Computer-generated Drawings / A Programmed Aesthetics

From a drawn vocabulary to a program

The bitforms exhibition account relates Mohr’s transition to information aesthetics and algorithmic music, including Max Bense’s writings and his contact with Pierre Barbaud. His 1969 artist’s book Artificiata I was still drawn by hand. Beginning to program did not erase the formal problems that his earlier work had already raised.

Section sources: Artificiata II, Manfred Mohr

P-18: a random walk with a vocabulary

Mohr’s account of P-18 specifies horizontal, vertical and 45-degree lines, square waves and zigzags, with probabilities governing widths and lengths. The program selects from this vocabulary within a bounded area. Randomness therefore operates through defined possibilities. His page also distinguishes a drawing on paper from examples output by a high-resolution microfilm light-beam plotter.

Section sources: P-18, random walk

Computing access becomes part of production history

In his online annotations to the 1971 catalogue, Mohr recalls writing early programs on an SDS computer at Vincennes and using machines at several institutions. He identifies the CDC computer and Benson flatbed plotter at the Paris meteorological service for drawings from 1970 onwards. Computing and output depended on access to particular institutional resources.

Section sources: Manfred Mohr Computer Graphics — Une Esthétique Programmée: catalogue annotations

The 1971 exhibition and the reversed catalogue images

Une Esthétique Programmée at ARC, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, gave these drawings a solo-exhibition setting in 1971. Mohr warns that white-on-black reproductions in the catalogue were photographically reversed: the originals were black ink on white paper. The catalogue also selects only a small number of examples from each algorithm rather than documenting every output.

Section sources: Manfred Mohr Computer Graphics — Une Esthétique Programmée: catalogue annotations

A different program, a different spatial problem

P-133, cluster phobia (1972), does not simply repeat the random-walk procedure. Mohr describes constructing gridded areas and fitting rectangles and broken lines into the remaining spaces, producing a circuit-like arrangement. Comparing it with P-18 makes differences between procedural problems visible, rather than treating all computer drawings as variations of one effect.

Section sources: P-133, cluster phobia

Programming relocates artistic decisions

Editorial interpretation: decisions are distributed across the vocabulary, constraints, probabilities, equipment and presentation. This offers a concrete way to examine who organises the conditions of generation. The relevant comparison with contemporary AI is the distribution of decisions, not an assumption that every computer-mediated practice shares the same authorship or data-licensing model.

Section sources: P-18, random walk · Manfred Mohr Computer Graphics — Une Esthétique Programmée: catalogue annotations · P-133, cluster phobia

Sources for this account

Equipment and algorithm descriptions follow the artist’s retrospective account; programs were not run. The 1971 catalogue’s online annotations were read, not the complete catalogue. The account and translation are AI-assisted, pending independent human review. Section references identify evidence without claiming independent verification of every historical statement.

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