Essays from the Art & Computers Catalogue

Twenty years ago and with admirable prescience. Jasia Reichardt and her colleagues at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London recognised the potential impact of computers on the way we perceive things and began putting together a set of works which could loosely be termed, ‘computer art’. This collection formed the basis of the seminal exhibition, Cybernetic Serendipity, held at the ICA from August to October I 968 and is remembered with affection by all who saw it. As comprehensive a coverage of work as could be expected in such a new and burgeoning area, it introduced many artists and designers to computers for the first time. However, it still omitted some activities which we would now regard as central to the interests of computer artists. In particular – and for all sorts of understandable reasons – the use of live
computing was minimal.

August 1968, too, saw another significant event in the history of the subject. This occurred at a large computer conference – the lFlP conference – held in Edinburgh where the prizes for an
international competition of computer music were being presented. At the presentation ceremony, a pioneer of computing (and, incidentally, the inventor of the program subroutine),
Stanley Gill, suggested that the world-wide interest of artists, sculptors, poets, composers and so on was such that the British Computer Society should form a Specialist Group devoted to
computing and the arts. Taking up his suggestion, Alan Sutcliffe, himself a pioneer of computer music and one of the prizewinners. called for a meeting of those interested. In a room at, of all strange places, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine during October a few of us met to form the Computer Arts Society.

At the outset, those active in the formation and running of the Society believed that it was needed simply to perform a pumppriming role. We thought that the reasons for its existence would only be temporary and that, in a few years, it would wither away as the use of computing in the arts grew so commonplace as not to require a body devoted to its nurturing. We argued about what the group should be called and about what arts should be included (and excluded). We argued about applying aesthetic judgement to the works of members – suggesting among other things that those who saw computer art in terms of the then prevalent ‘Snoopy’ teletype pictures should not be allowed to join. Bizarrely, we even argued about drawing a distinction between digitial computer arts and analogue computer arts.

ln the end, we formulated a constitution which simply said that we were there ‘to encourage the use of computing in the ans and to act as a forum for the exchange of ideas in the subject.’ Anyone was allowed to join and all could have rheir own views of what constituted or did not constitute ·computer art’. This open door policy encouraged a large membership both in the UK and overseas but tended to alienate some artists – especially those who took a more panisan view of their talents. It still does.

To illustrate the scope and potential of computer art as we saw it, we organised a show, Event One. This was a three-day event held at the Royal College of Art, London in the Spring of 1969. Its impact was far-reaching and should be seen as complementary to that of Cybernetic Serendipity. Although an extensive and hitherto unseen collection of wall-hung graphics was included, one of our primary aims was to illustrate the possibilities of live computing and performance arts and many of the exhibits were designed to do this. Because of the professional interests of some of the organisers, too, architectural applications received considerable emphasis. Animated film, poetry, dance, music, drama and what now would be called ‘installations’ all featured in this show and, probably for the first time ever, people were able to see computers in action producing artworks or, more often, creating instructions for people to assemble or act out artworks.

Because of the acceptance of computing by musicians and composers as well as the growth of organisations exclusively devoted to the subject, less and less of Computer Arts Society time
has recently been given to computer music. This is in contrast to the early days when the subject tended to dominate our discussions. Indeed, the majority of our Honorary Life Members until recent years were composers: Xenakis, Wiggen, Zinovieff, for example. With the passing of time, the need for our pumppriming role has grown smaller but it has far from disappeared. We still contribute some of our effort to exhibitions: sometimes of a permanent nature like the computing gallery at the Science Museum in London (where we also hope to do something for the bicentenary of Charles Babbage in 1991) or of a more fleeting kind, such as the recent SIGGRAPH retrospective at Anaheim, California.

Many of our members now exhibit or perform their work on a regular basis and other are represented in public galleries all over the world. Some. we are pleased to see, no longer find it necessary to stress the role that computing plays in their art. Others. such as Manfred Mohr, rarely mention it at all. Some, such as Harold Cohen, use the computer as a ‘smart apprentice’ extending by algorithm and rule-based techniques their own form of creativity. Others. perhaps the majority, use the computer simply as a tool.

We need perhaps to consider whether using the computer as a tool just to make pictures faster or more accurately or with greater ‘realism’ is the way to go. However, it would be wrong now to raise again the question that plagued us twenty years ago and which we could not answer: ‘Is there any value at all in using tbe computer to assist existing arts or should it be used to develop arts we have not yet dreamt of?’. That question no longer has any meaning. But,
inevitably the gallery situation gives rise to the need to collect together static pictures and sculpture.

The organisers of this exhibition are to be congratulated on bringing together those that
they have – it is certainly not much easier to do tltis now than ii was in the 1960s. The artefacts they show need to be seen and discussed at a serious level. The need to be judged in the context of art generally and of computer an in particular. But, as you go round the exhibits, remember that they are not the whole of computer art.

• Robert John Lansdown [1929 – 1999]  was a British computer graphics pioneer, polymath and Professor Emeritus at Middlesex University Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts, which was renamed in his honour in 2000. He had enormous influence as one of the founders of the Computer Arts Society in 1968, along with Alan Sutcliffe and George Mallen, and then as secretary of the Society (1968–1991). Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lansdown