Catherine Mason | |
|---|---|
 Catherine Mason apeaking at Event Two , Royal College of Art (2019) | |
| Born | Australia |
| Occupation | Art historian |
| Alma mater | Birkbeck College; City University |
| Period | Late 20th century |
| Genre | Computer art, digital art |
| Spouse | Keith Morris |
| Website | |
| catherinemason | |
Catherine Mason (born in Australia) is an art historian and author [1] who specialises in digital art, especially computer art. [2]
Mason was born in Australia, brought up in the United States, and educated in the United Kingdom. [3]
In the late 1980s, Mason worked for an art dealer in Mayfair, London. In 1993, she received an undergraduate degree in the History of Art from Birkbeck College, University of London, followed by a master's degree in Museums & Gallery Management from City University, also in London. In the 1990s, Mason taught art appreciation courses in the Faculty for Continuing Education of Birkbeck College, the Workers Educational Association, and The Arts Society.
Mason's special interest is the history of computer art and digital art, beginning in 2002 when she joined an Arts & Humanities Research Council research project, CACHe (Computer Arts, Contexts, Histories, etc.), at Birkbeck College, This resulted in a co-edited book, White Heat Cold Logic , published in 2009. [4]
Mason also assisted in the re-formation of the BCS Computer Arts Society. [3] She also negotiated with the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London concerning donating an American collection of international computer art, the Patric Prince archive. This helped to develop the computer art collection at the V&A. [5]
In 2006, Mason organized a screening and panel discussion of early British computer animation, Bits in Motion, at the National Film Theatre. [3] In 2008, she authored A Computer in the Art Room, [6] based on four years of research and interviews. [7] During 2011–2014, she produced a monthly column concerning digital art for the BCS. In 2012, she discussed computer arts with John Wilson on the BBC Radio 4 programme Front Row . In 2017, she spoke about painting in the digital age on the TRT World television programme Showcase. She has advised on digital arts to organisations including The Art Fund, the BCS, Leonardo, SIGGRAPH, and a number of museums and galleries.
She married Keith Morris, a trustee of the Contemporary Art Society. [8]
Computer art is art in which computers play a role in the production or display of the artwork. Such art can be an image, sound, animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, video game, website, algorithm, performance or gallery installation. Many traditional disciplines are now integrating digital technologies and, as a result, the lines between traditional works of art and new media works created using computers has been blurred. For instance, an artist may combine traditional painting with algorithm art and other digital techniques. As a result, defining computer art by its end product can thus be difficult. Computer art is bound to change over time since changes in technology and software directly affect what is possible.
Electronic art is a form of art that makes use of electronic media. More broadly, it refers to technology and/or electronic media. It is related to information art, new media art, video art, digital art, interactive art, internet art, and electronic music. It is considered an outgrowth of conceptual art and systems art.
Jonathan P. Bowen FBCS FRSA is a British computer scientist and an Emeritus Professor at London South Bank University, where he headed the Centre for Applied Formal Methods. Prof. Bowen is also the Chairman of Museophile Limited and an Adjunct Professor at Southwest University in Chongqing, China. He has been a Professor of Computer Science at Birmingham City University, Visiting Professor at the Pratt Institute, University of Westminster and King's College London, and a visiting academic at University College London.
The Electronic Visualisation and the Arts conferences are a series of international interdisciplinary conferences mainly in Europe, but also elsewhere in the world, for people interested in the application of information technology to the cultural and especially the visual arts field, including art galleries and museums.
Robert John Lansdown was a British computer graphics pioneer, polymath and Professor Emeritus at Middlesex University Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts, which was renamed in his honour in 2000.
The Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts was a research centre at Middlesex University in North London, England. It played a significant role in the early development of computer graphics and continued to innovate in interactive media, sonic arts and moving image. It also provided postgraduate and undergraduate teaching.
Brian Reffin Smith is an artist, writer, teacher and musician born in Sudbury, Suffolk, in the United Kingdom, who won the first-ever Prix Ars Electronica, the Golden Nica, in Linz, Austria, 1987. He lives in Berlin, Germany.
The Computer Arts Society (CAS) was founded in 1968, in order to encourage the creative use of computers in the arts.
System Simulation Ltd (SSL) is a software engineering company now specialising in text and multimedia information systems, based in Clerkenwell, central London, England, and founded in 1970 by George Mallen.
Charlie Gere is a British academic who is professor of media theory and history at The Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts, The University of Lancaster and previously, director of research at the Institute for Cultural Research at The University of Lancaster. He is author of several books and articles on new media art, art and technology, continental philosophy and technology. His main research interest is in the cultural effects and meanings of technology and media, particularly in relation to post-conceptual art and philosophy.
Jasia Reichardt is a British art critic, curator, art gallery director, teacher and prolific writer, specialist in the emergence of computer art. In 1968 she was curator of the landmark Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts. She is generally known for her work on experimental art. After the deaths of Franciszka and Stefan Themerson she catalogued their archive and looks after their legacy.
Doron Swade MBE, born 1944, is a museum curator and author, specialising in the history of computing. He is especially known for his work on the computer pioneer Charles Babbage and his Difference Engine.
Kathleen Hylda Valerie Booth was a British computer scientist and mathematician who wrote the first assembly language and designed the assembler and autocode for the first computer systems at Birkbeck College, University of London. She helped design three different machines including the ARC, SEC, and APE(X)C.
New media art includes artworks designed and produced by means of electronic media technologies. It comprises virtual art, computer graphics, computer animation, digital art, interactive art, sound art, Internet art, video games, robotics, 3D printing, immersive installation and cyborg art. The term defines itself by the thereby created artwork, which differentiates itself from that deriving from conventional visual arts such as architecture, painting or sculpture.
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Rachel Ara is a London-based contemporary British conceptual and data artist.
Event One was an early digital art exhibition held at the Royal College of Art (RCA), London, England, in 1969.
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.
George L. Mallen FBCS FRSA is a British businessman who has been a pioneer of creative computer systems since 1962. He co-founded the Computer Arts Society (CAS) with Alan Sutcliffe and John Lansdown in 1968. In 1970, he led CAS members in creating Ecogame, the "first digitally driven, multi-player, interactive gaming system in the UK". Also in 1970, he founded the company System Simulation Ltd, one of the longest established software companies in the United Kingdom.
Paul Brown is an artist with an interest in the combination of art and technology, who has been based in England and Australia.