Coded: Art Enters the Computer Age, 1952–1982 explores how the rise of computer technology, together with its emergence in popular consciousness, impacted the making of art in the age of the mainframe. International and interdisciplinary in scope, Coded examines the origins of what we now call digital art, featuring artists, writers, musicians, choreographers and filmmakers working directly with computers as well as those using algorithms and other systems to produce their work. Whether computer-generated or not, the many artworks considered here reflect the simultaneous wonder and alienation that was characteristic of the 1960s and ’70s, along with the utopian and dystopian possibilities of these new machines. Today, with digital technology having been fully integrated into our lives, Coded’s examination of the years leading up to the advent of the personal computer is relevant, even imperative, to fully appreciating art and culture in the age of the computer—both then and now.

Artists include: Rebecca Allen, Siah Armajani, Richard Baily, Colette Stuebe Bangert, Charles Jeffries Bangert, Jennifer Bartlett, Jonathan Borofsky, Stanley Brouwn, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Thomas Chimes, Harold Cohen, Computer Technique Group, Analivia Cordeiro, Waldemar Cordeiro, Charles Csuri, Agnes Denes, herman de vries, Juan Downey, Charles Eames, Ray Eames, Charles Gaines, Brion Gysin, Hans Haacke, Frederick Hammersley, Leon D. Harmon, June Harwood, Jean-Pierre Hébert, Desmond Paul Henry, Channa Horwitz, Hervé Huitric, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Donald Judd, Hiroshi Kawano, Edward Kienholz, Alison Knowles, Kenneth C. Knowlton, Beryl Korot, Gerald Laing, Ben F. Laposky, Sol LeWitt, Jackson Mac Low, Aaron Marcus, Jean-Claude Marquette, Hansjörg Mayer, Edward Meneeley, Manfred Mohr, Vera Molnár, François Morellet, N.E. Thing Co. Ltd (Iain and Ingrid Baxter), Monique Nahas, Frieder Nake, Lowell Nesbitt, A. Michael Noll, Nam June Paik, Eduardo Paolozzi, Peter Phillips, Sheila Pinkel, Paul Rand, Sonya Rapoport, Bridget Riley, Lillian F. Schwartz, Barbara T. Smith, John Stehura, Peter Struycken, Calvin Sumsion, Angelo Testa, Joan Truckenbrod, Stan VanDerBeek, Victor Vasarely, Gary Viskupic, Lawrence Weiner, Dennis Wheeler, John Whitney Sr, Stephen Willats and Emmett Williams.