Art at the Dawning of the Electronic Era: Generative Systems

Something unusual and special happens when an artist uses a communication system that is intended for commercial business use. A copy machine, used to reproduce data, may become a paintbrush. A fax machine, used to transmit data, may become a sound instrument for manipulating images. And a computer intended for business can morph into a system for creative use. From the 1960s electronic communication machines moved into public places, such as libraries and post offices. Artists, and people in general, were provided with new imaging systems to explore and play with. In the decades since, electronic imaging processes have exploded in richness and complexity. Electronic, technological progress is leading, in turn, to new biologic systems and a new body of creative people, once again, using commercially intended systems in unintended ways. This book, however, focuses on the 1970s, and reveals how early electronic systems were capable of being used to produce imaginative images never intended by or expected from business communication systems, but the very purpose and raison d’être of the Generative Systems program of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.