The Beginnings of Computer Art in the United States: A Memoir

Notes

Leonardo, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 39-44, 1994, published for the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (c) 1994 ISAST. Printed as an “Artist's Article”; the note at the foot of the first page reads “Received 25 June 1993. Solicited by Roger F. Malina.” Author affiliation as printed: Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. The supplied citation is confirmed.. Self-archived by the author at http://noll.uscannenberg.org/Art%20Papers/Memoir.pdf — Noll posts his own papers on his site at noll.uscannenberg.org, which is where this copy comes from. Hosting here is with his agreement, given to Bre Pettis directly on 6 October 2026. Already in the library with empty notes — summary is to enrich it. Noll was hired from Newark College of Engineering in 1961 to work on the subjective aspects of telephone service, and spent the summer of 1962 as an intern in the Bell Labs research division, where plotting speech data on the new Stromberg Carlson SC-4020 microfilm plotter gave him his medium. A fellow intern, Elwyn Berlekamp, brought a plot wrecked by a programming error; they joked about accidental computer art, and Noll decided to make it deliberately on the IBM 7090. The results went into the memorandum “Patterns by 7090” of 28 August 1962. He credits the environment made by John R. Pierce, William O. Baker and Manfred R. Schroeder, with Bela Julesz, Kenneth Knowlton and Max V. Mathews at work nearby. The Mondrian study followed in The Psychological Record in 1966, with a 1972 variant finding no difference between artistically trained and untrained subjects. Howard Wise approached Bela Julesz in 1964 and Julesz introduced Noll; Julesz refused to call his images art, so they compromised on the title “Computer-Generated Pictures”. The announcement was a deck of IBM punched cards; the show ran 6-24 April 1965 and was the first major exhibit of computer art in the United States, though Frieder Nake and Georg Nees had shown in Germany a few months earlier. Nothing sold, despite a positive notice by Stuart Preston in the New York Times. AT&T tried to halt the exhibit, then told them to restrict publicity and let them copyright the pictures themselves. The Copyright Office refused Gaussian-Quadratic twice - a machine had made it, and randomness was unacceptable - relenting only when Noll explained the algorithm was perfectly mathematical; it may be the first copyright-registered computer art. The rest covers four-dimensional letter animation used for the title of Incredible Machine (1968) and for the NBC special The Unexplained, colorcast 3 April 1970; the 1965 stick-figure ballet shown to Rebekah Harkness and Merce Cunningham; and the force-feedback feelie, filed 26 May 1971 and issued as U.S. Patent 3,919,691, which he presents as the genesis of much of today's virtual reality. He left Bell Labs in mid-1971 for Nixon's Science Advisor, ending his art career. Points of record: Dates his first deliberate computer art to the summer of 1962 at Bell Labs on an IBM 7090 with a Stromberg Carlson SC-4020 microfilm plotter, written up as “Patterns by 7090”, 28 August 1962; The idea came from a plot wrecked by a programming error that fellow summer intern Elwyn Berlekamp brought down the hallway; The Howard Wise Gallery exhibit “Computer-Generated Pictures”, shared with Bela Julesz, ran 6-24 April 1965, was announced with a deck of IBM punched cards, and sold nothing; Frieder Nake and Georg Nees had publicly exhibited digital computer art in Germany a few months earlier in 1965; The Copyright Office twice refused to register Gaussian-Quadratic - first because a machine made it, then because randomness was not acceptable - before accepting it, perhaps the first copyright-registered computer art; AT&T's legal and public relations staff tried to halt the Howard Wise exhibit and then told Noll and Julesz to restrict publicity, granting them personal copyright in the pictures; The computer-generated ballet of six stick figures - three large male and three small female - was completed in 1965 and shown to dance notation organisations and to Rebekah Harkness and Merce Cunningham; Noll's force-feedback tactile patent (U.S. 3,919,691, filed 26 May 1971) is presented as the genesis of much of today's virtual reality; He left Bell Labs in mid-1971 to join President Nixon's Science Advisor, Edward E. David Jr., which took him away from computer art for good. Illustrated: Fig. 1 - Gaussian Quadratic, computer graphics, 1962, (c) AMN 1965, described as the author's first serious piece of computer art; Fig. 2 - Computer Composition With Lines, computer graphics, 1964, (c) AMN 1965; Fig. 3 - Ninety Parallel Sinusoids With Linearly Increasing Period, computer graphics, early 1960s, influenced by Bridget Riley's Current; Fig. 4 - a series of stereographic images from the computer-generated movie of a rotating four-dimensional hypercube (1965), to be fused cross-eyed; Fig. 5 - montage of stills from the main title sequence of the film Incredible Machine, produced by Owen-Murphy Productions for AT&T (1968); Fig. 6 - the computer-generated simulated ballet, simple stick figures moving about on a stage (1965); Fig. 7 - the drawing from the front page of Noll's patent (No. 3,919,691) for a tactile human-machine communication system. People named: A. Michael Noll - author; by 1994 at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California, Elwyn Berlekamp - fellow 1962 summer intern whose faulty plot suggested computer art, John R. Pierce - director of the research division in summer 1962, then investigating computers in music, William O. Baker - vice president of research, credited with creating the atmosphere of intellectual freedom, Manfred R. Schroeder and Edward E. David, Jr. - Noll's immediate supervisors; David later President Nixon's Science Advisor, whom Noll joined in 1971, Peter B. Denes - colleague; installed one of the earliest computer systems dedicated to interactive real-time research use (Honeywell DDP-224) and co-implemented a scanned display with Noll, Bela Julesz - Bell Labs colleague making random-dot stereograms; co-exhibitor at the Howard Wise Gallery, who refused to call his images art, Kenneth Knowlton - working with Stanley VanDerBeek on computer-animated movies, Stanley VanDerBeek - animator working with Knowlton, Max V. Mathews - using the computer to generate musical sounds, Frank W. Sinden and Edward E. Zajec (Zajac) - making computer-animated films to visualise scientific kinetics, Howard Wise - gallerist, West 57th Street, New York, who approached Julesz in 1964 and mounted the 1965 exhibit, Frieder Nake and George (Georg) Nees - exhibited digital computer art publicly in Germany a few months before the Howard Wise show, Stuart Preston - New York Times reviewer of the Howard Wise opening (18 April 1965), Doug Eastwood - colleague who suggested investigating the four-dimensional hypercube, Michael C. King and Daniel H. Berry - Bell Labs colleagues who combined Noll's perspective views into a strip hologram, Walter De Faria of Lee Mendelson Productions - commissioned the main title for the NBC special, Arthur C. Clarke - writer of the Encyclopaedia Britannica NBC special The Unexplained, colorcast 3 April 1970, Rebekah Harkness and Merce Cunningham - choreographers shown the computer-generated ballet, Maurice Constant - Canadian animator whose idea of moulding shapes by hand prompted the feelie; co-organiser, with Martin Krampen, of the Third International Design Seminar at the University of Waterloo, June 1966, Martin Krampen - co-organiser of the Waterloo seminar, George Michael - at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, credited with stimulating early computer animation and graphics on the Stromberg Carlson plotter, Nam June Paik - Korean-American television artist who visited Noll to learn about computers, Roger F. Malina - Leonardo editor who solicited the article, Pablo Picasso and Bridget Riley - artists named for Ma Jolie and Current; Piet Mondrian for the painting behind the computer version, David G. Luenberger and Peter Whittle - authors of textbooks that used the computer Mondrian as cover art. Noted: Internal inconsistency on the patent date: the body text says the patent “was issued on 1 November 1975” while the Fig. 7 caption says “issued 11 November 1975”. Fig. 1 is captioned “Gaussian Quadratic, computer graphics, 1962” but carries the copyright line (c) AMN 1965, and the 1962 memorandum does not use that title for any of its eight plates. Noll writes “George Nees”; the artist is usually given as Georg Nees. He also spells his Bell Labs colleague “Edward E. Zajec”, elsewhere Zajac. The scan's OCR renders the author's address line as “A. Michael Roll” and the running head variously as “No 11” and “Noll”; also “Ballanchine” for Balanchine and “Ma Jobe” for Ma Jolie. The author's bibliography lists the 1972 Psychological Record paper twice, once as “The Effects of Artistic Thinking...” and once as “The Effects of Artistic Training...” for the same volume and pages. Figure 3 is dated only “early 1960s”. The memoir says his work was exhibited in England, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Brazil, Germany, India and Spain without dates or venues.