What lineage connects early abstract films and machine-generated YouTube videos? Hans Richter’s famous piece Rhythmus 21 is considered to be the first abstract film in the experimental tradition. The Webdriver Torso YouTube channel is composed of hundreds of thousands of machine-generated test patterns designed to check frequency signals on YouTube. This article discusses geometric abstraction vis-a-vis new vision, conceptual art and algorithmic art. It argues that the Webdriver Torso is an artistic marvel indicative of a form we call mathematical abstraction, which is art performed by computers and, quite possibly, for computers.

中文翻译：

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从抽象艺术到抽象艺术家

什么血统将早期的抽象电影和机器生成的YouTube视频联系起来？汉斯·里希特（Hans Richter）的著名作品《节奏21》被认为是实验传统中的第一部抽象电影。Webdriver Torso YouTube频道由成千上万的机器生成的测试模式组成，旨在检查YouTube上的频率信号。本文讨论了相对于新视觉，概念艺术和算法艺术的几何抽象。它认为Webdriver Torso是一种艺术奇迹，它指示了一种我们称为数学抽象的形式，它是由计算机执行的艺术，很可能是计算机执行的艺术。