25 years retrospective: from humble beginnings, computer art transcends traditional media: part 1 digital art.

January 1982 Ken Knowlton produced these "symbolic presentations" by applying random displacements to geometric and organic shapes created on a computer. He used the experimental technique to explore the notion of communicating with symbols that have "no clearly defined meaning or usage."

January 1977 Charles Williams' "Metamorphosis of a Flower," the earliest example of computer art from our magazine (then known as Computer Graphics Newsletter), was created from a hand drawing that was digitized and then modulated by a beaded mosaic pattern. Writes Williams: "The value of the system to a graphic artist is that it allows him to use a computer to generate complex ...