algorithmic concepts - >> mind the _

Smart Laura Marks (former posts) pointed me towards the following inventor of the algorythmic concept: Al-Khwarizmi. He is listed at wikipedia as the developer

of the concept of an algorithm in mathematics, and is thus sometimes given the title of “grandfather of computer science”. The words “algorithm” and “algorism” derive ultimately from his name …

At the Piet Zwart Institute Florian Cramer’s stimulating abstract on: Executable Code and the Cultural Imagination: A Sketch of a History. can be found, eventhough I would be curious to look into the entire text …..

Algorithmic instruction code can be found, centuries before the invention of the computer, in Latin poetry, the Kabbalah, Western composed music and several forms of experimental poetry from the 17th to the 20th century, thus forming an important, but often neglected historical pretext of contemporary computer arts. While these examples are formally simple or even primitive by contemporary standards, they are linked to a rich technological, artistic, philosophical and religious imagination. The lecture tries to sketch its rich and very contradictory history from Pythagorean mathematics to contemporary digital art and culture, showing how the idea and phantasm of the word becoming flesh is both written forth and transformed from kabbalistic
spells to computer viruses.

.. and ZKM is showing as recent exhibition: Algorithmic Revolution: On the History of Interactive Art. In the artistic part the ZKM starts with kinetics and dadism of the 20s of 20th century, and the theoretical overview does not look back further than into european / western history of renaissance area, such as art books from Piero della Francesca and Albrecht Dürer. The practical examples listed on the website mention works from last century’s 50s onwards ranging from musicians like Cage and fluxus artists to early computer grafics like those of Herbert W. Franke.