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EARLY COMPUTER ART IN THE 50’S & 60’S

Computing and creativity have always been linked. In the early 1800’s when Charles Babbage designed the Analytical Engine, his friend Ada Lovelace wrote in a letter that, if music could be expressed to the engine, then it “might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.”

My original vision for this article was to cover the development of computer art from the 50’s to the 90’s, but it turns out there’s an abundance of things without even getting half way through that era. So in this article we’ll look at how Lovelace’s ideas for creativity with a computer first came to life in the 50’s and 60’s, and I’ll cover later decades in future articles.

I stray from computer art into electronic, kinetic and mechanical art because the lines are blurred, it contributes to the historical context, and also because there is some cool stuff to look at.