Herbert Franke (1927-2022)
Herbert Franke presents Quadrate, 1967/69 and Einstein Digital Series, 1974, in the Historical Artists Room
-
The Quadrate program was first created in 1967 on an IBM 1130 computer using the Fortran programming language. The system, developed and built 1967 by the Technical University of Munich for the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry for use in brain research, was equipped with a plotter, among other things, via an interface. Franke’s basic concept for the squares was simple: they were placed in three planes. The distribution, size and number of squares was determined independently for each level by a pseudo-random generator within a previously defined size grid for each plane. The relatively simple pseudo-random generator used was offered in the 1130 Fortran library.The three layers of the program were drawn as original plotter graphics – in black and white or, with a very limited choice of colors, one after the other in red-blue-black.
Provided by Dr. Susanne Paech
-
Einstein Digital is one of Franke’s best-known works combining nine single picture processing photogrpahs as an edition.The art work series of around 20 photographs from 1074 is one of the earliest examples of picture processing art. First, a black-and-white portrait of Albert Einstein was scanned and the resulting digital code was stored using a punched tape. The image data were then fed into a picture processing system, ‘Bildspeicher N’, – a medical diagnostic device in the research center of Siemens. The computer system was originally developed to convert scintigrams to optimize the visualization of the distribution of radioactive tracer substances in a patient’s body. But in this case, the scintigram was replaced by the digitized photograph of Einstein, which was displayed on the screen as a rough raster image. Then a variety of iterative picture processing methods were applied under visual control to satisfy the aesthetic criteria of Franke. Then the finalized images on screen was conventionally photographed as there was no tool to do a digital “screenshot” at that time.
Provided by Dr. Susanne Paech
