Darrell Viner: materiality, process and the coded object.

This presentation explored Viners’ early practice of computational drawing, generative and transformative processing, and intersecting virtual spaces as a sculptural material. In 1977, Viner produced an experimental computer animation entitled ‘Inside/Outside’, and the author discussed a 10 frame fragment of animation that was uncovered within the archives of the Henry Moore Foundation (Leeds, UK). It was argued that these animated paper sketches, produced in May 1977, were a preparatory stage for the completed film. The existence of the original computer code, written using John Vince’s ‘PICASO’ subroutines for FORTRAN, also offers an opportunity to contextualise Viner’s conceptual thinking in relation to code as an object and the use of pseudo-randomness (chance) as a temporal, material transformation.