The Computer-Generated Artworks of Vladimir Bonačić

Abstract

Scientist Vladimir Bonačić began his artistic career 1968 under the auspices of the international movement NewTendencies (NT), at the Gallery for Contemporary Art of Zagreb, which had pushed for his inclusion. From 1968 to 1971 Bonačić created a series of "dynamic objects"-interactive computer-generated light installations, five of which were set up in public spaces. The author shows the context of Bonačić's work within the Zagreb cultural environment dominated by the New Tendencies movement and network (1961-1973). The paper shows his theoretical and practical criticism of the use of randomness in computer-generated art and describes his working methods as combining the algebra of Galois fields and an anti-commercial approach with custom-made hardware. It seems that Bonačić's work fulfills and develops Matko Mestrovic´'s proposition that "in order to enrich that which is human, art must start to penetrate the extra-poetic and the extrahuman."