A. Michael Noll created his earliest digital computer art in summer of 1962 while he was working at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, as documented in a Bell Telephone Laboratories Technical Memorandum "Patterns by 7090" (MM-62-1234-14, August 28, 1962). In an early experiment performed a few years later, he compared a Mondrian painting with a computer-generated pattern – an experiment which latter became classic. His "Computer-Generated Ballet" was the first use of a digital computer to create an animation of stick figures on a stage. In 1968 and 1970, he utilized his four-dimensional computer-animation method to create the title sequences for a movie ("Incredible Machine") and for a television special ("The Unexplained") – a very early use of computer animation for generating title sequences.
Noll's early work in computer art was pioneering and set the way for many others to follow. He wrote many published papers and spoke extensively about his computer art at the time. A selction of quotations from these papers is below.
Examples of Noll's work are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art , the Los Angeles County Museum of Art , the USC Fisher Gallery , the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. See below for the specifics of these collections.
For examples of early computer art by Noll, please click here.
Computer-Generated Animated Movies:
Some of the earliest research into the use of digital computers to create animated movies was done at Bell Labs at Murray Hill, NJ in the early 1960s. This research was performed using a Stromberg Carlson SC-4020 microfilm plotter and IBM 7090 and 7094 computers.
Dr. Frank W. Sinden programmed a 10-minute animated movie titled “Force, Mass, and Motion” demonstrating Newton’s Law with various central force laws. Dr. Edward E. Zajac programmed a 4-minume animated movie titled “Two-Gyro Gravity-Gradient Attitude Control System” showing how an orbiting satellite is stabilized to orient toward the Earth. Dr. Bela Julesz and Ms. Carol Bosche produced short computer animated segments for experiments in visual depth perception. Dr. Kenneth C. Knowlton, using his BEFLIX programming language, collaborated with Stan Van Der Beek to produce a one-minute computer-animated movie titled “Man and His World” for Expo 67 in Montreal.
A. Michael Noll made some of the earliest stereoscopic computer-animated movies, with separate images for the left and right eyes. One of his computer-animated movies showed a four-dimensional hypercube, perspectively projected into three dimensions and then as stereo pairs. He later used this technique to animate letters and words in four space for title sequences for a movie (1968) and a TV program (1970). Noll also used his stereo animation to investigate three-dimensional random “kinetic sculptures” and a computer-generated ballet of stick figures on a stage. Noll's computer-generated animations are:
"Computer-Generated Ballet" (1965) — 3D stereographic and 2D versions.
"Four-Dimensional Hyperobjects" (1965) — 3D stereographic pairs.
"4-D Hyper Movie."
"Simulated Basilar Membrane Motion (3D)" with R. C. Lummis and M. M. Sondhi.
"Incredible Machine" (1968) — main-title animation sequence for award-winning movie by Owen Murphy Productions for the American Telephone & Telegraph Company.
"The Unexplained" (1970) — main-title animation sequence for Encyclopedia Britannica Special by Lee Mendelson Productions for NBC and colorcast on April 3, 1970.
"Computer Generated Ballet" (2D version), "Hypercube Computer Animation," and "Basilar Membrane" are available at YouTube under "computerartist".
Shows (1965-1975) :
Howard Wise Gallery, New York City: 1965 (with Bela Julesz) "Computer-Generated Pictures" (early USA digital computer art exhibit).
Fall Joint Computer Conference, Las Vegas: 1965 (with Vaughn Mason's analogue computer art) "Computer-Art Exhibit."
Galarie im Hause Behr, Stuttgart, Germany: 1967 "Computergrafik" (organized by M. Krampen).
Studio f, Ulm, Germany: 1967 "Computergrafik" (organized by M. Krampen).
Summit Art Center, Summit, New Jersey: 1967 "Computer Sight and Sound."
House of Art, Brno, Czechoslovakia: 1968 "Computer Graphic."
Gallery, Jihlava, Czechoslovakia: 1968 "Computer Graphic."
Gallery, Cottwaldov, Czechoslovakia: 1968 "Computer Graphic."
Institute for Contemporary Arts, London, England: 1968 "Cybernetic Serendipity."
Galerije Grada Zagreba, Zagreb, Yugoslavia: 1968 "Tendencije 4."
Kubus Gallery, Hanover, Germany: 1969 "Computer-Kunst" (sponsored by Clarissa Contemporary Art and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Gellellseheft).
University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain: 1979 "Generacion Automatica de Eormas Plasticas."
Pinacoteca do Estado de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brasil: 1971 "Arteonica."
National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, India: 1972 "Computer Art."
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, Ohio: 1972 "Computer Art."
Watson Art Gallery, Wheaton College, Amherst, Massachusetts: 1975 "Computer Art Exhibit."
Permanent Collections:
Large prints of "Gaussian-Quadratic" and "Computer Composition With Lines" are in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (unframed) and of the Fisher Gallery at the University of Southern California (framed).
Movie prints (16 mm) of computer animation are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York City) and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Los Angeles). The Academy has converted the movies to a digital format.
A 16 mm print of a "Computer-Generated Ballet" is in the permananent collection of the Dance Division of the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center (New York City) [call #: MGZHB 2-54].
Copies of various puplished papers by A. Michael Noll about his early computer art are in the permanent collection of the Huntington Library in Pasadena, CA.
Quotations on Computer Art by A. Michael Noll:
"As the technology progresses, increasing numbers of scientists, animators, artists, and others will use the graphic capabilites of computers coupled with devices for producing visual output." ["Computer-Generated Three-Dimensional Movies," Computers and Automation, Vol. 14, No. 11, (November 1965), pp. 20-23.]
“The results of this experiment would seem to raise some doubts about the importance of the artist’s milieu and emotional behavior in communicating through the art object.” [“Human or Machine: A Subjective Comparison of Piet Mondrian’s ‘Composition with Lines’ and a Computer–Generated Picture,” The Psychological Record, Vol. 16. No. 1, (January 1966), pp. 1-10.]
“The computer may be potentially as valuable a tool to the arts as it has already proven itself to be in the sciences." [“Choreography and Computers,” Dance Magazine, Vol. XXXXI, No. 1, (January 1967), pp. 43-45.]
“Computers … will become more readily accessible with the net result that many more people, including artists, will become computer oriented. In time this new artistic medium will be exploited to produce previously unknown effects combining color, depth, motion, and randomness in creative combinations.” [“Computers and the Visual Arts,” Design Quarterly No. 66/67, (1967), pp. 65-71.]
“In the computer, man has created not just an inanimate tool but an intellectual and active creative partner that, when fully exploited, could be used to produce wholly new art forms and possibly new aesthetic experiences.” [“The Digital Computer as a Creative Medium,” IEEE Spectrum, Vol. 4, No. 10, (October 1967), pp. 89-95.]
“… the end result, no matter through what medium it was produced, should be judged for its own artistic merit. … I am quite excited by the prospects for the new artistic effects and beauty which will surely result from creative collaborations between artists and the computer.” [“Computer Animation and the Fourth Dimension,” AFIPS Conference Proceedings, Vol. 33, 1968 Fall Joint Computer Conference, Thompson Book Company: Washington, D.C. (1968), pp. 1279-1283.]
“What we really need is a new breed of artist-computer scientist.” [“Art Ex Machina,” IEEE Student Journal, Vol. 8, No. 4, (September 1970), pp. 10-14.]
“Creative persons from the artistic community – not technologists – must continue to appear who are expert in the use of the computer medium.” [“Computers and the Visual Arts: A Retrospective View,” Catalog of the SIGGRAPH ’82 Art Show (July 1982).]
“Computers might actually be the single common tool that will lead to an integration of various arts, such as music, animation, sculpture, drama, architecture, design and dance.” [“The Beginnings of Computer Art in the United States: A Memoir,” Leonardo, Vol. 27, No. 1, (1994), pp. 39-44.]
Early papers on computers and the visual arts by A. Michael Noll:
Below is a list of early published papers on computers and the visual arts by A. Michael Noll. The link is a pdf version of the original publication which can be downloaded. The pdf's range from 1 MByte to 9 MByte in size, which will affect download time depending upon your Internet speed. Most of the papers are from the 1960s and are not otherwise available.
"Computer-Generated Three-Dimensional Movies," Computers and Automation, Vol. 14, No. 11, (November 1965), pp. 20-23.
“Human or Machine: A Subjective Comparison of Piet Mondrian’s ‘Composition with Lines’ and a Computer–Generated Picture,” The Psychological Record, Vol. 16. No. 1, (January 1966), pp. 1-10.
“Choreography and Computers,” Dance Magazine, Vol. XXXXI, No. 1, (January 1967), pp. 43-45.
“Computers and the Visual Arts,” Design Quarterly No. 66/67, (1967), pp. 65-71.
“The Digital Computer as a Creative Medium,” IEEE Spectrum, Vol. 4, No. 10, (October 1967), pp. 89-95.
“Computer Animation and the Fourth Dimension,” AFIPS Conference Proceedings, Vol. 33, 1968 Fall Joint Computer Conference, Thompson Book Company: Washington, D.C. (1968), pp. 1279-1283.
“Art Ex Machina,” IEEE Student Journal, Vol. 8, No. 4, (September 1970), pp. 10-14.
“Computers and the Visual Arts: A Retrospective View,” Catalog of the SIGGRAPH ’82 Art Show (July 1982).
Dates:
There has been confusion over the dates of specific works of my computer art and animation. My earliest works were done during the summer of 1962, and this is documented in a Bell Laboratories Technical Memorandum "Patterns by 7090" dated August 28, 1962 (TM-62-1234-14). The term "patterns" was used because the management was concerned that "art" would be too flossy and imply a judgment as to artistic merit. A number of examples were shown, all involving elements of randomness, sometimes combined with order. "Gaussian-Quadratic" was created as early as the sumer of 1962, but probably no later than 1963, and was a variation on one of the themes shown in the Technical Memorandum. "Computer Composition With Lines" was created during 1964.
The confusion about the dates was created because many of the works were copyrighted with a date of 1965, thereby leading to the assumption that this was the year of creation. The 1965 date came from the year of the exhibition of many of the pieces (along with works by Bela Julesz) at the Howard Wise Gallery in New York City in April 1965. A number of stereographic (3D) works were also exhibited then, along with such famous pieces as "Gaussian-Quadratic," "Vertical-Horizontal Number Three," "Computer Composition With Lines," and "Ninety Parallel Sinusoids."