The adoption and proliferation of computers during the late 1950s prompted the beginnings of the shift from mechanical and analog technology—events that deeply impacted Miguel Ángel Vidal. In 1959 Vidal, along with Eduardo Macentyre, cofounded Buenos Aires’s Generative Art movement, which pulled influence from Constructivism and Op and Geometric art, but focused on the use of an autonomous system to help produce imagery. He began to form highly elaborate tableaux that reveal his steadfast inventiveness and desire to create a restrained form of expression. Vidal based his composition in Lightbulbs on a computer-generated drawing created by the artist or a computer programmer. Yellow and white lines intersect on a blue background in a way that conveys the illusion of volume on a two-dimensional surface, which seems as if it is emanating light.

Label from Giant Steps: Artists and the 1960s, June 30–December 30, 2018