George Mallen and the Early Computer Arts Society
Catherine Mason

Summary

In "George Mallen and the Early Computer Arts Society", Catherine Mason draws on her Springer book Creative Simulations to trace the origins of British computer, interactive and generative art through the career of George Mallen. She describes Mallen as a pioneer of computer systems since 1962, a physics graduate who worked at the Royal Aircraft Establishment before joining Gordon Pask's cybernetic Systems Research, where he saw how simulation could model thought processes and public engagement. In 1968 he co-founds the Computer Arts Society with Alan Sutcliffe and John Lansdown, helping establish a culture of sharing between artists, scientists and machines. Mason highlights his role in founding System Simulation Limited in 1971, which supports the arts and eventually donates the CAS art collection to the Victoria and Albert Museum. She walks through landmark projects: the interdisciplinary Event One exhibition at the Royal College of Art in 1969, the Computer Graphics 70 conference at Brunel University, the participatory Eco Game shown at Olympia and then Davos, and the 1973 Edinburgh Fringe show Interact. Throughout, she stresses how cybernetics, simulation and cooperation shaped a vision of computing as a medium for art, learning and societal change.

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