“Imaging by Numbers” cuts a wide cross section through the relationship between printed image and digital technology since 1952. From woodcut and silkscreen to plotter and inkjet, a wide range of work can be seen in attempting to translate images seen on screen or written in code into reality. Influence between the fine arts and digital art is mutual. Plotters are pushed to portraiture and excel at line field landscapes, colorful geometric environments spill out of early inkjet printers, and, clearly enticing viewers into the show is none other than the Olympia of Bell Labs in “Studies in Perception no. 1,” a large-scale facsimile of a nude produced by two company engineers in an early development of computers for artistic purposes. It’s hardly difficult to see how computer imaging techniques have influenced the precise and repetitive manners seen so frequently in art today, especially in this exhibition of work formed by computer code. (Lisa Larson-Walker)
Through Apr 16 at the Block Museum at Northwestern University, 40 Arts Circle Drive.
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