Vera Molnar, Pioneer of Computer Art, Dies At 99 (nytimes.com) 16
Alex Williams reports via The New York Times: Vera Molnar, a Hungarian-born artist who has been called the godmother of generative art for her pioneering digital work, which started with the hulking computers of the 1960s and evolved through the current age of NFTs, died on Dec. 7 in Paris. She was 99. Her death was announced on social media by the Pompidou Center in Paris, which is scheduled to present a major exhibition of her work in February. Ms. Molnar had lived in Paris since 1947. While her computer-aided paintings and drawings, which drew inspiration from geometric works by Piet Mondrian and Paul Klee, were eventually exhibited in major museums like the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, her work was not always embraced early in her career.
Ms. Molnar in fact began to employ the principles of computation in her work years before she gained access to an actual computer. In 1959, she began implementing a concept she called "Machine Imaginaire" -- imaginary machine. This analog approach involved using simple algorithms to guide the placement of lines and shapes for works that she produced by hand, on grid paper. She took her first step into the silicon age in 1968, when she got access to a computer at a university research laboratory in Paris. In the days when computers were generally reserved for scientific or military applications, it took a combination of gumption and '60s idealism for an artist to attempt to gain access to a machine that was "very complicated and expensive," she once said, adding, "They were selling calculation time in seconds." [...]
Making art on Apollo-era computers was anything but intuitive. Ms. Molnar had to learn early computer languages like Basic and Fortran and enter her data with punch cards, and she had to wait several days for the results, which were transferred to paper with a plotter printer. One early series, "Interruptions," involved a vast sea of tiny lines on a white background. As ARTNews noted in a recent obituary: "She would set up a series of straight lines, then rotate some, causing her rigorous set of marks to be thrown out of alignment. Then, to inject further chaos, she would randomly erase certain portions, resulting in blank areas amid a sea of lines." Another series, "(Des)Ordres" (1974), involved seemingly orderly patterns of concentric squares, which she tweaked to make them appear slightly disordered, as if they were vibrating.
Over the years, Ms. Molnar continued to explore the tensions between machine-like perfection and the chaos of life itself, as with her 1976 plotter drawing "1% of Disorder," another deconstructed pattern of concentric squares. "I love order, but I can't stand it," she told Mr. Obrist. "I make mistakes, I stutter, I mix up my words." And so, she concluded, "chaos, perhaps, came from this." [...] Her career continued to expand in scope in the 1970s. She began using computers with screens, which allowed her to instantly assess the results of her codes and adjust accordingly. With screens, it was "like a conversation, like a real pictorial process," she said in a recent interview with the generative art creator and entrepreneur Erick Calderon. "You move the 'brush' and you see immediately if it suits you or not." [...] Earlier this year, she cemented her legacy in the world of blockchain with "Themes and Variations," a generative art series of more than 500 works using NFT technology that was created in collaboration with the artist and designer Martin Grasser and sold through Sotheby's. The series fetched $1.2 million in sales.
Ms. Molnar in fact began to employ the principles of computation in her work years before she gained access to an actual computer. In 1959, she began implementing a concept she called "Machine Imaginaire" -- imaginary machine. This analog approach involved using simple algorithms to guide the placement of lines and shapes for works that she produced by hand, on grid paper. She took her first step into the silicon age in 1968, when she got access to a computer at a university research laboratory in Paris. In the days when computers were generally reserved for scientific or military applications, it took a combination of gumption and '60s idealism for an artist to attempt to gain access to a machine that was "very complicated and expensive," she once said, adding, "They were selling calculation time in seconds." [...]
Making art on Apollo-era computers was anything but intuitive. Ms. Molnar had to learn early computer languages like Basic and Fortran and enter her data with punch cards, and she had to wait several days for the results, which were transferred to paper with a plotter printer. One early series, "Interruptions," involved a vast sea of tiny lines on a white background. As ARTNews noted in a recent obituary: "She would set up a series of straight lines, then rotate some, causing her rigorous set of marks to be thrown out of alignment. Then, to inject further chaos, she would randomly erase certain portions, resulting in blank areas amid a sea of lines." Another series, "(Des)Ordres" (1974), involved seemingly orderly patterns of concentric squares, which she tweaked to make them appear slightly disordered, as if they were vibrating.
Over the years, Ms. Molnar continued to explore the tensions between machine-like perfection and the chaos of life itself, as with her 1976 plotter drawing "1% of Disorder," another deconstructed pattern of concentric squares. "I love order, but I can't stand it," she told Mr. Obrist. "I make mistakes, I stutter, I mix up my words." And so, she concluded, "chaos, perhaps, came from this." [...] Her career continued to expand in scope in the 1970s. She began using computers with screens, which allowed her to instantly assess the results of her codes and adjust accordingly. With screens, it was "like a conversation, like a real pictorial process," she said in a recent interview with the generative art creator and entrepreneur Erick Calderon. "You move the 'brush' and you see immediately if it suits you or not." [...] Earlier this year, she cemented her legacy in the world of blockchain with "Themes and Variations," a generative art series of more than 500 works using NFT technology that was created in collaboration with the artist and designer Martin Grasser and sold through Sotheby's. The series fetched $1.2 million in sales.
Sigh... (Score:2)
The flame of genius burns bright and hot
Blinding us with its brilliance
Then sputtering out quickly, of necessity.
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Then sputtering out quickly, of necessity.
well, she made it to 99.
now seriously, she pioneered the use of a new tool and found a niche there, but pioneering isn't necessarily genius (as loose as the term is) and the actual output wasn't really innovative at all.
then again we crave for nostalgia and heroes, and so does business. i see you can buy her work with crypto!
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well, she made it to 99.
Yeah, that's why I thought my post would be funny. Unfortunately I was wrong!
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it was funny. and poetic! i'm just a weirdo and chose to nitpick.
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Then sputtering out quickly, of necessity.
well, she made it to 99.
now seriously, she pioneered the use of a new tool and found a niche there, but pioneering isn't necessarily genius (as loose as the term is) and the actual output wasn't really innovative at all.
then again we crave for nostalgia and heroes, and so does business. i see you can buy her work with crypto!
"I don't know what I like - but I do know art!" the Simpsons.
I don't think she was a genius, but what she did do is bridge a gap between digital computing and creating visual art. That might be more important than genius.
As for the art itself, I can find an analogue between it in the so-called Op-Art, popular in the 60's into the 70's. Or perhaps string art, which it turns out that computers are quite nicely able to perform. It brings to mind Piet Mondrian and his artwork.
Now all this comes from a 21
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The flame of genius burns bright and hot Blinding us with its brilliance Then sputtering out quickly, of necessity.
Was that a Futurama quote?
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Nope, sorry. I'm reasonably sure I just made it up.
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Nope, sorry. I'm reasonably sure I just made it up.
Well, it's a pretty nice quote regardless.
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Keep it going, like an Olympic torch
https://drtitus.xyz/site/molna... [drtitus.xyz]
Godmother? (Score:2)
Ok, who was the mother/father then? How many roles are there?
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"Godmother" is just to give a mafioso feeling due to her involvement with crypto assets.
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There's also the half-stepsister of generative art, Lillian Schwartz.
What a terrible eulogy (Score:3)
pioneering digital work, which started with the hulking computers of the 1960s and evolved through the current age of NFTs,
That's not great praise. It's like saying Dennis Ritchie did pioneering work in the field of computer languages in the 70s that evolved through the current age of Javascript.
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More like "Dennis Ritchie did pioneering work in the field of computer languages in the 70s that evolved through the current age of crypto blockchain 'smart' contracts"...
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