"My computer program is like a piano. I could continue to use it creatively all my life."
Before studying in Paris, John Whitney Sr. made 8mm movies of a solar eclipse with his home-made telescope. "He was a builder all his life" as quoted by his son, Michael.
John Whitney Sr. also studied at Pomona College in California and then continued in England where he studied music and photography informally. In the 1940's he began studying images in motion with his brother James which eventually brought them to an experimental film festival in Belgium in which they won first prize. Further experimenting with this new medium, Whitney began producing 16mm. films for television in the 1950's. One of the works produced at this time was the title sequence for Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. Following that Whitney directed several short musical films for CBS television and in 1957 worked with Charles Eames to create a seven-screen presentation for the Fuller Dome in Moscow, in which the screens were the same size as those used at a drive-in theater.
In 1960 Whitney founded Motion Graphics Inc., which worked to produce motion-picture and television sequences and commercials with an analogue computer. The analogue computer that Whitney started off with was created from machinery that was used for an M-5 Antiaircraft Gun Director. Later, some of the M-5 components were replaced with those from an M-7, a more sophisticated machine, to create a gigantic twelve foot high analogue computer which Motion Graphics used to produce its work. Whitney continued to perfect the analogue computer and the effects that it could create for many years.
In 1961, John Whiney Sr. produced a piece called Catalogue in which he put together all of the effects that he had perfected with his analogue computer.
"Just after World War II my brother and I were constantly excited by a future world. We sort of expected it to happen before the 1940's were past."
John whitney Sr's analogue computerwas a twelve-foot-high device capable of producing complex, yet beautiful graphic designs. Unlike the digital computer which requires the processing of mathematical equations as its input, Whitney's analogue computer must have its information ready before it is processed, meaning that template must be created. The "information" or image source was hi-con kodalith film negatives.When manipulated by the cam machine in a precise orbital motion --with an added movement differential the result is animation. His insight was to harness the cam and ball integrators (formerly used as dedicated equation solvers for the gun fuse timing) as a source of differential motion. That is the key he later continued to use with the digital computer programs. See RDTD. Works such as Arabesque or Catalogue, must first have the images drawn, photographed, and pasted together before processing. Images could be a simple pattern or something.
But it would be the 70's that truly defined successful digital synthesis of sounds and visuals in John Whitney's work. He had long abandoned the analog machine in favor of digital, and by 1975 would no longer be coloring his films in post production with the optical printer. The final film to see the use of this process is what is considered by many to be his best. Arabesque, completed in 1975, was funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and IBM sponsorship (1965 - 69) starting at the UCLA Health Sciences Computing Center. It was the climax to a creative period where such films as the Matrix series were completed. For some Arabesque is considered "the seminal computer film" Set to the music of Manoochelher Sadeghi, the film ran 7 minutes. It is an example of the artist perfecting his art. The whirling, exotic flow of the music is in perfect synthesis with the quasi- psychedelic blooming of colored forms. John Whitney had balanced science with aesthetics, and defined the computer as a legitimate medium for art.
Films like Catalog and Arabesque used sequences that were like "words" which were later combined together in the optical printer into compositions. The technique is somewhat similar to the composer (Schoenberg) working with a musical "tone row."
The 80's would see an expansion of Whitney's exploration of digital harmony. By now he was composing his own music, searching for, as he writes, "a special relationship between musical and visual design." (Whitney, 1991). Whitney was defining a new kind of composer: One with the ability to conceive ideas both musically and visually. "Whether quick or slow, action, as well as harmony, determines much of the shape of my own audio-visual work today. Action itself has an impact on emotions. Fluid, orderly action generates or resolves tensions much in the manner that orderly sequences of resonant tonal harmony have an impact on emotion and feeling..." (Whitney, 1991). The late 1980's would see numerous John Whitney works, combinations of original music and visuals. From Spirals in 1988, to Moondrum, a Native-American influenced series of works completed in the span of 1989-1995, Whitney was now using a special composing program developed in association with programmer Jerry Reed called the RDTD, that enabled the artist to create "musical design intertwined with color design tone-for-tone, played against action-for-action" (Whitney, 1996).
Download a quicktime movie of a clip of John Whitney Sr's Digital Harmony.
Before studying in Paris, John Whitney Sr. made 8mm movies of a solar eclipse with his home-made telescope. "He was a builder all his life" as quoted by his son, Michael.
John Whitney Sr. also studied at Pomona College in California and then continued in England where he studied music and photography informally. In the 1940's he began studying images in motion with his brother James which eventually brought them to an experimental film festival in Belgium in which they won first prize. Further experimenting with this new medium, Whitney began producing 16mm. films for television in the 1950's. One of the works produced at this time was the title sequence for Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. Following that Whitney directed several short musical films for CBS television and in 1957 worked with Charles Eames to create a seven-screen presentation for the Fuller Dome in Moscow, in which the screens were the same size as those used at a drive-in theater.
In 1960 Whitney founded Motion Graphics Inc., which worked to produce motion-picture and television sequences and commercials with an analogue computer. The analogue computer that Whitney started off with was created from machinery that was used for an M-5 Antiaircraft Gun Director. Later, some of the M-5 components were replaced with those from an M-7, a more sophisticated machine, to create a gigantic twelve foot high analogue computer which Motion Graphics used to produce its work. Whitney continued to perfect the analogue computer and the effects that it could create for many years.
In 1961, John Whiney Sr. produced a piece called Catalogue in which he put together all of the effects that he had perfected with his analogue computer.
"Just after World War II my brother and I were constantly excited by a future world. We sort of expected it to happen before the 1940's were past."
John whitney Sr's analogue computerwas a twelve-foot-high device capable of producing complex, yet beautiful graphic designs. Unlike the digital computer which requires the processing of mathematical equations as its input, Whitney's analogue computer must have its information ready before it is processed, meaning that template must be created. The "information" or image source was hi-con kodalith film negatives.When manipulated by the cam machine in a precise orbital motion --with an added movement differential the result is animation. His insight was to harness the cam and ball integrators (formerly used as dedicated equation solvers for the gun fuse timing) as a source of differential motion. That is the key he later continued to use with the digital computer programs. See RDTD. Works such as Arabesque or Catalogue, must first have the images drawn, photographed, and pasted together before processing. Images could be a simple pattern or something.
But it would be the 70's that truly defined successful digital synthesis of sounds and visuals in John Whitney's work. He had long abandoned the analog machine in favor of digital, and by 1975 would no longer be coloring his films in post production with the optical printer. The final film to see the use of this process is what is considered by many to be his best. Arabesque, completed in 1975, was funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and IBM sponsorship (1965 - 69) starting at the UCLA Health Sciences Computing Center. It was the climax to a creative period where such films as the Matrix series were completed. For some Arabesque is considered "the seminal computer film" Set to the music of Manoochelher Sadeghi, the film ran 7 minutes. It is an example of the artist perfecting his art. The whirling, exotic flow of the music is in perfect synthesis with the quasi- psychedelic blooming of colored forms. John Whitney had balanced science with aesthetics, and defined the computer as a legitimate medium for art.
Films like Catalog and Arabesque used sequences that were like "words" which were later combined together in the optical printer into compositions. The technique is somewhat similar to the composer (Schoenberg) working with a musical "tone row."
The 80's would see an expansion of Whitney's exploration of digital harmony. By now he was composing his own music, searching for, as he writes, "a special relationship between musical and visual design." (Whitney, 1991). Whitney was defining a new kind of composer: One with the ability to conceive ideas both musically and visually. "Whether quick or slow, action, as well as harmony, determines much of the shape of my own audio-visual work today. Action itself has an impact on emotions. Fluid, orderly action generates or resolves tensions much in the manner that orderly sequences of resonant tonal harmony have an impact on emotion and feeling..." (Whitney, 1991). The late 1980's would see numerous John Whitney works, combinations of original music and visuals. From Spirals in 1988, to Moondrum, a Native-American influenced series of works completed in the span of 1989-1995, Whitney was now using a special composing program developed in association with programmer Jerry Reed called the RDTD, that enabled the artist to create "musical design intertwined with color design tone-for-tone, played against action-for-action" (Whitney, 1996).
Download a quicktime movie of a clip of John Whitney Sr's Digital Harmony.
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