FUTURE EXHIBITIONS & DISPLAYS
Digital Pioneers
7 December 2009 - 21 April 2010
Julie & Robert Breckman Prints and Drawings Gallery, Room 90 and Paintings, Room 88a
Free admission
Herbert W. Franke, Squares (Quadrate), screenprint, 1969/70. Given by the Computer Arts Society, supported by System Simulation Ltd, London. Museum no. E.113-2008 (click image for larger version)
This display provided an overview of the first decades of the computer's history in art and design. It included some of the earliest computer-generated works in the V&A's collections, many of which have never been exhibited in the UK before. From the 1960s until the early 1980s, digital pioneers worked directly with computer hardware and software to produce graphic images unlike anything that had gone before. Some artists went on to use increasingly sophisticated software packages, while others continued to work directly with the hardware itself.
The display included plotter drawings, screenprints, digital inkjet prints, photographs and animations, as well as important documentary material from the time. It featured pioneers working in science and industry during the 1950s and 60s, such as Frieder Nake, Georg Nees and Herbert W. Franke. Artists who worked with the computer in the 1970s and 80s include Paul Brown, Harold Cohen, Manfred Mohr and Vera Molnar. The show also encompassed more recent works by James Faure Walker, Jean Pierre-Hébert, Roman Verostko and Mark Wilson
Digital Pioneers offered an historical context for contemporary digital practice, and was scheduled to
coincide with the V&A exhibition Decode: Digital Design Sensations.
View our section on Computer Art at the V&A