bcd CyberneticArt team (Königswinter_Berlin_Zagreb):
Miro A. Cimerman & Dunja Donassy-Bonačić

Following our bcd CyberneticArt team contribution at the last year Virtual Exhibition @ VCFB 2020 (Details Page) we continue this year @ VCFB 2021 with the revealment of the newest exploration into “Hidden [Digital] Data Structures” (© bcd team) of our CyberneticArt oeuvre and accompanying media archeological digitalization of our CyberneticArt Archive. Our principal interest was, and still is, in deciphering complex dynamic structures of "behaviour" of the Galois Fields, in particular GF(2), through visual and audible effects by usage of interactive [digital] computer systems applying the "Hidden [Digital] Data Structures Method" (© bcd team).

This year premiere Virtual Exhibition (jubilee; a 50th anniversary of bcd team) comprises a thematic representative sample of our CyberneticArt works created with many generations of [un]conventional [Digital] Computer Systems we used and/or own[ed]/devised in our art, design and research projects by various modalities ((more about)). It is based on the "[Digital] Pointillistic“ CyberneticArt Point of View Principle (© bcd team), showing hitherto our intensions in introducing and improving "pixel processes", "pixel graphics", "pixel sculptures", and "pixel installations". We tried to find “interconnecting link[s]” for all of our artworks. In “media archeological” approach, we used a “[sub]atomization” of each single artwork analyzing the key fundamental factors. One of our discoveries was: PIXEL = well known as any of the very small discrete elements (dots) that together constitute an image (form the picture), as on a television or digital screen, computer monitor, etc.

Starting point (Static Scientific Pixel) is to be found in the newly established (the then 1960ies) “Laboratory for Cybernetics”, organizationally located in the “Department for Nuclear Physics” of the Croatian National Research “Institute Ruđer Bošković” (IRB | Zagreb). There, a historical encounter brought artists and scientists together. The organizers of [New] Tendencies, in their search for scientists and desire for creative cooperation in the Program “Computers and Visual Research”, came in contact with nearly 30-year-old Vladimir Bonačić (member of the Laboratory, already a respected scientist and computer expert, later in 1971 founding member of bcd CyberneticArt team) and aroused his interest and motivation. Already in his premiere artwork (“IRB 8-9” in 1968 @ t4 exhibition “Computers and Visual Research”) Vladimir transformed Static Scientific Pixel and invented out of it [Proto-Intelligent] [Interactive] Dynamic Graphic Artistic Pixel for use in art (more about).

In the next year (1969), for the second part of the t4 exhibition “Computers and Visual Research”, Vladimir applied newly invented Dynamic Graphic Artistic Pixel for use in art(more about). He presented series of 15 own artworks and was awarded with the recognition prize of the International Art Jury of t4 (among others Umberto Eco as juror). Following years brought hitherto numerous artworks of Vladimir alone and together with bcd CyberneticArt team, resulting in additional pixel transformations and further Metamorphoses. The culmination was already in 1980ies with the invention of [Intelligent] [Interactive] Timeless & Spaceless Transcendental Pixel, by bcd CyberneticArt team, thus concluding with Seven Metamorphoses in the complete CyberneticArt œuvre.We show selection of some typical examples for each Metamorphosis depicting characteristics of each pixel type.

The (7) Seven Metamorphoses are chronologically and thematically

ordered from Metamorphosis of Static Scientific Pixel into:

⇒ [Proto-Intelligent] [Interactive] Dynamic Graphic Artistic Pixel

Men - Machine visual communication with on-line minicomputer PDP 8 (DEC) connected via A/D and D/A converters to the Light Pen System & oscilloscope for displaying “pixel” graphics on the CRT screen. In the middle (from left): TTY, PDP 8, A/D and D/A converters, oscilloscope with CRT screen, light pen stylus. The System was constructed in mid 1960s at The Laboratory for Cybernetics (IRB | Zagreb) and used for scientific research, mainly in nuclear spectroscopy (Leftmost: Van de Graaff experiment, 6Li+3He⇒p+a+a, 3.0 MeV, 35.7o, -37.5o; Illustration of Static Scientific Pixel), but also by Vladimir Bonačić for art purposes in his pioneering use of “Computers and Visual Research” since 1968 onward (Rightmost: “IRB 8-9, V.B. 1968”; Illustration of Dynamic Graphic Artistic Pixel).

Illustration of Dynamic Graphic Artistic Pixel:
Details from "PLN Series, V.B. 1969" @ t4 Exhibition “Computers and Visual Research”

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⇒ [Proto-Intelligent] [Interactive] Monochrome Bulb plain or + Color Film/Glass Visual Pixel

Monochrome Bulb (plain). "Random 63, V.B. 1969"

Monochrome Bulb + Color Film. "Dynamic Object DIN. GF 100, V.B. 1969"

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⇒ [Proto-Intelligent] [Interactive] Monochrome Milky Bulb Public Urban Space Visual Pixel

"Pixel Installation" in Public Urban Space (by V. Bonačić)
premier exhibited at tendencies 4, Zagreb 1969.
(DIN. PR 18, V.B. 1969, Kvaternik Square, Zagreb; upper left and right: detail)
followed by two other "Pixel Installations" in Public Spaces, Zagreb until 1971
(lower left: DIN. PR 10, 1971, NaMa Ilica, Zagreb)
(lower right: DIN. PR 16, 1971, NaMa Kvaternik Square, Zagreb).

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⇒ [Proto-Intelligent] [Interactive] Glow Lamp Visual Pixel

Left: "Dynamic Object GF.E 16 S, V.B. 1969-1970"
Middle: Insight into "Dynamic Object GF.E 16 S, V.B. 1969-1970"
Right: "Dynamic Object GF.E 16 NS, V.B. 1969-1970"

"Dynamic Object GF.E 32 NS, V.B. 1969-1970"

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⇒ [Proto-Intelligent] [Interactive] Monochrome Bulb+Color Glass Visual&Audio Pixel

Left: "Dynamic Object GF.E 16,4 NS C M, V.B. 1969-1971". Detail, Front Side
Middle: "Dynamic Object GF.E 16,4 NS C M, V.B. 1969-1971" @ Exhibion ZKM 2008-2009
Right: "Dynamic Object GF.E 16,4 NS C M, V.B. 1969-1971" @ Exhibion ZKM 2008-2009.
The visual and audible patterns, the appearance of their combinations, the rhythm of the change and the surround sound distribution originate from the same information source (Galois Fields) and are thus intrinsically interwoven.
Four independent acoustic channels with 4 loud-speakers (“QuadroSound”) make it possible to experience and immerse spectators into “Dynamic Visual & Acoustic Space” – “Listen Pictures & See Music” performance.

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⇒ [Proto-Intelligent] [Interactive] LED (point, line, suface, space) Visual Pixel

The visualization of “Hidden [Digital] Data Structures” of the Galois Fields (GF) is a problem of some complexity. The sculpture “Dynamic Line 64” renders visual the “dynamic interaction” of three GFs of the degree 2xx64 and smaller. The same pattern in the GFs will repeat after five billion years. Successive elements from three Galois Generators (GGs) are produced by the program residing in the memory chips and executed in real time by the Micro Computer System MCS-80 (based on Intel’s 8080A processor), all of them placed on the single board of Intels System Development Kit 80 (SDK 80). It carries basic chips and provides enough place for extension chips and additional small amount of electronics.

Traffic + Object in Space

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⇒ [Intelligent] [Interactive] Timeless & Spaceless Transcendental Pixel

INSTANTANEOUS

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——-
N. B.
Development and preparation of this Virtual Exhibition, with focal point on digitalization, was partially supported by the Grant »Module D: Digital Exchange Formats« as Partial Program of »New Start for Visual Artists« of the Association of German Artists e.V. Berlin in the framework of Federal Program NEW START CULTURE by Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
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To the virtual exhibition desk

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