Frieder Nake's Precise Pleasantries

This image made history: Hommage á Paul Klee by German computer scientist Frieder Nake. Produced on a mechanical plotter, driven by software algorithms, designed by Nake, this image is known today as one of the first aesthetic utterances of a digital image making system ever. As such it has historical significance and value.


The Hommage á Paul Klee also has significance due to the aesthetic choices its creator, Frieder Nake, made almost 40 years ago. Having only a very slim visual vocabulary of just straight lines and circles available he managed to create a piece which continues to radiate everytime it is displayed and looked at. Nake knew that he was making art when he set out to have the computer perform certain routines (or do loops as they were called in programming lingo) to draw this picture. He aimed at making the results visually pleasing when he selected the numerical parameters with which his software was fed. He clearly intended to put this work into the framework of the art world which is why he gave it a somewhat ironic title of a hommage and referring to one of the masters and innovators of 20th century art, Paul Klee. And Nake went beyond the original drawing the plotter produced by using standard techniques and procedures of contemporary artists. The final art work was a limited edition of a serigraph. And just like any other piece of art this drawing was exhibited at the Galerie Wendelin Niedlich in Stuttgart in 1965. The aesthetic cycle of creation, exhibition, and perception had been closed, and history had been made.

(For more on the Stuttgart school of philosopher Max Bense and the first computer art produced there, see Stuttgart 1960. Computers in Theory and Art)

No surprise then and predictable by some this work is on its way to become one of the few canonical images in the still short history of computer art. That's why this work is now on display at the various concurrent shows dedicated to some aspect of the early hours of this fascinating new artform. Frieder Nake himself has a retrospective (and a few new interactive installations) at the Kunsthalle Bremen, the northern city in Germany where he tought computer science for several decades. This show will also travel to the ZKM in Karlsruhe in February 2005. Right now the ZKM has another show on display exploring the topic of the Algorithmic Revolution - The History of Interactive Art. Of course, Frieder Nake is represented in this show as well. The show has a fairly comprehensive web site (not to say: academic web site) but most of the writing is in German and unfortunately, there are few or no images published.

Lastly, Frieder Nake is also represented with two pieces in the Scratchcode show at Bitforms in New York, put together by gallerist Steve Sacks with the help of artist Manfred Mohr, a good and long-time friend of Frieder Nake. As can been seen plainly, computer art (or call it New Media Art) must have come to its own, if there is already a History to the thing!