Manchester Illuminated Universal Turing Machine, #1

Roman Verostko (born 1929 USA) was one of the earliest artists experimenting with algorithmic art - work created using an algorithm or set of instructions written by the artist - and has been a key figure in its development. He was a member of the ‘The Algorists’, a term coined in 1995 to describe a set of artists, who, since the 1960s and 1970s, had been working with a shared interest in the use of bespoke software for generating art using the computer.

This is the first in a series of unique works created to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 'Baby' computer, built at the University of Manchester in 1948. The Universal Turing Machine was a model created by Alan Turing, from which the circuit logic underpinning every general computer, including the Baby, descends. The binary code on the right of Verostko's image is that used in the Universal Turing Machine.