Variable Conditions recovers and explores early Canadian encounters between computational media and contemporary art in the late twentieth century, charting a network of developments linking meteorology, computation, and the arts that arose long before the age of cloud computing.

Essays uncover the material conditions that shaped the emergence of computational arts in Canada, from projects executed by mainframe to digital paintings and analog synthesizer performances. A surprising number of institutional circumstances granted access to early computer hardware – government nuclear and hydroelectric infrastructure, agencies as diverse as the National Film Board and the National Research Council, and a myriad of university settings across the country – and creative conditions varied from benign administrative neglect to the artistic exploration of randomness or a distinct emphasis on thematizing transformation as a motor for graphic visualization and auditory exploration. Interviews featuring leading artists give first-hand insight into artistic practices and the historical moment in which they occurred. The book provides valuable new perspectives on computer art pioneers such as Leslie Mezei, Robert Adrian X, Suzanne Duquet, Roger Vilder, and Vera Frenkel, as well as new contexts for understanding Michael Snow and IAIN BAXTER&. Not limiting their explorations to art generated using computers, contributors outline the integration of computational techniques and concepts into artistic methods across disciplines and trace computation’s emergence as a matter of interest and concern for a range of contemporary cultural producers.

Combining historical analyses with theoretical approaches to computation and its entanglement with contemporary cultural discourses and social movements, Variable Conditions excavates the origins of computational arts and, in the process, sketches a new landscape of interdisciplinary creation and surprising connections between scientific and artistic institutions.

Adam Lauder's profile page

Adam Lauder is an art historian, curator, and writer based in 8entaronk / Toronto and the author of Out of School: Information Art and the Toronto School of Communication.

“By celebrating and reminding readers of artists who are well-known but underappreciated – such as Michael Snow, Robert Adrian X, David Rokeby, and Les Levine – as well as introducing unknown artists who deserve recognition, Variable Conditions shows how early developments in computational arts in Canada were of global significance. It will appeal to anyone interested in the history of contemporary art, especially given how artists working in this area in the 1960s and onwards did so much to anticipate our current digital cultural condition.” Charlie Gere, author of Digital Culture

“Variable Conditions demonstrate(s) what artists and art historians have to offer this material history of computers as both medium and metaphor. The strongest contributions vividly invoke the institutional and social worlds that catalyzed these artistic experiments. This comes across most compellingly in the artist interviews, which elaborate the complexities of agency, innovation, and influence.” Technology & Culture