6
ARTIST'S ARTICLE The Beginnings of Computer Art in the United States: A Memoir A. Michael Noll THE BEGINNINGS: H o w IT ALL CAME TOGETHER In the summer of 1961, I was hired fresh from Newark Col- lege of Engineering to work at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New jersey, on the subjective aspects of telephone ser- vice. As part of an employee educational and training pro- gram conducted by Bell Labs, I was given an internship at its research division during the summer of 1962. The prime project on which I worked during that summer was the inven- tion and exploration of a new method for determining the fundamental frequency of speech. This project involved the plotting of many graphs of various kinds of speech data. The relatively new Stromberg Carlson SC-4020 microfilm plotter was a major tool in generating these graphs of speech data, and this hardware became the basis for my investigations of computer art. As a child, I had always had an interest in drawing and cre- ated elaborate pictures of the interiors of ships and space ve- hicles. As I became older, my interest in drawing extended to art in general, and I was a frequent visitor to New York's Mu- seum of Modern Art, although I had no formal or academic artistic training or knowledge. I also had a couple of stereo- scopes and was fascinated by their three-dimensional (3D) imagery. In the 1960s Bell Labs was a great research facility that en- couraged considerable freedom to take chances and explore uncharted avenues of discovery. John R. Pierce, the director of the research division where I spent the summer of 1962, was at that time investigating the use of computers in music. William O. Baker, the vice president of research, had created an atmosphere of intellectual freedom that was clearly sup- ported by my immediate supervisors in the research division, namely, Manfred R. Schroeder and Edward E. David, Jr., and also by my colleagues, in particular Peter B. Denes. So, all the ingredients for my pioneering discoveries in computer art were present: a childhood interest in art and stereoscopy, the freedom to explore new avenues, and the very best technology of the day. I still can remember the day when a fellow summer intern with whom I shared an office, Elwyn Berlekamp, came down the hallway with a computer- generated plot of data that had gone astray because of some programming error. Lines went every which way all over his plots. We joked about the abstract computer art that he had inadvertently generated. It then occurred to me to use the computer, an IBM 7090, and the Stromberg Carlson plotter to create computer art deliberately. Thus my experiments in computer art began in the summer of 1962 at Bell Labs. The first images that I created used straight lines, combin- ing elements of order with the disorder of randomness. In one series of investigations, randomly placed lines were plotted 90' ABSTRACT to each other, and from these I chose which line density and as- pect ratio was most pleasing to me. In other experiments, I used different random distributions to determine their artistic effects. I described the results of these ex- periments in a Bell Labs technical memorandum entitled "Patterns by 7090," dated 28 August 1962. One pattern, Gaussian-Quadratic (Fig. I), was particularly pleasing to me. Later, I discovered that it reminded me of the Picasso paint- ing Ma Jobe. For fun, I would use colored-ink markers to trace over the pattern to produce cus- tomized art for my colleagues at work. At the end of the summer, I returned to my regular depart- ment and my work in subjective assessments of telephone transmission quality, but my interests in computer art contin- ued. Much was happening at Bell Labs in the early 1960s in- volving art, music and animation. Bela julesz was using the computer and plotter to produce random-dot stereograms for investigations of human visual perception. Kenneth Knowlton was working with the famed animator Stanley Van Der Beek to generate computer-animated movies. Max V. Mathews was using the computer to generate musical sounds. Frank W. Sinden and Edward E. Zajec were creating com- puter-animated movies to help visualize scientific and techni- cal kinetics. There was just too much happening for me to forget my interests in art and computers, and so I continued my investi- gations on an informal basis. My research into computer art and computer graphics continued to attract the attention of managers in Bell's research department and in 1964, I was transferred into the research division, even though I did not have the usual prerequisite doctoral degree. I had, however, started doctoral study on a part-time basis at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. This study culminated in my doctoral dissertation, which investigated the use of a three-dimen- sional force-feedback device to enable the user to feel shapes and objects simulated by software in the computer. In mid-1971, after receiving my doctorate from Brooklyn Poly, I left Bell Labs to work on the staff of then-President Nixon's Science Advisor, Edward E. David, Jr., who had left Bell Labs to accept this post a year or so before. This change in the Three decades ago, such terms as computer art, virtual re- ality and computer animation had not yet entered our vocabulary. This was a time for the experi- mentation and innovation that pro- duced today's industry of computer art and animation, along with new media for creative experiences with computers. The author has used digital computers in a variety of the visual arts, in- cluding still images, stereoscopic images, computer holography, three-dimensional animation, four- dimensional animation, interactive stereoscopic displays and input devices and, ultimately, three-di- mensional force-feedback—the latter becoming a major compo- nent of today's virtual reality. This research and experimentation in computer art was performed dur- ing the 1960s. In this article the author reminisces and describes his early work. A. Michael Roll (educator), Annenberg School for Communication. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0281, U.S.A. Received 25 June 1993. Solicited by Roger F. Malina. 1994 ISAST L E O N A R D O , Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 39-44,1994 39

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Page 1: ARTIST'S ARTICLE The Beginnings of Computer Art …noll.uscannenberg.org/Art Papers/Memoir.pdfARTIST'S ARTICLE The Beginnings of Computer Art in the United States: A Memoir A. Michael

A R T I S T ' S A R T I C L E

The Beginnings of Computer Artin the United States: A Memoir

A. Michael Noll

THE BEGINNINGS:H o w IT ALL CAME TOGETHERIn the summer of 1961, I was hired fresh from Newark Col-lege o f Engineering to work at Bell Laboratories in MurrayHil l, New jersey, on the subjective aspects of telephone ser-vice. As part o f an employee educational and training pro-gram conducted by Bell Labs, I was given an internship at itsresearch division dur ing the summer o f 1962. The pr imeproject on which I worked during that summer was the inven-tion and exploration o f a new method for determining thefundamental frequency o f speech. This project involved theplotting of many graphs of various kinds of speech data. Therelatively new Stromberg Carlson SC-4020 microfi lm plotterwas a major tool in generating these graphs o f speech data,and this hardware became the basis for my investigations ofcomputer art.

As a child, I had always had an interest in drawing and cre-ated elaborate pictures of the interiors of ships and space ve-hicles. As I became older, my interest in drawing extended toart in general, and I was a frequent visitor to New York's Mu-seum o f Modern Art, although I had no formal or academicartistic training or knowledge. I also had a couple o f stereo-scopes and was fascinated by their three-dimensional (3D)imagery.

In the 1960s Bell Labs was a great research facility that en-couraged considerable freedom to take chances and exploreuncharted avenues of discovery. John R. Pierce, the directorof the research division where I spent the summer o f 1962,was at that time investigating the use o f computers in music.William O. Baker, the vice president of research, had createdan atmosphere o f intellectual freedom that was clearly sup-ported by my immediate supervisors in the research division,namely, Manfred R. Schroeder and Edward E. David, Jr., andalso by my colleagues, in particular Peter B. Denes.

So, al l the ingredients for my pioneering discoveries incomputer art were present: a chi ldhood interest in art andstereoscopy, the freedom to explore new avenues, and thevery best technology of the day. I still can remember the daywhen a fellow summer intern with whom I shared an office,Elwyn Berlekamp, came down the hallway with a computer-generated plot of data that had gone astray because of someprogramming error. Lines went every which way all over hisplots. We joked about the abstract computer art that he hadinadvertently generated. I t then occurred to me to use thecomputer, an IBM 7090, and the Stromberg Carlson plotterto create computer art deliberately. Thus my experiments incomputer art began in the summer of 1962 at Bell Labs.

The first images that I created used straight lines, combin-ing elements of order with the disorder of randomness. In oneseries of investigations, randomly placed lines were plotted 90'

A B S T R A C T

to each other, and f rom these Ichose which l ine density and as-pect rat io was most pleasing tome. In other experiments, I useddifferent random distributions todetermine their artistic effects. Idescribed the results o f these ex-periments in a Bell Labs technicalmemorandum entit led "Patternsby 7090," dated 28 August 1962.One pattern, Gaussian-Quadratic(Fig. I ) , was particularly pleasingto me. Later, I discovered that i treminded me of the Picasso paint-ing Ma Jobe. For fun, I would usecolored-ink markers to trace over the pattern to produce cus-tomized art for my colleagues at work.

At the end of the summer, I returned to my regular depart-ment and my work in subjective assessments o f telephonetransmission quality, but my interests in computer art contin-ued. Much was happening at Bell Labs in the early 1960s in-volving art, music and animation. Bela julesz was using thecomputer and plotter to produce random-dot stereogramsfor investigations o f human visual percept ion. KennethKnowlton was working with the famed animator Stanley VanDer Beek to generate computer-animated movies. Max V.Mathews was using the computer to generate musical sounds.Frank W. Sinden and Edward E. Zajec were creating com-puter-animated movies to help visualize scientific and techni-cal kinetics.

There was just too much happening for me to forget myinterests in art and computers, and so I continued my investi-gations on an informal basis. My research into computer artand computer graphics continued to attract the attention o fmanagers in Bell's research department and in 1964, I wastransferred into the research division, even though I did nothave the usual prerequisite doctoral degree. I had, however,started doctoral study on a part-time basis at the PolytechnicInstitute o f Brooklyn. This study culminated in my doctoraldissertation, which investigated the use o f a three-dimen-sional force-feedback device to enable the user to feel shapesand objects simulated by software in the computer.

In mid-1971, after receiving my doctorate from BrooklynPoly, I lef t Bell Labs to work on the staff of then-PresidentNixon's Science Advisor, Edward E. David, Jr., who had left BellLabs to accept this post a year or so before. This change in the

Three decades ago, suchterms as computer art, virtual re-ality and computer animation hadnot yet entered our vocabulary.This was a time for the experi-mentation and innovation that pro-duced today's industry ofcomputer art and animation,along with new media for creativeexperiences with computers. Theauthor has used digital computersin a variety of the visual arts, in-cluding still images, stereoscopicimages, computer holography,three-dimensional animation, four-dimensional animation, interactivestereoscopic displays and inputdevices and, ultimately, three-di-mensional force-feedback—thelatter becoming a major compo-nent of today's virtual reality. Thisresearch and experimentation incomputer art was performed dur-ing the 1960s. In this article theauthor reminisces and describeshis early work.

A. Michael Roll (educator), Annenberg School for Communication. University ofSouthern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0281, U.S.A.

Received 25 June 1993. Solicited by Roger F. Malina.

1994 ISAST L E O N A R D O , Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 39-44,1994 3 9

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© M A N 1 9 6 5

Fig. 1. Gaussian Quadratic, computer graph-ics, 1962. ((DAMN 1965) This was theauthor's f i rst serious piece o f computer art,which he found suggestive o f Picasso's cub-ism. Since there was no physical reality tomotivate the work, i t can perhaps be con-sidered a combination o f abstraction andcubism.

direction of my career took me away for-ever from computer art and new forms ofman-machine communication. Washing-ton opened my vision; I real ized thattechnology alone d id not shape the fu-ture and that such other factors as policy,finance and consumer needs were per-haps even more important. The study ofthese nontechnology-related factors thusstrongly attracted my attention, and in1973, when I returned to Bell Labs, myresearch focused on the social aspects ofcommunication technology. After a fewyears at Bell Labs, I transferred to AT&Tand pursued a career there in the mar-keting of new telecommunication prod-ucts and services. About 9 years ago, I leftAT&T and initiated an academic careerteaching the fundamentals o f moderntelecommunicat ions t e c h n o l o g y t otomorrow's managers.

AESTHETICS:THE MONDRIAN EXPERIMENTI always had an interest in the humanand perceptual aspects o f technology.Thus, i t was natural that I would want touse my computer-generated patterns asstimuli to investigate aesthetic prefer-

40 N o l l , The Beginnings of Computer Art

ences. From a book, I was familiar with aPiet Mondr ian pa in t ing consisting o fonly short horizontal and vertical bars.Such a pattern lent itself to producing acomputer version, and I wrote a programto generate a computer Mondrian (Fig.2). I then showed copies of the two worksto people a t Bel l Labs to determinewhich pattern they preferred and alsowhether they could identify the actualMondrian work. The results of the studywere published in The Psychological Recordin 1966 [1 ] . The computer Mondr ianwas used as the cover art for a textbookby a friend and colleague [2] and also fora textbook on probability [3].

Later, I modified the algorithm so thata series o f patterns varying in the rangeof randomness could be created to evenmore closely approximate the Mondrianpainting. I then designed an experimentusing these pa t t e rns t o d e t e r m i n ewhether people with formal artistic train-ing had different preferences than thosewithout any such training. I was unableto f ind any meaningful differences be-tween the two groups o f subjects. Thedetails and results of the study were pub-lished in Psychological Record in 1972 [4].

Op-art was quite popular dur ing the1960s. In response to this movement, Iused the computer to create a math-ematical version o f Bridget Riley's scin-t i l lat ing paint ing Current. I cal led mycomputer version Ninety Parallel Sinuso-ids With Linearly Increasing Period (Fig. 3).

STEREOSCOPICPROJECTIONS AND MOVIESI wrote software for the IBM 7090 so that3D data could be displayed stereoscopi-cally. The computer generated the stereo-scopic projections o f the data and then

Fig. 2. Computer Composition With Lines,computer graphics, 1964. ((DAMN 1965)This work closely mimics a painting by PietMondrian.

IOJAMM 1•65

Fig. 3. Ninety Parallel Sinusoids With LinearlyIncreasing Period, computer graphics, early1960s. This work was strongly influenced byBridget Riley's Current and is an example o fthe application o f computers to op-art.

instructed the microfilm plotter to createtwo plots: one for each eye. I used one ofmy stereoscopes from childhood to viewthe images. The technique is described ina Bell Labs technical memorandum Iwrote entitled "Stereographic Projectionsby Digital Computer," dated 27 March1964. In the early 1960s digital computerswere stil l somewhat new, and the adjec-tive "digital" was usually used to distin-guish them from their analog parents.

Again, the imagery was mostly artistic,although I also plotted some 3D speechspectrograms as part o f my research inspeech analysis and synthesis. I p ro-duced a series o f stereoscopic images,used them as st imuli fo r some explor-atory investigations o f perceptions o faesthetic value and found that stereo-scopic versions of the patterns were pre-ferred over f lat two-dimensional (2D)versions.

THE HOWARD WISEGALLERY EXHIBITThe Howard Wise Gallery on New York'sWest 57th Street had acquired a reputa-tion for innovation and for introducingnew artists and new artistic forms to thepublic. In 1964, Wise approached one ofmy colleagues at Bell Labs, Bela Julesz,who was using the computer and plotterto produce random-dot stereograms forinvestigations o f human visual percep-tion. Bela introduced me to Wise, whowanted to exhib i t Bela's and my com-puter-generated images at his gallery.

Bela was always very careful not to callhis images "art," since the images werestimuli for psychological investigationso f visual percept ion. I , however, hadgenerated many of my images solely for

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their aesthetic or artistic effects and wasmuch more wil l ing to call them art. Inthe end, we compromised and calledthe exhib i t "Computer-Generated Pic-tures." The announcement for the ex-hibit was a small deck o f IBM punchedcards. The exhibit ran f rom 6-24 Apr i l1965 and was the first major exhibit o fcomputer ar t i n the U n i t e d States. Ilater found out that Frieder Nake andGeorge Nees had a pub l ic exh ib i t inGermany o f their digital computer artonly a few months earlier in 1965.

The Howard Wise Gallery exhibit in-cluded photographic enlargements of anumber of our computer-generated im-ages. The stereoscopic images were re-produced using polarized technologyand then mounted between clear plasticsheets. Special polarized spectacles wereused by those attending the exhibit. Theresponse by the publ ic and media wasdisappointing. I remember spirited dis-cussions with Wise about how we wouldsplit the revenues from sales, but in theend n o t a single work was sold! T h eshort review o f the opening in the NewYork Times by Stuart Preston [5] was posi-tive and opened with "The wave o f thefu ture crashes s ign i f i can t l y a t t h eHoward Wise Gal lery. . . . "

Although the research managementstaff at Bell Labs was very supportive o fthe Howard Wise Gallery exhibit, the le-gal and public relations folks at AT & Tbecame worried that the Bell Telephonecompanies tha t suppor ted Bel l Labswould not view computer art as seriousscientific research. Hence an effort wasmade by AT&T to halt the exhibit, but itwas too late, since f inanc ia l commi t -ments had already been made by Wise.Accordingly, Bela and I were told to re-strict publicity, and, in an attempt to fos-ter such restriction, Bell Labs gave Belaand me permission to copyright all thepictures in our own names.

I decided to register the copyright forGaussian-Quadratic with the CopyrightOffice at the Library of Congress. At firstthey refused since a machine had gener-ated the work. I explained that a humanbeing had written the program that in-corporated randomness and order. Theyagain refused to register the work, stat-ing that randomness was not acceptable.I f ina l l y expla ined that a l though thenumbers generated by the program ap-peared "random" to humans, the algo-r i thm generat ing them was per fect lymathematical and no t random at all.The copy r i gh t was f i na l l y accepted,thereby giving Gaussian-Quadratic thedist inct ion o f being perhaps the f i rst

registered piece o f copyrighted art pro-duced with a digital computer.

The Howard Wise Gallery exhibit wasa first for me and was followed by exhib-its o f my computer art in a number o fcountries: England, Yugoslavia, Czecho-slovakia, Brazi l , Germany, I nd i a andSpain.

An important conference on the useof computers in design and art was heldat the University of Waterloo in Ontarioin June 1966. The conference, namedthe Third International Design Seminar,was organized by Maurice Constant andMart in K rampen and was un ique i nbringing together artists, designers andtechnologists. Much computer-generatedimagery and animation was shown at theconference. I t was an opportunity for meto learn about the work o f such otherp ioneer ing ins t i tu t ions as LawrenceLivermore Laboratory, where GeorgeMichael was responsible for stimulatingthe early exploration of computer anima-tion and graphics using the StrombergCarlson microfilm plotter.

THREE-DIMENSIONALANIMATION: 3D MOVIESA number of my colleagues at Bell Labswere exp lo r ing computer animat ion.This led me to produce a series o f ste-reoscopic pro jec t ions tha t cou ld beviewed as a 3D movie. I wrote the soft-ware and described i t in a Bel l Labstechnical memorandum [ 6 ] . The 3Danimation inc luded a random objectthat changed its shape in a random fash-ion and a ro ta t ing four-d imensional(4D) hypercube (Fig. 4) projected per-spectively into three dimensions.

The idea for investigating the four-di-mensional hypercube was suggested tome by Doug Eastwood, a colleague atBell Labs. The stereoscopic pairs wereplotted head-to-head in a single frameand then projected through a specialpr ism adapter (ca l led Prism-Stereo)that r e q u i r e d t h e use o f po la r izedglasses to obtain a 3D effect. I also pro-duced versions o f the 3D movies withthe stereo pairs plotted adjacent to eachother, bu t this required the viewer tolook cross-eyed at the screen to fuse thestereo pairs.

COMPUTER HOLOGRAPHYThe stereoscopic animat ion programcould generate a series o f perspectiveviews of a 3D object seen from positionsrotating around the object. A colleagueat Bell Labs, Michael C. King, got the

Fig. 4. This series o f stereographic imagesis f rom a computer-generated movie show-ing the perspective projections o f a rotatingfour-dimensional hypercube (1965). Thestereo pairs wil l fuse i f they are observedcross-eyed. The author later used the tech-nique to generate main title sequences fora movie (see Fig. 5) and a television special.

Noll, T h e Beginnings o f Computer Ar t 4 1

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A1,1

INcoN

INCRttool_ E_

idea to combine all these views in a striphologram that could be viewed with asimple point source o f white light, suchas a flashlight. I used one of' my random3D objects to generate the perspectiveviews, then K ing combined them in ahologram created with the help o f hisassistant, Dan ie l H . B e r r y. T h i s ap-proach to computer-generated hologra-phy resulted in a new form of computersculpture.

FOUR-DIMENSIONALANIMATIONThe stereoscopic projections of the rotat-ing 4D hypercube had a smooth anima-tion that was pleasing and fascinating tolook at. This gave me the idea o f usingthe technique to animate letters andwords. I placed letters and words in 4Dspace and then had the computer rotatethe configuration in four dimensions andcreate a movie o f the two-dimensionalperspective projections of the projectionsfrom four-space. The resulting animationlooked great. The technique was used tocreate the main t i t le sequence f o r anaward-winning movie short on computerresearch at Bell Labs entit led IncredibleMachine, produced by Owen-Murphy Pro-ductions in 1968 (Fig. 5).The 4D animation was seen by Walter DeFaria o f Lee Mendelson Productions on

4 2 N o 11, The Beginnings o f Computer Ar t

Fig. 5. This montageo f stills is f rom themain title sequenceof the movie entit ledIncredible Machine,produced by Owen-Murphy Productionsfor AT & T (1968).The ti t le sequencewas computer ani-mated by the authorusing words rotatingin a four-dimen-sional hyperspace.

a background visit to Bell Labs for an En-cyclopedia Brilannica television specialthat he was p roduc ing fo r NBC (Na-t ional Broadcas t ing Company ) . H easked me to create the main t i t le se-quence using the 4D animat ion tech-nique, a n d I agreed t o d o so. T h especial, written by Arthur C. Clarke, wascalled "The Unexplained" and was aboutvarious unexplained phenomena; i t wascolorcast on 3 Apr i l 1970. I rememberthe wonder tha t De Faria had at thespeed with which di fferent animationscould be done on the computer. Thesetwo title sequences are examples of per-haps some o f the earliest use o f com-puter animation to do title sequences.

COMPUTER CHOREOGRAPHYBecause 1 lived at my parents' home inNewark, N e w Jersey, a n d a t t e n d e dBrooklyn Poly at nights, I was able to at-tend many concerts, operas and balletsin New York City. The idea of using com-puters in ballet occurred to me while at-tending a performance of Ballanchine'sApollo at the New York City Ballet with afriend who was a dance student. The in-terrelationships between the dancers inthe wo rk fascinated me, and I envi-sioned a computer version o f the workusing computer-animated stick figures.My dance-student f r iend quickly edu-

Fig. 6. The author used the computer togenerate a simulated ballet, showing simplestick figures moving about on a stage(1965).

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cated me about the various forms o fdance notation that were available, and Iwent to work developing programs tocreate and animate simple stick figures.I incorporated random motion arounda stage employing six stick figures: threelarge "male" figures and three small "fe-male" figures.

The original computer-generated bal-let, which I completed in 1965 (Fig. 6),was a computer-generated stereoscopicmovie. I later produced a 2D perspectiveversion that was easier to show since spe-cial polarized glasses were not needed. Atthe time, I envisioned a creative choreo-graphic situation in which the choreogra-pher would interact in real t ime with acomputer to compose a ballet while ma-nipulating and seeing computer-gener-ated stick figures. The final work couldthen be transposed through the com-puter to dance notat ion to give to thehuman dancers. The computer-gener-ated ballet became a concrete exampleof what potentially could be done withcomputers in dance, and I showed themovie to various dance notation organi-zations in New York and also to a numberof choreographers, including RebekahHarkness and Merce Cunningham. Al-though there was much interest, thetechnology was not then available. Therequired " f r iendly" interfaces are st i l ltopics for research.

INTERACTIVE STEREOSCOPYIn the mid-1960s at Bell Labs, Peter B.Denes installed one of the earliest com-puter systems dedicated solely to the useof researchers in an interactive real-timelaboratory environment. I designed 3Dinput devices and displays for use withhis Honeywell DDP-224 computer sys-tem and described them in a Bell Labstechnical memorandum enti t led "Soft-ware Package for Real-Time InteractiveComputer Graphics on the HoneywellDDP-224 Computer," dated 6 June 1968.Users could draw in three dimensionswhile looking at a true stereoscopic dis-play of the results.A few years later, Denes and I imple-mented a scanned display for use withthe DDP-224 computer. The scan-con-version from rectangular coordinates tothe scanned image was done by soft-ware. A patent for the idea was f i led 5February 1970, but great controversy en-sued with the Patent Office since part ofit invo lved sof tware t h a t i n genera lcould not be patented at the time. Thecase ultimately made its way to the Su-preme Court , bu t AT & T ordered Bel l

Labs to abandon the case. AT & T wasconcerned that the Court might becomeoverburdened since the Cour t was ex-pected to hear cases involving competi-tion in telecommunications that mightdetermine the fate of the Bell System.

"FEELIES"During a visit to Bell Labs in the 1960s,Canadian animator Maurice Constantdescribed his ideas about some form o fhuman-machine environment in whichdesigners could use their hands to moldshapes that were stored in a computer. Itoccurred to me that such a "feelie" de-vice could be constructed by motorizingone of my 3D input devices for the DDP-224 computer. I proposed this project tomanagement at Bell Labs and also to mydissertation committee at Brooklyn Poly,and they both approved. During the lastfew years o f the 1960s and extendinginto the first few years of the 1970s, I de-signed and constructed this tactile de-vice and connected i t to the DDP-224computer. W i t h i t , a user cou ld feelaround some computer-simulated objector shape w i th in the space o f a cubicfoot. A t the same time, the user couldlook at a stereoscopic display. The tactiledevice was a motor ized joy-stick. Theuser grasped a ball at its top, and as i twas moved, position data was generatedand sent to the computer. T h e com-puter then created signals to control themotors, thereby producing a force re-sponse (Fig. 7).

I filed a patent for the tactile man-ma-chine communication on 26 May 1971,and i t was issued on 1 November 1975(U.S. Patent Number 3,919,691). The

TACTILE TERMINAL UNIT

POSITION H iDATA

I I -7- GENERATOR

FORCEI2-C RESPONSIVE

UNIT

10

patent, which expired last year, was quitebroad and covered the overall conceptof a force-feedback device and a displaycoupled to a digital computer. This tac-tile man-machine communicat ion sys-tem, designed and implemented in thelate 1960s and early 1970s, was the gen-esis o f much o f today's virtual reality. Ienvisioned the use o f a head-mounteddisplay (invented years before by HughUpton o f Bell Helicopter) with half-sil-vered mirrors so that a computer-simu-lated image could be superimposed overthe rea l wo r l d wh i le a user s imul ta-neously grasped and fe l t a computer-simulated object.

PUBLICATIONSThere was much emphasis at Bell Labsdur ing the 1960s on educating artistsand musicians about the potential fo rusing computers, and many artists andmusicians visited the Labs to observefirst-hand what was being accomplished.Korean-American television artist NamJune Paik visited wi th me dur ing thattime to learn about the potential for us-ing computers to create the type o f vi-sual imagery that he was then obtainingby manipulating television images. Thisemphasis on education led me to pub-lish much of my work as a means of edu-cating and affecting others.

The bibliography at the end of this ar-ticle lists 17 published papers describingmy research in the use of digital comput-ers in the visual arts and in new forms ofinteraction with computers. The intentof these papers was to document my re-search and to open the doors to new ar-eas of future work and discovery.

Fig. 7. This drawing is f rom the f ront page of the author's patent (No. 3,919,691), issued11 November 1975, o f a tactile human-machine communication system. Position data isgenerated as a user moves a stick-like mechanism within the space o f a cubic foot. Thecomputer, in response to a stored description o f some shape or object, generates signals toenergize the tactile device so that i t appears as i f the user has bumped into the shape orobject. A stereoscopic display simultaneously depicts the object and the movement o f thetactile terminal. The breadth o f this patent encompasses much of today's "vir tual reality."

X,Y, Z

F x , F y F z

13?

COMPUTER

14 STEREOSCOPICDISPLAY

Noll, The Beginnings o f Computer Ar t 4 3

Page 6: ARTIST'S ARTICLE The Beginnings of Computer Art …noll.uscannenberg.org/Art Papers/Memoir.pdfARTIST'S ARTICLE The Beginnings of Computer Art in the United States: A Memoir A. Michael

Some o f the papers expressed myviews about the future o f computer art.In "The Digital Computer as a CreativeMedium," I explored the idea that artistshad a new creative partner or mediumin computers as assistants in the creativeprocess. In "Ar t Ex Machina," I foresawthe day when a new breed o f computerartist would emerge, trained in both artand computers.

SOME LAST THOUGHTSAt the t ime o f my research in to com-puter art at Bell Labs, I was simply hav-ing m u c h f u n a n d e n j o y i n g t h echallenge o f exploring new terr i tory. Ihad l i t t le idea then that the use o f com-puters in the visual arts would progressas rapidly as it has. This rapid progress isthe result o f technological innovationthat has lowered the cost and increasedthe capab i l i t ies o f t h e techno logy,thereby making it much more available.The commercial use of computer graph-ics sti l l leads the artistic applications,and I have not noticed any major mu-seum o f modern art giving much atten-t ion t o c o m p u t e r ar t . However, t h ecomputer is only a medium, and themedium should not be emphasized overthe artistic result. I f there is any failingin computer art it is that the medium isstill an excuse for poor art. I hope thatthis wil l soon change as computers be-come much more prevalent in ou r artschools. Computers might actually bethe single common tool that will lead toan integrat ion o f various arts, such asmusic, animation, sculpture, drama, ar-chitecture, design and dance. The fu-

44 N o l l , The Beginnings of Computer Art

ture o f computers in the arts continuesto excite me, and I look forward to see-ing the maturing of this still new artistictool and medium.

References

1. A. Michael Noll, "Human or Machine: A Subjec-tive Comparison of Piet Mondrian's 'Compositionwith Lines' and a Computer-Generated Picture,"The Psychological Record 16, No. 1 ,1 -10 (1966).

2. David G. Luenberger, Introduction to Linear andNonlinear Programming (Addison-Wesley, 1973).

3. Peter Whittle, Probability (Penguin Books, 1970).

4. A. Michael Noll, "The Effects of Artistic Thinkingon Aesthetic Preferences for Pseudo-Random Com-puter-Generated Patterns," The Psychological Record22, No. 4,449-462 (1972).

5. Stuart Preston, The New York Times (18 April1965) p. X23.

6. A. Michael Noll, "Computer-Generated Three-Dimensional Movies and Pictures," Bell Labs Tech-nical Memorandum (20 January 1966).

Author's BibliographyNoll, A. Michael, "Stereographic Projections byDigital Computer, " Computers and Automation 14,No. 5,32-34 (1965).

Noll, A. Michael, "Computer-Generated Three-Di-mensional Movies," Computers and Automation 14,No. 11,20-23 (1965).

Noll, A. Michael, "Human or Machine: A SubjectiveComparison of a Piet Mondrian's 'Compositionwith Lines' and a Computer-Generated Picture,"The Psychological Record 16, No. I, 1-10 (1966).

Noll, A. Michael, "Choreography and Computers,"Dance Magazine 41, No. I, 43-45 (1967).

Noll, A. Michael, "A Computer Technique for Dis-playing N-Dimensional Hyperobjects," Communica-tions of the ACM10, No. 8,469-473 (1967).

Noll, A. Michael, "The Digital Computer as a Cre-ative Medium," IEEE Spectrum 4, No. 10, 89-95(1967).

Noll, A. Michael, "Computers and the Visual Arts,"

Design and Planning 2: Computers in Design and Cmn-munication (New York: Hastings House, 1967) pp.65-79.

Noll, A. Michael, "Computer Graphics in AcousticsResearch," IEEE Transactions on Audio and Electron-coustics AU-16, No. 2,213-220 (1968).

Noll, A. Michael, "Computer Animation and theFourth Dimension," American Federation o f Informa-tion Processing Societies (AEIPS) Conference Proceedings33, Fall Joint Computer Conference (1968) pp.1279-1283.

King, KC., A.M. Noll and D.H. Berry, "A New Ap-proach to Computer-Generated Holography," Ap-plied optics 9, No. 2,471-475 (1970).

Noll, A. Michael, "Art Ex Machina," IEEE Studentjournal 8, No. 4,10-14 (1970).

Noll, A. Michael, "Scanned-Display ComputerGraphics," Communications o f the ACM 14, No. 3,145-150 (1971).

Noll, A. Michael, "Man-Machine Tactile Communi-cation," Society for Information Display (Slid) Journal I,No. 2,5-11 (1972).

Noll, A. Michael, "The Effects of Artistic Trainingon Aesthetic Preferences for Pseudo-Random Com-puter-Generated Patterns," The Psychological Record22, No. 4,449-462 (1972).

Noll, A. Michael, "Real-Time Interactive Ste-reoscopy," ,SID Journal!, No. 3,14-22 (1972).

Noll, A. Michael, "Teleportation Through Commu-nication," IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cy-bernetics SMC-6, No. 11,753-756 (1976).

Noll, A. Michael, "Computers and the Visual Arts: ARetrospective View, ,SIGGRAPH '82 Art Show Catalog(July 1982).

General BibliographyFranke, Herber t , Computer Graphics—Computer Art(London: Phaidon Press, 1971).

Goodman, Cynthia, Digital Visions (New York: HarryN. Abrams, 1987).

Reichardt, Jasia, Cybernetic Serendipity: The Computerand the Arts (London: Studio International, 1968).

Reichardt, Jasia, Cybernetics, Ar t and Ideas (London:Studio Vista, 1971).