Program MONDRIAN (1979)
MONDRIAN is the name of a dynamic program for image and sound that Herbert W. Franke developed for Texas Instruments in 1979. It is named after the Dutch artist of the very same name, who was a pioneer of constructivism between the two world wars. Characteristic for him is the principle horizontal – vertical: arrangements of vertically crossing beams, mostly painted in rich colors.
The program was developed for the Texas Instruments home computer 99/4. It can be used in two ways: First, it permits the selective construction of individual images–in a kind of step-by-step operation as a dynamic sequence in which the user can interactively intervene at any time. Secondly, however, it is also possible to design a „dynamic image“, a sequence of images that changes constantly on its own and whose algorithms run under random influence. In the endless-automatic operating mode, the program also generates algorithmically generated sound effects in parallel as a function of the image structures.