Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!hplabs!hplabsz!taylor
From: eugene@ames-pioneer.ARPA (Eugene Miya N.)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: The Aesthetics of Computers
Message-ID: <1445@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: 20 Jan 88 00:25:26 GMT
Sender: taylor@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM
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Approved: taylor@hplabs

Computer graphics: because it is so visual, and so accessible to the 
non-computist has been thinking about aesthetics for some time (albeit 
at a low level).  A major discussion took place at the 1985 ACM/SIGGRAPH 
meeting in San Francisco when a panel convened.  The major conclusion 
was "it's cute but has terrible content."

Arguments take place distinguishing a technical Aesthetic: (1985 SIGGRAPH 
Demo reel: Quest: A Long Ray's Journey into Light) versus a real plots 
(1987 SIGGRAPH: Oilspot and Lipstick).  P.S. I'm not really a fan of 
Luxo, Jr., or Young Sherlock Holmes.

There are (generally) two graphics camps: the real timers (interaction)
and the realists (imitators).  There are others, but the real-timers
are closer to abstract aesthetics.  Ray tracing is popular with the
imitators (who are in some ways closer to Alan Turing).

Anyway, one reference (for light reading, I read it while riding ski
lifts) is:

Essays from the SIGGRAPH '86 Art Show Catalog, "Computer Graphics",
ACM, Vol 21, Number 1, January 1987.

With subpapers like:

 TV Need MTV Like MTV Needs Computers by John Whitney
 Why It Isn't Art Yet by Ken Knowlton
 And so forth.

The basic problem is not recognizing what's bad.  I use an analogy
of the development of photography from 1840 and what it did to artists
(put them out of work), to f/64 and Adams/Weston, etc.  Will the
aesthetics of computers become something like modern art?  A lot of
people are incapable to distinguishing the quality of graphics images:
"Yes computer graphics: all those lines [hidden lines visible,
calligraphic  systems]" or raster without good ray tracing.  The
people who do graphics constitute a critical audience and have an idea
of problems and can say something is good.  Anyway, I have to show
you tapes and images (ASCII won't cut it).  WE MUST DEVELOP A
DISCRIMINATING VIEWING AUDIENCE.

Anyway, if you want to learn more, we're meeting (Bay Area ACM/SIGGRAPH
Technical Interest Group on Aesthetics: Thurs. Feb. 4 7 PM in Berkeley.
Send me mail for details.  It's a potluck dinner meeting: bring one food dish
and a piece of graphics work and a statement of position in writing.

Also the March Bay Area ACM/SIGGRAPH and National NCGA meetings will
have an Aesthetics panels.  THINK CRITICALLY.

Eugene Miya