Otto Beckmann

Otto Beckmann (1908–1997), a pioneer of computer art, developed initial ideas regarding artistic shaping based on mathematical methods already in the late 1940s, with a special interest in practical applications of algorithms.

In the mid-1960s, within the context of an international movement consisting of scientists as well as artists, Beckmann discovered the computer as an artistic tool. Even before he created his characteristic computer sculptures, graphics and short films with his own "studio computer," specifically designed for his artistic work, he began to create his “Verbale Blockmontagen” respectively “Wortfiguren” in 1966, a computer based poetry using the so-called "autopoems" by the linguist Gerhard Stickel, who was scientist at the German Computing Center in Darmstadt and created these poems more or less as a by-product of his work there in the field of computer-aided text processing.

The exhibition presents Beckmann’s exploration of the computer’s potential for both the visual arts and poetry, wherein a formal logic approach merges with artistic intuition.

The exhibition was created in close collaboration with the Archiv Otto Beckmann, Vienna.