Daniel Brown, screenshot from series On Growth and Form, real-time 3D, 2013. Collection of the University of Dundee, copyright the artist, reproduced with permission.
Services who have been working with theArt Fund on a £100,000 project to explore the influence of Sir D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson in the visual arts. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the Dundee Collections and the Thompson connection, this grant funding has uniquely facilitated the creation of an art work itself with an interdisciplinary concept at its heart – On Growth and Form by Daniel Brown. Read the full article here: http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/50050
Herbert W Franke, Intarsien7024Var1, 2012. Generated with a digital picture-generator named Intarsia, programmed with the software system Mathematica for the Demonstration Project of Stephen Wolfram. Copyright the artist, reproduced with permission.
This month, to compliment the previous two discussions of Manfred Mohr
and Ernest Edmonds in my monthly BCS column, we feature new work by another of the great pioneers of algorithmic art – Prof. Herbert Franke. I am especially honored to be able to share with you the first sight of one of his new graphics from the series Intarsia, a striking art work which demonstrates his interest in complex patterns and seems to pulsate with kaleidoscopic qualities. Full article here: http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/49847
Ernest Edmonds, Shaping Space, 2012. Copyright the artist, reproduced with permission.
For over forty years Ernest Edmonds has had an interest in interactivity and his current
exhibition at Site Gallery Sheffield demonstrates a career-long conversation between drawing, painting and computer-based work. Ernest is our BCS featured artist of the month, read about Shaping Space here: http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/49266
Here I am enjoying Ernest’s show which continues until 2 February.
Dario Lanza, Watersun Vision number 04, C-print, unique, 120x100cm, 2012
My article for the British Computer Society this month is a selection submitted by readers of this column and members of the Computer Arts Society. The high standard and sheer variety of works produced under what might be termed computer art , never ceases to amaze me and if you are as intrigued as I am to discover what your colleagues and fellow aficionados of the computational process have produced over the course of 2012, then don’t miss it : http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/49107 See new work by Richard Colson, Anabela Costa, Dario Lanza (featured above), Fabrizio Poltronieri, Brian Reffin Smith and Andrew Welsby.
Craig Morrison and Joel Cockrill, Thank You, an artwork dedicated to Alan Turing. blinc Festival, 2012. Copyright the artists, reproduced with permission.
Alan Turing Year 2012 continues apace with a variety of events inspired by the great contribution made by the mathematician and code breaker to the history of computer science and modern biology. For this month’s BCS column, we’re featuring the work of artists/curators Craig Morrison and Joel Cockrill who have been commissioned by the Arts Council of Wales to produce a laser and light installation honouring Turing’s life and legacy. Appropriately entitled Thank You, Craig and Joel’s piece will be shown at theblinc digital arts festival in Conway, North Wales, and is a thanks on behalf of the media arts world, based on the very digital materials that Turing helped to invent. According toTuring’s biographer, Turing believed in the survival of the spirit after death. Perhaps he was right; here we are remembering him nearly sixty years after his death, his legacy surrounding us in the ever-present technology we use every day. Read the full article here: http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/48180
Also recommended is this lecture on Turing by Cambridge historian Professor Christopher Andrew, who argues that it is no surprise that Turing’s great legacy has been overlooked: no other country other than our own great country has the ability to hide its secrets as we do. The belief that for 30 years after WWII it was necessary to keep the fact that Turing invented the world’s first computer a secret, meant that two generations of students grew up thinking that the single most important invention of the 20th & 21st centuries the computer was American.
BRUCE LACEY Rosa Bosom (from the Camden Arts Centre website)
Bruce Lacey created the robot Rosa Bosom, exhibited to great acclaim in Cybernetic Serendipity, along with a myriad of other robots, interactive and early computer artworks at the ICA in 1969 and I do hope that she will feature in this show at the Camden Arts Centre, opening this week (7 July – 16 September 2012). Rosa, who runs on lawnmover parts, later went on to win the ‘Alternative Miss World’ in 1985. You can see Rosa in action (and Lacey interviewed) in the beautifully presented BBC documentary about Andrew Logan and his outrageously wacky Alternative Miss World called The British Guide to Showing Off, 2011 (the DVD was released earlier this year). If you haven’t yet seen this, then I suggest you rent it post-haste as it is a fabulous film (with collage-style graphics slightly reminiscent of Monty Python). Andrew Logan, in common with many artists who don’t fit into the standard ‘Contemporary Art’ mould, (as articulated by the dominate and inter-related network of dealer/gallery/auction houses) has tended to be underestimated by the art world, more’s the pity as his work is colourful, fun and popular. But, as Brian Eno and Grayson Perry point out in this documentary, these facts have probably worked against him. A resistance in the art world and arts education to anything that is accessible and enjoyable, means that such art tends to become translated as lightweight. This limiting thought pattern believes that Popular must equal lowest common denominator, as if nothing of quality can ever be made if a lot of people like it; it’s profoundly snobbish said Brian Eno. It occurs to me that this point could be applied in many cases to the pioneers of computer arts, too.
In the Camden show Bruce Lacey is hailed as one of Britain’s great visionary artists. And yet many people will not have heard of him. Let us hope that this hastens an art world sea-change of re-discovery and celebration of the huge and varied senior population of (non-Turner-Prize winning) artists in Britain.
Kelly Richardson, still from Mariner 9, 2012. Copyright the artist, reproduced with permission.
Kelly Richardson’s new work premiering at Whitley Bay (from 3 August), asks questions about our future in space exploration. Featured here is a still from Mariner 9, a 12 meter-long panoramic digital video installation of an imagined Mars centuries into the future, littered with the detritus of long-forgotten expeditions, evidence of mankind’s once optimistic future reduced to scrap. This detail shows the NASA space rover Curiosity due to land on Mars in early August, in an (imagined) semi-defunct state. This art work has been acquired by the Laing Art Gallery, another fine example of important national insitutions engaging with and actively collecting art with a strong digital element (see also the John Gerrard recently acquired by mima).
Embroidered Digital Commons: Yarn (2009) Facilitated by Ele Carpenter, top: Amanda Thackray, bottom: Abi Nielsen; fabric and embroidery thread. Copyright the artist; reproduced with permission
This month’s article for the British Computer Society looks at Ele Carpenter’s on-going Open Source Embroidery Project and explores the strong historical and metaphorical connections between computers and textiles. This fascinating work, which consists of over 1,000 hand-embroidered patches (two are seen here) is based on the common characteristics of needlework crafts and open source computer programming. Read it in full:http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/45380
Jeremy Gardiner, St Aldhelm’s Head, 24 x 17 cm, 2012, 3D dome relief print. Copyright the artist; reproduced with permission
Jeremy Gardiner, the featured artist for the BCS this month, has spent decades exploring the ancient history of the Devon/Doreset coastline through his practice which employs a hybrid technique combining painting, drawing, printmaking, and use of digital technologies to which we can now add 3D printing. This relief model was made using solid freeform fabrication techniques (3D printing) from a series of cross sections of the landscape, based on LiDAR data and then hand painted. Read the full article here: http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/44574
Charles Csuri Different from Us, frame 001, war16 series, 2012, Linus environment and AL
This striking new work by one of the great pioneers of computer art Charles A. Csuri, references and expands one of his original ideas Random War, a plotter drawing created in 1966. Random War (2012), is a new online version which uses gaming logics and the Internet to re-create a hypothetical war, based on our own friends, with people wounded, dead, awarded medals or missing in action, using names gleaned from our Facebook account. There is a delicious irony in using technology originally designed for defense purposes to create art that speaks to the consequences of such use. This art work is a powerful comment on the human cost of war and a stark reminder that every conflict has an after effect. Full article here: http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/44253
