Computers and Automation, August 1971

The ninth annual Computer Art Contest awards first prize to Derby Scanlon for Sea Horses, reproduced on the cover. Sailfish and Phoenix appear on pages 8–9. The introduction explains that the three designs share a programmed building block, with FORTRAN programs run on a GE 425 computer and output on a Calcomp drum plotter.

The issue brings together Herbert W. Franke’s Drakula, P. Struycken’s Computer Structure, three works by Manfred Mohr, and drawings by Grace C. Hertlein, Sozo Hashimoto, Lloyd Sumner, and other contributors. The captions record equipment, programming methods, and artistic procedures.

Ed Jenner’s Natura Mainensis introduces a visual joke: page 17 calls it a random design produced by an analog computer, while page 23 reveals an aerial photograph of logs in Seboomook Lake, Maine, with the Penobscot River cast as the computer. James Daly’s Don Quixote is a separate example of digitizing and transforming an existing image, here after Picasso.

The gallery includes the cover and all contest pages present in the scan: pages 8–10 and 13–23. The directory on page 23 lists all entrants, including people whose work was not reproduced; those names are not treated here as illustrated contributors.

Works reproduced in the gallery

Cover — Derby Scanlon: Sea Horses (“Seahorses” on the cover).
Page 8 — Derby Scanlon: Sailfish.
Page 9 — Derby Scanlon: Phoenix.
Page 10 — Grace C. Hertlein: Deer and Fir Trees.
Page 13 — Leonard Kilian and Campion Kulczynski: Black Star.
Pages 14–15 — Sozo Hashimoto: Paisley Patterns, five patterns.
Page 16 — Ed Jenner: Natura Mainensis, an aerial photograph rather than a computer-generated drawing; captions on pages 17 and 23.
Page 17 — Goran Sundquist: Bridge Over Troubled Water; Thomas J. Huston: Reflections.
Page 18 — Herbert W. Franke: Drakula; P. Struycken: Computer Structure.
Page 19 — Ruth E. Dayhoff and Elaine A. Roberts: 20,000 Lines Under the Sea.
Page 20 — Manfred Mohr: Floating Points and Serielle Zeichenreihung.
Page 21 — Manfred Mohr: A Formal Language.
Page 22 — Lloyd Sumner: Snow Crystals.
Page 23 — James Daly: Don Quixote, after Picasso.

The PDF and page images are digital facsimiles from Bitsavers. This entry documents a digitized issue. The available PDF contains 52 scanned pages and omits printed pages 11–12 and 45–46; it is therefore labelled “Issue scan.” Gallery captions use the magazine’s printed page numbers. Original library stamps and other scan marks are retained.