WHAT IS DIGITAL ART?
One of the earliest digital artworks is in the V&A collection, Oscillon 40 by Ben Laposky, created in 1952. The artist used an oscilloscope to manipulate electronic waves that appeared on a small fluorescent screen and the result is intriguing. I’m impressed by the work of Paul Brown who studied at the Slade from 1977-79 and produced a series of early computer-generated drawings using simple, repetitive forms, laboriously writing the programme himself. These early digital artworks were trailblazing. It’s no coincidence that this genre really started to gain momentum as Apple and Microsoft launched in the late 1970s, alongside ink-jet printers and off-the-shelf design software.
The term ‘digital art’ was first coined in the early 1980s with the advent of
