PAGE SIXTY TWO - SPECIAL TERMINATE CACHe ISSUE Bulletin of the Computer Arts Society - Northern Hemisphere Autumn 2005 EDITORIAL ACHe (Computer Arts, Contexts, Histories, etc...) - the three-year CONTENTS Cproject researching the origins of the computer arts in the UK - finished in September 2005. It has produced a number of important outcomes Editorial 1 which are detailed in this special issue of PAGE. In 1999 I was awarded an Australia Council for the Arts New Media Blast From the Past 3 Arts Fellowship. It offered me a two-year income to pursue my practice Some Reflections on the and, for the first year of the fellowship (2000) I accepted an invitation to History of Early British become artist-in-residence at the Centre for Computational Neuroscience Computer Art and the CACHe and Robotics and School of Cognitive and Computer Science at the Project 4 University of Sussex. I had left England 12 years before, resigning my post as Head of the UK’s National Centre for Computer Aided Art and Design The Cache Project as seen by (NCCAAD) and Centre for Advanced Studies in Computer Aided Art and its Research Fellow 5 Design (CASCAAD) at Middlesex Polytechnic (now University) to I met George for lunch and we End of Project Report - become Director of the Computer convened a meeting to discuss how the Cultural Institutions 9 Imaging Program at Swinburne to properly conserve this important A Personal Letter from the Institute (also now a University) in historical collection. Tony Sweeney, Philippines 10 Melbourne, Australia. My successor then Deputy Director of the National as Head of NCCAAD & CASCAAD Museum of Photography, Film and Television and now Director of the Anna Valentina Murch’s Tent was John Lansdown. at Interact 11 John was an old friend and Australian Centre for the Moving mentor. We had first met in the mid Image (ACMI) in Melbourne was The CBI North West Export 1970’s when I joined the Computer there. Phil Husbands and Owen Award 12 Arts Society. After I left for Australia Holland who were then researching we bumped into each other in their history of cybernetics in the Announcements 15 UK also attended. But I think the most unusual places. Once it About CAS 16 was in the bar of the Holiday Inn, it was Bronac Ferran of Arts Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco Council England who suggested – an unusual encounter as John that we should apply for a grant was a teetotaller. Another time I from the then relatively new Arts Guest Editor Paul Brown was sharing a coffee with a friend and Humanities Research Board Sub-Editor Celeste Brignac in one of the trendy confectionary (AHRB), now Council (AHRC). shops in Sydney’s Glebe Point Road when Dorothy, John’s wife, came in to buy some cakes. In general I had not maintained many contacts with professional colleagues in the UK after leaving for Australia. Trips home had focussed on relatives. So my fellowship offered a unique opportunity to re-network into the community I had left 12 years before. Almost the first news I heard was that John had died. I phoned Dorothy to give my condolences and couldn’t resist asking about the amazing collection of artworks and memorabilia that John had accrued over the years in the basement of their Russell Square apartment. Dorothy told me that George Mallen had moved CAS members viewing the Patric Prince Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum at a most of it into System Simulation’s meeting convened and led by Doug Dodds (centre left). This important donation to the V&A offices in Covent Garden Plaza. was facilitated by the CACHe project and is one of its many outcomes. TERMINATE CACHe PAGE 62 page We would need an academic Catherine had graduated from the projects with similar goals. In base for the project and George HAFVM department at Birkbeck particular we met a broad spectrum introduced me to Charlie Gere who before running a successful artist’s of teachers of “new media” who was then in charge of the computer agency. She was keen to upgrade confirmed our belief that there is program in the History of Art, Film her qualifications and had a special an urgent need for documentation and Visual Media Department interest in the arts history of the of these largely forgotten histories (HAFVM) at Birkbeck. The three of period we were investigating. of the discipline. So this popular us worked together to develop an The project officially began in book is intended to fill this gap application to the AHRB which was October 2002. We sifted through and will have lots of images and submitted in 2001. We proposed the old CAS records and began a short, non-challenging text. It is to focus on the first two decades to Google the names of pioneers aimed at the interested layperson, – the 1960’s and ‘70’s – prior to the as they came to light. Amazingly undergraduates and high school introduction of the “user friendly” many were found and most had students and will be published by PC systems. In December 2001 I their own archives of the period. the ICA, Singapore in late 2006. was back in Australia and, as the It soon became obvious that we Nick, who now works deadline for notification had passed, had underestimated the amount of permanently for Birkbeck, together had given up much hope of being material that still existed and that with Jeremy Gardiner (of Thames successful. Then, late one evening, we had been wildly overoptimistic Valley University) and Doug I got a call from Charlie. It was first about our ability to process and Dodds from the V&A have recently thing in the morning in London and assess everything we found. submitted an application to the he’d just opened his mail. We’d got Elsewhere in this issue AHRC to continue the work of the money! each of the team members has building a national record of the Mid-year 2002 saw me back the opportunity to tell their story. development of the computer in the UK and we interviewed for For my part I was pleased to arts. They will extend the period to the two funded positions. Nick meet up again with friends and include the advent of the personal Lambert, who was just about acquaintances I had not seen for computer in the 1980’s which to complete his DPhil in the Art decades. One major outcome of introduced the computer to a much History Department at Oxford this was the re-formation of the broader franchise. I’m sure all under Professor Martin Kemp, was Computer Arts Society in 2004. I the members of CAS will join me appointed as Research Fellow and am also working with Catherine in wishing them success in this Catherine Mason joined us as our to co-author one of the book important venture. PhD candidate. At Oxford Nick had outcomes of CACHe. A Machine And now I should leave it to my specialised in the computer arts with That Makes Art is intended to be colleagues to tell their own stories a focus on the USA-based Algorist a popular book about the origins of but, before I do I would like to take Group. He had also looked after the computer arts with a broader this opportunity to thank everyone the department’s computer systems – international – context than who has contributed to our research and had a significant experience in CACHe’s other outcomes which over these past three years. They the systems and software that we focus on the UK. During CACHe are far too numerous to mention would need to meet the challenge of we ran a number of seminars individually and I hope they will building the large online database, and birds-of-a-feather sessions not feel neglected by this blanket based on Software Simulation’s at major international gatherings acknowledgement. MUSIMS product that would act like ISEA and SIGGRAPH. We as the repository for our research. were pleased to find many other Paul Brown Guest Editor - PAGE 62 Melbourne, January 2006 aul Brown is an artist and writer Pand was the Visiting Research Fellow on the CACHe project. He is currently Visiting Professor in the Informatics Department, the Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics (CCNR) and the Centre for Cognitive Science (COGS) at the University of Sussex where he is involved in a project that attempts to evolve robots with creative behaviour. Antonio Berni; B/W silkscreen - untitled - date not known - one of the many images discovered in the CAS collection. page 2 PAGE 62 SPECIAL ISSUE Letter from Art Forum to Matthew Baigell (1967) regarding a manuscript on the work of computer arts pioneer Charles “Chuck” Csuri. This was just a year before the Studio International special issue - the catalogue of Cybernetic Serendipity. Courtesy Chuck Csuri. FROM PAGE 11, OCTOBER 970 Art today is the end of the road / It is a result / It is a static thing / The final result (and we really mean final) of creativity today is art pollution All artists who prostitute their functions in this way – All artists who use the title of avant-garde to help conserve the old elite – All artists who refuse to join in attacking the present system – Are shit. There is only one solution We must liquidate this crazy thing called art to make it possible for all people everywhere to be creative. … The artist must liquidate the art world by closing down art magazines, art councils and art museums because they are the tools of an irrelevant society.