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Futures Past: Twenty Years of Arts Computing

 

CHArt Conference Proceedings, volume seven
2004

Abstracts

Painting Digital, Letting Go
James Faure Walker

Abstract
There was a time when paint software really did look spectacular. Audiences at trade shows gasped at the silky airbrush of the Quantel Paintbox, even at a colour printer. It didn’t matter what the image was, but the fact that you could scan and print a colour photo was amazing.

Among the many currents of contemporary art it no longer makes much sense to speak of ‘computer art’ as a special category. Painters know all about PhotoShop and inkjet prints. A ‘digital’ artist now has to produce images that hold their own in a less protected exhibition space, alongside paintings, prints, photos, videos and installations. In the past digital art was given an easy ride; it was a novelty, a niche art unpoliced by native commentators, hosted by cosy academic enclaves. If it was dismissed by the ‘art world’ this only reinforced the isolationist thinking, the sense that it was a secret underground whose day would come. It was actually riddled with clichés of geometric abstraction, and ideas of art so naïve as to make a seasoned critic wince. Equally, paint software developed by imitating the look of ‘natural media’, appealing to a hobbyist market – all portraits and seascapes - where any post-modern irony would fall flat.
As a painter who has been integrating digital and painterly methods the author of this paper has found it frustrating that connections are not made, that definitions and principles seem hard to grasp. This spectacular technology has not yet been properly absorbed. It could be time to let go of the idea that digital art is special just because it is digital. There remains the question of how to ‘paint’ with the technology, and this presentation will show some of the provisional answers that have emerged.

 

A Computer in the Art Room
Catherine Mason

Abstract
This paper introduces a little-recorded aspect of British arts education – the role played by educational institutions in the 1960s and 70s in fostering computer arts.

The influence of ‘basic design’, a new type of art education influenced by Bauhaus concepts, can be traced through art schools from its inception in the 1950s, with artists informed by cybernetics, through the 1960s with artists working in programmatic ways, to artists who actually used computers by the 1970s. Victor Pasmore and Richard Hamilton’s Basic Design Course was set up in 1953 at King's College, Durham University (at Newcastle upon Tyne). Roy Ascot’s Ground Course was created at Ealing Art School in 1961 and subsequently at Ipswich Civic College. From there, Stroud Cornock went on to found ‘Media Handling’ in 1968 at Leicester Polytechnic, with Cornock’s student Stephen Scrivener among the first cohort at the ‘Department of Experiment’ set up by systems artist Malcolm Hughes at the Slade School of Fine Art in 1972.

The creation of the Polytechnics, from the late 1960s onward, concentrated expensive resources into larger multi-disciplinary centres. In a number of institutions, the result was that artists had the opportunity to access expensive and specialist computer equipment and technical expertise (generally belonging to science or maths departments) for the first time.

Examples from a number of centres identified to date will be presented and the work created, equipment used and funding issues described. These include Coventry School of Art (in the process of becoming Lanchester Polytechnic), which produced the first computer animation created in a British art school, Hornsey School of Art (subsequently Middlesex Polytechnic), which produced one of the first packages for artists, PICASO (Picture Computer Algorithms Sub-routine Orientated) and the Institute of Computer Science, where Tony Pritchett created the Flexipede in 1967 - the first computer animated film in Britain.

Microanalysis as a Means to Mediate Digital Arts
Matthias Weiss

Abstract
It is an obvious fact that computer arts, and the fashionable ‘software art’, create their own recipients, disregarding the traditional art scene's public. Both the recipients and the art historians dealing with the relationship between computing and art are limited to a small number of specialists in a culture derived from the art and pop scene of the early 1990s.

Although there is an international history, one could ask what is really behind these works. Are programs like Autoshop (Ade Ward) or Forkbomb (Alex MacLean), to name two of the more prominent applications developed in recent years, something more than simply the dystopian misuse of programming language? Is there a formal and aesthetic motive? In this paper a thorough analysis within the realm of the micro-structure of each work will be presented, in order to discover the level of awareness of aesthetic problems, depicted via the means of programming language and programming itself as an artistic practice.

Furthermore it will be argued that contemporary practitioners do not quote, recall or reflect earlier explorations and practice in computer arts. One of the intentions of this paper is to close a ‘short-circuit’ between current and past investigations, with close consideration given to individual works of art.

Finally, this paper intends to demonstrate that computer arts, historically and currently, are able to maintain a new role in the field of new media arts, which should be taken seriously by art history in a classic manner but with a change in skills. Microanalysis of code is not a usual practice, but in order to uncover the type of relationship that exists between the arts and computer arts, this method is absolutely necessary, as will be shown in this paper.

Indexed Lights
Pierre R. Auboiron

Abstract
‘The proper artistic response to digital technology is to embrace it as a new window on everything that’s eternally human, and to use it with passion, wisdom, fearlessness and joy.’ (Ralph Lombreglia)

We live immersed in a global visual cacophony. Visual Culture is here and now, born of technological and scientific advances. Neither the hegemony of visuality, nor the role played by computers in its affirmation, need now be proved.

Since their emergence, digital technologies have fascinated many contemporary artists, although most pounce on these new and promising tools in an ill-considered way. Their productions thereby generally denote a manifest misunderstanding of digital issues. However some artists have a more considered approach to computers. An obvious example is the current practice of lighting public buildings using digital technology, a collaboration between artist and architect.

The first section of this paper outlines two artistic partnerships, each between an architect and a light designer working on a new approach to light. The partnerships are between Toyo Ito & Kaoru Mende in Japan, and Jean Nouvel & Yann Kersalé in France. Using very complex lighting systems made of captors and computers, they can materialise and visualise surrounding ‘natural’ phenomena like noises, human activity, draughts and the current of a river on the buildings themselves. Thereby they intend to make buildings fit back into their historical and socio-geographical environment.

The second section discusses in detail this novel social or environmental indexation of light. Using computers to make concepts and aspects of our everyday life visible and more tangible, these artists fight against the lack of interpersonal communication in today’s urban life. Computers allow artists to materialise phenomena we can no longer perceive because we have developed our visual sense to the detriment of our other senses.

The central argument of this paper could be summarised by this quote by Wyndham Lewis: ‘The artist is always engaged in writing a detailed history of the future because he is the only person aware of the nature of the present’ . Actually it shows that, with the benefit of hindsight, computers can help us live here and now instead of throwing us into a frantic individual rush to the future. This allows us to moderate the very widespread idea that computers are synonymous with cold and sanitised individuality.

Computer Poetry’s Neglected Debut
Wayne Clements

Abstract
This is a study of an early computer poetry installation, Computerized Haiku, and its recent recreation online by the author of this paper. The author sets Computerized Haiku in the context of his research into the role of instructions in art. Computerized Haiku was originally shown in what was probably the first major exhibition of computer art, Cybernetic Serendipity, at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London in 1968. The remade Computerized Haiku can be found at http://www.in-vacua.com/cgi-bin/haiku.pl (or via the index page at www.in-vacua.com).

Computerized Haiku, programmed by Margaret Masterman and Robert McKinnon Wood, avoided batch programming and, using the text processing language TRAC, enabled users to create their own poems. A comparison will be made between the Masterman/McKinnon Wood program and other examples of computerised literature. Computerized Haiku employed a template and a structured thesaurus (a series of lists of words to choose from and insert into the template). This paper suggests that much programming of computerised text has continued to follow this basic approach. PERL scripting language has been employed to recreate the work as faithfully as possible. There are however, some interesting differences. There is a second program available (at the above addresses) that makes ‘random haiku’. This was an idea Masterman mentioned but appears not to have followed up.

The online versions of Computerized Haiku are based upon Masterman’s essay in: Masterman, M. (1971) “Computerized Haiku”, in Reichardt, J. (Ed.) Cybernetics, Art and Ideas, London, Studio Vista, 175-184. This essay contains none of the original programming, so the author has been dependent on written descriptions. Masterman was interested in the reactions of users in a gallery setting. This has been acknowledged in the remade Computerized Haiku by adding a ‘visitor archive’. The difficulties and the differences that arise in trying to remake on the Internet a classic, but rather forgotten, work are discussed.

Sourcing the Index: Iconography and its Debt to Photography
Colum Hourihane

Abstract
This paper looks at the recent history of the Index of Christian Art as it faces the one hundredth anniversary of its foundation. The Index is at a critical stage in its development - with a large paper archive of text and images that are in need of digitisation and updating it has had to change and extend the aims of the founder to build on current technology while at the same time realising the value of past practices.

The Index has also had to adapt to current and immediate demands to make its resources available on the Internet. Policies and procedures have changed and the past has been built upon to create for the future. Now the largest archive of medieval art on the Internet, its acquisitions policy, for example, has altered significantly within the last five years. No longer the passive synthesis of published material, it has now actively taken on the role of publisher and much of the new material in the archive has never before been seen. It has also had to respond to new fields of study such as Coptic and Islamic art that have been driven by world-wide research and publication but which have previously remained on the fringes.

The Index has had a pivotal role in determining iconographical research throughout its history and as it faces the future this role has to be re-evaluated in the light of the impact of new technology and initiatives.

The Medium Was the Method: Photography and Iconography at the Index of Christian Art
Andrew E. Hershberger

Abstract
The Index of Christian Art is a well-known collection of over 200,000 photographs with corresponding iconographical text cards, an early form of hybrid media now being translated into digital formats, all created for their use and value in art historical investigations. This paper will examine the theory and practice behind the production of the photographs and text cards in the Index during two periods, focusing on the time when the Index began in the early twentieth century, and then speculating on how or whether that period has been transformed by the digital present.

In a recent history of the Index, Isa Ragusa claims that ’there was no model for the method of study of iconography that [Charles Rufus] Morey had in mind‘ when he founded the Index in 1917. With regard to the conference's focus on ‘Futures Past’ and on the practice of art history then and now, Ragusa’ s claim is not entirely correct. Instead, it will be argued that the medium of photography itself was the model for iconography during the first period of the Index's existence. What then does that mean for the digital moment the Index is in now? Is the new medium, the Internet and digital technology, likewise a model for iconography today at the Index?

The Good, the Bad and the Accessible: 30 years of using new technologies in BIAD Archives
Sian Everitt

Abstract
This paper reflects upon the use of new technologies in BIAD Archives over the past 30 years. BIAD Archives holds the archives and collections of Birmingham Institute of Art & Design (BIAD), a faculty of the University of Central England (UCE). BIAD Archives is a specialist repository that holds over 20 separate archives and collections, covering the fields of art and design education, museology and public art. The collections range in size from under 50 to over 40,000 items and contain a mix of paper documents and books as well as art works, photographs and artefacts.

BIAD Archives had been effectively closed to researchers for over 20 years. Despite the lengthy period of inaction, recent developments have been built on past experience. The original automated access system to the collections was developed in 1974, and is now fondly remembered as the ‘Jiggling Box’. In 1987 a catalogue to one of the collections was created as a Strix database, which unfortunately lacked a digital preservation or migration strategy. More recently, in 2001, a Microsoft Access catalogue database was developed in an attempt to overcome the incompatibilities in archival and museum collection management and cataloguing standards.

Recently reawakened in a digital age, a strategic approach has also been taken to utilising collaborative regional and national digital initiatives to increase access to BIAD Archives. This has included collection-level descriptions, the creation of digital catalogue records, images and surrogates and the almost inevitable website. Currently plans are in development to adopt a user-centred design process in the creation of an online catalogue.

This paper considers the successes and the disappointments of 30 years of initiative and collaboration. It comments on the lessons learned in trying to harness the potential of computers to manage and interpret diverse collections.

Successes and Failures in the Web Delivery of Object Information at the V&A
Melanie Rowntree

Abstract
With the V&A’s first database-driven, object information interface on the web entering its second year of delivery, now seems the perfect time to review its history of presenting collections data online. This presentation will focus on four projects, looking at the planning and implementation of content creation, the resultant successes and failures and the potential for the re-purposing of data.

The four initiatives under review will be: Images Online, the V&A’s first attempt at web delivery of its collections data; the British Galleries Online (BGO), a gallery interactive database developed for the renovated British Galleries; Exploring Photography, which began in 1998 as an interactive kiosk in the Cannon Photography Gallery that was put on the web in April 2003; and, finally, Access to Images (AtoI), the most recent initiative, which delivers content for around 17,000 objects directly from the Museum’s Collections Information System (CIS).

Both Images Online and Exploring Photography were locked into the V&A website as static web pages, thus restricting any data re-purposing. The search capability of both was also severely limited. Unfortunately, the implications were not considered during the planning of content creation. The BGO also suffers from limited re-use of the content as its data sits in a purpose-built project database, rather than the V&A’s primary object database. By learning from these three projects, staff planning Access to Images were careful that data be derived from primary source systems and delivered to a web interface with full search capabilities. With AtoI there is no problem with re-purposing data as it is refreshed from the live system.

There are, however lessons to be learned for the future development of AtoI. Although good practice in content creation and data re-purposing has created a solid foundation, the current interface must serve varied users with differing needs and experiences. Both BGO and Exploring Photography provide extensive layers of contextual information to users as well as personal guided tours that help mediate the information for the user. They contain many ingredients which will be vital in making AtoI intellectually engaging and fun to use. In combining lessons learned from all four projects, the Museum may define a path for ongoing improvements to web presentation of its collections data.

This is the Modern World: Collaborating with ARTstor
Vickie O’Riordan

Abstract
January 2002 marked the beginning of a valuable collaboration between the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the University of California, San Diego Libraries. A substantial grant from the Mellon Foundation gave the UCSD Libraries slide collection the opportunity and capability to contribute a significant amount of images and associated cataloguing data to ARTstor.

The UCSD slide collection, started in the early 1970s, contains 250,000 slides, the majority created from Copy Stand photography. A library resource, the slide collection is used campus-wide by UCSD faculty and students. It contains a robust collection of art images from a wide range of time periods and cultures, as well as a substantial number of images from the humanities and social sciences. When the slide collection went online in the mid-1980s the decision was made to create a full catalogue record for each slide complete with subject headings. In the early 1990s the slide records were moved into the UCSD Library catalogue and mapped to MARC.
This paper will cover the following four areas:

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