckman’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.

Untitled Choreogramme Photograph Otto Beckmann 1966 Print

Elektronische Computergrafik Otto Beckmann / Alfred Graßl 1968 Oscilloscope/Light Photo

Untitled Computer-Generated Choreogramme (for… Frieder Nake 1966 Plotter Drawing

Hommage à Paul Klee Frieder Nake 1966 Plotter Drawing

futura 13 - frieder nake - computer grafik Frieder Nake / Hansjörg Mayer 1966 Print

3:4 rV (computer generated sculpture) Johan Severtson 1966 Sculpture

9 evenings: theatre and engineering Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) 1966 Print

16 4 66 Frieder Nake 1966 Print