How do you draw a line with a computer? When the Hungarian-born, Paris-based artist Vera Molnar (1924-2023) began exper-imenting with electronic computers in 1968, this task was not as simple as the click of a mouse or the swipe of a finger. Molnar had to translate her visual language of geometric abstraction into alphanumeric instructions that a computer would understand. Though she generated thousands of computer plotter “drawings” over the next two decades, she left behind limited technical documentation from this period, leaving it up to viewers to imagine the algorithms behind her compositions. This lecture presents a media archeology of the artist’s work –– a hands-on approach that engages not only with her drawings but also her process of drawing with a computer. I will recount my “reenactment” of Molnar’s series Lettres de ma mère (My mother’s letters, 1988) using obsolete hardware and software that the artist once used. This practice-led approach foregrounds the artist’s process and historically contextualizes the material history and user experience of early interactive computing, which have been all but forgotten.

Shayan Rajani is an Assistant Professor of History at Michigan State University. He is the author of Leaving Legacies: The Individual in Early Modern South Asia published by Cambridge University Press in 2024. His research interests include early modern South Asia, particularly the region of Sindh, the history of the individual and self-representation, and gender and sexuality.

Co-Sponsored by the Department of History, the Asian Studies Program, and the Middle East and Islamic Studies Program.