The ranstak programs were the first programs developed by Bell as a postgraduate student at the Slade School of Art in 1977-79 in the Department of Experimental & Electronic Art. He also experimentted with a space exploration game program that would use key events in the game to automatically create a comic-style layout.

Bell described some aspects of the experience in a chapter of "White Heat: Cold Logic" (Brown et al, 2009). A discussion of his work at the time is also included in "A Computer in the Art Room" (Mason, 2009). In the following pages Bell describes the development of the progam and some of his work:

Part 1 | introduction | the ranstak algorithm

Part 2 | background | folding sculptures

Part 3 | making it more like drawing | the 'hatch' shape

Part 4 | helices and brush pens

Part 5 | space exploration game

Part 6 | some further ranstak experiments

Part 7 | more works using brush pens and mapping pens