Leicester Computer Arts History
Sean Clark et al.

Summary

In 'Leicester Computer Arts History', various speakers trace the emergence of digital art in Leicester and Leicestershire from the late 1960s to the present. Chaired by Sean Clark, the discussion links the Computer Arts Society archive project, the CAS50 collection, the Micro Arts holdings and a recent Beta RX exhibition, gathering contributions from Ernest Edmonds, Stephen Scrivener, Stephen Bell, Dave Everett and Clark himself. Edmonds recounts his arrival at Leicester University in the early 1960s, his partnership with Stroud Cornock at Leicester Polytechnic, and their pioneering 1970 manifesto on interactive art, noting that the work continues with recent networked pieces such as the Art AI Festival installation. Scrivener, Bell and Clark trace their paths from painting and experimental art into computing through practice-based PhDs at the Loughborough University Human-Computer Interaction Research Unit and LUCI, gaining access to early Silicon Graphics workstations and interdisciplinary teams. Bell reflects on 'Small World' and his decade-long investigation of interactivity, while Everett recalls his heartbeat-driven 'CubeLife', the '64 Samples' event and the Emergency Art Lab. Together they stress the value of preserving lost hardware, software and oral histories, and call for further exhibitions, publications and reconstructed works to safeguard this distinctive Midlands computer-arts history.

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