[-empyre-] A note before Week 2: NA/Cates/Historicity

[Patrick Lichty]

There was a line of discussion where historicity was mentioned, and Jon 
Cates seemed to have some questions about that.

I actually think that NA is very much the latest development of a line 
of developments since at least the 60's.  Perhaps my taking such a leap 
backward may abstract the conversation a little, but bear with me.

For example, I have Reichart's wonderful book from 1969(I think, perhaps 
72) related tot he Cybernetic Serendipity show.  Of course the two 
images that come to mind are Ken Knowlton's nude and A Michael Noll's 
algorithmic recreation of a Mondrian.  Now, if one wants to be strict 
and claim that NA is the algorithmic alteration of them image by 
processing, one might qualify Knowlton, and not Noll.  However, 
aesthetically speaking, I think that Noll's Mondrian experiments as 
examples of early Algorist work could merit it as being the great 
grandpappy of NA.  Then, that opens us up to the wonderful days of ASCII 
porn and then to Cosic and his ASCII theater as harbingers of NA.

Does this sound plausible?