A small version of ‘Light B’ (1977)

Among the 78 different Civil Engineering reports found in Giorgini’s Vitae from 1990, a small group of software art projects were listed. The majority of publications found displayed texts, mathematical foundations,  computer codes and illustrations for the visualization of Hydraulic models. In a lesser proportion, the reports that featured software art were: Light, Palette, Photo, Drawing, Fields and Stretch. These programs were created as frameworks for artistic production. Giorgini had the aim to make his ideas approachable to future artists and researchers, keeping notes, graphics and extensive documentation about these programs.  The only technical report for software art I have found is the “Fields” one (1974), however, the others were found in the form of manuscripts at Giorgini’s estate. The Potter Engineering Library at Purdue, that currently archives Purdue’s Civil Engineering materials from this time has no record of these reports either. Based on this evidence it is possible that the documents listed as published in the Vitae were never published or at least missing . In the 1984’s Vitae, Stretch, Palette and Photo are listed as “in print.”

LIGHT 1977

I found no records of the program “Light” from 1977, the one used to produce the Murals commissioned by the Aesthetics in Technology program to decorate the Potter Engineering Center. The only documentation of Light A and Light B (alternatively titled “Fiat Lux” and “Sculptural Forms”), is the extensive trails of the process of creating gigantic photographic image reproductions on mylar, and later transferred into photographic paper using the photogram technique.