• PDF / 2,326,368 Bytes
• 15 Pages / 439.37 x 666.14 pts Page_size
• 59 Downloads / 277 Views

DOWNLOAD

REPORT

---

1

Royal College of Art, London, UK [email protected] 2 Middlesex University, London, UK [email protected]

Abstract. The paper is concerned with the role of art and design in the history and philosophy of computing, and the role of computing in models of design and art. It offers insights arising from research into a period in the 1960s and 70s, particularly in the UK, when computing became more available to artists and designers, focusing on Bruce Archer (1922–2005) and John Lansdown (1929– 1999) in London. It suggests that models of computing interacted with concep‐ tualisations of art, design and creative activities in important ways.

1

Introduction

Our paper is concerned with the role of art and design in the history and philosophy of computing, and the role of computing in models of design and art. We offer insights arising from our research into a period in the 1960s and 70s, particularly in the UK, when computing became more available to artists and designers, focusing on Bruce Archer (1922–2005) and John Lansdown (1929–1999) in London. Our sources are archives1 and interviews. Neither Archer nor Lansdown saw any incompatibility between the mechanistic processes of computing and the creative worlds of design, art, composition, choreog‐ raphy and related disciplines. Indeed they embraced the challenge of the machine in these apparently intuitive, humanistic fields. Such approaches have their roots far back in the history of computing: Babbage identified two qualitatively different applications of complex machinery. The Difference and Analytical Engines were machines primarily for useful work – but Babbage’s prized possessions included an automaton dancer and a portrait of Joseph Marie Jacquard woven on a Jacquard loom. For Babbage, these two items represented the idea that apparently humanistic, artistic creations could be arrived at by mechanical means [1, p. 107]. The Analytical Engine was an advance on the Difference Engine not least because, when it ‘weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves’ [2], mathematics is conceived as 1

The L. Bruce Archer Archive at the Royal College of Art (RCA), the RCA College Archives, the archives of the Department of Design Research (RCA) at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the John Lansdown Archive (JLA) at Middlesex University, and the Design Archive at Univer‐ sity of Brighton.

© IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2016 Published by Springer International Publishing AG 2016. All Rights Reserved F. Gadducci and M. Tavosanis (Eds.): HaPoC 2015, IFIP AICT 487, pp. 101–115, 2016. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-47286-7_7

102

S. Boyd Davis and S. Gristwood

philosophical inquiry not as functional work. So, from the earliest days of computing its potential application to creative and humanistic fields was discussed. A century later, these questions were addressed afresh by Archer, Lansdown and others through art and design. Subsequently, much art and design thinking has been dominated by the notion of the computer a