05: Timeline Ch 4—Digital Era Pt II (1960s) with Michael Spalter

Okay, let's get started. Hello everyone. Thanks for joining us again for our next Twitter space. As you guys probably know, we have been working on a timeout of Characters' Art History for many months now. And today we will be discussing Chapter Number 4, which focuses on the 1960s. It is the densest chapter so far as the world sees the birth of digital Characters' Art. It's our pleasure to discuss a chapter with Lorandam's Peter Bauman, better known as Monk Anthony, who is the writer of the timeline, and also our special guest, Michael Spalter. And before I give you a mic to our guests, please let me briefly introduce Michael Spalter. Together with Enz Spalter, he has been collecting Characters' Art for Over 3 decades now, which has resulted in one of the most comprehensive Characters' Art collections in the world. Michael Spalter was also the chair of the Board of Trustees of the Road Island School of Design from 2011 to generally 2023. He was also in the inaugural Advisory Board of Harvard University's Cultural Enterprise Initiatives, the Nantelga Project and the Whitney Museum of American Arts, Digital Art, Equicization Committee. And he has served as a Trustee of the International Council of Huluva for seven years, co-chairing its first permanent endowments. Michael, thanks for joining us. Could you tell us a bit more about your passion for arts and various games from and also how you start with collecting Characters' Arts? Well, it's a great pleasure and it's lovely to see some names that I recognize. This is the first time I've done a Twitter space, so clearly bear with me. When I was in college, I had the great pleasure of studying arts history. And one of the highlights of my art history, experience was taking a course on Impressionism and there was a young woman in the class captured by imagination more than Monet or Renoir's, his son, and that was Anne Morgan Spalter, would become Anne Morgan Spalter. And everything that I have done with art has been infused by Anne, who to me is really a preeminent champion of generative art and advancing generative art. So I spent a year writing a honor species on how the New York Art Dealers of the 1960s transformed New York into an epicenter of the art world, which was a gravitational force at the time. And shortly after graduating, I went to the Harvard Business School. And during that time was offered a teaching position at the Rhode Island School of Design and at Brown University, where she went on to teach the first digital art courses and establish the program at both these internationally renowned institutions. While she was doing this, she was contacted by one of the legends at Apple Computer and was asked whether she would consider writing a textbook on the field, which began a six year Odyssey for Anne in writing the computer and the visual arts, which is now considered around the world a standard text. And at the time was a seminal contribution to the field. Anne is an artist, writer, and educator, and also a work of a holic. So while Anne was writing this book, which really was a 12 plus hour a day journey, she worked extraordinarily closely with the gentleman named Andy Vendan, who founded Brown's Computer Science Department. Andy is famous for being the father of computer graphics. And those of you who have watched the movie Toy Story will make reference to the character Andy, which is a homage to Andy. He was the first person asked by Bill Gates to join his technical advisory board. And during that time she also became friends with Alvira Smith, who co-founded Pixar, and also founded the New York Institute of Technology. While she was researching the book, which was the first of its kind, we often would have conversations about the artists whom she was researching and had the great fortune to meet. While that was evolving back to my own interest in our history, it seemed crystal clear to me that Anne was writing and covering a period of art that I can only describe as being a breakthrough movement. And throughout our history we've had these moments in time. It usually takes 50 years or so for a movement to be framed, contextualized, and written about. But I said to Anne because the artist that she was writing about were often marginalized, were absolutely reviled by the traditional art world. And the art market had no interest in showing, representing these artists. So I thought, well, we should go ahead and start collecting some of the works really as a way to preserve the works because some of the artists were just toiling at their craft, at a passion. And it was unclear whether any of the works would survive. So that was over 30 years ago. And fast forward today since we rarely, if ever, sell works of art, especially the earliest works, we now have a collection that has over 1200 of, I think some of the most iconic works from the genesis of this movement. So artists that she began to interview and get to know are individuals who are covered by this extraordinary timeline. And I would say that I haven't done Twitter spaces because I don't like to promote any groups, but I think that the work that Peter and Jan and the random team has done as I tweeted out the other day is truly a gift to the space. And with time, I think to art history itself. So anything that I have done or Anne and I have done together in terms of building what now is a collection that has longed works to MoMA on several occasions, the Pompidoo, the V&A, Lachma, the Venice Biennale, and Countless Other Museums has been in the pursuit of advancing this movement, which really thanks to on-chain generator art blew up in the last three years. And what I think is important to understand and what Laurentiom has captured in their timeline is if you were to take a time capsule back to this period of time, do our mainframe computers, which are the size of miniature football fields with little computing power, hard to even comprehend how little computer powers and these mainframes. But thanks to some really intrepid souls in different pockets of the world, artists, and people that we refer to as tinkerers, which I think we still see today with the explosion in the interest of generator art. You have true artists and you have people that I would refer to as tinkerers. In different pockets of the world, these individuals gained access to corporations, the military, or universities, which were really the only people who had these kinds of computers. So I'm just going to pause for a second and have everyone contemplate that now there are over 14 billion different computers, tablets, smartphones. At this moment in history, there were only a few thousand mainframe computers. And whether it was Hiroshi Kwanau, founding of the computer techniques groups, in in Japan, whether it was individuals involved in the Newtoniancy movement, which was the gathering in Zagreb Croatia, whether it was a collaboration in the United States of engineers and artists who founded a group called Experiments in Art and Technology, EAT, or in France, someone like our beloved Vieromolnar, who for 10 years before even gaining access to a computer, which has been covered by the random work done her machine engineer. And the epiphany, I think, that occurred to to Anne and I and really Anne Vars, far more so than in myself, was in history we've only had a few universal languages. And I would suggest that the universal languages that we have witnessed as a species has been mathematics, music, and code. So to grasp 30 years ago, the significance of these different artists and some tinkerer's. And tinkerer, I would categorize this engineers who found their way to using the computer and realize that they could create images with the computer. And someone like Michael Noel, who is a dear friend who ran and did a beautiful interview with a couple of weeks ago, is someone who's been covered, but there were people at the labs who were experimenting, but I wouldn't say that they were artists, but were hybrids of the engineer, segling into the art world. The first three universally recognized, generative artists were Michael Noel, George Nice, and Frieder Nake. Frieder Nake represents an incredible movement that was born and stood guard Germany. And Frieder, Michael, and George Nice, who's often considered the first digital generative artists, came onto the scene and people didn't really understand what to make of the work. I think this was most manifest in Manfred Moore's seminal show at the museum modern in Paris, where he gave his artist's talk and was literally pelted by individuals with tomatoes, because they were so offended. And again, contextualizing this period of time, the traditional art world in those involved in art considered the computer to be this often evil resource that was used by the military or by corporations for the most mundane purposes. In thinking, go ahead. Someone might say, Michael, I was just going to say it's interesting to bring up these important exhibitions from 1965, because we also have a lot of actually Peter has selected 10 moments that he believes are amongst the most significant from this decade in the charity of art history. And he also selected these exhibitions from 1965. So yeah, we'll come back to these in a few minutes. Great. And Peter interrupting the time you want to guide the conversation is unhappy. Go any direction you like. Thank you. No, I mean, yeah, that was an amazing introduction. Thank you. And hi, everybody at yeah, this is Peter or my Anthony, I'm the random account. I think, yeah, we can go ahead and continue with maybe the rest of the intro guys and then yeah, start with some of those moments. But yeah, thank you so much, Michael. And great to you, have you. Thank you so much. Now, of course, so these these these these moments. Today are now being revisited and reframed. And one of the joys of having this collection, which has been the true labor of love and has required a tremendous amount of resources and an an eye when we we met we had no resources. We spent two years debating whether we would buy a sofa or an artwork. And we opted to buy an artwork and use a food ton as our sofa. I like to call this kind of a slingshot theory. The more reviled, the more misunderstood and unappreciated art movement has been, I think, the more it is guaranteed to become a part of the canon of our history. And we're seeing that being played out month after month today, 55 56, you know, 60 years later. Why don't we Peter dive into some of your moments so that we can discuss those and I can give some flavor and talk about the evolution and revolution of generative art in the canon of our history. Yeah, I just want to jump in real quickly. And thanks again, Michael for joining us and it's really an honor to have you as a guest, especially since it's your first Twitter space. Apologies if my voice is not too good. I'm out in Marfa at the moment and the connection out here may not be the best. But thanks to against to Peter for hosting it from the Lorandum account. I just want to quickly ask Peter. I think a lot of people obviously always associate the start of generative art and the generative movement with the 1960s. But this comes nearly in the middle of our timeline at chapter four. And we also split it into two parts. And I just want to quickly ask you what was kind of the reasoning behind splitting this into two parts. And maybe talk a bit more on our chat with a Michael mold that we had discussing some of the Bell labs and movements that happened there. And maybe why we're not highlighting them in this space. Yeah, thanks Conrad. So we did chat about the first part of the 1960s, 1960 to 1964. We covered a lot of that material with a Michael Noll. We recorded that and that we have published that on Twitter. And he covered so much about his own life and his time at Bell Labs. So this talk today will be focused less on Bell Labs and some of those major moments just because we've covered them already with with Michael Noll on our conversation with him. So please listen to that if you get a chance. And then this talk will cover the whole part of the 60s. And I'll just briefly talk about some of the artistic hardware and software innovations that were so important this decade. But number one for just the artistic innovations was the kind of the notion of the dematerialization of art. And Michael has already touched on it a bit. But and we'll talk about that throughout the course of this talk today. And then some of the hardware innovations, you know, this is the first time you start seeing digital displays, operating systems that allow multiple users to share computers simultaneously, things like that general motors DIC. So obviously, you're starting to see a lot of hardware innovations. And then software early in the decade, you see John McCarthy with Lisp, you see John Kimney and Kurt with basic in 1964. So these are kind of some of the main things to just frame the decade. And yeah, maybe we can go ahead and get started with some of the actual moments themselves. Yeah, that's perfect. I think starting off, we have 1961, where we have kind of the emergence of two massive movements and new tendencies and fluxes. Maybe Peter, you could just expand on this first. What was the birth of these two moments? And what was so significant about these? And what do they say about kind of the general direction that art was heading up this time? Yeah, thanks, Conrad. So I think these are the perfect moments to kind of start off talking about this decade, because they both really typified the dematerialization of art that took place throughout this decade. And you know, Lucy Lippard had this famous book with a very, very long title, if you know the book that I'm talking about, but it's called six years, dematerialization of the art form from 1966 to 1972. And not only like a very small part of the title. And it covers this kind of critical period of dematerialization that happens in art in the 1960s. But you know, that book starts in 1966. I think this dematerialization, you know, it started actually in the 50s with the Goutai movement in Japan. But I think it really starts in earnest and gets more globally popular around 1961 with new tendencies and the beginning of fluxes. So new tendencies was all about the mechanization of art and program painting of the Francois Morle. And they were very inspired by this constructivist style and had a very concrete art look. And it was this continuation of the Luminoconetic sculpture style that we spoke a lot about in chapter 3 that covered the 1950s. And in 1961 all of this new tendencies work was material work. And what I love about new tendencies is they started in 1961 but you see them grow throughout the decade. And they have these exhibitions that better scattered throughout the decade. And by the time you get to tendencies 4 in 1969 it's all about digital art and digital output. So we started in 1961 with all material work and we end in 1969 with digital work. And so new tendencies really like Michael has already mentioned really tells the story of this movement. And then with fluxes it's also about this idea of art as a concept art as an idea. It's also one of the things they revolutionized was art as intermedia. So this is a concept of art that is so common today but it was so it was a nascent concept back in 1961. So new tendencies and fluxes they both wanted art to be available to the masses. They both wanted art for everyone and for everybody to be able to produce it. And so they're still they started these things that are still so important today. And Michael I'd love to hear your thoughts on new tendencies and fluxes and their impact. Absolutely. I would just note if people are taking out there's a book that was written by extraordinary curator, Margaret Rosen. It's entitled a little known story about a movement, a magazine, and the computer's arrival and art, which is all about new tendencies and international. And it covers 1961 to 1973 and it's over 600 pages incredibly well documented and beautiful images. New tendencies was really an intellectual festival where different folks would gather to explore the notion of visual research and what the computer might mean for it. And if you go through a small digital we have a lot of examples of artists that exhibited at the tendencies. And there were people like there to Zajaks. One was Edward Zajak, who founded the first program in Trees. And then went on to start the intermediate department at Syracuse University. He has some exquisite early artworks that I think you know when I post always get a tremendous feedback loop. But there's a saying that when a nation goes down our society clericism, one condition may always be found. They forgot where they came from. And with so many people now interested in space, the joy of what you're all doing is that there's such a rich history. And if you look at works like Autoglyphs for example. Autoglyphs, if you look at Vera Malmars works interruptions, it's certainly a child of the art. A child of almost a replica of what Vera was doing in 1968 when she actually first used output. The fluxes movement, which was really a group of incredible people, one being Dick Higgins, who was a poet and his wife Allison Nol's visual arts, who still alive. Their daughter actually was my classmate for 13 years. Her name is Hana Higgins. Hana wrote a very comprehensive book called Mainframe Experimentalism. And Anna and I directed a number of the contributors to that book. The fluxes remains vibrant. Flexes I think was more accepted because the group was in New York. And I think where you are located has a very critical role in art movements being advanced up until now where thanks to the power of what we see online. And it's become anywhere anytime and invites hundreds of thousands of people to use this really the most powerful, I think, tool ever in the history of art history. When Peter started talking about different tools, if you think about the birth of impressionism, it was no small measure due to two things. One was the French box set where the artist could strap on their backs in easel and go out into the outdoors and paint. And simultaneously was oil paint, which we take so for granted, but the kinds of paints that were being created at the time were also breakthrough revolutionary contributions to our history. And then finally the brushes that the artist use and what the computer and what we see with the fluxes and with the new tendencies, we're getting a glimpse of what I fervently believe, which is why this has been such an enduring passion and evocation. We're seeing the beginning of what will be something that will be looked at for hundreds and hundreds of years that you had these men and women coming together. Vera, who was an in-new tendencies, but worked very closely with Flaus-Wa-Morley and started the grob group with her husband, Flaus-Wa-Mornar. She didn't have access to a computer screen for several years. So when she deemed access to a screen, it was like she likes to say she was given sight again. Another interesting thing about the art itself and the reason a lot of the works were constructivists is that when they were using the algorithms, you had to create code that would work with the systems that were available. And it also is taking for granted that a lot of the artists that were producing would have to wait two or three days to actually see their work. So at this time, I think it's very important to realize again the Renaissance minds that were grappling with this tool. They couldn't actually see the output for two to three days. And I find that to be extraordinary and books will be written about that. In terms of the history, there's so many, back to the art, there's so many currents and flavors that resonate with the canon of our history. And Peter, you might just want to comment on that a little bit more. Thank you. Yeah. It's, you covered so much there and it was such an interesting response. And maybe, maybe one way that we can frame it is to go on to the next moment. And the next one, the next moment from our kind of 10 moments that we're looking at is really looking at Frieder Naka. And when he started making computer art in 1963. And so Michael, you might know more about this, but as far as I know, Frieder was the first European to make computer art that as far as we understand it, that's algorithmically generated. I know that a Michael Noel was the first person at least as I understand it to make digital computer art globally in the year before in 1962 with patterns by 7090 Bell Labs. And then it seems like Gary Gnees started in 1964. So a year after Frieder when he started working with Max at Institute, which you've mentioned already, Michael. And then I believe some of those other well-known Europeans like Franca and Monar and more, they didn't really get started until 1968 and for 1969. So Michael, is that's how you see it to do you see Frieder as the kind of beginning of computer art in Europe or how do you see it? I think that one of the joys about this period of our history is still being written. So Frieder and George Nees, you know, a lot of people credit George Nees as being the first and then Frieder as a student. But in terms of the actual dates, I still think that's out for art historians to kind of nail. I do want to, you know, again reinforce that Vera was creating algorithms for 10 years, but you just didn't have the access that George and Frieder did. So if we talk about physical output, I think that that's up for grabs is to, you know, what is the very first work? your way. which I think he covered, but we had the very first analog computer work in history which was done by Ben Lepaski in its oscilloscope number four, which is in the collection. We have several of his oscilloscopes. That seems pretty well documented, but I think that whether it was Frider, Nisse, or Nol, some historic interests, I think that the greater interest to people who are in the space is the artistic influence that these individuals had. One, you know, back to current in our history, one of the things that I find interesting is that Nake has a very famous work. We have several different versions of it, which is homage to Paul play. And of course, Vera Molnar has several homages to Paul play as well. Clay's influence on these artists was quite profound. So I think that I think that Hiroshi Koano, who we don't hear as much about, because his work is, I don't think, is exhibit as much, but back to, again, people not accepting the work. Michael Nol and Hiroshi Koano also were deeply influenced by Piazzanjian. Michael Nolmore is an experiment where he created a work that, there's a famous story which you probably already covered, but he created an iconic work by Manjur. By Manjur, people at Bell Labs couldn't tell, which was the Manjur versus the computer up with the Michael Generated. Koano made a whole series of artistic works influenced and inspired by Manjur. And again, when we have scholars coming out of Japan, I think playing a more fulsome historical analysis will have a better sense of the timing there. I met one of Koano's proto-jays, Yoshiyabi, I actually went to Japan twice to meet with him. In Japan, back to Koano, the average Japanese person wasn't allowed to have a telephone and Koano's proto-jay, who's still alive, Yoshiyabi, he built his own computer and software to create art. So that to me is even a more interesting question. Was he one of the first people to ever create a personal computer, which they predate the Mac, and I think that there'll be a tremendous amount of research around that question? There's also a lovely family, the Beckman family. And Otto Beckman was also using the computer in the early 60s. And his son, Oscar, who's still alive, it's called the Beckman Archive, and we have a lot of examples of his work on our site, his son built his computer. So I think to comprehend creating and building your own computer to create is kind of staggering. The artistic question which Anne has covered throughout her own art and throughout her writings and lectures around the world is what's revolutionary, what's revolutionary. And I think that one of the joyous things that we see is that the universal acceptance, that the revolutionary aspects of generative art that up until these people came on the scenes and certainly today, artists have never been able to do certain things thanks to the power of the tools that they're disposal. And again, just historically, people thought Anne and I were nuts for collecting these works. And we have a home in New York City very involved with New York cultural institutions. As I said, Anne founded the programs at Brown and RISD. I was the chair of the Board of RISD, which is one of the preeminent art and design schools in the world. What started taking place in the last decade is RISD is the third largest university art museum in the United States. It's Harvard Yale RISD. We started having all these curators come to visit our home and they wouldn't go to the RISD Museum. So it was really kind of embarrassing because the RISD Museum is a jewel, but we would have these people from Malmour, the V&A, showing up in Rhode Island to come to our house, and treating through our daughter's toys to come look at this stuff. And one of the big light bulbs came off for us is when the guy named Doug Dodds from the V&A contacted us, and asked if he could come see our collection. And because he had a British accent, I of course was impressed and said, yeah, come on over. And you can stay with us. And for those who made no dog, he's very elegant gentleman who spent his career at the V&A. And he came into our home and he literally took like a thousand photos and I was getting nervous. I was telling him, it's like kind of weird. He was photographing every single thing in our house, you know, like just hundreds of hundreds of photos. And that thanks to Doug and the V&A was another seismic movement after Patrick Prince, who was a curator at Cigraf, which was one of the important forums, donated her collection to the V&A. Again, I'm gonna pause because I go in different directions, Peter and Leon. Stay on track. No, thank you. I mean, these nuggets, I guarantee we are all enjoying them. And just speaking very briefly of some of those tools that you were talking about during this period, I think it's so interesting that Naka made this work on an ER56, which is this room size mainframe computer. And so I still think it's so interesting that this early plotted work, like you were talking about Michael, it took days until they could actually see the outputs. But, you know, creator was working with this computer of these size of a room. I mean, obviously something that would not be recognizable as a computer that as we know it today. So I just think that that is super fascinating. And then what you talked about with Paul Clay, I mean, what I think is so important there is that Paul will Clay's work really highlights the genealogy and the importance of Bauhaus. And it shows how that Bauhaus influence really made it to these computer artists and really ties together some of those strings of art history. But I think now we're gonna maybe move on to the next moment. Is that right? Yes, yes, again, we'll see the next one. One last thing I want to mention is that this influence seems to continue as William Apomel, just recently also released a collection inspired by Paul Clay. So that has been going on since 1965, all the way to 2023. Quite interesting. But the next moment that we have listed and we would love to discuss is from 1966 and more specifically. It's about a movement that started in Asia in 1966 with CDG, which stands for computer technology group. I was founded in Tokyo and this is a group that in them to function not only as a design office, but also as a thing thing. And it's widely credited to find near concepts of the artist as a system creator. And Michael, I want to ask you, as you have collected words by many CDG artists, what important contributions do you think? Do you think that these artists emerge to be chairing at the art space? I think again, we won't do justice to any of these people in such a short time. But the computer technique group in Kwano was really the father of that movement. And as I mentioned, he was one of his protégies. One of the interesting things they did, and there was a gentleman named William Federitt at the Boeing Corporation. They were some of the first to make representational artwork. So there's some very famous works that they've made of important historic figures. One would be John Fitzgerald Kennedy as an example. And then of course more of the abstract, rich, deep, beautiful colors that Kwano played with and worked with, which were quite exceptional. And then there's a portfolio from cybernetic serendipity that includes work by members of that group. I can't recall the name Peter, you might know, I think it's called running cola. Yeah, running cola is Africa, maybe. Yeah, but it's done by some Japanese artists who show the evolution of man. It's a very powerful, iconic work. And that came out of Tokyo. Again, this is all is taking place because individuals, different pockets in the world who eventually would get to know each other, but initially wouldn't. And that I find so staggering and beautiful that you had the creative mind at play in different centers in the world getting access. And again, one of the big focuses of what we've done thanks to Anne. We never want to underestimate how marginalized women were in the history of art and in the history of a gendered of art, which is why we have probably the largest private collection of the world of Frida Naka, your Malnar, a lot of these artists because we've been doing this for so long. But for Vera, she had to go to the university where her husband taught and log in under his name at night or when there were strikes in France in access. So a lot of the early individuals that were discussing the arm-in, I know we're going to move to Chuck's jury at some point. But the role of women in the birth of gendered of art cannot be in any way shape or form under-estimated. And it has been, and just as a side note, because it's again a personal, deep affront to me, having watched Anne for 35 years, no really pioneer so much, to see how this patriarchy continues in the spaces. And I think that what you're doing is helping to break that and there's some other pockets. But yesterday, I saw some person, I don't know who they were, list their ten top generative artists. There was a single woman, a single bi-pop artist or a single member of the LGBTI community, which could cover all of those in that list. And I think that has been a great disservice today that we've had people who are not art lovers, but are speculators who we have never thought about our works in terms of monetary value. But the monetary value has attracted a lot of people who I think would be trading, you know, pet rocks if they could make a buck. And that has, unfortunately, I think taken away from some of the current, extraordinary artists who are traditionally in the history of art not been included. And I hope that what you're doing and what some of the people on this, some of the listeners are doing will help break that. And I think that's a great choice for me personally was meeting Sasha Styles as an example and introducing her to Alice and Noelle's. Again, it's one of the founders of fluxes and had we arranged for Sasha to be an exhibition with Alice, which I think is a great moment for her. So I'll pause there. Yeah, thank you. And it's such a good point, of course, and not only is there some gender imbalance, but I think there's also regional imbalance, which is why it's important to highlight these massively important contributions from artists in places like Japan, like which you have mentioned, a Kowano several times. And with C.T.G. what I'll just quickly add on about C.T.G. they're one of my favorite groups. You know, they were so critical to the 1960s. They were eventually showed at cybernetics, serendipity, like a lot of these artists that we talked about that we're talking about today. But what was important about them was that they were really some of the first to think about the artist using the computer to create a system. So and by that I kind of mean basically the idea of long form generative art today as we think about it where you make one system that has, you know, a lot of different variations as output outputs for that system. And C.T.G. were some of the first people to think about that. If you look at some of Frieder's work from before this and Nol's work, they also seem to use different algorithms that weren't necessarily related or a single system. And you can kind of see that by just looking at a lot of the work from Frieder at that time. So that's what I think is especially important about C.T.G. and and what I wanted to go ahead and highlight there. We are, I know we're getting just a few minutes left, I guess in this space. I don't know how people are feeling. I know I've been a great time, especially listening to Michael. But I think we'll go on and move to the next moment if possible. Yeah, we'll move on to moment number five. And obviously Michael, if you are happy to stay on for more than the hour, we're more than happy to tell you the space. I think there's so many kind of anecdotal references and connections that you're making that are super insightful and I think stuff that we've never heard before. So always great to have you continue speaking. We're moving on to the next moment since Regina joined the call out down as long as we want. And Regina will keep us here as long as she wants us here. So, but moving on to our next moment in 1966, we have kind of what Michael has already mentioned experiments in art and technology forming and kind of one of the most influential shows nine evenings that was put on. Maybe we can ask Peter firstly, can you kind of talk about the impact that the nine evenings exhibition kind of had on the agenda of art movement and kind of the big influence that experiment in our technology kind of had in the next coming decades. Sure. And I love how I kicked off the space talking about how we won't talk about bell labs and and here we go with the nine evenings. Yeah, you can't avoid it and also, no, it wasn't necessarily involved with this, but you know, nine evenings and experiments in art and technology and was all about collaboration. And this event in particular, it was the very well known, you know, dot, artist Robert Rouchenberg collaborating with Billy Clyburn from Bell Labs and they work together. And they're sharing different engineers and scientists and programmers with different artists of that day and pairing them together for a show that featured, you know, some of the most of our garden and trumpet artists, including, you know, Deborah Hay and listen to childs and you know, some of these really important conceptual artists that Michael has mentioned. You know, a lot of them were women and a lot of them haven't gotten the do that that they deserve here. And so, nine, nine evenings was this collaboration and it was this really special moment and the combination of technology and art history. It wasn't it was it would be radical even for this day, I mean, it was there was dance, there was music, there was it was very interactive and collaborative and I encourage you to YouTube it or watch some of the old videos from the event because it's it's better to see it than for me to explain it. And it was such an important event that EAT basically formed as an ongoing organization after nine evenings and yeah, Michael, go ahead, please, what would you like to add about nine evenings and what would you. Why was it such an impactful event for this decade? But when it experimented in art and technologies had, you know, this incredible happening with the nine evenings, but they were chapters, questioning at the States and they just like their British companions and had these chapters and newsletters and you know, at some point we'll put online our femura, which is over 3000 books and brochures. We have every single news letter that experimented in art and technology ever put out. I think one of the reasons it gained so much notoriety was because russian bird was already, you know, very known in the traditional art world and Billy cluver was his lover at the time. And so I think together really foster this to me of equal if not greater importance was the work of a guy so right card who I don't know if this is on the timeline that I'm sure you discussed cybernetic serendipity, which she called the London the ICA. And so I think that's bringing together the art not just the visual arts but all different kinds of art forms married with the computer and those two different pockets of activity again in the western part of the world and the European continent and the United States. And so I think that's what I think is very documented and will be continued to be documented and I think speaks to again the very rich history that today we can look back upon and and learn from. And I know this again because we're often a first stop for scholars. The great Leslie Jones of lack, you know, wanted to do her exhibitions. She came to visit us three or four times. It's fascinating to see traditional curators who were not, you know, a generation that knew only using personal computer. computers come into the space and look at it with their art historical lens. But one of the reasons I did flag the reason is that the understanding of the hardware and software and the requirements to actually use these different tools throughout history will be the subject of tremendous scholarship and museum exhibitions. So I think that what will be of equal interest to me is when we talked about new tendencies and Zagreb, these people getting together including a Bredo Echo by the way, just kind of fascinating. We're going to hear more and more about other groups that organically formed that are in the literature but may not be fully known. There's a book which I know the randoms are where it's written by a person that reached out to Ann and Ann was one of his species advisors. His name's Grant Taylor and he wrote when the machine made science art I think, which he graciously dedicated it, part of the book to us. That's a very thorough, very thorough contribution for people interested in the origins of the digital arts. That's a word for anyone who's interested. I would love to see that. That's indeed a great recommendation, Michael. It's a mandatory reading at the random. The next moment we would like to discuss is 1967 and it's focused on solar wigs because in 1967, so I wrote his paragraphs on conceptual art. Two years later, he started his iconic series of wall drawings. And neither I would like to ask you to follow in question. Why does a charity of art then have to be familiar with the conceptual work and how would you explain the relationship between temporary generative arts? Because at the first sites, there doesn't seem to be any technology involved. Why is it so overloaded? A charity of art, more than this. Yeah, it's a great question and it goes back to that seriality of the CTG's work and starting to think about generative work in terms of systems. And so in 1967, the other major theme that this ties into is the dematerialization of art, which it is perhaps maybe just one of the main things of this decade in general for art history and and solow it really plays a major role in this by pointing the phrase conceptual art in this essay from 1967. This is where he gives the movement his name and also he this is where the very famous quote, "The idea becomes a machine that makes the art comes from." And it's where he talks about the idea being the most important aspect of a work and that's such an important element of generative art to this day where because process is such a critical element, it means that concept as well, the idea and then the execution, the process of the system is very important. And so he does this in 1967, he kind of coins conceptual art and then in 1969 is when he begins his wall drawings, which are these wonderful figure to almost any modern museum major institution in the world, they'll have a little bit wall drawing and it's this procedural art and instruction-based art that again, we're still still so influential to this day. And I'd love for Michael to jump in and add anything about. Well, I would say I would like to look at things. One is that Manfred Moore early on when we were describing or trying to explain to you people our interests. If you look at some of Louis' work and some of Manfred's work, they're almost indistinguishable. And in fact, I believe we'd have to confirm this with Manfred. I think Manfred actually drew some of the Louis' wall drawings at one point. But then for because again, he was using this new tool that was particularly in the late 60s because of the Vietnam War associated with the military industrial complex. He was just not given the time and day. So I think that we'll see some very interesting push and pull around their use. You know, Louis definitely was creating his own algorithms. They were just executed by human beings. And Manfred was of course creating it with code. There's also a very similar figure whose name is Sun Shared. And I don't know if you covered Sun or you will. But she was American artist who in 1969 founded the Generative Systems Group at the Ardenstue Chicago. And it has a very important role and I would urge you to delve into her life and work. She was an honorary editor of Leonardo. Leonardo for decades was a go-to place for artists interested in the space. And it's just another very rich, extraordinary resource for anyone interested in the history of a generative art and digital art. And that is still going concern and their influence cannot be again overstated. Yeah, but I mean that's a really good point. And Sonia will play a big part in the next yeah, the next chapter of the 70s with her role in Chicago there, the Generative Systems. But yeah, do we want to try to squeeze in another question or two guys? How are we feeling here? Yeah, it's kind of up to Michael. Do you want to cover a couple more moments? Maybe just at least two more we can cover quickly? Sure. Great. All right, sounds good. Yeah, I think we'll skip over number seven, which was regarding Charles Surrey's early work. But I think a lot of people here are all familiar with Charles Surrey and kind of the large Renaissance man he was with his, I mean, he wasn't just like a veteran in an all-American football star, but he kind of helped a lot of kind of 3D computer graphics contributions and helps to kind of generate these softwares for flight simulations and did a lot over at Ohio State and was kind of just this champion of all things computers over there. But we'll skip over to moment number eight, which we've kind of touched on a little bit, which is from 1968 in its cybernetic certain difficulties. Surrey's a fascinating gentleman just you know very quickly. He was born on July 4th 1922 or 23. He was just about to be 100 years old when he passed about a year and a half ago. And he also you know again back to these different characters who have such rich histories. He was the captain of the Ohio State football team, which when he was captain he led them to a national championship and then went to World War II where he actually fought at the battle of the bulge and was given a bronze medal for valor. He created at Ohio State again back to his poplits. Their group and Tina Rivers' Ryan speaks very eloquently and writes eloquently about his work Sign Curve Man, which is one of the only works and I owe this to listen and reading, you know, Tina's starting on a heartfelt emotions about this work, which we acquired at auction. And if you look at his work and you look at Tyler Hobbs, there are a lot of parallels between some of Tyler's works and Chuck Surrey specifically around Tyler's iterations of birds. He studied did animations of the Museum of Modern Art, has in their permanent collection his hummingbirds animation as well as in a couple of shows that we loaned works to Mama. That's regularly shown. But he was certainly one of the key figures in advancing the field. Just a historical footnote, his roommate in college was Roy Lichtenstein, which is, you know, back to the world in one degree of separation. Yeah, I think I wish we could spend more time on Charles, he's such a fascinating figure and we were lucky enough to chat with his daughter Caroline who is very fond of his contributions in his history. Yeah, just talking about some of his most important work in Sign Curve Man and this kind of representation of his father and certain of his father's friends that he would always sit around and and even random war in in Lachema's most recent exhibition. They had a great display of random war, which is probably one of his most influential pieces. And yeah, he's - We were fortunate to acquire the original random war, which is in the Spalter Digital Collection from Deer Online. And such incredible things. - You know, again, the period of time and great agita in the country around the Vietnam War, and I'm not seeing many works that speak to the existential crisis that this United States is undergoing the last tell us President of the United States. And I'm not seeing works addressing that, but hopefully there'll be some. - And I can't wait for a conversation that I have with Caroline about her father. And she was also so involved with his work. So I can't wait to speak to her and release that conversation coming up on our editorial section. But yeah, I did want to. - I did arrange an interview with Caroline and that wonderful Alex from Right Click Sleeve. And it was Caroline paired with Desmond Paul Henry's daughter, who wrote a PhD on her father, who is really one of the first British artists to use a not a digital computer but an analog computer. You might want to read that. - Yeah, I think Paul Henry's kind of analog system that he made from my old bomb site machine that he got from a military surplus store is super fascinating and also was exhibited at the Lackmouth Submission too, so those are great to see. And as we kind of jump onto our next moment, this is something that we've all, we've talked a lot of futons already during this space is, but it's 1968 and it's Cybernetics Air Indipity. And obviously in 1968, Charles Zia Reich, our current is Cybernetics Air Indipity. This was kind of the first international computer our exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London. And when we kind of asked around to advisors in a lot of the genitive artists that we admire, what kind of the top three most important moments in generative art history were, Cybernetics Air Indipity was the one consensus moment that everybody mentioned. And it kind of just goes to show that I think anybody in the spaces, at least heard of it or at least kind of recognized the significance of this movement. Maybe Michael, I can ask you, why does it seem that Cybernetics Air Indipity is kind of unmatched when it comes to historical relevance? And why is that the case? - I would attribute it to Jaisa Reichart who's still alive and you should definitely more, than getting me to speak, get her to speak. And she was an is brilliant visionary curator who saw the potential and acted on it and brought together so many extraordinary men and women who were in the space from all over the world. And I think over 100,000 people went through the exhibition. There's a book called Cybernetics Air Indipity, which one can still purchase, you know, from rare books, dealers. And it brought to the fore that something really unique was happening in the world of art thanks to this, again, the probably the most powerful tool that were created in humanity, which was the computer. And again, it was not just visual art, it encompassed many different forms of art and the artist's interaction with the tools. - And yeah, this is what I tell people, if you kind of just want the cliff notes of generative art history to study cybernetics and identity, it's that important and it's that, it's that comprehensive, which is I think, really what's important, what's critical about it. And Michael, yeah, if you know Jaza, or if anybody listening to us, I mean, she's probably my number one idol and the number one person that I'd love to speak to and have a conversation with and contribute to the timeline. And so if you or anybody else knows her, I would absolutely be more than thrilled to speak to her. It would be beyond a thrill. - I'll ask Anne because I'm pretty sure that Anne is interacted with her in several occasions. And there was, yeah, again, this is back to, again, this understood role of women in this incredible ecosystem. And again, I watched a major gallery, which I'll keep unnamed, but it's a gallery in which I'd known for decades. I actually went to school with the head of it. He's the son of the founder of the gallery. He decided to enter this space and did a partnership with another major group often related to us. And his description of the space was so nauseating to me because it was all about, again, just men. And I think that the incentive, since this has been around for 50 years, was watching some people in this space two years ago become, you know, extraordinarily wealthy. And it's unfortunate because you've had a number of extraordinary people devoted to this who had never seen economic fortune, but have played such seminal roles. You know, there's a woman, Kalani Nicole, who has the transfer gallery that celebrated its 10th anniversary. Just a number of people who've done this, really within less than nothing, but their love for an advancement of this period of art history, and whether generative or digital, but their number, folks like that in the world who are not in cromply champions and celebrated, I hope you all will do that. - I think Michael, this is a good bridge to our last moments from 1968, which is a year in which a pair of all-march starts producing the charity of arts, with our interruptions series. I believe she's also one of these people who are talking about that have been working on their art for many, many decades and had to wait a very long time to be celebrated across the globe. And I also believe you have one of the most comprehensive, if not the most comprehensive, very monocondection in existence. Is it safe to say that she's one of your favorites, charity artists? And would you be able to expand on her significance within my story? - Well, I first would say, I love Vera Blomar. I love her as a human being. I love her as an artist, and I love what she represents in terms of human potentiality. And I'm also pleased to share, which is probably not known by anyone, but the Center Pompidoo will be launching a exhibition starting November 15th through February 15th to mark and celebrate Vera's Centennial Birthday, which is January 5th of 2024. And Vera, we talked about Frida Nake in Frida's absolutely extraordinary Renaissance person, but Frida had a kind of quick blast in the field of computer art and then renounced it. And he wrote the computer art instead, and that's the piece that will be written about, has been written about, and then just kind of bowed out for a number of decades. And his research is Vera has never swayed from her love of art. And if you go back to the art of her interest in systems and the machine-imagining the '50s 'til today, you have someone who for 73 years has been producing work daily. (laughs) I think maybe there are a few weeks because of injury that she's not been creating. So she is someone that we revere. It's clear that the traditional art world is increasingly revering Vera, and will be no surprise to me that when we fast-forwarded, which has already begun, Vera will be in every major museum collection in the world. I'm delighted that our friends at Mama have begun to acquire her work, the National Gallery of Art is acquired to work. The Morgan Library, which is interesting, was donated to work by Agnes Gunn. And Agnes Gunn is really one of the grand stewards of modern art and was president of the Museum of Modern Art for many years and has done it tremendously now, but Aggy, gave of interruptions piece to the Morgan. And I think that anyone who wants to be inspired and empowered would be well served to look at Vera. There are also people who are less known like Colette Banger, who's in Kansas, Colette's 94 years old. She and her husband, Charles Banger, also, there's just, again, such richness here. And what you're doing, helping to memorialize it, is really glorious. And you continue to learn about scholars like Margaret, Darko Freetz and others. And to me, again, I cannot speak highly enough without Tina Rivers Ryan, Regina, who's on the call, Charlotte Kenton, others who are taking a real scholarly approach and have been trained in a way that you have to frame, contextualize and share with the larger world what we're all celebrating today and through your work. - Yeah, thank you, Michael so much. And I mean, we are trying to do a small bid and you highlighted some of the other voices in the space that are contributing massively. And we are standing on the shoulders of giants, including yourself, but also including names you've mentioned, like Lucy Lippard and Copper Gillith. And just to really wrap up and talk about Monar, I just love the story of how she started working with computers back in 1968, how she had to, she was at the University of Paris in Orsay, and she was at the computer center there and had to beg the attendant to actually let her in and use it, which she explained that she was trying to use the computers to make art. And they thought that she might need medication as what she said. So it's such a beautiful story that after this machine imaginary, which we ended the last chapter with the 1950s, chapter three, now we're ending chapter four in this space with the 1960s with Vera. And now she finally gets access to these computers and then makes the brilliant interruptions series, her first series on a computer. - Yeah, so beyond inspiring, I think we have about eight or nine of her interruptions. And we have one, the only one that is a double-sided interruptions, which is on the site, which we've loaned to MoMA. But the thing about Vera is she's 99 and a half years old, she's 99 and 3/4 years old. And in the past year, she did her first on-chain generative work, which was done with the help of another incredible woman, Sophia Garcia and Michael Bahana, Sotheby's. We connected them and she also did this incredible AI project with Paul Mubinot in Paris. And so here he is, he was 99, he was experimenting with AI and on-chain generative art with Mark and Grasser. And the works were just breathtaking. So I think that that spirit, that innocence and for again, the space, which those artists who are struggling and trying to see a future, I think that Vera is, to me, the North Star for everyone that, you know, if you are persistent and determined and you want to stay true to your vision, eventually the world will come to you. It's just never, never give up. And that's what your embodies. - Yeah, it's beautiful. - Sir, I just got to mention that I also want to restate that our name, Le Randon, or Le Vandomb in French, is also inspired by Vera Mubinot, who pointed to randomness or Le Randon in French as the key creative post in generative art. So yeah, I think it's an amazing, amazing message to close the conversation at. And I really want to thank your Michael for taking the time and I think this is amazing chat with us. It was very insightful and a real honor to have you on. Yeah, so have you for your first Twitter space. Thank you so much. Well, I'm very, you know, I don't want to sound old, but as I told you, Jan, from our first connect, I'm very proud of what you're doing and excited that you all are doing this from what I can see with the right spirit. And it's lovely and in real contrast to some of the individuals in the space from the beginning to myself, Revile, because they don't care about the space. They care about money and just money. So I love that we're passionate people who see that the beauty of this movement, which I think would be on par with the impressionists or any other great art movement and we're all playing a role in it. And I would just finalize by saying, if we're not for Anne's sculpture, I wouldn't be on this call. So I want to, you know, I'm much more loud than Anne, but Anne has played such a role in the history of this space advancing others. So I don't think she's on it, but on this call that she's the person to shout out, not me. Thank you. - Thank you, Michael so much. And yes, thank you to Anne. She's one of our advisors and one of the people we respect the most in this space. And Michael, it was, yes, such a pleasure to speak to you. We've been DMing back and forth for forever, but you know, you're somebody that I look up to so much and it's been a pleasure to speak to you. And I hope that we can talk about this more because I feel like we can go on all day. So thank you so much, Michael. It's been a real pleasure and thank you everybody for listening. - And thanks everyone for tuning in. Hope to see you guys soon.