The Art of Computation

Calculating. That was the computer’s primary function. Yet from the early decades of computing, scientists, engineers, artists and designers realised that the machine could do much more: produce images, invent new forms, bring characters to life and open the door to new digital worlds.

The Art of Computation tells part of this adventure, where computing, creativity and research meet. From pixels to works created using algorithms, from the first virtual humans to immersive environments, a common story emerges: that of women and men exploring the possibilities of still-new machines and gradually pushing the boundaries of what they could be used to create, represent and experience.

In the late 1960s, Manfred Mohr took one of these paths. Geometry, mathematics and programming became the foundations of a distinctive visual language. The artist defines the rules and writes the algorithms; the machine executes them. The computer is not the artist: it becomes a new tool in the artist’s hands.

From the 1980s onwards, another frontier was explored in the laboratories of EPFL and the University of Geneva: bringing the human being into the digital image. Around Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann, Daniel Thalmann and, later, Ronan Boulic, several generations of researchers brought virtual humans to life, making them walk, move and interact in digital worlds. This research was carried out at a time when computers had only a fraction of the processing power available today.

And then there is the pixel. A fundamental building block of the digital image, it also became a visual language in its own right. In early graphical user interfaces, designers and graphic artists worked with a limited number of pixels to create icons that made computers more intuitive and familiar. From interface design to pixel art, this technical constraint gradually became a rich field for creative exploration. This chapter will soon be added to the exhibition.

Objects, archives, films and interactive installations bring this history to life. The Art of Computation invites us to look at computing differently: not only through its machines and their performance, but through what people imagined they could do with them.