Computational Art at the Venice Biennale (1970-2015)

This book provides an exciting historiography of Creative Computing and Computational Art at the Venice Biennale, from 1970 to 2015.
Four contemporary artists (Simon Pope, Tamiko Thiel, Joseph Nechvatal and Fré Ilgen) discuss art, science and technology-based work that they have exhibited at the Venice Biennale in recent years. Multimedia producer and writer, Maureen Kendal, discusses the work of Orly Aviv at the 2015 Venice Biennale, and curator Francesca Franco interviews computer art pioneer Frieder Nake about his early participation in the Venice Biennale. Additional interviews with media artist and theorist Paul Thomas and digital culture advocate Maria Grazia Mattei offer further reflections on the evolving relationship between art and technology, both within and beyond the Biennale context.
Francesca Franco, who has published extensively on the history of art, science and technology at the Venice Biennale, also contributes an introductory chapter that summarises and contextualises each of the contributions and an additional chapter on the 1970 Biennale’s central exhibition that featured – for the very first time in the history of this institution – what have now been acknowledged as some of the most influential and inspiring computer artworks in the history of this field.

Francesca Franco, PhD, is an independent curator, art historian, and producer based in the UK and Italy. Her research on the history of early computer art and its pioneers has been widely published and translated. Her recent books include Generative Systems Art (Routledge, 2018) and The Algorithmic Dimension (Springer, 2022). She is also the editor of The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of New Media Art (2025), Volume 1: History and Theory.
Notable curatorial projects include Vera Molnár: Icône 2020 at the 59th Venice Biennale, Algorithmic Signs (Venice, 2017), and Vera Molnár: Variazioni Icône (Rome, 2023). She has commissioned significant new works such as Molnár’s first glasswork Icône 2020 (2021), Roman Verostko’s St Mark’s Apocalypse (2017), Ernest Edmonds’s Growth and Form (2017), Quantum Tango (2025), and Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau’s Acqua Ma Non Troppo (2023).
Francesca is currently Visiting Professor at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), where she teaches Curatorial Practice and Computer Art. She is also serving as the 2025 SIGGRAPH Art Gallery Chair.