Imaging by Numbers

Wednesday, February 6, 8pm
Imaging by Numbers: An Evening of Early Computer Animation
The exhibition Imaging by Numbers: A Historical View of the Computer Print, currently on view in the Block Museum’s Main Gallery, explores the development of computer programming as amedium for artistic expression in creatingprints, drawings, photographs, and artists’ books. The first computer artists believed in the creative potential of technology beyond purely utilitarian applications. By the 1960s many traditionally trained artists were also attracted to the potential of the computer as a tool to make art. They were and are interested in using the computer for its unique capabilities that differentiate it from other media. A number of these artists also created computer generated animation. Space, Color, and Motion, currently in the Museum’s Alsdorf Gallery, presents time-based computer artworks. Similarly interested in time and motion, this evening’s program will contain a number of short films from artists, many of whom are in Imaging by Numbers. As computers have changed culture and society, they have also profoundly influenced art and, specifically in the case of these exhibitions and this film event, experimental film and the art of the print. The evening will be introduced by Block Museum Senior Curator Debora Wood and will include films by Mary Ellen Bute, Hy Hirsh, Lillian Schwartz and Ken Knowlton, Stan Vanderbeek, Edward Zajec, Charles A. Csuri, and Larry Cuba.

IMAGE: Edward Zajec, The Cube: Theme and Variations, TVC 53998, 1973.