computers sitting around.» [32] The concentration on images, the constant insistence on the production of twodimensional visualizations on the one hand, and the extremely expensive development of three-dimensional image machines, like the Caves [33] , on the other, led to a schism in computer art. While the artists of the sixties were working under a paradigm of an art of precision, they were rather insensitive to those arts which dedicated themselves more to communicative or politicizing actions. Performative work could not be taken up by artists who were object-oriented. For this reason, no direct influence from the artists and pioneers of the technically-oriented arts of the earlier period is detectable on the contemporary computer art scene. [34] As an example of ahistoricity, let us consider the case of the Munich Make-World Festival of 2001. Organized by Olia Lialina and Florian Schneider, the show was nothing more than an aperçu. Graphics by Herbert W. Franke were exhibited, but no connections were made between theses works and contemporary, partially animated works. In addition, the thematic focus of the festival was activism. And it was only the contextualization as expert that allowed

Franke’s graphics, as the work of an artistengineer, to be appreciated. [35] At present, at least on the Internet, there are two initiatives that are worth looking at, both dedicated to using computer codes as the raw material for artistic creation, but each proposing a completely different project. The more prominent Web site of the two is runme.org. Since festivals usually function as the main medium for presentation in the media arts, a festival was organized after contemporary works in computer art had been collected, a festival whose structure differentiates itself from other exhibitions by virtue of its annual change of location. The second project goes back to an initiative by Adrian Ward and Alex McLean, called generative.net. But even here, historical precursors from the same domain are not to be found. In the case of generative.net, this is especially surprising because, after Franke, the Anglo-American scene had essentially been characterized by continuity. Yet another factor makes writing a history of computer art difficult. Although the development of the computer itself has of course become worthy of a museum—because of the ubiquity of the digital world—early computer art has