The Bre Pettis Collection of Computer Art

I bought the first three of these from Wolf Lieser in Berlin in 2016 — a Vera Molnár, a Mark Wilson, and a Casey Reas. What got me was the shape of the thing: an artist sets an intention, writes a program, runs it, and then finds out what it made. Intention up front, outcome unknown. I want to watch artists explore ideas, and this is what that looks like on paper.

People assume computer art is emotionless. Then you meet the artists and hear the stories, and it turns out to run very deep.

The pioneers here were doing things that had never been done, on computers that filled a room. The software is easier now and the hardware fits on a desk, but the curiosity hasn't changed. You'll find plotter drawings from the first decades of computer art, computer music pressed to vinyl, poems generated by code, sound sculptures built out of bare circuitry, and generative work being written right now.

For years I bought this work because I wanted to live with it. In the last year I realized I had a collection, so I started documenting all of it — the artworks, and the books and ephemera around them. I know many of these artists and I want them better known. Putting the collection online shows what is here, and it lets curators and museums ask to borrow the work and put it in front of people. Someday I'd like a place where you can come and see it in person. That one is still a dream.

Have a look around. I hope you find delight in Vera Molnár and respect for the precision in Manfred Mohr, and that something here sends you looking further.