46: Melanie Lenz—Generativity and Vera Molnár at the V&A with Peter Bauman

Episode page and full transcript: lerandom.art/episodes/melanie-lenz-generativit…
In this episode, host Peter Bauman (Le Random's editor in chief) speaks with Melanie Lenz (lerandom.art/subjects/melanie-lenz), Curator of Digital Art at the V&A (lerandom.art/subjects/victoria-and-albert-muse…), about Vera Molnár (lerandom.art/subjects/vera-molnar) and Degrees of Disruption: Vera Molnar and Generative Art (vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/degrees-of-disruption-ve…), her display at V&A South Kensington, open until May 2027.
They follow Molnár's practice per the show's layout. It goes from her early geometric paintings in Paris through the machine imaginaire, her first access to a computer in 1968 and decades of plotter work. Lenz explains how the display draws on the V&A's computer art holdings, including the Computer Arts Society (lerandom.art/subjects/computer-arts-society) and Patric Prince (lerandom.art/subjects/patric-prince) collections, and why it closes with contemporary artists such as Casey Reas (lerandom.art/subjects/casey-reas), Harm van den Dorpel (lerandom.art/subjects/harm-van-den-dorpel), Licia He (lerandom.art/subjects/licia-he), William Mapan (lerandom.art/subjects/william-mapan) and Entangled Others (lerandom.art/subjects/entangled-others).
They also discuss how museums show the process behind computer art, the stigma around artists who work with machines, and why Lenz avoids the word "pioneer."
Read our editorial, Degrees of Disruption: Vera Molnár at the V&A (lerandom.art/editorial/degrees-of-disruption-v…)
The display runs at V&A South Kensington until 30 May 2027, free: vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/degrees-of-disruption-ve…
Also in this episode: François Molnár (lerandom.art/subjects/francois-molnar), Degrees of Disruption (lerandom.art/subjects/degrees-of-disruption), Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel (GRAV) (lerandom.art/subjects/groupe-de-recherche-dart…), Charles Csuri (lerandom.art/subjects/charles-csuri), Sougwen Chung (lerandom.art/subjects/sougwen-chung), John Cage (lerandom.art/subjects/john-cage), Cybernetic Serendipity (lerandom.art/subjects/cybernetic-serendipity), François Morellet (lerandom.art/subjects/francois-morellet), Gottfried Jäger (lerandom.art/subjects/gottfried-jager), Julio Le Parc (lerandom.art/subjects/julio-le-parc)
Read next: Molnár's Paris (lerandom.art/editorial/molnars-paris)
Listen next: Ep. 17, Digital Curators Series 01—Douglas Dodds on Collecting and Valuing Emerging Technologies (lerandom.art/episodes/digital-curators-series-01), Ep. 5, Timeline Ch 4—Digital Era Pt II (1960s) with Michael Spalter (lerandom.art/episodes/timeline-chapter-4-digit…)
On the Living Timeline: Vera Molnár Develops Her “Machine Imaginaire” (1959) (timeline.lerandom.art/m/vera-molnar-develops-h…), Vera Molnár Begins her Computer Art Phase with the Interruptions Series (1968) (timeline.lerandom.art/m/vera-molnar-begins-her…)
Chapters 📖:
00:00 Introduction
01:31 Why Vera Molnár, why now
05:12 Disruption as a way of life
07:31 Paris and the output space
11:25 Rules, art history and the art world
14:39 GRAV, François and agency
18:31 Entangled Others and generative AI
23:51 Showing the process
27:43 The machine imaginaire
30:55 Getting the computer
33:43 Generative principles today
37:36 Rules and learned models
41:51 The P word
44:37 Stories still to tell