Tribute to Herbert W. Franke “In Honor of the Dinosaur of Computer Art”
Herbert W. Franke, a pioneer of computer art, passed away on July 16, 2022 at the age of 95. CENTURY-XXX-METAFRANKE is an homage to Franke’s MONDRIAN software developed for the Texas Instruments TI 99/4 home computer in 1979, and it’s a fundraiser to digitize his archive:
“Our goal is to raise 20,000 Euro so that ZKM Karlsruhe can digitize Herbert W. Franke’s 1,800 manuscripts and make them publicly available. If we raise more money, it will be donated to the Rütgers Foundation which supports children and young adults in Africa so that they can get access to and work with technology.”
Each frame, a single “pixel” is added to the CENTURY-XXX-METAFRANKE image. When the software first loads, 100,000 frames are run in the background to start things off. Keep it running for hours or days to see it transform entirely — it’s an “infinite animation.”
