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Chaired by Leila Johnston

With artists Ernest Edmonds, Manfred Mohr,  Frieder Nake and Roman Verostko.

In discussion with: Laura Sillars (Site Gallery), Douglas Dodds (V&A), Francesca Franco (researcher), Richard Sides (artist), Alex May (artist).

Alongside the launch of Ernest Edmond’s first UK solo show in a decade, Light Logic, Site Gallery is delighted to be working with De Montfort University to bring together some of the most significant international computer art pioneers of the 1960s. Working in parallel at that time, artists Ernest Edmonds, Manfred Mohr, Frieder Nake and Roman Verostko all made creative breakthroughs, with the computer becoming a creative companion in their work.

These artists might be considered collectively responsible for the development of art history from dada into digital.  Coming to the computer from different tracks of constructivist, actionist and conceptual art, they began to re-plot the way art might be made, from creating drawing and plotting machines to using algorithms and code to construct their work.

The structure of the Conversation has been designed to bring together the four established figures together with curators and artists from a younger generation. Whenever a group of old friends get together they invariably find their shared memory is such that their references are the same and that they don’t need to explain themselves. By inviting curators whose memories and cultural experiences are different, new kinds of conversations emerge.

A new generation of digital artists is emerging; those who have been brought up ‘on the internet’, who have no connection to the hand-written algorithm or the slow computing of the 1970s. We believe it is important to investigate the initial impulses that drew artists to the computer and consider how it differs to where we are now.

The Conversations will include an opportunity to view the exhibition in the company of the artist. The exhibition includes archival work and a new generative light sculpture made possible with the support of Arts Council England through Grants for the Arts and the Henry Moore Foundation.

Full Price: £15
Concession: £12.50

Includes refreshments and lunch

Venue: Cantor Building, Sheffield Hallam University

This Conversation has been supported by De Montfort University and the Computer Art Society.  It forms part of the De Montfort University celebrations building up to the 2015 50th anniversary of the first computer art show.

Click here for information on the speakers

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