01. Icon: Ben F. Laposky

Laposky became famous for his series of Electronic Abstractions (1953), where he produced a wide range of strangely beautiful forms using nothing but a cathode-ray oscilloscope. By completely refining a process of combining and modulating several electronic waveforms he essentially transformed the oscilloscope into an effective art medium. Because of this work, Laposky is known to some as the first electronic artist.

What I find most interesting about Laposky's work is that he pushed the capabilities of the oscilloscope way beyond what anyone thought was possible with this medium at the time. With this, he laid the foundations for computer art before actual computers even existed.

The image below shows one of Laposky's oscillons, as he named them. The complete series consists of over fifty distinctive designs.

Oscillon 21, 1953, Ben F. Laposky