Chromatic Algorithms

Synthetic Color, Computer Art, and Aesthetics after Code

Nonfiction, Art & Architecture, General Art, Colour, Science & Nature, Science, Other Sciences, History
Cover of the book Chromatic Algorithms by Carolyn L. Kane, University of Chicago Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Carolyn L. Kane ISBN: 9780226002873
Publisher: University of Chicago Press Publication: August 13, 2014
Imprint: University of Chicago Press Language: English
Author: Carolyn L. Kane
ISBN: 9780226002873
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication: August 13, 2014
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Language: English

These days, we take for granted that our computer screens—and even our phones—will show us images in vibrant full color. Digital color is a fundamental part of how we use our devices, but we never give a thought to how it is produced or how it came about.
           
Chromatic Algorithms reveals the fascinating history behind digital color, tracing it from the work of a few brilliant computer scientists and experimentally minded artists in the late 1960s and early ‘70s through to its appearance in commercial software in the early 1990s. Mixing philosophy of technology, aesthetics, and media analysis, Carolyn Kane shows how revolutionary the earliest computer-generated colors were—built with the massive postwar number-crunching machines, these first examples of “computer art” were so fantastic that artists and computer scientists regarded them as psychedelic, even revolutionary, harbingers of a better future for humans and machines. But, Kane shows, the explosive growth of personal computing and its accompanying need for off-the-shelf software led to standardization and the gradual closing of the experimental field in which computer artists had thrived.
           
Even so, the gap between the bright, bold presence of color onscreen and the increasing abstraction of its underlying code continues to lure artists and designers from a wide range of fields, and Kane draws on their work to pose fascinating questions about the relationships among art, code, science, and media in the twenty-first century.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

These days, we take for granted that our computer screens—and even our phones—will show us images in vibrant full color. Digital color is a fundamental part of how we use our devices, but we never give a thought to how it is produced or how it came about.
           
Chromatic Algorithms reveals the fascinating history behind digital color, tracing it from the work of a few brilliant computer scientists and experimentally minded artists in the late 1960s and early ‘70s through to its appearance in commercial software in the early 1990s. Mixing philosophy of technology, aesthetics, and media analysis, Carolyn Kane shows how revolutionary the earliest computer-generated colors were—built with the massive postwar number-crunching machines, these first examples of “computer art” were so fantastic that artists and computer scientists regarded them as psychedelic, even revolutionary, harbingers of a better future for humans and machines. But, Kane shows, the explosive growth of personal computing and its accompanying need for off-the-shelf software led to standardization and the gradual closing of the experimental field in which computer artists had thrived.
           
Even so, the gap between the bright, bold presence of color onscreen and the increasing abstraction of its underlying code continues to lure artists and designers from a wide range of fields, and Kane draws on their work to pose fascinating questions about the relationships among art, code, science, and media in the twenty-first century.

More books from University of Chicago Press

Cover of the book Moral Imagination by Carolyn L. Kane
Cover of the book Political Theology and Early Modernity by Carolyn L. Kane
Cover of the book Across the Bridge by Carolyn L. Kane
Cover of the book On the Nature of Limbs by Carolyn L. Kane
Cover of the book Not in Our Lifetimes by Carolyn L. Kane
Cover of the book American Allegory by Carolyn L. Kane
Cover of the book The Making of Tocqueville's America by Carolyn L. Kane
Cover of the book Conversionary Sites by Carolyn L. Kane
Cover of the book Greater Ethiopia by Carolyn L. Kane
Cover of the book The Geographic Mosaic of Coevolution by Carolyn L. Kane
Cover of the book Knot of the Soul by Carolyn L. Kane
Cover of the book Unsettled Belonging by Carolyn L. Kane
Cover of the book A Planet of Viruses by Carolyn L. Kane
Cover of the book Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature by Carolyn L. Kane
Cover of the book Bones, Clones, and Biomes by Carolyn L. Kane
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy