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\F1\J	The fact that I'm living in Silicon  Valley,  the  high  tech
capital  of the U.S.A. and the center of much computer production and
research in  artificial  intelligence,  has  a  lot  to  do  with  my
experimenting  with computerized prints.  In 1971 I was a painter and
printmaker, with an emphasis in etching.  My husband, a composer  and
professor   of   music   at   Stanford  University,  started  working
enthusiastically  at  Stanford's  advanced  Artificial   Intelligence
Laboratory  on  the  then  new  PDP10  computer,  developing  musical
programs for sound production and graphic programs for  the  printing
of musical scores. At  this  time  it  seems everyone in Palo Alto was "playing"
with computers, including everyone in my family.  It was great fun --
and the Stanford A.I. Lab, set in beautiful oak-studded hills covered
with grazing horses and cattle,  was  a  kind  of  bucolic  paradise,
providing  a  loose  California-type  ambiance that visitors from all
over the world have come to appreciate.  Out of  this  "playing  with
the   computer,"   utilizing   light   pen  techniques,  as  well  as
computer-directed video camera work, I produced  my  first  "computer
graphics."  The  Calcomp  plotter,  loaded  with various colored felt
pens, drew out the  images  dictated  by  edge-finding  programs.  By
offsetting  the  images  slightly,  and changing the number coding, I
could  produce  a  sort  of  counterpoint  of  "drawings"  which  had
intriguing  compositions  but  which,  in  the  long run, looked like
computer print-outs, on unattractive paper and in colors  that  faded
after  a  couple  of  years. 

	From the beginning I wanted to
incorporate the computer work into my own way of seeing, into my own,
developed,  aesthetic  style  -- rather than to utilize the geometric
potential or the random number capability of the computer.  It became
a  tool  that  enabled me to enlarge on my established style.  One of
the first prints, for example, called San Damiano Mix, was  exhibited
in a solo show at Jason-Aver Gallery, San Francisco, in 1971.  It was
part of a series of works leading up to an eight foot by eleven  foot
cut-out  triptych  painting  on  St. Francis of Assisi (an ecological
statement).  "San Damiano" refers to the small town near Assisi where
St.  Francis  received  his  first  vision.   What a far cry from the
minimilized subjects of most computer art!

	I've  never  had  available  a  flat-bed plotter, which would
enable me to go directly from  the  terminal  to  the  finished  fine
print,  so I was forced to add the step of contact photography to the
opaque print-out. I produced a Kodalith film which I then exposed  on
a photo-sensitive zinc plate.

	I  hit a lot of technical dead-ends at first.  Then, in 1975,
I produced the VENUS etching.  This was part of a series interpreting
the  history  of  women's  images,  as presented by some of the great
artists, images that have molded our thinking about Women -- from the
Willendorff  Venus  through Botticelli, Titian, Goya, Picasso, and De
Kooning.  The poem I wrote in 1974 was a playful accompaniment.   The
series,  MY  feminist  expression,  included a number of watercolors,
pastels, two conventional etchings, and a five by eight foot  cut-out
painting as its culmination. I fed the computer-directed video camera
one of the conventional etchings (thus cannibalizing my own work).  I
also  presented  special  conte  crayon drawings to the camera, to be
processed by an edge-finding program.  I typed in the poem and picked
a  type  font  from  the  type setting program newly developed at the
Artificial Intelligence Lab.   Then  I  programmed  the  computer  to
disperse  and  turn  the  images  and text by arithmetically changing
point locations on  an  X-Y  axis.   The  T.V.  camera  conveyed  the
dark-light  pattern  usually  seen  on  a T.V. screen to the computer
memory.  The programs found the edges of real or  illusional  objects
and sorted out levels of contrast that could be interpreted as edges.
Demarkation of maximum contrast created a firm line.  Demarkation  of
less value contrast created more fragile, broken, lines.  Some of the
programs were first developed by NASA to ascertain the depth of  moon
craters  from  photographic  value  contrasts.   The  output  of  the
programs was stored as hundreds of  individual  short  line  segments
which were produced as line drawing by the computer-operated plotter.
Line and etching were a natural pair  --  and  historically  so.   As
visual  data  were  expressed in numbers, changes or "distortions" of
the image  could  be  effected  by  applying  multiplying,  dividing,
adding, or subtracting factors to the numbers.  Novel transformations
were achieved: the  image  could  be  curved  in  ways  never  before
visualized;  turned  inside  out; serialized; compressed to one point
and then reversed; fattened; thinned; etc.

	I decided my VENUS etching was interesting, but a bit  rigid,
so  I  developed a second soft-ground plate to print in registration.
It echoes some of the  purely  linear  women  and  gives  them  color
variety.

	The  gradual  serial  distortion  produced  by  changing  the
numbers suggested to me a more extended metamorphosis of forms.   The
next  two  computerized  etchings, finished in 1977, L'ISOLEMENT, had
their genesis in a strange way --  and  that's  significant,  because
they  are haunting and perhaps frightening.  I was teaching a drawing
class for Foothill College, but this class, in the heyday of  college
enrollments,  was  given  off  the  campus,  in  a Junior High School
science room.  I'd hired a male life model for the class to draw.  As
they  drew him from the front, I drew him from behind and THROUGH the
classroom's full-skeleton. His pose was  accidentally  like  that  of
Adam  in  Michelangelo's  Sistine  Chapel mural, with the tentatively
reaching hand.  Later I made fourteen freshly executed sumi  drawings
on  long  scrolls,  rarifying them into the images finally chosen for
the computerized etchings -- and the poem,  written  in  French,
presenting  the feelings of the isolation of male and female.  Man is
subject to the laws of Nature -- to Creation but also to Death -- and
without  Woman  he is lost in a kind of arrogance. The skeletal image
juxtaposed to the accidental Michelangelo pose was very touching.  It
reminded me that even in birth the concept of Memento Mori haunts us.
These two etchings were exhibited in Brussels in 1978 --  where  even
the poem passed muster.

	Using  similar  techniques,  I  developed  the  two etchings,
SINGLE FIGURE SERIAL PRINTOUT WITH  POEM  and  DOUBLE  FIGURE  SERIAL
PRINTOUT   WITH   POEM.   One  important  aspect  of  this  work  was
portraiture -- and  in  a  medium  I've  tried  to  revive  among  my
students,  mezzotint.   This  is  a painstaking hand process, rocking
with a rocker and scraping with a scraper on a copper plate.  Working
in  the  Atelier  de  Gravure Calevaert-Brun in Paris during parts of
1974, 1975, 1978, and 1979,  I  produced  four  finished  mezzotints.
Subjects: the people, hardware, and software of the Stanford A.I. Lab
-- robots moving on T.V. screens -- the now-renowned robot  arms  and
hands   selecting   and  piling  blocks  --  computer-directed  carts
cavorting  around  the  picturesque   landscape.   Cannibalizing   my
mezzotints, I photographed them, applied a mezzotint screen, and used
them as a basis for these serialized portrait prints. The  registered
color  plate,  in  each  instance,  is  a  monotype.   The  young man
manipulating the robot images is my son.  The  poem  was  written  in
1978.  It attempts to capture the feeling of this special place.

	In  1979 and 1980 I finished three computer-assisted etchings
using black and white photographs of the A.I. hardware I'd taken over
the  years  --  hardware  that  was  now becoming obsolete.  The PDP6
computer is now headed for a computer  historical  museum  at  M.I.T.
The  DEC  PDP10  gave  way  to  the PDP11 -- and the PDP11 to the new
Foonly  F2,  designed  and  built  by  alumni  of   the   A.I.   Lab.
Film-collage  techniques  and overlays are important aspects of these
etchings.

	My most recent  computer-assisted  etchings  combine  a  1978
poem,  ANCIENT  CITIES, with digitized images from Yucatan and Paris.
They are based on very spontaneous,  on-the-spot  drawings  of  these
locales.  I'm  fascinated  by  the  mood of PLACE.  Architecture is a
voice of man; it houses man, but survives him.  In 1978 I lived for  a
few  weeks among the Mayan ruins; in 1979 I lived for three months in
one room on the rue de Venise, 1/2 block from  the  Centre  Pompidou,
with  its  continuous circus on the Square St. Martin.  I spent hours
underground at the IRCAM computer  center  xeroxing  on  acetate  the
drawings I'd made perched on the roof.  Xerox on acetate functions on
photo sensitive etching plates the  same  way  any  transparent  film
does.

	Both Kokoshka and Derain have done electrifying landscapes in
which birds in flight have "fractured" the accepted sense of what the
architecture  of  the  picture should be -- not just decorative birds
going on their way but birds suggesting man's spiritual state in  his
environment.    By   the   juxtaposition   of  the  bird,  the  Mayan
architecture  (reduced  to   minimal   pattern),   and   the   modern
architecture  of  the  Centre  Pompidou  (also minimilized for barest
recognition), I've hoped to provide a foil for my word-play about how
Time,  as  we measure it, is a tool of our egos; without our egos, it
could be seen as a non-linear dimension.

	Perhaps the new  computer  technologies  will  enable  us  to
achieve  new aesthetic visions.  I certainly hope so.  I'm encouraged
by the broadmindedness of the people working in the advanced research
centers  of the Santa Clara Valley and by the increasing availability
of low cost equipment.  My work, which is just a small tapping of the
potential,  shows that the computer can be harnessed to lyrical ideas
and can be part of traditional, refined, print mediums.\.



					Edith Smith
					June 12, 1980