{"id":6541,"date":"2025-04-30T09:26:11","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T16:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arthistory.ucr.edu\/?p=6541"},"modified":"2025-04-30T09:26:44","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T16:26:44","slug":"vera-molnars-drawing-machines-a-media-archaeology-of-early-computer-graphics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arthistory.ucr.edu\/vera-molnars-drawing-machines-a-media-archaeology-of-early-computer-graphics\/","title":{"rendered":"Vera Molnar\u2019s Drawing Machines: A Media Archaeology of Early Computer Graphics"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Vera Molnar\u2019s Drawing Machines: A Media Archaeology of Early Computer Graphics<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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Zsofi Valyi-Nagy, Ph.D Visiting Assistant Professor in Art History at Scripps College
\nWednesday, May 14 at 5:30pm, INTS 1128
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How do you draw a line with a computer? When the Hungarian-born, Paris-based artist Vera Molnar (1924-2023) began exper-imenting with electronic computers in 1968, this task was not as simple as the click of a mouse or the swipe of a finger. Molnar had to translate her visual language of geometric abstraction into alphanumeric instructions that a computer would understand. Though she generated thousands of computer plotter \u201cdrawings\u201d over the next two decades, she left behind limited technical documentation from this period, leaving it up to viewers to imagine the algorithms behind her compositions. This lecture presents a media archeology of the artist\u2019s work \u2013\u2013 a hands-on approach that engages not only with her drawings but also her process of drawing with a computer. I will recount my \u201creenactment\u201d of Molnar\u2019s series Lettres de ma m\u00e8re (My mother\u2019s letters, 1988) using obsolete hardware and software that the artist once used. This practice-led approach foregrounds the artist\u2019s process and historically contextualizes the material history and user experience of early interactive computing, which have been all but forgotten.<\/p>\n

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Vera Molnar\u2019s Drawing Machines: A Media Archaeology of Early Computer Graphics Zsofi Valyi-Nagy, Ph.D Visiting Assistant Professor in Art History Read More →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[167,103],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lectures-talks","category-news-and-events"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthistory.ucr.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthistory.ucr.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthistory.ucr.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthistory.ucr.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthistory.ucr.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6541"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/arthistory.ucr.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6546,"href":"https:\/\/arthistory.ucr.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6541\/revisions\/6546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthistory.ucr.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthistory.ucr.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthistory.ucr.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}