Micro Arts Group – Geoff Davis

Micro Arts was a curatorial publisher and generative computer art collective founded in London in 1984 by Geoff Davis, working with an international and notably gender-balanced group of artists and programmers. It promoted computer art within the new home-computer market, then dominated by games, and operated independently of galleries and institutions.

Talk by Catherine Mason at Victoria & Albert Museum, London, (2024). Photo shows Piano Bar, generative art animation (1984), with Micro Arts Magazine (1984). The images are not to scale.

Micro Arts produced and distributed a number of early computer-art works and experiments that were among the first publicly documented examples of their kind, including Story Generator, an early generative text system; MA2, exploring glitch, minimal pixel art and extreme computer processes; and early forms of networked computer art from 1985, using the Prestel (like Minitel) network. There was also an educational print magazine which was distributed around London by Arts Express.

Davis had previously been involved in London’s experimental film, video, music and club scenes, including the London Film-Makers’ Co-op, London Video Arts and Network21 pirate TV. Micro Arts emerged from the same experimental culture and spirit of exploring new media.

It was covered by computer and fashion magazines, including Computer News, Personal Computer World and Blitz, but remained outside the academic and gallery art world, retaining its independent and alternative character. Micro Arts was rediscovered in 2020 and has been exhibited internationally, and is in many institutions and collections.

“This is my site for Micro Arts, a computer art forum I founded and mostly programmed and designed from 1984 in London, to promote computer art in the new home computer market. It was reviewed in the computer and fashion press (Computer News, Blitz magazine etc.) and I communicated with Harold Cohen about art for the second edition of the print magazine (which ended up in Prestel teletext network in 1985). The mainstream art world was quite hostile to computer art at the time, as still seems to be now. I coded many provocations to computer art tenets, such as ‘abstract’ art, plus new forms of glitch, pixel art, and feminist propaganda cartoons drawn by computer (1984), with text story generation and net art (1985).” — Geoff Davis, 2025

The collections MA1, MA2 and MA4 (see menus above) were programmed by Geoff Davis. The group distributed pioneering digital art for low-cost micro computers (ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro, etc.) on data cassettes (1984) and via the Prestel teletext network (1985). THis included computer and generative art, conceptual art, text generators, glitch, pixel art, computer-drawn feminist propaganda cartoons (1984), and pre-web net art (1985), directly reaching the public rather than through galleries or institutions. It produced many digital art “firsts” in the public art space rather than academia, and communicated with Harold Cohen about the work.

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.

Geoff’s current art site is at GeoffDavis.Art

Above: Stills from Micro Arts generative art and text in Computer Arts Archive art software releases (1984-1985)

Key Works

• • “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

    More about Story Generator

    

  • Glitch Art — Carry On Computing in set MA2. The inner code of a microcomputer flashing and scrolling onscreen, with assorted beeps and shrieks. All code no images of code.
    More about Carry On Computing
  • Feminist Agit-Prop — Money Work System in set MA2 (1984) Computer Drawing – all lines were coded. Animation responding to Valerie Solanas’s SCUM Manifesto, exploring themes of Universal Basic Income UBI. In set MA2.
    More about Money Work System

More about Money Work System

• • 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).

    

    More about Paintbox images

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
• Prestel — Micronet distribution of art software to download and articles from the Magazine, arranged by Simon Holland of the BBC.

Selected ExhibitionsDrivers · CAS/BCS London · 2025–26

Geoff Davis

Further Reading

Full archive, magazine scans, people, videos, history and resources.

More About Micro Arts