Georg Nees and Frieder Nake were inspired and encouraged by the theorist and philosopher Prof. Max Bense to create the first computer‑generated graphics based on their own programs.

Max Bense was one of the two founders of Information Aesthetics, the other being Abraham A. Moles, who pursued a somewhat different approach. On the occasion of the world’s first exhibition of algorithmic art (then still termed ‘computer art’, with Georg Nees, on 5 February 1965), Bense coined the expression ‘Generative Aesthetics’. The first joint exhibition with Frieder Nake at Galerie Niedlich in Stuttgart opened in November of the same year.