Micro Arts Group – Geoff Davis
Founded London, 1984. Generative art and procedural story text from London’s alternative art scene — publicly distributed on data cassette and network before the web existed.
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, talk by Catherine Mason (2024). Photo shows Piano Bar, generative art animation (1984), with Micro Arts Magazine (1984). The images are not to scale.
Micro Arts was a generative computer art collective founded in 1984 by Geoff Davis in London, along with an international group of artists and programmers with notable gender balance. The group distributed pioneering digital art for the new low cost available micro computers (ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro, etc.) on data cassettes (1984) and via the Prestel teletext network (1985) — classic computer and generative art, with conceptual art and text generators, and pre-web net art, reaching the public directly rather than through galleries or institutions.
Micro Arts operated outside the traditional art world, connecting instead to London’s experimental and club scene: the London Film-Makers Co-op, London Video Arts, and Network21 pirate TV. The work was reviewed in the computer press — Computer News, Personal Computer World and fashion magazines including Blitz, and many others — but remained unknown to the academic and gallery world, retaining its original alternative character. It was not revived until Geoff made a website for it in 2019, when it was noticed by Dr Sean Clark, chair of the Computer Arts Society.
Above: Stills from Micro Arts generative art and text in Computer Arts Archive art software releases (1984-1985)
Key Works
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- “Abstract Originals” — set MA1 (1984) Seven generative art displays with menu control. Each uses a different type of basic shape. The quotes question whether computer-generated art can be “abstract” or “original”. This is still argued about now.
More about “Abstract Originals“ - Pixel Art — Minimal— in set MA2 Various Unusual Events (1984) Created before the pixel was considered a worthy subject. 45,056 pixels, to fill a micro computer screen, with a 65536 frame pause (longest it did) which is 21.5 minutes — drawn pixel by pixel, requiring nearly two years to fill the screen. Currently running a full session at Computer Arts Society / British Computer Society office in London from September 2025 until April 2027.
More about Minimal - Text Generator — Story Generator — in set MA4 (1985) Procedural text generation from a short story seed. Distributed via Prestel network. Exhibited internationally 1985–2025.
“Geoff Davis’s Story Generator (1985) is an early precursor of ChatGPT.” — Georg Bak, historian and curator
Story Generator (1985) running at Reimagine Tomorrow · Essen AI Biennale, 2024 - Glitch Art — Carry On Computing in set MA2 (1984) The inner code of a microcomputer flashing and scrolling onscreen, with assorted beeps and shrieks.
More about Carry On Computing - Feminist Agit-Prop — Money Work System in set MA2 (1984) Computer animation responding to Valerie Solanas’s SCUM Manifesto, exploring themes of Universal Basic Income. MA2.
More about Money Work System
- “Abstract Originals” — set MA1 (1984) Seven generative art displays with menu control. Each uses a different type of basic shape. The quotes question whether computer-generated art can be “abstract” or “original”. This is still argued about now.
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- Published the first ‘fine art’ Paintbox image (paint editing tools) by artist Michèle Gauthier Carr-Brown / Sonia Sheridan, in the print Micro Arts Magazine (1984).
Paintbox art by Michèle Gauthier Carr-Brown in the Micro Arts Magazine (1984)
- Published the first ‘fine art’ Paintbox image (paint editing tools) by artist Michèle Gauthier Carr-Brown / Sonia Sheridan, in the print Micro Arts Magazine (1984).
Notable: New public, open market approaches for digital art (1984); networked on Prestel (before Minitel) (1985); made graphics for Network21 pirate TV (1986). First exhibited at the London Film Makers Co-op (1985).
The 1980s Releases
- MA1 — “Abstract Originals” · Geoff Davis · 1984 — 7 iconic genertive art programs
- MA2 — Various Unusual Events · Geoff Davis · 1984 — 6 conceptual provocations
- MA3 — Volume 1 · Martin Rootes · 1984 — 5 recreations of art history
- MA4 — Story Generator · Geoff Davis · 1985 — text generator
- Micro Arts Magazine · 1984 · Print magazine with art and articles, to reach traditional (or non-computer) art fans — Editor Geoff Davis
Selected Exhibitions
Geoff Davis
Artist, PEN-published writer, musician, AI researcher at UAL London, and founder of the AI Creative Anthology series (2023, 2024, 2026). Currently a committee member of the Computer Arts Society. Taught for ten years, web industry technical director, start-up for apps, etc. Eco housing, founding member of the Sustainable Development Commission, 2007.
Fiction published alongside Ben Okri, Tom McCarthy, Iain Sinclair, Deborah Levy, Peter Ackroyd and Hanif Kureishi. See geoffdavis.org
New generations – Cube Series
I collaborated with Patryk Jawoski of Etalon for these videos with music. The cube has 1980s generated art on the faces, from “Abstract Originals”, with modelling, animation and music by Patryk Jawoski (2023).
See four more musical animations at Geoff Davis elementum Zurich. There are 8 cube videos in total, the each of the 7 computer drawing styles in “Abstract Originals”, plus a video with all the cubes rotating in a ring.
New art is at geoffdavis.art
Collections
- Computer Arts Archive UK
- Francisco Carolinum · Linz
- Franke Foundation · Berlin
- The National Museum of Computing TNMOC · Bletchley Park
- elementum · Zurich
- Expanded.Art
- Le Random
Further Reading
Full archive, magazine scans, people, videos, history and resources.