By Tetsuharu Hanazaki, Senior Technical Engineer, mPLAT

Pablo Picasso “Couple and Flutist at the Edge of a Lake”
image source
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/368480

This week, we bring you a discussion on art and technology, starting with a print made by Picasso that is part of NRI’s collection.

NRI has a number of works made by Pablo Picasso.
His painting “Couple and Flutist at the Edge of a Lake” was featured on a postcard for the NRI art exhibition.

This print was created using a printing technique known as linocut, which makes use of a soft linoleum sheet.

Picasso had this to say in 1968.
“Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.”
For Picasso, printing techniques and computers were the same, in that they would have been nothing more than a tool.

NRI was the first company in Japan to introduce commercial computers. These words were spoken by Picasso just three years after NRI was founded in 1965.
If Picasso were alive today, what kinds of works might he produce with computers?