birthday on May 14. Trained as a theoretical physicist, he approached art as an experimental practice aimed at understanding the fundamental nature of perception. His earliest generative works of the 1950s employed analog techniques—photographing illuminated wires and film strips, or the activity of a cathode ray oscillograph—to produce austere and beautiful abstractions. In the late 1960s he began exploring the use of digital computers to make plotter drawings and interactive software art. Below, Franke reflects on the evolution of the field he pioneered in conversation with Casey Reas, a key figure in generative art from a younger generation.