Andy Warhol Originals Found On Floppy Disk

Original artworks by Andy Warhol which have been lost for three decades have been found on floppy disks.

The artist was commissioned by computer firm Commodore in 1985 to demonstrate the graphical capabilities of its flagship Amiga computer.

The images have since lay dormant on floppy disks in the archives of The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

Among the images are a digital recreation of his trademark can of soup and an adapted version of Sandro Botticelli's Birth Of Venus.

The extraction project came about after artist Cory Arcangel learned of Warhol's Amiga work from a YouTube clip showing him promoting the release of the Amiga 1000 in 1985.

During Arcangel's November 2011 visit to Pittsburgh for an exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art, he followed up on the topic with curator Tina Kukielski.

They both then approached Andy Warhol Museum chief archivist Matt Wrbican, who tracked down the disks.

He said: "In the images, we see a mature artist who had spent about 50 years developing a specific hand to eye coordination now suddenly grappling with the bizarre new sensation of a mouse in his palm held several inches from the screen.

"It had to be enormously frustrating, but it also marked a huge transformation in our culture: the dawn of the era of affordable home computing.

"We can only wonder how he would explore and exploit the technologies that are so ubiquitous today."

The efforts to retrieve the images from the obsolete discs were captured on film and the documentary will be shown in Pittsburgh next month.

It will then be available to view online at nowseethis.org from May 12.