FIGURE 4.

2 First artwork from the Henry Drawing Machine

Doesn’t it look like an abstract painting that you might find in a
gallery somewhere, with dozens of connoisseurs surrounding it,
analyzing the meaning behind the artist’s vision?
Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. Computer art, as it was referred
to back in those times, was not particularly respected by the art
world. Perhaps this was because computers were lifeless machines
that crunched numbers all day, or they resembled the machines that
churned out Coca‐Colas on a factory line. Or, perhaps it was because
their creators were nerds who obsessed over the minutiae of
something no one understood, not eccentric and lively artists with
whom you’d love to have a conversation.
Regardless of the reasons, computer art remained the distant step‐
cousin of the art world for decades. “It’s not real art” was the
popular and entirely ridiculous response to this style of creation.
Despite the hate, believers in computer art chugged along and
formed their own communities of support.
In 1967, the nonprofit Experiments in Art and Technology was
formed following a series of performances the previous year called
“9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering,” where 10 contemporary
artists joined forces with 30 engineers and scientists from Bell Labs
to showcase the use of new technologies in art.
In 1968, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London hosted one
of the most influential early exhibitions of computer art, called
“Cybernetic Serendipity.” Also in 1968, the Computer Arts Society
was founded to promote the use of computers in artwork.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, much of the digital art created was
dependent on the use of mathematics, using early algorithms and
math to generate abstract art. Digital art was almost entirely siloed
to the engineers interested in pushing the limits of technology or
the few artists who had the foresight to test this new form of
creation.
Artistry has always required a technical understanding of the
medium used, along with an understanding of art composition.
Whether the medium is pastel on canvas, graphite on paper, or
chisel against marble, the technical understanding of how the
materials react with the surface wasn’t insurmountable. It just took
practice.
Early digital art was no different in that you had to understand the
medium, which at the time meant understanding how computers
operated. For this reason, many of the early digital artists were
computer programmers.
Then a tectonic shift happened in 1984 that would change not only
“how” computer art was created but more importantly “who” could
create it.
Steve Jobs was on the scene at Apple, and his first major release was
the Macintosh computer, whose main advantage was the graphical
user interface (GUI). GUIs were paramount in that they presented
computing through icons and windows, allowing the average person
to interact with computers. Not to mention, for just $195, Mac users
could purchase MacPaint and have the ability to create their own
digital art. Personal computers gave every artist the ability to create
digital art. As we discussed earlier in this chapter, Commodore
followed up Apple the following year with its Amiga 1000 computer
and the Deluxe Paint software.
In the decade that followed, iconic software developed specifically
for the purposes of creating digital art began popping up: Adobe
Photoshop in 1988 and Corel Painter in 1990, for example. And then
in 1992, Wacom created one of the first tablet computers where
users interacted with the computer through a cordless stylus—a
digital artist’s dream.
Because software made the creation of digital art easier, more
artists began using the tools and forming communities to share
their experiences. Recognizing that digital art was taking off but had
no central place to display, the Austin Museum of Digital Art was
launched in 1997, entirely for the display and promotion of digital
creations. A couple of years later, the Digital Art Museum launched
the first online museum for digital art. (And a little over a decade
Acknowledgments
With much gratitude to Danny from WorldStar Hip‐Hop, Liza
Wiemer, Ryan Cowdrey, Wallon Walusayi, Wendy Souter, Joe
Marcus, Nigel Wyatt, Patrick Shea, Kathleen Mahoney, Coinbase,
MetaMask, C3 Entertainment, Inc., CoinMarketCap, Mike
Winkelmann, Elaine O’Hanrahan, Dapper Labs, shl0ms,
Scrazyone1, and WhatsGoodApps.
Thank you to anyone who has ever conversed with us about NFTs,
collected NFTs alongside us, or consulted with us about their NFTs.
All of those interactions helped make this book a reality.

—Matt Fortnow and QuHarrison Terry

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