About

Mission Statement

The mission of the Harold Cohen Trust is to protect and promote the material and intellectual legacy of Harold Cohen, facilitate and document the scholarship surrounding his work, and align as closely as possible with his artistic intent.

Members

Paul Cohen

Trustee / Executor

Thomas Machnik

Studio Manager

The Trust is otherwise composed of Harold’s children and grandchildren.

Collaborators

The Harold Cohen Trust is deeply grateful to everyone who has contributed their own work, work of Harold’s, expertise, and goodwill to our efforts.

Gazelli Art House

Founded in 2010 by Mila Askarova, Gazelli Art House, London champions international artists at the height of their practice through exhibitions, events, and art fairs.

Along with its sister site in Baku, Gazelli Art House specialises in promoting art from Azerbaijan and its neighbours to introduce a greater understanding of the rich linguistic, religious and historical ties that connect these areas to international audiences. In 2015, the gallery further expanded to support artists working in digital art through online platform GAZELL.iO, comprising: an online Residency programme, NFT drops and collaborations, a dedicated Project Space holding monthly exhibitions, and a permanently installed VR Library.

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Bre Pettis

Bre Pettis is an artist, entrepreneur, and speaker who has been at the forefront of the maker movement for over a decade.

With a passion for using technology to empower creativity, he co-founded MakerBot Industries, the company that brought 3D printing to the masses, and currently serves as the CEO and co-founder of Bantam Tools, a company that designs and manufactures high-precision desktop CNC machines. In addition to his entrepreneurial endeavors, Pettis is also an accomplished artist whose work has been exhibited in galleries around the world. He has used his unique perspective as both an artist and a technologist to build the plotters that run Harold’s code at galleries and museums today.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Do you still have Harold’s code?

Yes and no! Harold wrote many different algorithms and programs. We have complete, executable code for some, incomplete code for others, and some code is entirely missing. The Trust is engaged in ongoing digital archaeology to piece together the latter.

Is Harold’s code open source?

Harold’s code is copyrighted and not released publicly. However, it is available for study under certain conditions. If you are interested in Harold’s code, please get in touch.

What’s the difference between AARON and DALL-E?

Harold was interested in studying and capturing the processes that allow artists to create evocative, meaningful images. While he saw himself as engaged in dialogue with AARON, he also designed AARON’s algorithms to capture fundamentally human art-making processes, such as the freehand line. Thus, although artists may have similar dialogues with DALL-E today as Harold did with AARON, the latter is also a tool for understanding the processes behind how humans make art, while DALL-E generates images without referencing these processes.

How can I purchase paintings?

If you are interested in purchasing Harold’s work, please contact Gazelli Art House.

Do the images that AARON makes today still count as Harold Cohen’s art?

Short answer: No. Long answer: Still no (but read our reasoning here!)

Do you sell posthumous images?

This is an active area of discussion. If you are interested in posthumous images, please get in touch with Gazelli Art House.

I am a student / professor / teacher, how can I work with the Trust?

We are dedicated to the documentation and restoration of Harold Cohen’s processes. This includes teaching students of all ages about Harold’s work, his place in the generative AI era, and what we’re calling “digital archaeology” for code. If this sounds interesting, please reach out.