Mainframe Experimentalism: Early Computing and the Foundations of the Digital Arts

Higgins, Hannah; Kahn, Douglas

ISBN 10: 0520268385 / ISBN 13: 9780520268388

Published by University of California Press, 2012

About this Item

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Mainframe Experimentalism: Early Computing and the Foundations of the Digital Arts
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520268385
• ISBN 13: 9780520268388
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Mainframe Experimentalism challenges the conventional wisdom that the digital arts arose out of Silicon Valley’s technological revolutions in the 1970s. In fact, in the 1960s, a diverse array of artists, musicians, poets, writers, and filmmakers around the world were engaging with mainframe and mini-computers to create innovative new artworks that contradict the stereotypes of "computer art." Juxtaposing the original works alongside scholarly contributions by well-established and emerging scholars from several disciplines, Mainframe Experimentalism demonstrates that the radical and experimental aesthetics and political and cultural engagements of early digital art stand as precursors for the mobility among technological platforms, artistic forms, and social sites that has become commonplace today.

About the Author

Hannah B Higgins is Professor of Art History at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the author of Fluxus Experience (UC Press).

Douglas Kahn is Professor of Media and Innovation at the National Institute of Experimental Arts (NIEA) at the University of New South Wales, Australia. He is the coeditor of Source: Music of the Avant-garde (UC Press).