Herbert W. Franke — Oscillograms and early computer works

1954

Artists: Herbert W. Franke · Year: 1954 · Medium: Photographic oscillograms, plotter drawings, films, digital prints · Substrate: Oscilloscope + long-exposure photography (1950s); Siemens and IBM mainframes (1960s+); personal computers (1980s+) · Place: Vienna, Austria · Institution: Siemens; later independent practice and University of Munich Herbert W. Franke was an Austrian scientist, science-fiction writer, and computer-art pioneer whose career spanned seven decades — from his first oscillogram photographs in 1954 to his final NFT releases in the years before his death. He was, among the first-generation European computer artists, uniquely interdisciplinary: a PhD in physics, author of more than forty novels and non-fiction books, publisher of the landmark 1971 book Computergraphik / Computerkunst (the first comprehensive survey of the field in any language), and an active practitioner across every medium computers made possible. Franke produced his analog-computer oscillogram work between 1954 and 1959 — six years that predate Laposky's rise to prominence and are, in their own right, foundational. Selected images from this period were editioned as serigraphs in 1970 and first publicly exhibited at the Venice Biennale that year; the serigraph series became the canonical reproduction format through which the analog-computer work circulated for the next half-century. In the 1960s he moved to plotter work, making some of the first algorithmic plotter drawings in Austria. In the 1970s he wrote science-fiction novels (including The Orchid Cage, 1961) that thought about computation as a cultural force well before cyberpunk arrived. In the 1980s and 1990s he ran computer graphics research groups and curated exhibitions. In 2021, at age ninety-four, he released an NFT collection of his earliest computer works through Kate Vass Galerie. Franke is a counterexample to the narrative that computer art was a US-German phenomenon. He was Austrian, his circle included Eastern European and Soviet practitioners, and his 1971 book was translated and taught across Europe. That he died just before the final surge of interest in his early work is a sad irony. His estate is represented by EXPANDED.ART (Berlin and Los Angeles); his complete papers, prints, code, and original substrates are held by the art meets science Foundation Herbert W. Franke, founded by his widow Susanne Päch in August 2022. Lore Franke was born in Vienna in 1927 and earned his PhD in physics at the University of Vienna in 1951, after which he joined Siemens in Munich. He began his oscillogram work there in 1954 and continued the analog-computer series through 1959; the 1970 serigraph edition, which gave the early work its public life, was first shown at the Venice Biennale that year. His 1971 book Computergraphik – Computerkunst was the first comprehensive survey of computer art in any language; Phaidon translated it into English the same year, and Springer issued a substantially revised second edition in 1985. Franke held a lectureship at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich from 1973 to 1997, teaching what he called Cybernetical Aesthetics. He mentored several Austrian computer artists, including Peter Weibel, who later directed ZKM Karlsruhe. Sources • Franke, Herbert W. — Computergraphik – Computerkunst (Bruckmann Verlag, Munich, 1971) • Franke, Herbert W. — Computer Graphics, Computer Art, trans. Gustav Metzger (Phaidon, London, 1971) • art meets science – Foundation Herbert W. Franke — Franke archive • EXPANDED.ART — Herbert W. Franke estate representation • ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien collection • art meets science – Foundation Herbert W. Franke — analog-computer dating (1954–1959) and Venice Biennale 1970 serigraph debut (per Foundation correspondence)