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Vera Molnar

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"My work always emerges from, and consists of the simplest geometrical shapes ... I like the formal strictness and frugality of geometry, I like the rational purity of mathematics." - Vera Molnar

Short bio edit

Vera Molnar is a Hungarian born artist based in France. Traditionally trained in the arts, she began working with computers in 1968. She is considered a pioneer of computer and algorithmic arts. She's known for her line work and experimentation with pen plotters.

Back in the 1960s she co-founded several artist research groups. One in particular was GRAV (Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel), a group of eleven opto-kinetic artists. Their art practice focused on using computers to create kinetic art. They achieved optical effects by using various types of artificial light and mechanical movement.

Short Bio

Vera Molnar is a traditionally trained French artist who in 1968 began working with computers. She's known for her line work and experimentation with pen plotters. She is considered a pioneer of computer and algorithmic arts.

Back in the 1960s she co-founded several artist research groups. One in particular was GRAV (Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel), a group of eleven opto-kinetic artists. Their art practice focused on using computers to create kinetic art, which contains movement perceivable by the viewer sometimes using different angels to provide different perception.

Bio

Vera Molnar is a Hungarian born artist currently residing in France. She was trained in the traditional arts and studied art history and aesthetics at the Budapest College of Fine Arts. In 1968 she began working with computers and creating algorithmic works. She's known for her line work and experimentation with pen plotters. Her works focus on the breakup of repeating units, often expressed as a series of increasingly fractured images. She is considered a pioneer of computer and algorithmic arts,

Back in the 1960s she co-founded several artist research groups. One in particular was GRAV (Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel), a group of eleven opto-kinetic artists. They investigated collaborative approaches to mechanical and kinetic works, focusing on art and computing. They achieved optical effects by using various types of artificial light and mechanical movement.

On April 19, 1966 GRAV created Une Journée dans la rue (Day in the Street) in Paris where they invited passing participants to involve themselves in various kinetic activities such as having them walk on uneven blocks of wood and/or experience a distorted world by wearing elaborate distorting spectacles.

Quotes

"This may sound paradoxical, but the machine, which is thought to be cold and inhuman, can help to realize what is most subjective, unattainable, and profound in a human being." - Vera Molnar (Toward Aesthetic Guidelines)"

"I do what I like, and I don't do what I don't like. If I want to paint pink, I'll paint in pink. If I want to go back to black, I'll do that. [...] My real audience was François, [her husband]. I was always nervous when I showed him my work and asked him “This is my new work, do you like it?”, and he would always reply that it was better the week before. But it was like a game between us. [...]" VERA MOLNAR /// METROPOLIS /// ARTE /// 1996

"People do not necessarily like what they say they like. Their judgments are influenced by factors that have little or nothing to do with the art object that they behold. They are influenced by the opinion of others, by the bias of education, by an object's price, etc" (Toward Aesthetic Guidelines)

Links

• VERA MOLNAR // "LR WAYS" /// 1991 4:04 shows proccess of 4x4 node drawings. translation: in 1959 (!), she invented the “machine imaginaire”, an imaginary computer. back then, there were no computer monitors, which means that she wrote the algorithms without even seeing a visual result. in 1968 she finally got to work with an IBM 370 with an IBM 2250 CRT monitor, and a plotter. in 1968 she started making plotter images based on the algorithms she’d developed a decade before. she was one of the first people to create images using computers.

• märz galerie mannheim. Vera Molnar 2015. Concentrique 1958 — 2012 - no sound, mostly still images of her work

• VERA MOLNAR /// METROPOLIS /// ARTE /// 1996 (French). More 4x4 grids at 2:58. translation: "I do what I like, and I don't do what I don't like. If I want to paint pink, I'll paint in pink. If I want to go back to black, I'll do that. [...] My real audience was François, [her husband]. I was always nervous when I showed him my work and asked him “This is my new work, do you like it?”, and he would always reply that it was better the week before. But it was like a game between us. [...]"

images https://www.pinterest.com/search/?q=vera+molnar galleries

TOWARD AESTHETIC GUIDELINES FOR PAINTINGS WITH THE AID OF A COMPUTER Notes on process in an artist's statement from 1975 // articles by Vera Molnar 

Works

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