James Whitney

James Whitney with his brother John altered analogue computer equipment to give John the opportunity to create Lapis in 1966. James drew dot patterns for this film, but the camera was controlled by computer, allowing the images to be overlaid in multiple forms. The algorithmic, kaleidoscope like patterns, in combination with the sitar music, are mesmerizing and trance-full.




"In the early 1960s digital computers became available to artists for the first time (although they cost from $100,000 to several millions, required air conditioning, and therefore located in separate computer rooms, uninhabitable ‘studios’; programs and data had to be prepared with the keypunch, punch cards then fed into the computer; systems were not interactive and could produce only still images). The output medium was usually a pen plotter, microfilm plotter (hybrid bwn vector CRT and a raster image device), line printer or an alphanumeric printout, which was then manually transferred into a visual medium." (source)