Diligently making art with computers since her first plotter drawings in the 1960s, Molnar—at 90 years of age—is now at the height of her career.

Jürg Lehni ^CH

The craftsman behind charming drawing machines and evocative open source tools, Lehni playfully explores representation and reproducibility.

A virtuoso of performance where sound and image intermingle, Kurokawa explodes the natural world and reconstitutes it digitally.

Katie Paterson ^UK

A glacier’s meltwater, a rock from the moon—working with primordial materials, Paterson ponders our connection to the cosmos.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer ^MX

Provocateur and ‘alien’ media designer Lozano-Hemmer wields computer vision and biometrics to radically transform public space.

Timo Arnall ^NO

A former creative director at BERG, Arnall makes films and prototypes that reveal the infrastructure and networks that underpin everyday life.

Tale of Tales ^BE/US

Completely ignoring dominant videogame tropes, Tale of Tales lovingly craft dreamlike worlds that are both poetic and sublime.

IF/THEN

An investigation of chance, predictability, and (true) randomness

Keywords: Aesthetics, Albert Einstein, Algorithm, Chaos Theory, Emergence, Gambling, John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, Meteorology, Yoko Ono, (Pseudo) Random Number Generation, RAND Corporation, Quantum Indeterminacy

From the thrill of checking your lottery numbers, to the volatility of financial markets, to the fool’s errand of weather prediction—life is more governed by chance than we’d like to admit. We share strange tales of randomness, culled from early computer science, 20th-century think tank experiments, physicists’ fever dreams, and inventive artistic endeavours.

With contributions from:

Casey Reas, Paul Prudence, Scott Aaronson, Daniel Shiffman, Michelle Kasprzak, Mitchell Whitelaw, Daniel Rourke, Coralie Gourguechon, Fanqiao Wang, and others.

Arts & Labs: Residencies at Scientific Institutions

CERN, SETI, The Smithsonian—a recent wave of artist-in-residency programs suggests a growing interest in bringing artists and scientists together. Georgina Voss investigates.

Oculus Rift: Mixed Reality Experiences

Geoff Manaugh explores uses of VR that push beyond isolated film and gaming experiences, where artists and researchers alter how we ‘see’ and engage the world around us.