DOCSLIB.ORG

Alan Sutcliffe - a Memoir

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Alan Sutcliffe - a Memoir From EMS synthesizers to ‘Alien’: Alan Sutcliffe - A Memoir March 2014 George Mallen remembers his friend and colleague Alan Sutcliffe and his contributions to the computer arts. The news of Alan's death was a shock and stirred many memories. He was such an important influence on my life and work and his presence is stamped all over the diverse activities of our careers in computing. I first met Alan around 1966 when he was head of a software development unit in ICL. He was originally a mathematician and had a keen interest in music. Our meeting came about through developments for the Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition in 1967. Alan was working with composer Peter Zinovieff who was developing electronic music and had created a company called EMS (Electronic Music Studios) which built and sold synthesisers. The electronics engineer who helped Peter and Alan, Mark Dowson, also worked for me at System Research Ltd where he created the electronics for an exhibit called Colloquy of Mobiles designed by Gordon Pask. Peter's studio / lab was in Putney close to the ICL office on Putney Bridge and System Research was in Richmond so moving between EMS and System Research was relatively straightforward and it was during one of the project meetings in Putney that I met Alan. We shared interests in the wider applications of computing and software and a year or so later, after Cybernetic Serendipity, we both attended the IFIP Congress in Edinburgh in 1968 and lobbied the BCS to create a Specialist Group to encourage artists to get access to computers and use them for creative purposes. A couple of months later the Computer Arts Society was formed with Alan as Chairman, John Lansdown as Secretary and me as Treasurer. Alan's many and major contributions to computer art over the half century of his involvement will be acknowledged elsewhere but certainly the Computer Arts Society wouldn't have come into being and wouldn't have survived without Alan's deeply held belief that such a thing should exist and his knowlwedge of the ways of the British Computer Society that was needed to make it happen. Alan's style of chairing CAS meetings was distinctive - the primacy of the ‘conversation’ about ideas, techniques and tools and art work was all important but also bringing anyone with the slightest interest or potential contribution to computer art into the fold. There was a vague acknowledgement that procedures and some bureacracy was necessary - but as little as possible! However Alan and I worked together on many other ventures besides CAS. In the late 60s I had left System Research Ltd and founded System Simulation Ltd (SSL) to continue research, with my colleague Mike Elstob, into the uses of simulation to help design crime intelligence systems. Our first contract was with the Home Office Police Scientific Development Branch which allowed both Mike and I to complete the groundwork for our respective PhD projects. By this time Alan had become somewhat disenchanted with the corporate constraints at ICL and left. He joined us in SSL in our tiny office above an antiquarian bookshop in Twickenham and soon got some work in on computer graphics. I think our first media project was an Alan led animation sequence for an advertisement for Gilbey's Gin commissioned by the ad agency Young & Rubicam. I was discussing this with Alan last time I saw him just before Christmas and wondering how we got the stuff plotted. My belief is that we got John Lansdown to do it and that was John's intro to the commercial media world. Alan wasn't so sure so there's a bit of research needed to nail that one. Thus Alan was a key part of SSL from roughly 1973 to 1983. That decade was such a creative period, we got involved in so many diverse software adventures - pioneering applications in media graphics, simulation of industrial processes, computer aided design, corporate decision support in both public and private sectors, indexing systems for book publishers, computer art exhibitions... and other things where memory is porous. In 1977 SSL moved from Twickenham to John Lansdown's architectural practice in Russell Square. John became Chairman and Mike Stapleton joined us to add real computer science muscle to our armoury. It was then that we were contracted by 20th Century Fox to provide computer graphics for Ridley Scott's ‘Alien’. Alan's key contribution was the terrain model for the landing site for the Nostromo space ship. We had a styrofoam model made and Alan digitised that for the 3D representation on the flight deck computer screens as the spaceship landed. A real complement to Alan's creation was a query we had from some intelligence agency in the US as to whether we'd had access to some of their on going work on terrain models because the screen representation was very similar to theirs (they said, but we heard no more). With hindsight it is clear that the Alien project was some kind of culmination of the combined skills of CAS and SSL crossing disciplinary and cultural boundaries. Alan, John and I had worked closely together on many projects, from the Ecogame project for Davos in 1969/70 through to Alien in 1979 and the Channel 4 logo in 1982 and many stops in between. What can one say of a personal / professional relationship that survived almost 50 years? It worked, was great fun and produced results, but true to form, little money! I mourn Alan as friend, colleague and mentor, a good companion in the uncharted regions of software application where we found our inspiration. System simulation - Uniquely experienced .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Siggraph 1986
    ACM SIGGRAPH 86 ART SHOW ART SHOW CHAIR CONFERENCE CO-CHAIRS Patric Prince Ellen Gore California State University, Los Angeles ISSCO Raymond L. Elliott Los Alamos National Laboratory ART SHOW COMMITTEE Maxine D. Brown Maxine Brown Associates SPACE COMMITTEE Donna J. Cox Darcy Gerbarg University of Illinois School of Visual Arts Paul Allen Newell Barbara Mones Abel Image Research Montgomery College Sylvie Rueff John. C. Olvera Jet Propulsion Laboratory North Texas State University Gary Walker Jet Propulsion Laboratory PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE Gayle Westrate Independent Deborah Sokolove Colman PHOTOGRAPHS Monochrome Color ESSAYS Herbert W. Franke John Whitney Ken Knowlton Frank Dietrich Patric Prince LISTS OF WORKS Tho-dimensional/Three-dimensional Works Installations Animations FRONT COVER CREDIT ISBN 800-24 7-7004 © 1986 ACM SIGGRAPH © 1985 David Em, Zotz I 1986 ACM SIGGRAPH ART SHOW: A RETROSPECTIVE Since the mid-Sixties, computer art has been seen in museums and galleries world-wide, with several recent major exhibitions. However, the pieces shown were usually the artists' newer works. It is appropriate and pertinent at this year's exhibition to show computer-aided art in the context of that which went before. The 1986 art show traces the development of computer art over the past twenty-five years through the work of artists who have been involved with it from its inception. The 1986 art show is the fifth exhibition of fine art that ACM SIGGRAPH has sponsored in conjunction with its annual SIGGRAPH conference. Patric D. Prince ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank Louise Ledeen for her support and advice, the Art Show committee for their billions and billions of donated hours, and the nucleus of dedicated volunteers who have worked diligently to produce this art show.
    [Show full text]
  • Bulletin of the Computer Arts Society Spring 2005
    BULLETIN OF THE COMPUTER ARTS SOCIETY SPRING 2005 STEPHEN WILLATS: An Interview on Art, Cybernetics and Social Intervention George Mallen Background Stephen Willats is an artist whose works have explored new dimensions of the relationship between artist, audience and society. He has pursued the idea that the real function of art is to be a catalyst for changing thinking, the artist preferably anonymous and certainly working outside the conventional galleries framework. His works span a wide range - writings (he started and still publishes Control Magazine, his books include "Art and Social Function"), drawings, constructed electronic and interactive pieces and the important social or community projects. An exhaustive listing of his works is at www.lumentravo.nl/bio/stem.htm His early work did not use computers as such though he built his own special purpose devices to control his electronic pieces and the large-scale interactive works. His social project for the Computer Arts Society's INTERACT exhibition in Edinburgh in 1973 did however use a very early portable teletype terminal for the street interviews carried out in Leith and Edinburgh. This was highly innovative in those days. My interest in Stephen's work stems from his intuitive response to the complex issues linking art, technology and the artist's social roles, and his ability to move these forward through insight, technical capability and a broad social comprehension. I was trying to address such issues through the lens of science and had been impressed by the apparent solidity and confidence of his "way of knowing". The Cybernetic 60s Stephen and I are both uncertain when we first met.
    [Show full text]
  • Creating Continuity Between Computer Art History and Contemporary Art
    CAT 2010 London Conference ~ 3rd February Bruce Wands _____________________________________________________________________ CREATING CONTINUITY BETWEEN COMPUTER ART HISTORY AND CONTEMPORARY ART Bruce Wands Chair, MFA Computer Art Director of Computer Education Director, New York Digital Salon School of Visual Arts 209 East 23 Street New York, NY 10010 USA [email protected] www.mfaca.sva.edu www.nydigitalsalon.org Computer art was started by a small group of pioneering artists who had the vision to see what digital tools and technology could bring to the creative process. The technology at the time was primitive, compared to what we have today, and these artists faced resistance from the traditional art establishment. Several organizations, such as the New York Digital Salon, were started to promote digital creativity through exhibitions, publications and websites. This paper will explore how to create continuity between computer art history and a new generation of artists that does not see making art with computers as unusual and views it as contemporary art. INTRODUCTION The origins of computer art trace back over fifty years as artists began to experiment and create artwork with new technologies. Even before computers were invented, photography, radio, film and television opened up new creative territories. Many people point to the photographs of abstract images taken of an oscilloscope screen that Ben Laposky called Oscillons as some of the first electronic art images, which foreshadowed the development of computer art. While the system he used was essentially analog, the way in which the images were created was through mathematics and electronic circuitry. Another artist working at that time was Herbert Franke, and as the author of Computer Graphics – Computer Art, originally published in 1971, and followed in 1985 by an expanded second edition, he began to document the history of computer art and the artists who were involved.
    [Show full text]
  • British Computer Art 1960-1980
    White Heat Cold Logic British Computer Art 1960–1980 Edited by Paul Brown, Charlie Gere, Nicholas Lambert, and Catherine Mason The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England ( 2008 Birbeck College All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. For information about special quantity discounts, please email [email protected] .edu. This book was set in Garamond 3 and Bell Gothic on 3B2 by Asco Typesetters, Hong Kong. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data White heat cold logic : British computer art 1960–1980 / edited by Paul Brown . [et al.]. p. cm.—(Leonardo books) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 978-0-262-02653-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Computer art—Great Britain. 2. Art, British—20th century. I. Brown, Paul, 1947 Oct. 23– N7433.84.G7W45 2008 776.0941—dc22 2008016997 10987654321 Index 010101: Art in Technological Times, 415 Air Force Office of Scientific Research, 192 2000 AD, 307 Air Loom, 412 2001: A Space Odyssey, 171, 224 AISB. See Society for the Study of Artificial 20th Century Fox, 201, 223 Intelligence and the Simulation of Behavior A&L. See Art & Language Alan Stone Gallery, 422 AA. See Architectural Association Albers, Josef, 265 AARON, 4, 134, 145, 147–150, 276– Aldeburgh Festival, 182 277, 396, 422 Aldermaston March, 164 Abel, Robert, 399 ALGOL, 328 Abstract expressionism, 249–250, 291 Alien, 188–189, 199, 201, 315, 326 Abstraction, 4, 32n18, 122, 124, 248–249, Alife.
    [Show full text]
  • Hiroshi Kawano (1925–2012) (Fig
    pioneers and pathbreakers Pioneers and Pathbreakers Hiroshi Kawano (1925–2012) Japan’s Pioneer of Computer Arts S i m o n e G R i st w o o d Hiroshi Kawano was one of the earliest pioneers of the use of computers in the arts in Japan, and indeed the world, publishing his first ideas about aesthetics and computing in 1962 and computer-generated images in 1964. This paper provides an introductory overview to ABSTRACT Kawano’s work and influences from his earliest studies in aesthetics and his interest in the work of Max Bense in the 1950s, to his change of approach in the 1970s through his developing interest in artificial intelligence, until his final exhibition, a retrospective of his work held at the ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie in 2011. This paper utilizes previously unused sources including interviews conducted by the author with Kawano in 2009 and subsequent correspondence, as well as Kawano’s rich archive that was donated to ZKM in 2010. Hiroshi Kawano (1925–2012) (Fig. 1) was one of Japan’s fore- most pioneers in computer arts. He was the first in Japan to begin investigations into the possibilities of using computing technology in the arts in the early 1960s, and took a unique position as a philosopher and aesthetician who approached Fig. 1. Hiroshi Kawano (at left) with designs for Simulated Colour Mosaic. computing technologies with a view to experimenting with (Photo © Simone Gristwood.) aesthetic theory, rather than as an artist or engineer. His work in this area spanned five decades, covering visual arts, music, poetry, theory and philosophy relating to computing.
    [Show full text]
  • Tape Leaders Tape Leaders Ian Helliwell a Compendium of Early British Electronic Music Composers
    Tape Leaders Tape Tape Leaders Ian Helliwell A Compendium of Early British Electronic Music Composers In the form of a richly illustrated compendium, Tape Leaders is an indispensable reference guide for anyone interested in electronic sound and its origins in Great Britain. For the first time a book sets out information on practically everyone active with experimental electronics and tape recording across the country, to reveal the untold stories and hidden history of early British electronic music. With an individual entry for each composer, starting with Daevid Allen and going through to Peter Zinovieff, it covers everyone from the Early British A Compendium of famous names of William Burroughs, Brian Eno and Joe Meek, to the ultra-obscure Roy Music Composers Electronic Cooper, Donald Henshilwood and Edgar Vetter. There are sections for EMS and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, as well as amateurs, groups and ensembles that experimented with electronics, including the Beatles, Hawkwind and White Noise. Author Ian Helliwell draws on his experience and research into electronic music, and after six years and dozens of interviews, has amassed information never before brought to light in this fascinating subject. With a specially compiled 15 track CD of mainly unreleased early British tape and synthesizer works, this is an essential volume for anyone with an interest in the history of electronic music during the 1950s and 60s. Collages and cover design by Ian Helliwell Published by www.tapeleaders.co.uk Images from Project Alpha by Cyril Clouts 36 synthesizer seen in Australia, and remained for six years as a senior Hugh Davies (1943-2005) lecturer in electro-acoustic composition and music technology.
    [Show full text]
  • Computer Art at the V&A
    V&A Online Journal Issue No. 2 Autumn 2009 ISSN 2043-667X Computer art at the V&A Honor Beddard Curator, Word and Image Department, V&A The arrival of the computer into both the creative process and the creative industries is perhaps one of the most culturally significant developments of the last century. Yet until recently, few, if any, UK museums have collected material that comprehensively illustrates and charts this change. The donation of two substantial collections of computer-generated art and design to the Word and Image Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum offers the opportunity to redress this. The donations have considerably strengthened our holdings in this area and the museum is now home to the national collection of computer-generated art Figure 1 - Frieder Nake, 'Hommage à Paul Klee, 13/9/65 Nr.2', 1965. Screenprint after a plotter and design. These acquisitions will allow the drawing. Museum no. E.951-2008. Given by the museum to re-assess the impact of the American Friends of the V&A through the generosity of Patric Prince. computer's arrival and to attempt to position these works within an art historical context for the first time. The importance of such an endeavour has been recognised by the awarding of a substantial Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) grant to the V&A and Birkbeck College, University of London. Since 2007, research has focused on investigating the origins of computer-generated art from the 1950s, and its development through subsequent decades. As well as full documentation and cataloguing of the collections, the V&A is organising a temporary display entitled 'Digital Pioneers', opening in December 2009, which will draw almost entirely from the newly acquired collections and recent acquisitions.
    [Show full text]
  • Art in Flux at Event Two
    http://dx.doi.org/10.14236/ewic/EVA2019.33 Art in Flux at Event Two Aphra Shemza Maria Almena Oliver Mag Gingrich FLUX Events FLUX Events FLUX Events Fountayne Road, 5 Fountayne Road, 2, Oliver House, N15 London, UK N15 London, UK W11 London, UK [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] 1. INTRODUCTION John Lansdown decided to mark the beginnings of the UK’s pre-eminent artist run organisation for Founded in 2016 at Light of Soho by the artists computer-generated art. Presenting some of the Maria Almena, Oliver Gingrich and Aphra Shemza, most radical media artists of their time, Event One FLUX Events is a charitable organization can be seen as a landmark exhibition for the media committed to furthering the development of the arts in the UK, assembling some of its most radical media arts community in the UK. As an artist-led artists in a single space. forum, FLUX was created out of a perceived necessity to bring artists together to discuss prevalent topics in the Media Arts in the UK. 3. EVENT TWO FLUX offers a space for collaboration and FLUX has been invited to take part in the Event exchange as key artists and organizations come Two exhibition at the Royal Academy in July 2019, together to profile their work. Through talks events, in collaboration with EVA, the Computer Arts performance evenings, workshops, demonstrations Society and the Lumen Prize. It is an important and exhibitions, FLUX offers a space for opportunity for FLUX to curate and provide a contemplation, consideration and discussion, but platform for contemporary media artists.
    [Show full text]
  • The CAS50 Exhibition and Collection
    http://dx.doi.org/10.14236/ewic/EVA2019.17 The CAS50 Exhibition and Collection Sean Clark Interact Digital Arts Ltd Leicester, UK [email protected] The Computer Arts Society was established in the UK in 1968 and pioneered the development of digital arts in the UK and worldwide. In this paper I present some background to the formation of the Society and document the exhibition organised to help celebrate 50 years since the founding of the Society. Suggestions for the on-going development of what is now being referred to as the “CAS50 Collection” are also presented. Computer Arts Society. Computer art. Digital art. Art exhibition. 1. THE COMPUTER ARTS SOCIETY outside their own team before. Sutcliffe collated the names of interested individuals and the group In 1968 the three founder members of the formed out of this, with the first meetings in London Computer Arts Society – Alan Sutcliffe, George held in a room belonging to University College Mallen and John Lansdown – had been involved London, in or near Gower Street in September with computing and its related topics for some time. 1968. Subsequent meetings were often held at the They knew Jasia Reichardt, the curator the of offices of Lansdown’s architectural practice (he Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition in 1968 became the Secretary with Sutcliffe the Chairman (Reichardt 1968) and had participated in, or and Mallen, Treasurer). advised, on various aspects of the show. The Computer Arts Society was founded with the Sutcliffe was involved with the Cybernetic aim of encouraging the creative use of computers Serendipity exhibition through his collaboration with and to allow the exchange of information in this composer Peter Zinovieff and Electronic Music area.
    [Show full text]
  • Bulletin of the Computer Arts Society Spring 2005
    BULLETIN OF THE COMPUTER ARTS SOCIETY SPRING 2005 STEPHEN WILLATS: An Interview on Art, Cybernetics and Social Intervention George Mallen Background Stephen Willats is an artist whose works have explored new dimensions of the relationship between artist, audience and society. He has pursued the idea that the real function of art is to be a catalyst for changing thinking, the artist preferably anonymous and certainly working outside the conventional galleries framework. His works span a wide range - writings (he started and still publishes Control Magazine, his books include "Art and Social Function"), drawings, constructed electronic and interactive pieces and the important social or community projects. An exhaustive listing of his works is at www.lum entravo.nl/bio/stem.htm His early work did not use computers as such though he built his own special purpose devices to control his electronic pieces and the large-scale interactive works. His social project for the Computer Arts Society's INTERACT exhibition in Edinburgh in 1973 did however use a very early portable teletype terminal for the street interviews carried out in Leith and Edinburgh. This was highly innovative in those days. My interest in Stephen's work stems from his intuitive response to the complex issues linking art, technology and the artist's social roles, and his ability to move these forward through insight, technical capability and a broad social comprehension. I was trying to address such issues through the lens of science and had been impressed by the apparent solidity and confidence of his "way of knowing". The Cybernetic 60s Stephen and I are both uncertain when we first met.
    [Show full text]
  • Computer Scientists As Early Digital Artists
    Solvita Zariņa Computer Scientists as Early Digital Artists SCIENTIFIC PAPERS, UNIVERSITY OF Latvia, 2011. Vol. 770 COMPUTER SCIENCE AND INFOrmatiON TECHNOLOGIES 112–123 P. Computer Scientists as Early Digital Artists Solvita Zariņa Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Latvia 29 Raina blvd., Riga, LV-1459, Latvia [email protected] Computer graphics and early computer art are practically of the same age as computers. Since the moment when graphical output devices became available people started to use them for experiments in art. This paper attempts to analyze the early computer art in context of its authors’ opinions. There are outstanding examples of collaboration between computer scientists, software programmers and 20th century artists. Some recent media art events in Latvia are mentioned from this viewpoint. Keywords: computer graphics, computer art, digital art. 1 Introduction The first visual examples created by using an analogue computer appeared in the mid-1950s in the United States and Germany. We can find some experiments with oscilloscope images even before the stage of electronic graphics. The point of interest is why anybody dares to call these pieces the art. We can prove it from the viewpoint of the history of art of the 20th century. Art forms, such as cubism, Dada, futurism, naïve art, primitivism, constructivism, suprematism and kinetic art, had already emerged before and were widely considered to be the art forms in the middle of the century. Abstract expressionism was one of the major stylistic approaches in the US at that time. Therefore, three things characterising the first examples of computer art are: art as a process not only as a result (Dada), non-professional artists (naïve and primitive art) and abstract, non-representative art forms (suprematism, constructivism, abstractionism) have been already accepted by art theoreticians, gallery and museum curators, as well as by general public in the Western world.
    [Show full text]
  • Bulletin of the Computer Arts Society Special Cache Issue Editorial Contents Summer 2004
    PAGE 57 Bulletin of the Computer Arts Society Summer 2004 Special CACHe Issue Contents Editorial Editorial 1 Welcome to issue 57 of PAGE. The last time I edited a copy was over 20 years ago. Back then the text came on phototypeset galleys of bromide paper and had to be cut Features out (with a real scalpel) and pasted down (with real cow gum) onto layout card. Much care needed to be taken The CACHe Project: to ensure everything aligned to the horizontal, Line art- Aims and Outcomes, Dr. Nick Lambert 2 work was drawn using a technical pen and the positions Routes Towards British Computer Arts: of photographs were indicated with grey rectangles to be Educational Institutions, Catherine Mason 5 stripped in later by the neg compositor. Colour was for- bidden - much too expensive! Computers, Poetry and the Nature of Art Robin Shirley 9 A few years later the Apple Mac arrived on the scene and the world changed forever. Today I’m sitting in front The Computer Arts: Origins and Contexts of my inexpensive iMac and Adobe’s InDesign software Paul Brown 11 enables me to lay out this copy of PAGE in a fraction of the time and with much greater flexibility than was ever possible back then. Reviews My nostalgia conveniently brings me to the subject of Harold Cohen at TATE Modern this special issue of PAGE. It’s a product of the CACHe Catherine Mason 14 project at Birkbeck College. This AHRB-funded research program is preserving and contextualising the early days Robin Oppenheimer on Lightshows of the computer arts and one of its outcomes was the Nick Lambert 14 recent re-formation of the Computer Arts Society and the British New Media at TATE Modern re-establishment of PAGE.
    [Show full text]