Untitled

Basic Information

Title: Untitled
Artist(s): Frieder Nake
Date Created: 1972
Edition Info: 197/200
Framed Dimensions: 22 x 20.5 x 1 in.
Unframed Dimensions: 21 x 15 in.
Medium: Silkscreen after plotter drawing

Description

Also known as “Walk-through-Raster”. From the Art Ex Machina portfolio.

Nake’s work with matrices is one of the defining products of computer art during the period of the late ’60s and early ’70s. His process involved creating algorithms first, from which he generated multiple images to form different series. He would first create a square matrix, then fill it with numbers, multiplying the matrix successively by itself with the resulting new matrices being translated into images; each number would be assigned a visual sign with a particular form and color. The signs were then placed in a raster according to the values of the matrix.

Frank Dietrich, ‘Visual Intelligence: The First Decade of Computer Art (1965–1975)’, Leonardo, vol.19, no.2, 1986, pp.159–69.