MAINFRAME COMPUTER, CIRCA 1960 IBM released its first general-use computer system, the System/360, in 1964.
MAINFRAME COMPUTER, CIRCA 1960 IBM released its first general-use computer system, the System/360, in 1964.
DESIGNERS OF THE 1960S AND ’70S DEVISED SYSTEMS FOR GRAPPLING WITH THE ACCELERATION OF MASS PRODUCTION, GLOBAL CONSUMERISM, AND THE RESULTING ONSLAUGHT OF DATA. Influenced by the Bauhaus legacy and the subsequent development of Swiss style work, Ladislav Sutnar, Max Bill, and Karl Gerstner pursued precise, programmatic methodologies for effective design. Their projects answered postwar corporate appeals for visual unity, organized data, and universal communication. Mathematics is threaded through the projects of Bill and Gerstner, showing points of confluence, if only theoretically, with evolving mainframe computers. Mainframes loomed over these decades, first as elite, highly specialized machines and later as multipurpose, albeit prohibitively expensive, tools. Interest in computers arose among prescient artists, writers, scientists, and designers. Stewart Brand led a desktop publishing project—the Whole Earth Catalog—that empowered individuals to tinker and hack their way to an alternative, more sustainable lifestyle. The New Tendencies movement, centered in Zagreb, Croatia, organized exhibitions and conferences to probe the effect of computation on art and society. Conceptual artist Sol LeWitt looked beyond the finished product to define art as a field of possibilities. At the same time, designers and programmers such as Wim Crouwel and Ivan Sutherland explored interaction and aesthetics, particularly on early screens. Propelled by their love of systems, designers stretched out their hands to the computer and began to seize hold.
