From abstract art to abstracted artists

Main Article Content

Romi Mikulinsky
Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Department of History and Theory
Yanai Toister
Shenkar College of Engineering, Design & Art in Israel, Multidisciplinary Art Department
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5605-5233

Abstract

What lineage connects early abstract films and machine-generated YouTube videos? Hans Richter’s famous piece Rhythmus 21 is considered to be the first abstract film in the experimental tradition. The Webdriver Torso YouTube channel is composed of hundreds of thousands of machine-generated test patterns designed to check frequency signals on YouTube. This article discusses geometric abstraction vis-à-vis new vision, conceptual art and algorithmic art. It argues that the Webdriver Torso is an artistic marvel indicative of a form we call mathematical abstraction, which is art performed by computers and, quite possibly, for computers.

Keywords: Rhythmus 21, Geometrical abstraction, Webdriver Torso, Mathematical abstraction, László Moholy-Nagy, Sol LeWitt, Frieder Nake, Conceptual art, Algorithmic art

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