Vlatko Čerić

The Croatian Encyclopaedia says of Vlatko Čerić: "Croatian information scientist and graphic artist (Zagreb, July 14, 1945). Graduated physics at the Science Faculty in Zagreb, and took a doctorate in Belgrade, Faculty of Organisation Sciences (1985). He was an instructor in the Physics Institute of Zagreb University (1969-1974), systems analyst in Industroprojekt in Zagreb (1974-1979), researcher in the University Computing Centre (1979-1989) and from 1989 at first assistant, then associate and finally full professor of information science at the Economics Faculty in Zagreb, and from 2013 an emeritus professor of Zagreb University. He is interested in computer graphics and has exhibited at a number of solo shows and collective exhibitions in Croatia and abroad. Major works of business studies include Simulation Modelling (1993), Business Computing (co-editor, co-author, 1998), Applied Simulation Modelling (co-author, 2003).¹

While preparing for this project in 2020 I had structured interviews with authors who were available. Since this author speaks not only about early digital art and associated activities up to 1984 but in general about digital algorithmic art, which explains to us the context of the theme, we publish the interview here almost in its entirety.

Darko Fritz: When did you first work on the computer, and where, and what was it about? What model of computer was it and what programming language did you use?

Vlatko Čerić: I started working with a computer in the first half of the 1970s, after a course in the programming language FORTRAN that I attended in the University Computing Centre in Zagreb, on the UNIVAC 1110 computer, which I used a lot later on. I first started using this computer at the Institute for Physics in 1973 for the solution of certain problems from the area of plasma physics, using numerical methods for the approximate solution of the values of certain integrals. During 1974 and 1975, under the leadership of Professor Ervin Nonveiller of the Civil Engineering Faculty, world renowned expert in soil mechanics, I worked on the problem of the consolidation of the leaning tower in Pisa in the circumstances of a competition. The idea of the consolidation was that with the controlled pumping of water out of the ground on the opposite side to the direction in which the tower was leaning, it could be stabilised (and it was indeed put into effect on the same principle between 1990 and 2001). In order to simulate consolidation of the tower I used a numerical solution of a system of partial differential equations for the consolidation of layered and anisotropic soil under loading.

D. F.: How did you encounter contemporary art? When did you first meet digital art?

V. Č.: My encounter with contemporary art came during my course in physics in the mid-1960s at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in the art history department, taught with great inspiration by Grgo Gamulin, when I got interested in modern art and became acquainted with the leading figures like Vasarely, Klee and Brancusi. My first encounter with digital art came in 1969 at the exhibition computers and visual research as part of the tendencies 4 exhibition, and with the computer controlled light installation on the façade of the Nama store in Ilica Street in 1971.

D. F.: When did you first use a computer non-utilitarianly, for the creation of artistic of some other free works? What kind of creation was it? Did you at that moment yourself experience this as artistic work?

V. Č.: I first used a computer non-utilitarianly in the mid-1970s in the firm Industroprojekt, in which I was then employed. Those were my first algorithmic graphics, that is, graphics generated on the basis of algorithms, or a series of well-defined instructions that determined what the picture would look like and how it would be formed. Algorithms were produced in the form of computer programmes, which allowed for great precision, rapid generation of images and experimentation with a series of alternative approaches to structure and colour. I primarily perceived my works as an interesting area of research into visual structures. I didn't think about them as artistic creations, that came much later. I did my first algorithmic graphics in 1976 in Industrogradnja, on an IBM 360, using the FORTRAN programming language. These graphics were printed out on a line printer on which, according to the instructions of the algorithm, successive lines of letters, numbers and special characters were arranged and printed.

D. F.: What topics did you tackle in your early computer art works? Did you use in parallel any other artistic media and techniques?

V. Č.: My early works, early graphics, that is, were founded on mathematical models that defined some function f(x,y) over a plane, and we can imagine this function as the height of the ground. This function was depicted with combinations of different trigonometric, exponential, parabolic, Gaussian and other functions. The choice of symbols used for a depiction of the points was defined, the points being defined according to which selected successive contour lines the ground lay between. In my early works I did not use other media or techniques. I would add that for me as physicist in work with algorithmic graphics a knowledge of mathematics and the use of mathematical models that described the function of nature helped a great deal, for the area of algorithmic art is founded on the modelling of visual structures.

D. F.: When did you start showing your artworks in public, and in what manner (exhibition, print, TV, film...)? Which presentation do you think the most important?

V. Č.: After the production of my first graphics, for a number of years, I did not manage to deal with this, for I was preoccupied with various activities, my family, scientific research, running business and research projects, teaching duties at the Economics Faculty in Zagreb, writing books and papers. I spent a year on a Fulbright and the next six to seven years working with Andrew Seil on the book Applied Simulation Modelling (2003, Thomson-Brooks/Cole). I was working particularly hard on methods for project planning and project management and simulation modelling of complex systems, the domain in which I took my doctorate.

Finally at the beginning of 2000s I managed to go back to algorithmic art and then started developing new principles, techniques and styles of work, with the use of more modern and powerful equipment. I started presenting these new works in 2005, at 8 solo and more than 40 collective shows at home and abroad, and in addition to this I introduced my works on the TV and in Internet interviews and on my personal web site. In addition, my prints are in a dozen national and international collections (Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Department of Prints and Drawings, Zagreb, Novosibirsk State Art Museum) and in various public spaces (United Nations Building, Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok; North Carolina State University, Raleigh).

I think that my most important presentations were at solo shows, one in Colorida Art Gallery, Lisbon, Portugal, 2010; and in the Studio of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Department of Prints in Zagreb in 2011. As for collective shows, I would pick out those in SIGGRAPH Art Gallery: DigitalEyes 2008-2009: New Esthetic Dimensions in Computer Visualization Technology, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, 2008.; Pixel Perfect – the Digital Fine Art Exhibition, Agora Gallery, New York City, 2007, and as invited artist at the 3rd Quadrilateral Biennale, Media Art – Angles and Intersections, MMSU, Rijeka, 2009 (co-curated by Nina Czegledy, Darko Fritz, Peter Tomaž Dobrila and Elena Giulia Rossi, artistic director Christiane Paul) and at the 5^th^, 6^th^ and 7^th^ Triennials of Croatian Graphic Art (2009, 2012 and 2016) in the Department of Prints and Drawings of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Zagreb. In addition, I published several texts about algorithmic graphics and gave about 15 lectures, here and abroad. My graphics have been used on the front cover of the magazine Simulation Notes Europe and for the visual identity of the Vienna Conference on Mathematical Modelling in Austria in 2008, 2012 and 2015.

D. F.: What topics did you tackle in your further artistic work? Did the themes you took up at the beginning go on to develop with the further advancement of technology? Did you subsequently bring into your work other themes?

V. Č.: Above all I would like to point out that I do almost exclusively abstract works, and I use only general programming languages like Liberty BASIC, FORTRAN, Mathematica and Processing, without any interventions with programmes for the processing of images, for I want the visual result to be entirely and only the consequence of the programming language I am working in. The development of the actual programmes is an iterative process in which the rational components necessary for programming alternate with an irrational component necessary for the assessment of the aesthetic value of the graphic generated. In my work I experiment a lot, seeking visuals of as high quality as possible. From the technical side, the dominant part of the works consists of computer printouts, and I have done a cycle of silkscreen prints on the basis of which a graphic portfolio was issued. During the work I developed several approaches to algorithmic graphics: a constructive approach, mathematical modelling, algorithmic manipulation of images (photographs), algorithmic animation and sculptures founded on an algorithmic approach.

The constructive approach is the realisation of a visual structure imagined in advance, and I usually generate geometrical structures with it. Mathematical modelling is the definition of an image with the use of a mathematical model, which as a rule results in complex images for the author has only an approximate idea of what the picture is going to look like with the use of some mathematical model. I most often use algorithmic manipulation of images (photos) for the transformation of figurative forms into abstract compositions. Since the photographs contain the richness of the spectrum of colours and the structures of the world around us, the algorithmic pictures that we can get in this manner have the potential to be very complex and interesting. As a rule, I use the relocation and/or the regrouping of the pixels of the photo, and also algorithmic fusion of the corresponding pixels of the two images that overlap. I most often do algorithmic animations with the help of gradual changes of the parameters of the algorithmic image in time. I also experiment with the animation of geometrical structures by "walking" over the photograph and video processing. Sculptures founded on algorithms in my works typically contain a description of the discrete elements of the sculpture, for example, a cube, the size and position of which is defined algorithmically.

The basic theme, or better to say, approach that I dealt with at the beginning of the work, in 1976, came inevitably into several works created several decades after the initial work. That is an approach based on mathematical models that define some function f(x,y) over a plane.

D. F: How did your work with computers go on developing, in business and artistic senses? What hardware and software did you use (or develop), and where? How did you get your own equipment, and which?

V. Č.: Going on from the previous question, I used mathematical modelling several times. The first time was in 2005 in the graphic cycle called Evolution, consisting of drawings. Here also the function f(x,y) over a plane is defined, and vertical lines composed of short sections of directions were drawn. These lines bent in proportion to the value of the function at a given point in order to achieve an effect of spatiality. This resulted in the thickening or thinning of the lines depending on whether the value of the function was rising or falling - the function is at the end randomised with the use of pseudo-random numbers so as to achieve the freedom of the line of the drawing. I used the same approach but in an opposite direction in 2015-2016 when I was creating my 3D-printing sculpture Unclassified Objects S, which was based on my monochrome print Unclassified Objects 4 done in 2007. Here I defined the height of a given point of the sculpture with the help of the percentage of black and white in this graphic: pure black corresponded to zero height, and the higher the share of white, the taller this part of the sculpture. And the original colours of the print were retained in the sculpture.

In terms of business, my work was oriented to two basic domains: simulation modelling of complex systems and the planning and management of projects. As for simulation modelling, I worked on the execution of several big projects – for example, for the simulation of internal transport in the Zagreb University Hospital (1985-1986), simulations for expansion of the passenger terminal of Zagreb Airport (1984-1985) and a project for the re-engineering of Zagrebačka banka branches (1996-1997). Absolutely the most unlikely simulation project I worked on was the project simulating the transport of NATO forces over Croatian to Bosnia in 1995, a large military logistic operation of transferring NATO troops and their materiel from Germany to Hungary and across Croatia to Bosnia. With respect to projects in project planning and management these were projects for planning and management of the development of Krško Nuclear Power Plant (1975-1976), the planning and financial forecasting for the development of the new RTV building in Zagreb (1975) and planning and management of the development of the Bakar Coking Plant (1975-1976). In the project for developing the Omišalj Oil Terminal (1977-1978) I developed software for the calculation of the bill of quantities and automated drawing of the road network with the use of a Calcomp 563 plotter. In all these projects I was the head of the information part of the project as well as chief programmer.

I used various kinds of hard- and software in my work. At the Physics Institute (1969-1973) I used the UNIVAC 1100 computer with Fortran programming language. In the firm Industroprojekt (1974-1979) I used IBM 1130, 360 and 370 computers and the Calcomp 563 plotter, and the programming languages Fortran and Project Control System for project management. In the University Computer Centre (1979-1989) I used the UNIVAC 1100 computer and the programming languages Fortran and PL/I as well as GPSS for simulation; at the Economics Faculty (1989-2012) I used the same computer and the simulation programmes SIMUL8 and SIMSCRIPT II.5 and visual interactive simulation software ServiceModel.

I got my own equipment at the end of the 1970s, a Commodore 64 personal computer on which I used the programming languages Liberty BASIC and Logo, mostly for working programmes for image generation. The good point of this computer was that the output could be shown on a television so that colour could be used as well. But performing the programmes went slowly, so that the generation of an image looked like animation. Unfortunately, I don't have a single programme that I wrote or a reproduction of the art graphics that I produced. From the 1980s on I acquired several IBM PCs.

D.F.: Did you, outside the artistic domain, in a business sense, do any projects with computer that you might particularly mention, thinking them socially important? If there is any project that you did not develop with computers, and think it important, feel free to mention it.

V. Č.: The first project for the planning and management of the construction of Krško NPP (1976-1977) in which I took part while I was working in the firm Industroprojekt. At that time this was the biggest network activity plan in Yugoslavia, as it then was, with about 3000 activities, with builders, mechanical engineers, electricians and other trades and professions taking part. The use of a network plan enabled the coordination of a multitude of activities and a large number of contractors, spotting problems in the implementation of the project and their solution, enabling the integration of output data and ultimately the successful completion of the project itself. The second project that I might pick out would be the simulation of the internal transport in the University Hospital in Zagreb, then being built (1985-1986) with a planned 1100 beds, constructed an area of about 140,000 square metres, with three buildings up to a hundred and more metres distant from each other. The daily transport of about 35 tons of material was planned for (food, bedding and so on) at a distance in excess of 400 metres, and every day according to the schedule planned about 350 consignments had to be moved. For transportation a complex system of automated transport with battery powered driverless vehicles travelling in the basement was planned. A simulation study determined the necessary number of vehicles and the position and size of vehicle stations where their batteries could be charged. The study enabled the design of the system and the optimisation of costs. Unfortunately this project was never implemented for after the construction it was just left to fall into decay.

I shall add a short description of a project of the organisation type that I did without a computer. This was the project Croatian Army Field Post, which I worked out and implemented while during the war, in 1994-1995, I was in the army (where I formed a unit for the development of IT). For this project it was necessary to work out an organisation of a system to enable post to be sent from and received in the units, which often changed positions, which had to be kept secret. For this purpose I developed a system for encoding the units, the unit code being linked with the current position of the unit, which the military authorities looked after. I organised it so that Croatian Post could carry the consignments in the civilian part of the system, after which at the places of contact with the front they would hand them over to – and receive from – the military couriers who were charged with taking the consignments to and from the units. This system worked until the end of the war and was of considerable psychological value to the soldiers and their loved ones.

D. F.: Since you are a practitioner of early digital art, how do you see its development, current state and any possible future development of digital arts, at a personal or a universal level?

V. Č.: Digital art developed in parallel with the development of computer equipment and the software that supported artistic creativity. After the first works of digital art in the late 50s and early 60s, there was a big wave of experimentation with new computer techniques used in the creation of artworks. And there was also the beginning of vigorous collaboration between artists on one hand and programmers, engineers, scientists and designers on the other. This led to the gradual blurring of the sharp borders between art, science, technology and design. The computer was the first tool in the history of mankind that enabled the processing of all symbols that people use: numbers, letters, words and images as well as sounds. Also, computer programmes can contain any imaginable kind of data processing, which gives the computer a huge potential in support of human creativity. Digital art developed in a variety of different forms and artistic practices. In the book of Christiana Paul Digital Art (Thames and Hudson, 2009) the distinction is made between art that used digital technologies as a tool for the creation of traditional artistic forms, such as photos prints and music, and art that uses the technology as its own medium and that is presented exclusively in digital format. In the framework of digital technologies as tools there are various kinds of manipulations of photos and other materials that artists use. Here algorithmic or generative art stands out in particular, the creation of images with computer programmes. Art that uses digital technologies as its medium as a rule uses interactive or participatory properties of digital technologies that enabled remote interventions by observers, or the possibility that a large number of participants change the parameters of the digital work of the author. This area includes among other things interactive installations software and internet art and virtual reality. Since my area of work is algorithmic art, I shall concentrate on some directions and creative artists in the area that have paved the way for its further development. In the early 1980s Roman Verostko, after painting for three decades, started doing algorithmic drawings using a plotter. Up to 1987 he created the first software that initiated the creation of images with a plotter on which oriental brushes were mounted. Jean Pierre Hebert began to use a plotter in the late 1970s but he also experimented with a number of other media, and his works on glass, film, copper plate, lino, wood, water and air are very well known. Some of these most innovative and uncommon digital works are his sand drawings, reminiscent of Zen gardens, in which a steel ball controlled by algorithm passes over sand. He also designed a software virtual plotter that in a digital manner imitates the drawing style of a plotter. Anne Morgan Spalter, who creates artworks that explore the concept of the "modern landscape" started exhibiting in the early 1990s. Casey Reas, who creates software, prints and installations, started exhibiting in the 2000s. His dynamic and his static images stem from software instructions that create visual processes. These instructions are expressed in various media, which included natural language, machine code and computer simulations. Some of his animations imitate the biological development of visual structures, and are some of the most interesting animations I have come across. I think this short survey of the activity of a few artists from the area of algorithmic art shows the diversity of interests of the artists and their art practices. From this one might sense that it is fairly difficult to predict the future development of algorithm art, and probably of other forms of digital art. We might then conclude with Borges that art "is a garden with branching paths".