Harold Cohen, a painter who had represented Great Britain in the Venice Biennale in 1968, began code generated art just afterwards, when he took a sabbatical at UC San Diego (where he actually spent the rest of his teaching career). His program, AARON, is still producing. I have works from about 1983, to a piece I bought two years ago. I published a book about his work in 1990, called "Aaron's Code," which is now out of print.
People in computing seem to be more ahistorical than people in other fields, is my impression. If so, perhaps it's because the means of production (sorry to sound so Marxist there) have changed so radically so quickly. But Cohen's work was sophisticated as art even when the tools were not. The work was seriously reviewed in the NY Times and he had many solo shows in distinguished galleries. These days, AARON can certainly do things it couldn't do originally. But it's still code-generated, and that code has been written, line by line, by Cohen himself.
"I have drunk the summer like a sweet wine."
Louis Aragon
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