Computer art in the Italian critical and curatorial debate of the 1980s

Abstract

Since the mid-1980s, in the Italian context, there have been several exhibitions dedicated to Computer Art and the relationship between computer science and the visual arts. In this period, especially thanks to the spread of the personal computer, artists began making works using programming languages and digitally processed images and videos. The essay aims to reconstruct the critical and curatorial debate around the emergence of Computer art in Italy through the analysis of four seminal exhibitions: Technology and Informatics (1986), organized as part of the 42nd edition of the Venice Biennale’s International Art Exhibition; Arte e Computer (1987), curated by Renato Barilli; Computer Image (1987) curated by Franco Masotti and Claudia Ricci; and I frattali: la geometria dell’irregolare (1988), held at Palazzo Braschi in Rome, curated by Maurizio Calvesi and Michele Emmer. The article aims to investigate the main theoretical issues related to the spread of Computer Art in Italy, showing similarities and differences among the selected exhibitions.