INFORMATRIX a Book of Figurative Dialogues
A Computer Art Retrospective
In principle Zajec sees the whole aesthetic edifice of computer art leaning towards the conceptual. On the one side this undoubtedly widens the framework of the artistic practices underlying the historical conceptualism of the previous century, while on the other, his consideration of the computers role in art as being a means for the control and communication of either quantitative or qualitative order relations, opened up a completely new point of view within this artistic tendency.
He has also appropriated for art the particular ability of the computer to generate, on the basis of a given concept and a set of predefined rules (a computer program), an inexhaustible number of previously envisioned, but not concretely defined visual combinations that develop on the computer screen (thus introducing the time dimension in the formation of the art work).
Earlier on Zajec formulated this artistic standpoint in the following statement: The introduction of actual or simulated circumstances opens up the possibility for a new picturing of reality, which will no longer strive towards portraying the absolute and unique, but will primarily consider the constant changes in relationships that are indicative of the overall interdependence of the matters in the world.(Sinteza, 38,39,40; 1977).
Peter Krecic
P. Krecic: Edvard Zajec: Retrospektiva Racunalniske Umetnosti, Delo, 2007
