Harold Cohen: AARON | Plotter Demonstration

AI tools for image creation (think: DALL-E) have entered the mainstream in recent years but creating art using AI actually started in the 1960s. Our exhibition Harold Cohen: AARON looks at the advent of AI artmaking decades ago.

In the late 1960s, Harold Cohen conceived his software as a program for artmaking and about the nature of representation itself. He named it AARON in 1973. To generate AARON’s output, Cohen built his own plotters and painting machines, which interpret commands from the software to make line drawings on paper with automated pens.

These active plotters on view in the Whitney’s galleries are modernized recreations of Cohen’s early drawing machines. Constructed specifically for this exhibition, they draw images from different periods of the AARON software.

Visit the Museum’s 8th floor to see the plotters in action as part of Harold Cohen: AARON through May 19, 2024. This exhibition is organized by Christiane Paul, Curator of Digital Art, with David Lisbon, Curatorial Assistant. Read more about the exhibition here: https://whitney.org/exhibitions/harol...

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