Polar Co-ordinate Figures
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “Polar Co-ordinate Figures” now? Collection: Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Not on view at present. Checked September 25, 2026.
London, United Kingdom
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
In 1968 an electrical engineer at the University of New Mexico, Richard Williams, developed a computer program he called ART1. The new program allowed non-experts to create computer-generated images on the University's IBM 360 mainframe computer, without needing to understand the complexities of computer programming. The images were printed on a line printer, a device that produced a range of alphanumeric characters on continuous computer paper. Artists such as Frederick Hammersley and Katherine Nash went on to explore ART1's creative capabilities.
Read on
This artwork was created using ART2, which was developed by Nash and Ronald Reichenberger at the University of Minnesota. ART2 incorporated several enhancements, including a "polar-coordinate generator" that could generate curves from a fixed point or "pole". In this surviving computer printout, the program's variables are printed on the page preceding the image itself. The characters that feature in the image - right-turn arrows, lower and upper case X's, and triple bars - are specified along with their distribution across the sheet.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Details
- Accession number
- E.2805-2016
In the catalog
Sources
- Victoria and Albert Museum
- Image: Victoria and Albert Museum — © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
