Using programming to create art is a practice that started in the 1960s. In later decades groups such as Compos 68 successfully explored programming for artistic purposes, having their work exhibited in international exhibitions. From the 80s onward expert programmers joined the
demoscene, and tested their skills against each other by creating "demos": highly technically competent visual creations. Recent exhibitions and books, including Dominic Lopes'
A Philosophy of Computer Art (2009) have sought to examine the integral role of coding in contemporary art beyond that of Human Computer Interface (HCI). Criticising Lopes however, Juliff and Cox argue that Lopes continues to privilege interface and user at the expense of the integral condition of code in much computer art. Arguing for a more nuanced appreciation of coding, Juliff and Cox set out contemporary creative coding as the examination of code and intentionality as integral to the users understanding of the work. Currently there is a renewed interest in the question of why programming as a method of producing art hasn't flourished.
Google has renewed interest in their Dev Art initiative, but this in turn has elicited strong reactions from a number of creative coders who claim that coining a new term to describe their practice is counterproductive. == Artists using creative coding==