Repeating the past: lessons for visualisation from the history of computer art.

Abstract

The development of critical discourse and experimental practices in computer art of the 1960s and 1970s was informed by new forms of collaboration between artists, scientists and institutions. This paper acknowledges the debt owed by modern visualization practice to developments of this period but suggests that much of the artistic and philosophical legacy has been largely ignored in this area. It is argued that criticality in visualization practice should be informed by a number of aspects of 1960s and 1970s computer art practice, including implications for collaborative practice, thinking about mediation, and the integration of aesthetics with life experience.