Sher Minn

Let's talk about plotters!

#plottertwitter

plotters have a very long history

at least 60 years

CalComp advertisement, 1969

[source: Computer History Museum]

Computers back then

📼📺🗃

IBM 7090
Data Processing System

introduced in 1959 at the price of USD 3 million

Featured in Hidden Figures, 2016

[source]

Cathode ray tube (CRT) displays

[source: Experiments in motion graphics by John Whitney, 1968]

Drum printers

Left: IBM 1403 line printer.
[source: The Computer in Art by Jasia Reichdart, 1971]

Right: Character drum from unknown printer.
[source: neurotica.com]

Electronic/microfilm plotters

Stromberg-Carlson 4020 microfilm recorder

[source: chilton-computing.org.uk]

Mechanical plotters

CalComp 565, early drum plotter introduced in 1959

[source: Calcomp 565 Plotter working by Phillipp Hatchtmann]

Mainly used for scientific & mathematical applications

Coined term 'computer graphics'

🖼

One of the First Computer-Generated Films

Simulation of a Two-Gyro Gravity Gradient Attitude Control System by E. E. Zajac, 1963 [source: Youtube]

What about the art?

context matters

Fractals

[source: Wikimedia Commons]

Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales

Koch snowflake

Stained Glass Window by unknown artist at US Army Ballistics Research Lab, 1963

[source: Computers and Automation, August 1963]

reverse-engineering process

Emergent patterns

emergence is the condition of an entity having properties its parts do not have, due to interactions among the parts

🐞🐞Four bugs problem 🐞🐞

Four bugs sit at the corners of a card table, facing inward.

They start simultaneously walking at the same rate, each directing its motion steadily toward the bug on its right.

Find the path of each.

[source: David Allen, University of Kentucky]

Optical art

Op art, short for optical art, is a style of visual art that uses optical illusions.

Typically, they give the viewer the impression of movement, hidden images, flashing and vibrating patterns, or of swelling or warping.

The Responsive Eye, 1965

[source: MoMA NYC]

[source: Computer and Animation, August 1971]

Moiré patterns

Mechano Drawing by Zoran Radović, 1969

[source: Little-Known Story about a Movement, a Magazine, and the Computer’s Arrival in Art by Margit Rosen, 2011]

Dioximoirékinesis by J. I. Good and Martine Vite, 1968

[source: Cybernetics, Arts and Ideas by Jasia Reichardt, 1971]

[source: Computer and Animation, August 1966]

Color and texture

Matrix Multiplication by Frieder Nake, 1967

Why bother with history?

just because it's been done doesn't mean it's easy or uninteresting.

[source: Twitter thread]

credits: @NovalisDMT and @aharvard

credits: @d_e_lu

credits: @ReinderNijhoff

credits: @coachwebbster

credits: @FogleBird

we have so many ways to think about graphics today

I'm writing a series of articles about computer art history: https://piratefsh.github.io