John Whitney - Arabesque (1975) early computer graphics

John Whitney is considered by many to be the "Father of Computer Graphics". He started in the 1940s building clockwork mechanisms with lights to draw directly on film. Later, he bought WW2 surplus analog ballistics computers and eventually started using digital computers. I believe this one was rendered using a vector display.

Incidentally, his son John Whitney, Jr. owned the company that did graphics for "The Last Starfighter".

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• john
• whitney
• computer
• graphics
• arabesque
• santur
• master
• Ostad
• Manoochehr
• Sadeghi

[DCEmoinabox]

any ideas as to who made the music in this video?

[postingoldtapes]

I have the musician's name in the text right at the start of the video.

[DCEmoinabox]

I never noticed the name, I'm a bit thick it seems =__= sorry.

[postingoldtapes]

No problem.

[postingoldtapes]

Sorry about the quality. I've never seen a DVD of any of Whitney's work. This was from a Japanese LaserDisc called "Visual Pathfinders" copied to VHS years ago. Also, I put this up quite a while ago before YouTube started accepting better quality video posts.

On the other hand, if you have access to a DVD of this, why don't you go to the trouble of digitizing it and posting it instead of just knocking others?

[uuaschbaer]

The coolness of this work stretches far beyond any screensaver I have ever had.

[postingoldtapes]

@jovansystem Oh man, that is a crying shame. Are any of his pure film works transferred properly, or did they use a low-res source for the whole thing? I've seen that happen, where the expected number of sales doesn't justify doing a proper transfer from the film elements and they just use a 3/4" tape of an old transfer.

[jovansystem]

@postingoldtapes I have the DVD and unfortunately, the image quality is not better. Alas.

[marcorock93]

Excellent piece of graphical art for that times...it's very fascinating and magical despite of its embrional technique

[AerialTheShamen]

The morphing effects look unusual, like oscilloscope pictures copied together into symmetrical patterns. The way the lines split apart and then rejoin looks sometimes a bit broken compared with 1980th and newer computer graphics demos. But so they also do unexpected things. I never saw this combination of run away oscilloscope curves and kaleidoscope before. (Modern morphing keeps corners connected.) But when all was rendered non-realtime, it was certainly hard to control.

[vapourmile]

This is the kind of thing that would have had me transfixed when I was a kid. It's as if computer graphics is in my DNA, and it's because of this sort of brilliant work that it made such an impact on me.

[videotater]

Very cool to see this again. I remember watching John et al film this (or at least, some portion of it, or a conceptual test) on the IBM 370 Model 145 in the computer lab at CalTech. Yes, I was there! It was really amazing to watch history being made. It was drawn in stop-frame style, on a vector display IIRC. Incredible to think how far we have come. The computer you are using to view these comments is more powerful than the multi-million dollar mainframe used to create this video 36 yrs ago.

[VinylLad]

John Whitney is an amazing animator, I can't believe one would do this with such primitive digital equipment. The music is nice too, Mr. Whitney has introduced me to such wonderful musicians as well such as Terry Riley.

[lawrencewraith]

thank you

[BitFace1]

this is one of the most beautiful things i have ever seen

[TomMinderson]

I thought 1961's "Catalog" was better, at least esthetically.