Manfred Mohr
«P-021/A, «scratch code»»

Starting with spontaneous meanings from informal images, Mohr constructs meanings by distilling the aesthetic information from his works using analytical procedures. The gradual systematisation of the image construction is documented in images and series from the 1960s like: Frühe Arbeiten (early works)1965-1966, Subjektive Geometrie (subjective geometry) 1966-1969 and Frühe algorithmische Arbeiten (early algorithmic works) 1969-1972. They increasingly showed a preference for geometrical and hence forms that could be constructed as opposed to irrational elements. Already in this transitional phase, his works were also accompanied by texts. Among other things, these texts explain the process of producing computer graphics so that their construction is comprehensible to anyone. Mohr consciously emphasises the artistic-technological factor over the metaphysical-speculative in image creation. After all, he is interested in breaking down, «the mystical barriers behind which the artist can hide.» He is assisted in this endeavour by the computer, which promotes the implementation of the creative act in a logical process. This leads, on the one hand to a theoretical consideration and intellectualisation of aesthetic production, and on the other hand to a transition from a creative-emotional conceptualisation and realisation of an image to an emotionless and logical one. In his artwork, Mohr is not primarily interested in ensuring that the collaboration of the machine remains perceivable, as it only functions as an instrument. Instead, the viewer is to recognize that his computer graphics are the objects of a semiotic, syntactic and hence scientific aesthetics, the central feature of which is precisely not beauty that can be perceived through subjective interpretation, but, following Bense, an aesthetic state that is objectively identifiable and describable.