18:30 for 19:00 Tuesday 6 May 2008

System Simulation Ltd
Bedford Chambers
The Piazza Covent Garden
London
WC2E 8HA

'Parallel Evolution: the Patric Prince Collection and the emergence of SIGGRAPH as a North American computer arts venue'

The Computer Arts Society continues its 40th Anniversary celebrations with a presentation about the emergence of the SIGGRAPH Art Show. CAS Meetings are open to the public and are free.

The Computer Arts and Technocultures Project, a joint venture between Birkbeck and the Victoria & Albert Museum, recently received AHRC funding to research and digitise the Patric Prince Collection of computer art. Birkbeck had already collaborated with CAS and SSL through the CACHe Project and this resulted in CAS's collection of computer art being donated to the V&A.

Computer Art and Technocultures is studying the wider area of international computer art as it emerged in parallel with the developing computer graphics industry, especially in conjunction with SIGGRAPH during the 1980s. The interchange between new technologies and artistic practice, and also the opportunities afforded by an art show attached to a major conference, ensured that SIGGRAPH became one of the principal nodes for computer art. Patric Prince was closely connected with the art show and chaired it in 1986.

We will consider how her collection connects with the art show (especially the retrospective on computer art she put together in 1986), how new artists and technologies were represented, and whether the situation of computer art has changed since the area was discussed in a special SIGGRAPH in 1989.

The members of the Computer Arts and Technocultures team will each examine different aspects of the project, with presenters including Nick Lambert, Doug Dodds, Jeremy Gardiner, Lanfranco Aceti and Honor Beddard.