Software as Art

Searching for the history of software as an art medium reveals two distinct groups of progenitors emerging in the 1960s. There's one category of artists who used early digital computers for the production of their work and there's another category who explored ideas now associated with the synthesis of software and art, but did so without working directly with the technology. The history of using computers to produce visual images is a largely unrecorded history which is rapidly coming to focus through recent publications and exhibitions. As a result of the obscurity of this work, it has had little impact on contemporary artists working in software (3). Alternatively, we can look at the work of artists in the critical groupings of conceptual art and Fluxus. These artists, including Sol LeWitt, Yoko Ono, La Monte Young, Hans Haacke, and John Baldessari have all influenced they way contemporary artists think about software. Software is an immaterial medium, much like thought, and the work of these artists is extremely relevant to the idea of software as art.

In the 1950s the first images created using computers were generated by scientists and engineers who had access to the scarce, expensive, and complex technology. Even by 1969, Jasia Reichardt, then a curator at the Institute for Contemporary Art in London wrote, "so far only three artists that I know have actually produced computer graphics, the rest to date having been made by scientists."(4) The works created during this time were typically made as collaborations between technicians at research labs and invited artists. Organizations such as Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's Art and Technology program facilitated these collaborations. A. Michael Noll, a pioneer of computer images is quoted in Gene Youngblood's 1970 book Expanded Cinema as contradicting this strategy:

A lot has been made of the desirability of collaborative efforts between artists and technologists. I, however, disagree with many of the assumptions upon which this desirability supposedly is founded. First of all, artists in general find it extremely difficult to verbalize the images and ideas they have in their minds. Hence the communication of the artist's ideas to the technologist is very poor indeed. What I do envision is a new breed of artist ... a man who is extremely competent in both technology and the arts. (5)


Every artist must decide if they will work collaboratively or directly with software and this has a major impact on the work. Working directly with code leads to a deeper understanding of the conceptual potential of the medium. The number of artists writing their own software has increased significantly in the last thirty five years, especially since the introduction of the personal computer. Another increase in software literacy happened with the rapid adoption of the Internet in the mid 1990s. While the communities of artists writing software continues to grow, there are many remaining cultural and technical barriers to be removed. One of the largest obstructions is the lack of tools for writing software created for the needs of artists. Existing programming languages and environments have been written by software engineers to meet their specific needs which have always been different from the needs of artists. The open source software movement has provided a way for artists to collaborate on the production of their own tools. It's my hope these open source art software initiatives(6) will serve as a catalyst for a dramatic shift in the use of software within the arts.

Footnotes

(1) BASIC is a programming language invented in 1964 to teach programming to non-specialists. Variations of BASIC were distributed widely with early personal computers. Logo is a programming language often utilized to teach children concepts of geometry. The Logo turtle is used to draw lines on screen in response to simple commands.

(2) artport.whitney.org/commissions/softwarestructures/

(3) Reas, C.E.B. "Who are the progenitors of the contemporary synthesis of software and art?". The Anthology of Computer Art. Sonic Acts, Amsterdam. 2006.

(4) Reichart, Jasia. Cybernetic Serendipity. Frederick A. Praeger Publishers, New York. 1969. p. 71

(5) Youngblood, Gene. Expanded Cinema. E.P Dutton & Co, New York. 1970. p. 193

(6) artsoftware.org