RaD Man

Christian Wirth, better known by the pseudonym RaD Man, is a computer artist and historian. He works in the field of ANSI art, a method of creating art using a limited set of text characters and color escape codes based loosely on the relevant ANSI standard (X3.64: Control Sequences for Video Terminals and Peripherals).

RaD Man was initially involved in the Aces of ANSI Art (AAA), an organization which created ANSI artwork for a number of computer bulletin board systems in the late 1980s. With others, he created the "ANSI Creators in Demand" group (also known as ACiD).

Starting in 1990, ACiD released artwork on an ad-hoc network of BBSes, updating a collection of art known as the ACiD Acquisition by sending a compressed file of all the completed work up to that time. By 1992, the increasing file size made this process impractical, and this led to the development of the artpack, where groups of artists (including ACiD) would upload monthly update packages instead.

In 1996, RaD Man founded the ACiD Artpacks Archive to collect the artpacks created by the hundreds of groups that followed in ACiD's footsteps. This collection eventually was transferred to DVD as Dark Domain in 2004.

Since 2002, RaD Man has worked as a historian and spokesperson for the artscene, collecting information and interviews with the artists involved, and creating reports and presentations on the lineage of computer art. Some of this work includes The ARTS, a talk radio show which discusses the many different facets of the creative computer underground scenes and the Pilgrimage 2004 demoparty. [1]

External links

Interviews

• 1992 – RaD Man interviews Ian Davis, author of TheDraw ANSI editor
• 1992 – NOT! magazine interview with RaD Man
• 1994 – Corruption magazine interview with RaD Man
• 1994 – Distorted magazine interview with RaD Man
• 1995 – Jonas magazine interview with RaD Man
• 1996 – Beyond the Horizon interview with RaD Man
• 1997 – Acrylic magazine interview with RaD Man (reprint) .ANS version (original)
• 1998 – Woezine magazine interview with RaD Man
• 1999 – Acheron.org interview with RaD Man
• 2002 – Interview with RaD Man for the independent documentary film, BBS Documentary
• 2003 – iCE.org interview with RaD Man
• 2004 – Tsifra magazine interview with RaD Man (translated in both English and Russian)
• 2004 – 3dluvr.com interview with RaD Man and Legalize concerning Pilgrimage 2004 and the state of the scene

Speeches

• 2004 – "The Art of Textmode" at Assembly 2004
• 2004 – Jason Scott and RaD Man (ACiD) – 100 Years of the Computer Art Scene Presented at Notacon
• 2005 – Steering an Art Collective at Notacon

Artwork

• Gallery of artwork created by RaD Man

Miscellaneous

• RaD Man article by enwhysea hosted on everything2.com