Untitled (computer generated sculpture 2)

In the early decades of computer art, the majority of algorithmic outputs took two-dimensional form: plotter drawings, prints, and so on. Johan Severtson’s computer-generated sculptures from the late 1960s—fabricated by the artist following designs produced by a computer program— marked a major departure, attracting the attention of his peers in the growing field of art and technology.

Severtson conceived the process for his computer sculptures while studying for an MFA at the University of Chicago in the mid-1960s. Using the equipment in the university’s computer center, he developed a program that generated sculptural designs based on parameters selected by the user: the number and shape of planes, whether the planes intersect, their proportional size, their color, and so on. The computer would then show the user the possible ways that these parameters could be met, yielding between 500 and 1,000 permutations, according to Severtson. Though it was not able to render three-dimensional designs, the program could specify where notches should be located on the planes in order to assemble the sculptures.

The final selection of planes was made by the artist, who then fabricated the sculptures himself. The sculptures seen here, 3:4 rV (1966) and Untitled (1967), are each constructed from two intersecting sheets of steel cut into geometric shapes. The sheets are mostly painted black, overlaid with blocks of color and a graphic design featuring a segmented circle covered with scribbled text. 

Severtson’s computer-generated sculptures were included in “Cybernetic Serendipity,” the landmark exhibition about art and technology held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in 1968. In a text printed in a publication accompanying the exhibition, Severtson described the computer’s role in his process as that of “a memory extension and thought manipulator.” He saw it as “a tool for the spectator and artist,” and wrote that “it does not produce art, but is used to manipulate thoughts and ideas which could be called art.”

Severtson’s contribution to the show made a strong impression. The following year the artist Robert Mallary—a fellow pioneer in the field of digital modeling—described his program in an essay for Artforum as “a serious contribution to computer sculpture.”