Otto Beckmann

Otto Beckmann (1908-1997) was a pioneer of computer art who (as one of the few Austrian artists) explored the significance of mathematical rule systems for art. After initial thoughts on artistic design based on algorithms in the late 1930s, Beckmann began creating computer sculptures and graphics with the support of computing systems in the 1960s. From 1970 onwards, he worked on his “studio computer,” which he designed specifically for artistic tasks, applying the method of algorithmic design to the generation of texts, among other things. The computer was fed a large number of words, which it formed into sentences in accordance with the correct grammatical rules. The question of the “truth content” of the results thus obtained is balanced by their aesthetic impact and at the same time refers to the relative expressiveness of language in the sense of Ludwig Wittgenstein's concept of the “language game.” Otto Beckmann's “autopoems” thus also stand in the tradition of 20th-century philosophy and can be seen, among other things, as a variant of “concrete poetry.”