Hollis Frampton's Algorithmic Aesthetic

Abstract

Using Borges's essay on Coleridge's "Kublai Khan" as a metaphor for personal artistic evolution and the unfolding of media history, this essay investigates the trajectory of Hollis Frampton's theoretical and media work as he moved from film to digital media in the 1970s. The essay first explores Frampton's theoretical declarations on the algorithmic aspects of composition in film. It then offers a close reading of Frampton's film Gloria! , which incorporates his first direct use of a microcomputer in a media work. Next, it considers Frampton's theoretical statements on digitial media and media history. And finally moves to an investigation of digital audio and video works generated during the course of development of Frampton's "DAEMON and "Framebuffer" projects in the Digital Arts Lab at SUNY/Buffalo in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The author studied with Frampton as a graduate student from 1978 to 1980. He incoroporates first-hand knowledge of Frampton's digital projects, period documents, accounts from other of Frampton's students, as well as digital audio works by Frampton made public here for the first time and digitial video experiments by some of Frampton's graduate students during the late 1970s and early 1980s.