Fred Truck papers
name: label: Creator
content: Truck, Fred
label: Names
content: Des Moines Festival of the Avant-garde (1979)
label: Names
content: Brown, Jean, 1911-1994
label: Names
content: Gibbs, Michael, 1949-2009
label: Names
content: Held, John, 1947-
label: Names
content: Welch, Chuck, 1948-
topic: label: Occupation
content: Computer artists -- Iowa -- Des Moines
label: Occupation
content: Multimedia artists -- Iowa -- Des Moines
label: Topic
content: Mail art
label: Topic
content: Fluxus (Group of artists)
label: Topic
content: Performance art
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: The collection was donated in 2020, 2021, and 2022 by Fred Truck.
creator: label: Creator
content: Truck, Fred
setName: label: See more items in
content: Fred Truck papers
abstract: label: Summary
content: The papers of multimedia and computer artist Fred Truck measure 15.4 linear feet and date from 1960-2019. Records include biographical material, correspondence including mail art, writings by Truck, project files, rare printed material including artist books and small press publications, artwork, and sound and video recordings. Additionally, a substantial portion of the collection is in electronic format, including Truck's hard drive and software programs developed by him.
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: West Des Moines, Iowa, multimedia and computer artist Fred Truck (b. 1946) played a pivotal role in the burgeoning computer art world of the 1970s, was an early and vital participant in the Art Com Electronic Network (ACEN; 1986–1999), one of the first virtual artist communities, and has been active in the  mail art network throughout his career. Truck is a sculptor, a photographer, and a creator of artist books, software, and virtual reality artwork. 

Born in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, Truck graduated from Iowa Wesleyan College in 1969 with a B.A. and then briefly attended American University in Washington, D.C.. From the mid-1970s to mid-1980s he worked in the printing trade and attended printing school in Ankeny, Iowa, where he was able to print the books he had been writing and making. His work included the offset book Camping Out (1975), and George Maciunas, Fluxus and the Face of Time (1984), in which which used his own Jean Brown Ultrabold typeface.

Truck was a co-founder and systems engineer for the Art Com Electronic Network (ACEN), an artist-built virtual social network established in the early internet era before the development of web-based graphics through which artists communicated and performed in text-based graphics. Truck established a menu-driven structure that would allow easy access to ACEN content invented collectively by Truck and co-founders Carl Loeffler and Anna Couey.
 
In the late 1980s to 1990s Truck developed ArtEngine, a stand-alone software application applying artificial intelligence to graphics, text analysis, and design. His software Bottega was an interactive CD-ROM developed for the Macintosh which allowed users to explore a digital artist's workshop and also introduced users to Analog Engine, a steam-powered visual analog of his ArtEngine software.

Truck is also known for his work with virtual reality and in 1993, with the assistance of programmers, built Labyrinth, a flight simulator based on Leonardo da Vinci's flying machine. The project took place at Carnegie Mellon University under the supervision of Carl Loeffler.

In 1998 Truck created the fictitious Badge of Quality Corporation with Mr. Milk Bottle as it's public representative and himself as president and CEO of the corporation. In 2007 he was commissioned to build a 62" tall steel sculpture of Mr. Milk Bottle dissolving into nature.

Truck became interested in digital photography in 2005 and joined Flickr in 2009, where he continues to post his photographs. Truck is a pioneer in the use of stereographic projections and anaglyph images and describes his work as using digital processing to move his 2-D images into "a 3-D arena via anaglyph techniques, stereograms or 360 720 panoramas."
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 15.4 Linear Feet
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1960-2019
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.trucfred
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Performances (creative events)
label: Type
content: Motion pictures
label: Type
content: Sound recordings
label: Type
content: Video recordings
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: With the exception of some unsorted material, papers were generally organized alphabetically across projects, institutions, and individuals by Fred and Lorna Truck before donation to the Archives. Notes on Truck's career and an inventory of the sorted material providing folder labels and broad series types was included with the donation and both were used extensively during arrangement and description of the material. Series were further refined to facilitate access and merged with unsorted material. The collection was arranged as 10 series.

Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1980s-2017 (Box 1; 3 folders)

Series 2: Correspondence and Mail Art, 1974-2017 (Boxes 1-4; 3.5 linear feet)

Series 3: Writings by Truck, circa 1960s-circa 2000s (Box 4; 0.25 linear feet)

Series 4: Project Files, circa 1960s-2017 (Boxes 4-7, 14, FC 15-16; 4.4 linear feet)

Series 5: Exhibition Files, 1988-2007 (Boxes 8-9; 0.25 linear feet)

Series 6: Other Professional Files, 1988-2001 (Box 9; 0.6 linear feet)

Series 7: Personal Business Records, 1960s-2006 (Box 9; 0.2 linear feet)

Series 8: Printed Material and Artist Books, 1960-2017 (Boxes 9-13; 3.2 linear feet)

Series 9: Artwork by Truck, circa 1990s-circa 2000s (Box 13; 0.15 linear feet)

Series 10: Photographs, 1980s-2019 (Box 13; 0.15 linear feet)

Series 11: Unprocessed Born Digital Material, circa 1970s-circa 2019 (Boxes 18-20; 2.5 linear feet)
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: The collection was processed, and a finding aid prepared by Stephanie Ashley in 2022. Additional finding aid description of the video recordings was completed by Kirsi Ritosalmi-Kisner in 2024.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Performances (creative events)
label: Genre/Form
content: Motion pictures
label: Genre/Form
content: Sound recordings
label: Genre/Form
content: Video recordings
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: The papers of multimedia and computer artist Fred Truck measure 15.4 linear feet and date from 1960-2019. Records include biographical material, correspondence including mail art, writings by Truck, project files, rare printed material including artist books and small press publications, artwork, and sound and video recordings. Additionally, a substantial portion of the collection is in electronic format, including Truck's hard drive and software programs developed by him.

Correspondence and mail art documents Truck's involvement with the mail art network throughout his career and includes letters and mail art from artists including Anna Banana, Michael Gibbs, John Held Jr., Jürgen Olbrich, Lon Spiegelman, Chuck Stake, Chuck Welch, and many others. Also found here is a substantial group of letters from Jean Brown to Truck in which Brown comments on Truck's work, her connections with other artists, and her collecting activities focusing on Fluxus and the avant-garde, for the Jean Brown Archives.

Writings include early short stories, a play, and published articles and artist statements by Truck.

Truck's project files touch on all aspects of his career, including his making of artist books, his involvement in early and developing computer art and software, and his forays into virtual reality. Files also record his involvement in collaborative works of early electronic art including his significant contributions to the Art Com Electronic Network (ACEN), and his collaborations in performance art including The Des Moines Festival of the Avant-Garde, the Electric Bank, and the Performance Bank. Records include motion picture film of events that took place during the Des Moines Festival of the Avant Garde.

Exhibition files document six exhibitions including the group exhibition Almost Warm and Fuzzy (1999), at the Des Moines Art Center, and Here and There: Photography as a Cross-Cultural Mirror (2007), with Mano Tohei in Japan. Other professional activities are documented in files covering Truck's attendance and presentations at conferences and symposiums, on panels, and at the Banff Centre for the Arts where he undertook a residency in 1991. This series and Truck's personal business records also include scattered documentation of consignments, sales, and exhibitions with Vail Giesler/Steven Vail Galleries, and Karolyn Sherwood Gallery.  

Printed material includes coverage of Truck's career in press reviews of his work and copies of two of his books, Around the House and The Hot Rod Show. The series also houses Truck's significant collection of rare artist books, artist publications, and small press publications. Additionally, Truck's printed material includes announcements, catalogs, newsletters, postcards, and other printed material for art events, literary press events, and mail art events primarily from the 1970s-1990s, including a substantial group of material from Franklin Furnace.

Artwork by Truck includes digital artwork and Fred Truck's print collection. Photographs include Truck's index to his digital photographs, some of his fine art photographic prints, and a series of snapshots taken of Truck and others on the occasion of La Mamelle Inc./Art Com's donation of its records to Stanford University.

Unprocessed born digital material appears to document Truck's research and practice in computer technology and art over several decades, including the online activities of ACEN. Additional born digital records include programs and software such as Truck's ArtEngine and Bottega.