In 1969, a Tokyo researcher already wrote the philosophy of computer art

Merzmensch · x · 2026-11-14

Merzmensch shares a September 1969 article from Computers and Automation: "The Philosophy of Computer Art" by Haruki Tsuchiya of Tokyo's Computer Technique Group (CTG).

Key points that remain striking today:

Mathematizing the creative process: artistic processes can be fully expressed as logical statements in a computer program, with works ultimately decoded into units of 1s and 0s.
Symbol vs. semantics: computer art composes works purely from symbols (lines, points, shapes) via logic, highlighting the relationship between symbol-logic systems and semantic systems in contemporary art.
System and randomness: computer art uniquely holds both at once — in information aesthetics, system means negentropy and randomness means entropy, and wonderful works lie in their balance.

He closes by asking whether computer art, then a hobby of engineers, could become "a new world of aesthetics." The same issue includes a contest piece programmed in Fortran on an IBM 1620 and drawn by a CalComp 565 plotter — an early artifact of generative art.

Original post →

In 1969, a Tokyo researcher already wrote the philosophy of computer art

More from Fun