VLADIMIR BONAČIĆ
Vladimir Bonačić (1938-1999) grew up in Zagreb, Croatia, and studied electronics at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Zagreb (Ph.D. 1968). Postgraduate studies in London and Paris. In 1968, he began to develop cybernetic art objects using computers. From 1969 to 1973 he was the Head of the Laboratory of Cybernetics at the Ruđer Bošković Institute in Zagreb. In 1980, he moved to Germany, where he realized research and development projects mainly in the field of visual communication, which were used by German television, among others, for live election coverage.
In 1968, he started to utilize computer systems for cybernetic art. From 1970 to 1972, he led the research project "Pattern Recognition and Processing" at the RBI. At that time, he also began the development of "Computer-Controlled Dynamic Object" with the support of UNESCO and, in 1971, served as an advisor to UNESCO on art and science matters. He exhibited his first dynamic objects as part of the New Tendencies exhibition in Zagreb in 1969, totaling 17 works, and then again in 1973. He worked together with Ivan Picelj and, since 1967, with the software designer Miro A. Cimerman. His first solo exhibition took place in Ljubljana in 1972.
On the basis of an agreement between the Ruđer Bošković Institute and the Israel Academy of Sciences Bonačić established a laboratory team for cybernetics, bcd, together with Cimerman and an architect and city planner, Dunja Donassy (1971). The title is an acronym for the last names of the founders. Later, the group operated under the name "bcd CyberneticArt team".
In 1972, bcd moved to Israel and in 1973 founded the "Jerusalem Program in Art and Science", a research and training program for post-graduate interdisciplinary studies in art and science at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, which Bonačić directed until 1977, serving as a professor of computer-based art.
After the death of Vladimir Bonačić in 1999, Donassy-Bonačić and Cimermann continued the cooperation and are now dedicated to publicizing the history of the New Tendencies, collaborating on numerous media archaeological research projects, and investigating what contribution "CyberneticArt" can make to the resilience of the information society.
