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Harold Cohen and Aaron – A 40-Year Collaboration (2016)

Harold Cohen was a pioneer in computer art, in algorithmic art, and in generative art; but as he told me one afternoon in 2010, he was first and foremost a painter. He was also an engineer whose work defined the first generation of computer-generated art. His system, AARON, is one of the longest-running, continually maintained AI systems in history.

Graduating from University of London’s Slade School of Fine Art in 1950, he was a member of the generation of British painters that included David Hockney, Bridget Riley, and Richard Smith. These early presentations and papers attracted attention in both art and technology circles, and Cohen was invited as a Visiting Scholar to Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence Lab (SAIL), where he spent two years working on a paint system surrounded by AI luminaries such as John McCarthy and Ed Feigenbaum. The exhibition featured a hundred-foot long mural of forms drawn by AARON and hand-colored by Cohen, as well as a drawing “turtle” creating images on the museum floor.

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