became computer users no later than in the modern era. [17] If one looks at the professions from which computer artists come, it is conspicuous that only a few genuine artists work with computers. Manfred Mohr is one of them. Trained as a gold and silver smith, this jazz musician studied painting in Pforzheim, which no doubt explains why his work is more often discussed in the context of the classical arts. In 1998, to redress the balance, the Bottrop Josef-Albers Museum Quadrat, which was particularly outstanding in the concrete/constructive arts, presented an extensive individual exhibition of his work from the sixties to the end of the nineties. [18] Although Mohr used computers to perform the calculations, he actually produced the images by using classical techniques, such as painting, which then made them compatible with the classical market. Using graphics, the first computer artists—far removed from theoretically colored prophesies such as those formulated by Herbert W. Franke—addressed a ‹classical› observer in the same way that digital literature addressed a reader by means of a book. Erwin Steller: «Computers and Art» In 1992, Erwin Steller described and systematized the relationship

between «Computers and Art.» His text is a draft of a lecture given at the University of Karlsruhe, and he concerns himself with the more recent history of art. He describes computer art as being a consequence of the great movements that revolutionized the fine arts at the beginning of the twentieth century. [19] He then compares works resulting from these movements to works produced by computer artists. First of all, he defines photography as the first «interface» to technology-based art (p. 15ff.). The focus of his discussion is on whether images generated using technology up until the discovery of the camera obscura are art. He then presents the distrust, which is felt by many towards technical aids with the question: «Can […] objectifying such a ‹poor imitation of reality› still be art? Other than the arrangement of a still life, the posing of subjects or the search for a suitable detail in a landscape, can anything be designed actively?'' [20] Steller does not undertake an investigation of specific correspondences or of any ‹line of succession› between the earlier technology-based arts and computer art. He simply compares assertions concerning the judgment that