Computer Generated Art / Csuri OSU
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Charles A. Csuri is an artist, a computer graphics pioneer and a Professor Emeritus, at The Ohio State University. He has been experimenting with computer graphics technology since 1963 and by 1965 had started creating computer animated films, most well known of which is the ‘Hummingbird’ from 1967, purchased by the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Csuri’s recurring themes that have effected his “creative partnership” with the computer in exploring the aesthetic object include object transformation, randomness, collaboration and hierarchical levels of control.
Media art history texts have always featured Csuri’s early works as important examples computer generated art. Siggraph has also officially recognized him as a computer graphics pioneer. He has been referred to as the “master of the digital renaissance” for his skillful blending of fine arts and science by Karla Loring.
At West Technical High School in Cleveland, Csuri, since there was no expectation in the family that he would go to college, set aside his interest in drawing and art, and took “practical” mechanical and technical courses. He also, despite his slender build, took up football, and by his senior year improved so much that he was invited to attend Ohio State University. Thus, “almost by accident” Csuri embarked on a lifetime association with Ohio State, first as a student-athlete, and later as a professor.
Csuri is in the Football Hall of Fame as M.V.P. in the Big Ten Conference and captain of the Ohio State University's first national championship football team in 1942. He was a 16th round selection (154th overall pick) in the 1944 NFL Draft by the Chicago Cardinals. He also served in the US Army during World War II and in 1945 he received the Bronze Star for heroism in the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, Csuri returned to the Ohio State University to complete his Master’s Degree in art.
After earning his Master’s Degree, Csuri was offered a faculty position at Ohio State. He started experimenting with the application of computer graphics to art and his efforts resulted in a prominent CG research laboratory that received funding from the National Science Foundation and other government and private agencies. The work at OSU revolved around animation languages, complex modeling environments, user-centric interfaces, human and creature motion descriptions, and other areas of interest to the discipline.
Working as a painter, Csuri became increasingly fascinated with the computer and its potential as an artistic tool. His early “computer” work involved the creation of an analogue device to process images, much like a pantograph traces an image. By changing the length of one or more components, the image could be redrawn in a transformed state. In a pointed commentary on the state of the technology at the time he created an image of a devil holding a punch input data card.
In 1967, he used a line drawing of a man, and working with a fellow faculty member (James Shaffer) from the Department of Mathematics, modified its shape using a sine curve mapping and a mainframe computer (IBM 360). Lacking an output medium for recording this primitive animation, he plotted the intermediate frames on paper using an IBM plotter to create a haunting blend of images called Sine Curve Man.
That same year, he continued with this experimentation on other drawings, including one of a hummingbird in flight. Csuri produced over 14,000 frames, which exploded the bird, scattered it about, and reconstructed it. These frames were output to 16mm film, and the resulting film Hummingbird was purchased by the Museum of Modern Art in 1968 for its permanent collection as representative of one of the first computer animated artworks.
Also in 1968, Csuri was one of the featured artists at an exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, and his work in computer animation was featured in the catalogue titled “Cybernetic Serendipity – the computer and the arts,” published that year by Studio International. This publication was one of the first collections that dealt with “…the relationships between technology and creativity.”
At the end of the decade, Csuri was also experimenting with many different kinds of output media, collaborating with mathematicians and scientists. One of his partners created a “tool” for defining a mathematical surface (what became known as the Fergusen patch) that Csuri then had sculpted in wood on an Engineering Department milling machine.
Csuri continued to work with graduate students and fellow faculty members from the arts and sciences for the next several years, experimenting with different approaches to instructing the computer to display and animate the various artifacts that he conceived. In 1969 he received a prestigious grant from the National Science Foundation to study the role of the computer and software for research and education in the visual arts. This was very unusual, for an artist to receive an NSF grant, and showed the level of significance of the work at OSU at the time. In fact, an internal report done at the National Science Foundation stated that the greatest impact on the field of computer animation could in part be attributed to the work at the Computer Graphics Research Group at Ohio State.
Research and development work conducted by CGRG members during this early period included hidden line and visible surface algorithms, linear interpolation, path following, data smoothing, shading and light source and reflection control, compound transformations, 2D and 3D data generation and sophisticated interaction techniques. This seminal work evolved into a general interest in dynamic systems and languages for applications in computer-controlled display and motion. In 1970, Csuri published one of the first papers related to the complex issue of animating objects in real time.
In 1971 he proposed a formal organization, called the Computer Graphics Research Group (CGRG) in order to realize the potential of the application of computer animation to the studies by students in the Art Department, and to have a formal cohort that could attract external research support. Members of CGRG included faculty and graduate students from Art, Industrial Design, Photography and Cinema, Computer and Information Science, and Mathematics. Grant proposals were submitted to agencies and programs both in and out of the University, and funding was provided for studies that would extend the capabilities of the evolving discipline. The group was housed in space in the OSU Research Center at 1314 Kinnear Road on the OSU campus. Equipment in the lab at this time included a 32K IBM 1130 computer interfaced to an IBM 2250 Model IV graphics display, and the FORTRAN programming language was used as the primary programming environment.
Research and development work conducted by CGRG members during this early period included hidden line and visible surface algorithms, linear interpolation, path following, data smoothing, shading and light source and reflection control, compound transformations, 2D and 3D data generation and sophisticated interaction techniques. This seminal work evolved into a general interest in dynamic systems and languages for applications in computer-controlled display and motion. In 1970, Csuri published one of the first papers related to the complex issue of animating objects in real time.