The first computer-generated gallery artworks (1965) used random number tables to position and style plotted marks

In 1962 Michael Noll wrote a memo at Bell Labs describing computer-generated patterns from random Gaussian coordinates; by 1965 the first public gallery shows of computer art appeared simultaneously in New York and Stuttgart. Artists such as Noll and Frieder Nake used FORTRAN programs and mechanical plotters, with random values controlling position, line density, and pen color. This establishes computer art’s origin as computationally random rather than computationally precise — the earliest practitioners saw randomness as the feature that made computational art distinct, capable of ‘unexpected things’ that the machine’s apparent rationality made subversive. The RAND Corporation’s ‘A Million Random Digits’ (1955) was the shared reference table these artists and military researchers drew from.

Examples

Noll’s Patterns by 7090 (1962): ‘random numbers, standard deviation of 1200 were used for the x-axis coordinates.’ Nake’s 1965 plotter piece: density, pen color, and position all chosen by random values.

Assessment

Name the year of the first computer art gallery shows, two artists shown, and why randomness — not precision — was the defining capability these early practitioners highlighted.