History of AI in the Arts
Paul Brown, Ernest Edmonds, Stephen Bell and Catherine Mason
Summary
In this Computer Arts Society talk, Catherine Mason chairs a discussion on the history of artificial intelligence in the arts, arguing that today’s rapid, corporate-driven advances in tools such as ChatGPT and image generators raise urgent questions about consent, copyright and regulation that the arts are well placed to address. The session focuses on pioneering work of the 1970s at the Slade School and Leicester Polytechnic, where artists and programmers begin writing their own algorithms and exploring rule-based, generative and interactive systems. Mason introduces early precedents including the Computer Arts Society’s first exhibition, Event One, Robin Shirley’s 1968 poetry program Bard, and the Slade’s experimental department shaped by Malcolm Hughes, Harold and Bernard Cohen, and Julian Sullivan, whose and-cam system helps artists preserve ephemeral screen-based work. Ernest Edmonds then describes the cross-disciplinary projects he instigates at Leicester Polytechnic, where amalgamated art and technology faculties encourage collaborative experimentation. Finally, Paul Brown and Stephen Bell reflect on the Slade artists’ interest in cellular automata, artificial life and self-generating processes, showing how these 1970s innovators anticipate many of the conceptual and practical concerns now animating debates about AI and creativity.
This AI summary was generated by kimi-k2.7-code (13th August 2026).