University of Virginia Library

Student, Engineer Exhibit Computer Art

Photo By Bob Gill

Artists Lloyd Sumner and Bill Carpenter

Exhibit Their Original Works of Computer Art in Gilmer Hall

The Computer Center in the basement
of Gilmer Hall may seem like an odd
place to find an art exhibit, but there is
one there nonetheless; an exhibition of
computer art by Lloyd Sumner, a recent
graduate of the Engineering School, and
Bill Carpenter, a fourth-year Engineering
student.

Computer art is a very new development,
and it is not at all like the pictures
of Snoopy or Charlie Brown which so often
pass for it.

Making computer art is a long process,
taking anywhere from eight hours on up. First
the programmer makes up an equation: for
instance, "x = sin (t), y = cos (t)." Then the
equation is varied and each variation is plotted.
The end result is a series of curves creating
various shapes and forms; sometimes resembling
real objects, sometimes abstract.

Mr. Sumner, who is one of the pioneers in
the field of computer art (only four or five
people in the world did it when he started), has
always been an artist at heart. He took
engineering in college because it offered him a
job, not out of any real love for it. While in
school, he took every art elective he could.

About four years ago, he was working in the
computer center, and there was a plotting
machine in it which no one knew how to use.
So he learned, and with his natural interest in
art, he was soon producing computer art.

Mr. Sumner has had exhibits in, among
other places, London, Expo '67, Tel Aviv, and
Zagreb, Yugoslavia. He has published a book,
Computer Art and Human Response, which is,
as far as he knows, the only book of computer
art on the open market.