Aleksandar Srnec, Lumonoplastika 2, 1967/68
Metal construction, electromotor, projector, 72 x 63 x 51 cm

Here’s a video of Srnec’s Lumino Kinetics in action from a recent retrospective of his work.

Ivan Picelj, Oeuvre Programmée No. 1, 1966
Silkscreen / paper, 65 x 50 cm

Tendencies 4 was an informational exhibition featuring computer graphics and programmed works. Poster by Ivan Picelj.

Atsuko Tanaka, Electric Dress, 1957

Atsuko Tanaka, Untitled, 1961
52” x 36.875”

David Reed, TV-Size Paintings, 2006-2009
Oil and alkyd on polyester, 26 x 50 inches

Pictured above from top to bottom: #599, #596, #569, #551.

Miguel Vidal, Untitled, 1969
Plotter print, 485 x 308 mm

Kiyoji Otsuji, Pitiful Object, 1949
Gelatin silver print, 35.3 x 27.6 cm

Hideko Fukushima, Untitled, 1955
Ink, acrylic on paper, 33.3 x 30.6 cm

To round out the CTG posts for the day, here’s a photograph of the group from the catalog to the Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition. Left to right: Koji Fujino, Masao Kohmura, Kunio Yamanaka, Haruki Tsuchiya, Makoto Ohtake.

Running Cola is Africa!, 1968
Idea: Masao Kohmura, Program: Koji Fujino

See more work by the Computer Technique Group in Kohmura’s set on flickr.

COMPUTER IS A GOOD ILLUSTRATOR / COMPUTER DESIGN SERIES NO.2 (Random Walk Kennedy), 1967
Idea and design: Masao Kohmura, Program: Haruki Tsuchiya

Computer Technique Group (CTG), Return to a Square, 1969

The Computer Technique Group was a Japanese collective of art and engineering students founded by Masao Kohmura and Haruki Tsuchiya in the late 60’s and partially funded by the IBM Scientific Data Center.

The CTG Manifesto, from 1966 explains:

CTG is an active think tank that takes advantage of well developed electronic computer systems and makes them serve the needs of human beings. We, the post-war generation, have been exploring our place in machine society for all our born days. Living without machines is attractive in its own way in our dreadful age but it is regressive evolution back towards apes, and is different from the creative evolution we are aiming for.
We will tame the computer’s appealing transcendental charm and restrain it from serving established power. This stance is the way to solve complicated problems in the machine society.
We do not praise machine civilization, nor do we criticise it. By a strategic collaboration with artists, scientists and other creative people from a wide variety of backgrounds, we will deliberate carefully the relationships between human beings and machines, and how we should live in the computer age.

They were a bit more business savvy than the average sixties artist collective, operating as a multi-faceted creative and analytical technology studio:

[The CTG] opened up an office in downtown Tokyo and aimed to have two kinds of activities. As a design office, it managed graphic design works and sold art works to galleries. In parallel, it was a think tank with expertise in computer analysis. CTG members often appeared in journals and on TV. Unanimous agreement was a CTG rule and the creative staff for each work were nominated following discussion and copyright is still reserved by all the members even now.

The group was part of several important computer/media art shows of the era, including Cybernetic Serendipity and the Venice Biennale of 1970. However, by that time the CTG had disbanded. Haruki Tsuchiya’s explained this in the groups final pamphlet, Goodbye Computer Art!:

My primary interest is in ascertaining the significance of art for human beings and how it is being realised in our society. This may be an exaggeration, but I say that computer art is a revolt against the whole of technology…. Today, new relationships between engineers and artists are expected for computer art. It has become a thing of the past for me.

The best source of information on the CTG is a 2007 article from The Bulletin of Computer Arts Society, which examines the group and Kohmura’s post-CTG activity. There is a pdf available online.

A. Michael Noll, Ninety Parallel Sinusoids With Linearly Increasing Period, early 1960s

The top sinusoid was expressed mathematically and then repeated again and again.

Bad War —Hans Holbein the Younger, 1520 (presumably ‘detail from’ but I can’t find any confirmation either way)

Ink drawings by Massimo Scolari.

Francis Alÿs, Pacing, 2001

Ed Ruscha, The End, 1991

The MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House is pleased to present its most ambitious project to date: How Many Billboards? Art in Stead. This large-scale urban exhibition debuts 21 newly commissioned works by leading contemporary artists, presented simultaneously on billboards in Los Angeles in February and March 2010.

Artists include Kenneth Anger, Martha Rosler, Yvonne Rainer, Kerry Tribe, and pictured above, Jennifer Bornstein. A map of the billboards is available here.