The Jasia Reichardt Lecture 2025

Francesca Franco examines curating as art historical research through her collaborations with Vera Molnar and other pioneers of computational art. She traces a route from Renaissance studies and digital research tools to interviews, commissions and exhibitions that connect generative practice with wider artistic histories. Algorithmic Signs provides examples of documentation, site specific installation and unexpected effects becoming part of artworks. Molnar’s curiosity, imagined machines, systematic variation and use of randomness establish the context for Icon 2020, a collaboration with Murano glassmakers. Drawing on earlier plotter drawings and a painted composition, the sculpture translates relationships between order and disorder into glass and gold leaf. Franco describes prototypes, technical failures, flooding and pandemic disruption, alongside the continual negotiation between artist, curator and makers. Accidental changes in the material sometimes become valued outcomes rather than defects. An exhibition places the completed sculpture beside drawings, sketches and production records to reveal its development. Further projects include workshops introducing children to randomness and an exploration of geometric structures in Carpaccio’s Dream of Saint Ursula. Questions address artificial intuition, materiality and the curator’s involvement in production. Throughout, Franco presents computational art as a continuing, collaborative practice whose conceptual systems remain open to craft, surprise and experimentation.

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