Andy Warhol's Digital Art Was Trapped on a Floppy Disk — Until Now

Before there were CDs, USB drives, and tiny little micro SD cards, there were floppy disks. They were rugged, plastic, square-shaped trading cards for grown-ups designed to transport files 200MB or smaller. It was once the medium with which cartoon villains destroyed the world. But today, for the first time, a set of floppy disks is making art history.

The Andy Warhol Museum announced that Andy Warhol's lost computer art has been found. The works were trapped on 30-year-old Amiga floppy disks in the museum's archives and recently recovered by the Carnegie Mellon Computer Club. New York artist Cory Arcangel stumbled upon a YouTube clip of Andy at a launch event for the Amiga (watch it below!), an old-school personal computer sold in the '80s and '90s by Commodore. Before a live audience, Andy created a digital portrait of Debbie Harry, the badass front woman of Blondie, with software that looks a lot like Microsoft Paint. This video launched an extensive search for Andy's lost computer art, and after a three-year hunt, the images have finally been unearthed!

Andy captured popular culture in a way that was unlike any of his contemporaries. His most well-known art includes his prints of Campbell's Soup cans and psychedelic portraits of celebrities like Marilyn Monroe. Of the recently rediscovered digital art, The Warhol's director Eric Shiner said, "Warhol saw no limits to his art practice. These computer generated images underscore his spirit of experimentation and his willingness to embrace new media — qualities which, in many ways, defined his practice from the early 1960s onwards."

Scroll down to see the amazing digital pop art creations below! Source: Getty / Bertrand Rindoff Petroff

Andy's Commodore Amiga Computer Equipment

Andy's Commodore Amiga Computer Equipment

Campbell's, 1985

Campbell's, 1985

Venus, 1985

Venus, 1985

Andy2, 1985

Andy2, 1985

click to play video

Andy's Computer Portrait of Debbie Harry

Andy's Most Iconic Works — Orange Marilyn, 1964
Getty | AFP

Andy's Most Iconic Works — Orange Marilyn, 1964

Andy's Most Iconic Works — Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962
Getty | NICOLAS ASFOURI

Andy's Most Iconic Works — Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962