Abstract The development of computing in Brazil followed a peculiar path, shaping cultural production since the earliest encounters between artists and technology. Beginning in the 1960s, musicians and computer scientists made initial attempts to use computers for artistic purposes, at a time when it was still possible to keep pace with developments in Computer Music in North America and Europe. However, restricted access to foreign technologies and the political context following the 1964 military coup—two deeply interrelated factors—made it unfeasible to establish a national system capable of sustaining continuous production in Music & Computing before the early 1990s. Such development would have required both strong institutional support and freedom of artistic expression, conditions that were not present. This article traces these trajectories through key artistic experiments and public policies related to computing. Rather than offering a comprehensive catalogue, it presents a transversal perspective that highlights the relationship between the formation of the Computer Music field and state policies up to the mid-1980s. By interweaving these parallel narratives—linking cultural practices and political frameworks—the study sheds light on how computer-mediated artistic production contributed to the constitution of Electronic Music in Brazil.
André Damião (2026) studied this question.