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The Contribution of Desmond Paul Henry (1921–2004) to Twentieth-Century Computer Art

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The Contribution of Desmond Paul Henry (1921–2004) to Twentieth-Century Computer Art Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LEON_a_01326 by guest on 28 September 2021 Historical Pers P e c t i v e pioneers and pathbreakers The Contribution of Desmond Paul Henry (1921–2004) to Twentieth-Century Computer Art E l A i n E O ’ H A n r aha n This paper describes the series of three electronic drawing machines The Solitary PiOneer Desmond Paul Henry constructed during the 1960s from World War II ACT r Ideographs (1962) ran concurrently with another solo Henry T analogue bombsight computers and which, by virtue of their inspiration, s idiosyncratic modus operandi and analogue-derived effects, earn Henry exhibition at Salford Art Gallery, consisting entirely of AB a place as a British computer art pioneer. The abstract graphic results machine-drawings, which Henry incorrectly referred to as of these now-defunct drawing machines are presented as precursors to “the world’s first one-machine show” [4], reflecting his com- digital images. parative artistic and scientific isolation. He remained unaware of the creative use of analogue computers during the 1950s HEnry’s ArTisTiC CAreer: 1950s–1960s by, for example, John Whitney Sr., Ben Laposky and Herbert Franke, whose graphic results, although not produced with Desmond Paul Henry was a lecturer in philosophy at Man- a drawing point, are not dissimilar to Henry’s abstract cur- chester University 1949–1982 and a self-taught artist who ex- vilinear machine-effects. Henry was equally unaware of the perimented with improvised mark-making techniques born 1960s Art and Technology movement in the United States. out of a spirit of wartime resourcefulness [1] (Figs 1, 2). Henry’s solo shows of 1962 did however preempt by some In 1961 Henry won first prize in a local art competition, or- years the first computer art shows of the more familiar pio- ganized by the North West UK artist L.S. Lowry (1887–1976) neers Frieder Nake, George Nees and Michael Noll. In 1962 in conjunction with Salford Art Gallery, with a work that and 1964 respectively, Manchester hosted two further solo used a photochemical process he had devised. The competi- Henry exhibitions of his machine-generated effects, corre- tion prize was a one-man show in London (Ideographs, The sponding to Franke’s definition of early computer graphics Reid Gallery, August 1962) in which, on Lowry’s insistence, as “the making of line drawings with the aid of computers Henry also included drawings produced by his first draw- and drawing machines” [5]. ing machine of 1961 (Fig. 3). This semiautomatic machine, Interest in Henry’s drawing machines culminated with the like the two that succeeded it, was adapted from a wartime inclusion of Henry’s second drawing machine by Jasia Reich- bombsight computer with the intention of capturing on ardt in the ICA’s seminal art and technology exhibition of paper the computer’s internal, electromechanical moving 1968, Cybernetic Serendipity, which demonstrated to Henry parts, which so enthralled Henry. The press responded with that his was not a lone voice [6]. dramatic headlines: “Art by electronic brain” [2], “A Robot Upon the demise of his third drawing machine in 1971, draws the Doctor’s Pictures” [3]. Henry demonstrated this Henry turned his attention to cameraless photography until drawing machine on BBC television during the first episode making a fourth drawing machine in the early 1980s. In 1990 of a new local news series for the North of England (no copies Henry was accorded pioneer status in the Cambridge Ency- of which still exist in the BBC archives) in September 1962. In clopedia’s entry on “Computer Art” (p. 289), following which 1963 Henry’s second drawing machine was to have been fea- he became one of its “quietest pioneers” [7]. tured in Life magazine but the assassination of President John Kennedy replaced the planned interview with George Will. HEnry in the 21st CEnTury Elaine O’Hanrahan (educator), 223 Manley Road, Manchester, M21 0RB, U.K. In 2005 I completed a contextual MPhil thesis at Liver- Email: <[email protected]>. pool John Moores University (U.K.), and in 2007 launched See <mitpressjournals.org/leon/toc/51/2> for supplemental files related to this issue. <desmondhenry.com>. Since his rediscovery [8], Henry’s work has been linked to generative art processes [9] and Article Frontispiece. D.P. Henry, Untitled, no. 054, Drawing Machine Two, white Indian ink in tube pen on red cartridge paper; hand embellishments: black his preoccupation with mechanical movement related to and white highlighting in Indian ink; 40 × 27 cm, 1964. (© Elaine O’Hanrahan) longstanding kinetic art traditions. Examples of Henry’s ©2018 ISAST doi:10.1162/LEON_a_01326 LEONARDO, Vol. 51, No. 2, pp. 157–162, 2018 157 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LEON_a_01326 by guest on 28 September 2021 PATHBREAKERS AND PIONEERS Fig. 1. D.P. Henry, German Gunlayer’s Head, no. H002, executed using Fig. 2. D.P. Henry, Untitled, no. H001, executed using duplicator ink, soot and Henry’s finger-rubbing technique on drawing paper, 40 × 31.5 cm, zinc-based baby ointment combined with Henry’s photochemical technique on 1951. (© Elaine O’Hanrahan) Exhibited at Henry’s solo exhibition at Manches- light-sensitive paper, 22 × 20.5 cm, 1961. (© Elaine O’Hanrahan) ter’s Central Reference Library, 1964. machine-generated art now feature in the “emerging national by a sense of optimism and enthusiasm for technology [14]. collection” [10] of computer-generated art at the Victoria Thanks to his wartime experience (1939–1946) with auto- & Albert Museum in London and in the extensive Anne matic fire-control technology, Henry was able to later convert and Michael Spalter computer arts collection. His machine- bombsight computers into drawing machines. generated images have been included in the exhibitions Dig- ital Pioneers (2009), Victoria & Albert Museum, London; The DrAwing MachinEs: Their insPiratiOn Kinetica Art Fair (2010), University of Westminster, London; Henry’s 1960s drawing machines were both inspired by, and Drawing with Code (2011), DeCordova Museum, Boston, based around, what had been cutting-edge World War II MA; Desmond Paul Henry: Manchester Pioneer of Computer technology: the bombsight computer, whose internal mov- Art (2011), Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester; ing parts he described as “a veritable work of art in itself” and Digital Art (R)evolution (2013), Dédée Shattuck Gallery, [15]. Bombsights were analogue computers originally used Westport, MA. in bombers to calculate the accurate release of bombs onto their target. The bombardier entered information on height, ProphetiC ExponEnT of ArT air speed, wind direction and bomb weight into the computer AnD TechnOlOgy COllaboratiOn that then made the necessary calculations for when best to As early as 1962 Henry was convinced that his computer- release the bomb load. derived drawing machine represented “a foretaste of a new Henry purchased his first army surplus bombsight com- era in the history of the visual arts,” heralding a veritable puter in 1952. For nine years he admired the “graceful con- “revolution in art” [11]. Jasia Reichardt also recognized the volutions” [16] of its inner workings before converting the potential of the computer as a creative tool demonstrating “a bombsight into a drawing machine capable of capturing on radical extension in art media and techniques [that] . will paper the bombsight computer’s complex arrangement of increase the scope of art and contribute to its diversity” [12]. gear trains, cams, integrators and differentials in motion: In 1964, two years before Experiments in Art and Technol- “And then when you see the components dancing, it had the ogy was officially established in the States in 1966, Henry aesthetic fascination of watching a ballet dance” [17]. proposed the establishment of research centers to “facilitate For all his love of technology and science, Henry was the inception of a new phase of fruitful positive cooperation never inspired to explore the graphic potential of digital between art and technology” [13]. technology, even though he would have had access to the Ferranti Mark 1 at Manchester University, which in 1952 inFluEnces Christopher Strachey used to produce one of the very first Henry’s drawing machines were the product of an inventive digital art pieces, in the form of love letters. Henry, on the mind fueled by lifelong passions for both art and technology. other hand, expressed no interest in the opaque interface In his youth, Henry, like the general populace, was infected of the digital computer. What he relished above all was 158 O’Hanrahan, The Contribution of Desmond Paul Henry (1921–2004) to Twentieth-Century Computer Art Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LEON_a_01326 by guest on 28 September 2021 PATHBREAKERS observing the whole chain of cause and effect that the me- AND chanical components of the bombsight computer afforded him [18]. The mechanical analogue computer, was a work of art in itself, involving a most beautiful arrangement of gears, PIONEERS belts, cams, differentials and so on—it still retained in its working a visual attractiveness which has now vanished in the modern electronic counterpart [19]. DrAwing MachinE OnE In his letters to me [20], Henry described how in Drawing Machine One (1961–1962) (Figs 4 and 5), he redistributed the units so that, using only one servomotor, he perfected an original method of ensuring synchronicity and harmoniza- tion between the moving pen and the moving table. A wind- speed and air-speed integrator activated the pen or pens. The drawing paper lay on a table that rotated on a device for Fig. 3. D.P. Henry, Drawing Machine One, 1961–1962. (© Elaine O’Hanrahan) The mount frame of the original bombsight computer, together with variously rearranged internal components, may be clearly distinguished in this machine.
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