The Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts was a research centre at
Middlesex University
Middlesex University London (legally Middlesex University and abbreviated MDX) is a public research university in Hendon, northwest London, England. The name of the university is taken from its location within the historic county boundaries ...
in
North London, England. It played a significant role in the early development of
computer graphics
Computer graphics deals with generating images with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great de ...
and continued to innovate in interactive media, sonic arts and moving image. It also provided postgraduate and undergraduate teaching.
History
The Centre for Electronic Arts was renamed the Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts after the death of the
computer graphics
Computer graphics deals with generating images with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great de ...
pioneer
John Lansdown, its head from 1993 until 1997. Its roots lay in the work of John Vince to develop computer graphics at the university (then a polytechnic). From the 1970s, Vince and others developed two suites of computer graphics subroutines in the
FORTRAN programming language, initially to create line drawings of 2D and 3D objects and, later, full colour images with smooth
Gouraud and
Phong shading. This work fed into short courses attended by media personnel.
In 1985, Middlesex had been awarded the status of National Centre for Computer Aided Art and Design, under Paul Brown. The UK's first MSc course in Computer Graphics was developed there. One graduate,
Keith Waters, went on to a PhD in 1988, awarded for his development of a muscle-based model for
facial animation.
The 2008 book ''
White Heat Cold Logic
''White Heat Cold Logic'' (2008), edited by Paul Brown, Charlie Gere, Nicholas Lambert, and Catherine Mason, is a book about the history of British computer art during 1960–1980.
Overview
The book includes 29 contributed chapters by a variety ...
'' records the pioneering role of Middlesex Polytechnic in British
computer art, as does the CACHe project.
See also
* ''
Event One
''Event One'' was an early digital art exhibition held at the Royal College of Art (RCA), London, England, in 1969.
''Event One'' was organised over two days during 29–30 March 1969 in the Gulbenkian Hall at the RCA by the Computer Arts Societ ...
'' (1969)
References
External links
Archived website of the Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts website
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Educational institutions with year of establishment missing
Art schools in London
Middlesex University
Computer art
Computer graphics organizations