VIS 159 final exam

w5--w9 study guide

Bell Labs

• One of the most important centers for early computer art and computer animation.

• Artists and engineers collaborated directly instead of working separately.

• Bell Labs gave artists access to expensive mainframe computers and programmers.

• The environment reflected the broader 1960s “Art + Technology” movement.

Ken Knowlton

Developer of Beflix, an Early Programming Language Designed for coding Computer animation

Stan VanDerBeek

experimental animator, developer of "Movie-Drome" Made early Beflix Films

Max Mathews

• “The father of Computer Music” WHo developed the early music Programing languages from which modern real-time music programing languages (Supercollider, etc.) are derived 

• Is shown in the film using “ Graphic 1” a graphical system connected to his music synthesis software. OIts and ancestor of today's graphical composition systems( Logic pro, Cubase, etc)

Beflix

• Created by Ken Knowlton.

• One of the first programming languages for computer animation.

  • Earliest widely known domain specific programing language for computer animation

• Name = “Bell Flicks.”

• Used symbols and commands to generate graphics frame-by-frame.

• Knowlton and VanDerbeek make films together

“Daisy Bell”

• Iconic piece of computer music history, produced at bell labs in 1961. Featuring a singing speech synth. Computer music was created by Mathews.

E.A.T.

Founded by:

• Billy Klüver

• Fred Waldhauer

• Robert Rauschenberg

• Robert Whitman.

Goal:

• Connect artists with engineers.

• Encourage technology-based artistic experimentation.

Famous event:

• 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering (1966)

• Combined performance art with advanced technology.

Expanded Cinema

Refers to forms of cinema that go beyond the traditional movie theater.

Includes:

• Multi-screen projection

• Immersive environments

• Interactive media

• Performance-based cinema

Often blurred boundaries between:

• Film

• Installation

• Performance

• Technology

Why is Expanded Cinema important

• Helped lead toward virtual reality, interactive media, and immersive installations.

• VanDerBeek coined the term Expanded Cinema (1966) Term was then made famous as the title of an influential book (1970) by media theorist Gene Youngblood.

• Art that moves away from the single-screen, passive viewer model.

• Incorporates multi-screen work, interactive work and new modes of production.

• Includes video, film, computer art, etc., under one umbrella of artistic inquiry.

What are the first gen CGI Artisit?

Stan VanDerBeek. John Whitney, Lillian Schwartz, Ken Knowlton

Stan VanDerBeek

• Experimental filmmaker and media artist.

• Created Movie-Drome:

  • Dome-shaped immersive theater.

  • Intended to use satellite transmission for global media sharing.

  • Audience would lie down and experience projected media overhead.

• Themes:

  • Global communication

  • Media overload

  • Networked culture

  • Collective consciousness

  • Global communication through media.

  • Multimedia environments.

  • Satellite transmission and networked image culture.

  • Expanded cinema

• Precursor to:

  • Telepresence

  • Internet culture

  • Immersive VR spaces

John Whitney

• Computer graphics visual music artist/ inventor

• Computer graphics has its roots in military technology. This is one example of many. 

• 1950’s: Whitney repurposed a WWII surplus anti-aircraft gun director to calculate movements for his animations 

• Drawing is still done with a pen, but the analog computer controls the motion (moving the artwork). 

• This “Cam Machine” was an analog computer for motion graphics

• Major Interests

  • Harmony between image and sound.

  • Mathematical motion.

  • Abstract animation.

  • Computer animation before modern CGI.

• Analog vs Digital Animation

  • Whitney initially used modified analog/mechanical systems.

  • Repurposed military targeting equipment to create motion graphics.

  • Eventually moved into digital computer graphics.

  • Important because he bridges analog systems and digital CGI.

Lillian Schwartz

• Kinetic sculpture, Proxima Centauri (1968)

  • Collaboration with engineer Per Biorn, it was in the MOMA show: "The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age,” a major "technology in art” show of its time. 

• Was part of the EAT group, got to know Knowlton and other Bell Engineers 

• Ended up as “resident visitor” at Bell Labs from 1968-2002 

• Women were rare at Bell Labs, even in a moment when programming wasn’t yet considered a male-coded field. 

• Schwartz liked to use tech against its intended purposes and liked to collaborate with scientists.

•  Fun fact: In the 80’s she became known for the controversial “Mona Leo” theory. 

• Pixillation (1970) – Lillian Schwartz

  • CGI (b&w), hand colored animation, optical printer effects…

  • EXPLOR language by Knowlton and Schwartz

  • BEFLIX successor

Analog vs. digital computer animation

• Whitney initially used modified analog/mechanical systems.

• Repurposed military targeting equipment to create motion graphics.

• Eventually moved into digital computer graphics.

• Important because he bridges analog systems and digital CGI.

What are the 2nd Gen CGI artisit?

Larry Cuba and Copper Giloth.

Larry Cuba

• Mathematical animation.

• Algorithmic imagery.

• Abstract computer graphics.

Copper Giloth

• Digital identity.

• Consumer culture.

• Gender and technology.

• Computer-based art systems

Which artists worked on Vertigo and Star Wars?

• John Whitney Sr.

  • Worked on the title sequence for Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

  • One of the earliest uses of computer-like abstract animation in Hollywood.

• Larry Cuba

  • Worked on visual effects for Star Wars.

  • Created the Death Star briefing animation.

Magic Lanterns

• Early projected-image devices.

• Used painted glass slides and light projection.

• Precursors to cinema and visual performance.

Phantasmagoria

• Horror/supernatural projection performances.

• Used moving projections to simulate ghosts.

• Important for illusion, immersion, and spectacle.

Color Organs

• Instruments designed to connect color and music.

• Attempted to create “visual music.”

Light Shows

• 1960s psychedelic projection performances.

• Combined live visuals, music, and immersive environments.

• Precursor to VJ culture and audiovisual performance.

Important Figures of Visual performance history

• Father Castel – early color organ experiments.

• Thomas Wilfred – Lumia art/light performance.

• Alexander Wallace Rimington – color music theories.

• Mary Hallock Greenewalt – performance light instruments.

• Scriabin’s Prometheus – orchestral work involving colored light.

Musique Concrète

Music composed from recorded sounds instead of traditional instruments.

Manipulated tape recordings.

Pierre Schaeffer

Founder of musique concrète.

Treated recorded sound as compositional material.

Delia Derbyshire

Electronic music pioneer.

Famous for realizing the Doctor Who theme.

Halim El-Dabh

Early tape/electronic music experimenter

Buchla vs Moog

• Both pioneered modular synthesizers.

• Patch cables allowed routing/control between modules.

• Descended from earlier experimental electronic music and patch-based systems.

Moog

More keyboard-oriented and commercially popular.

Buchla

More experimental and avant-garde.

Avoided traditional piano-keyboard design.

Minimoog

Portable synthesizer.

Helped synths become practical for live performance.

RCA Synthesizers

Huge room-sized vacuum-tube systems.

Impractical because of size and complexity.

Demonstrated limits of early electronic music systems.

Dan Sandin – IP (Image Processor)

• Analog video synthesizer developed in 1973.

• Built for real-time image manipulation.

• Influenced by modular audio synthesizers.

• Used patch-based workflows.

Open Source Ethos

Sandin and Phil Morton distributed schematics freely.

“Distribution Religion” promoted sharing technology.

Similar to modern open-source culture.

What is the importance in an Sandin’s IP and Sandin/Morton: open source ethos.

• Allowed experimental real-time video art.

• Major step in audiovisual performance history.

Phil Morton

• Collaborated with Sandin.

• Developed “Copy-it-right” licensing ideas.

• Precursor to Creative Commons/open licenses.

Paik/Abe Synthesizer

• Video synthesizer by Nam June Paik and Shuya Abe.

• Used for experimental television/video imagery.

• Featured in Global Groove.

EAB VideoLab

• Analog patch-based video synthesizer.

• Designed by Bill Hearn.

TouchDesigner

• Digital patch-based audiovisual software.

• Direct descendants of analog modular synthesis concepts.

• Continue patching workflows digitally

Telepresence

• Experience of projecting presence into another space through technology.

• Related to communication networks, robotics, VR, and remote embodiment.

Grau’s Main Ideas

• Connects automata, telepresence, illusion, and VR.

• Humans repeatedly attempt to escape or extend the physical body.

• Technology becomes a way to project the self across distance.

Telematic Art

• Art using telecommunications networks as the medium.

• Focus on interaction across geographic distance.

Early Prehistory of telepresence.

• Mirrors

  • Illusion/projection of self.

• Voodoo dolls

  • Remote influence/action at a distance.

• 19th–20th Century Speculative Ideas

  • “Images over telephones” anticipated video calling.

  • Telephonoscope imagined futuristic remote visual communication.

  • Sci-fi repeatedly explored transmitting bodies or consciousness remotely.

Movie-Drome

• Precursor to telematic art.

• Intended to use satellites for global image transmission.

• Never fully realized technologically.

Douglas Davis – Seven Thoughts (1976)

• Satellite performance artwork.

• Emphasized intimate communication instead of mass broadcasting.

• Used live satellite transmission artistically.

Nam June Paik – Good Morning, Mr. Orwell (1984

• Large-scale satellite art broadcast.

• Connected NYC, Paris, and San Francisco.

• Response against Orwellian fears of technology.

• Presented TV/satellites as creative and humanistic.

• Important Concepts

  • Telematic performance.

  • Simultaneous performances between cities.

  • Embraced glitches and technological failure as part of liveness.

• Compare to Movie-Drome

  • Movie-Drome imagined global satellite art.

  • Good Morning Mr. Orwell actually implemented large-scale satellite broadcasting.

Kit Galloway & Sherrie Rabinowitz Projects

Satellite Arts Project (1977), A Hole in Space (1980), Electronic Café Network

Satellite Arts Project (1977)

• Interactive satellite dance project.

• Combined performers from different locations into composite image spaces.

• One of the first telematic

A Hole in Space (1980)

• Public video connection between NYC and LA.

• Strangers interacted live through large screens.

• Demonstrated emotional/social effects of telepresence.

Electronic Café Network

• Linked communities through communication technology.

• Pre-internet participatory network culture.

• Focused on public interaction.

Telerobotics artist

Eduardo Kac – Ornitorrinco and Ken Goldberg – Telegarden

Eduardo Kac – Ornitorrinco

• Remote-controlled robotic system.

• Users experienced remote space through robot perception.

• Explored making network space physical.

• Kac later became known for bio art.

Ken Goldberg – Telegarden

• Internet-controlled robotic garden.

• Users collaboratively cared for plants remotely.

• Focused on social cooperation through networks.

Automaton

Self-operating mechanical machine. Usually follows predetermined movements.

Robot

Programmable machine interacting with environment.

Android

Human-like robot.

Cyborg

Living organism technologically extended. Includes medical implants/prosthetics.

R.U.R. (1921)

• Introduced the word “robot.”

• Robots created as laborers.

• Robots revolt against humans.

• Major theme: automation anxiety

Metropolis (1927)

• Dystopian robot film.

• Concerns about labor, class, industrialization, automation.

• Influenced later robot imagery.

• Robot became symbol of technological fear.

Westinghouse Robot Campaign

• Main Goal

  • Humanize automation.

  • Convince public robots were safe and useful.

• Themes

  • Robot as obedient servant.

  • Corporate propaganda supporting capitalism and automation.

  • Reflected labor anxieties of the era.

• Important Notes

  • Used racist and sexist stereotypes.

  • Demonstrated social politics embedded in technology narratives.

Cybernetics

• Norbert Wiener – Cybernetics (1948)

  • “Control and communication in the animal and machine.”

  • Key idea: feedback loops.

  • Systems sense, compare, and adjust.

• Importance

  • Foundation for AI, robotics, responsive systems, interactive art.

What are some examples of Authorship, Autonomy, and Control

Kanayama, Tinguely, AARON, and Stelarc,

• Overall Theme

  • Artists still author systems even when systems act autonomously.

  • Important debate throughout computational and interactive art.

Kanayama

Artist designs system but gives up direct control.

Tinguely

Machine performs artistic gesture

AARON

Authorship embedded in software

Stelarc

Body itself becomes part of a larger controllable system

Virtual Reality / Artificial Reality

• Main Idea

  • VR combines illusion + immersion.

  • Connected historically to telepresence and immersive spectacle.

Pre-Digital VR

Frescoes / Panoramas / Cycloramas: Large immersive visual environments. Attempted to surround viewers visually.

Dioramas

• Immersive theatrical scenes.

• Used lighting and illusion.

• Precursors to cinema and VR.

Stereoscopy

• Separate images sent to each eye create depth illusion.

• Basis for 3D imagery and VR.

View-Masters & 3D Film

Popularized stereoscopic viewing.

Italian Futurism

• Celebration of speed, machinery, technology, force.

• Human body fused with machines.

• Technology as bodily extension.

• Important Problems

  • Many Futurists embraced war, misogyny, and fascism.

Boccioni

• Unique Forms of Continuity in Space

  • Human figure merged with motion and machine aesthetics.

  • Proto-cyborg imagery.

Heron of Alexandria- Ancient- automata creator

Mechanical theater and illusion.

Early combination of art, mechanics, and performance

Flight Simulators

• Military training technology.

• Important precursor to interactive VR systems.

• Eventually used stereoscopic and simulated environments.

Portals

• Modern telepresence sculptures.

• Similar concept to A Hole in Space.

• Shows continued fascination with remote human connection despite FaceTime/video chat.

Golems and Frankenstein

Main Themes:

• Humans “playing god.”

• Artificial life becoming uncontrollable.

• Anxiety surrounding creation and technology.