In 1963 'Computers and Automation' ran what may be the first computer art contest
Merzmensch · x · 2026-11-11
A piece of prehistory for AI art: the February 1963 issue of Computers and Automation announced an informal Computer Art Contest.
- It followed the January 1963 cover, Efraim Arazi's "A Portrait by a Computer as a Young Artist" — an electron beam as brush, an oscilloscope as canvas, which Arazi called "electronic surrealism"
- Readers were invited to submit works where the computer played a dominant creative role; the best entry would grace the August issue cover
- Entries closed June 30, 1963
Likely one of the earliest computer art competitions, over half a century before generative AI.
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