Compos 68
The group Compos 68 was founded by Jan Baptist Bedaux, Jeroen Clausman and Arthur Veen in September 1968 in Utrecht, where all three members studied. then a student of art history, Jan Baptist Bedaux brings the idea of combining the aesthetics of modernist paintings (as Mondrian and Klee) and the computer simulation of growing trees. Arthur Veen was an assistant of professor A. Lindenmayer who taught philosophy of Biology at the Biology department of Utrecht University; Veen was programming in ALGOL in his biology research. Series 1 and Series 2 (both 1968, hand-colored computer-prints made by an Electrologica X8 plotter) were produced by the el - X8 philips computer at the department of mathematics of utrecht university. the program was written in ALGOL. Bedaux, Clausman and Veen created a system that could assign numerical values to the elements ‘color’ and ‘form’ in order to obtain numbers for mathematically formulated aesthetic theories. the variable multiple Hobby Box (1969) consists of a package with four colored cardboards, a pin, a variable pattern with stylus (created by the electrologica X8 plotter) and an instruction manual, both printed as computer sheets. The variable pattern is a computer print that shows an outline of a composition that is to be copied (by pin) to each color cardboard, and such cut rectangles finally assembled at the black cardboard according to a unique computer-programmed composition. this is an early example of participative computer-generated work, with new notions of ‘manual’ and ‘user’ in the context of computer-generated art (similar to do-it-yourself art multiples in Fluxus art).
In its short existence as a group (1968 - 1969), Compos 68 succeeds in exhibiting its work in several important international exhibitions of computer-generated art, such as tendencies 4 in Zagreb and Kunst und Computer in Vienna. they received an award for Hobby Box at the ‘tendencies 4 - computers and visual research’ exhibition in Zagreb in 1969, an exhibition that propagated the idea of visual research with computers as a continuation of the tradition of concrete art (and similar art styles falling under the umbrella title New Tendencies, named after the series of exhibitions with that name since 1961). Compos 68 elaborated theoretically on its work in several articles. source
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