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It was without fear and almost natural for Mohr to learn in 1969 the Fortran IV programming language to create compositions that he executed as ink drawings on paper with a Benson 1284 flatbed plotter and a CDC 6400 computer. Mohr was granted access to the Institute of Meteorology in Paris and was able to use the most powerful machines of that time. He worked there almost nightly from 1970 to 1983 to do his research, programming and drawing his art. He previously started this research in 1969 at the Faculty of Vincennes, Paris in the group "Art et Informatique" and his first drawings were executed on microfilm and also on a large Zuse flatbed plotter at the University of Darmstadt in Germany. |
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| punching hollerith computer cards | feeding in the program with punched cards |
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| checking programming errors on print out | preparing magnetic data tape |
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| mounting magnetic tape on tape drive | running a program from the console of a CDC 6400 |
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| fascinated by the computer wiring | portrait in front of the hardware |
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| setting up magnetic tape for data transfer to plotter | happy moments with Estarose Wolfson |
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| watching the plotter work | getting nervous while the plotter works |
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| changing plotter pens | getting results.... |
| An interview by A. Saulnier with Manfred Mohr was filmed at the Météorologie Nationale for TF1, the French Television station in Paris. It was broadcast as part of the program "Information Regionale" on Nov. 6. 1973, showing Mohr working with the computer and plotter to create his art. |
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An interview with Manfred Mohr was filmed at the artist's studio and
Météorologie Nationale in Paris 1977. This interview was
part of the 16mm
film "Ideas, Experiments, Results" 1979, sponsored by IBM Deutschland,
produced by condor-films Zurich and featured 7 artists from 5 countries. Click here to see this excerpt from the original 16mm movie |