A History of CGRG/ACCAD at
The Ohio State University

The College of the Arts at The Ohio State University has been an innovator in computer graphics and animation for the past three decades. Pioneering work was initiated in 1963 by Professor Charles Csuri in his role as a professor in the Department of Art at OSU. Working as a painter, he became increasingly fascinated with the computer and its potential as an artistic tool. His early "computer" work involved the creation of an analogue device to process images, much like a pantograph traces an image. By changing the length of one or more components, the image could be redrawn in a transformed state.

In 1967, he used a line drawing of a man, and working with a fellow faculty member (James Shaffer) from the Department of Mathematics, modified its shape using a sine curve mapping and a mainframe computer (IBM 360). Lacking an output medium for recording this primitive animation, he plotted the intermediate frames on paper using an IBM plotter to create a haunting blend of images (called Sine Curve Man). In a pointed commentary on the state of the technology at the time he created an image of a devil holding a punch input data card.

After Durer
1963

Sine Curve Man
1967

That same year, he continued with this experimentation on other drawings, including one of a hummingbird in flight. Csuri produced over 14,000 frames, which exploded the bird, scattered it about, and reconstructed it. These frames were output to 16mm film, and the resulting film Hummingbird was purchased by the Museum of Modern Art in 1968 for its permanent collection as representative of one of the first computer animated artworks.

Also in 1968, Csuri was one of the featured artists at an exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, and his work in computer animation was featured in the catalogue titled "Cybernetic Serendipity - the computer and the arts," published that year by Studio International. This publication was the one of the first collections that dealt with "...the relationships between technology and creativity."

Hummingbird
1968

At the end of the decade, Csuri was also experimenting with many different kinds of output media, collaborating with mathematicians and scientists. One of his partners created a "tool" for defining a mathematical surface (what became known as the Fergusen patch) that Csuri then had sculpted in wood on an Engineering Department milling machine.

(Note: Csuri was recently featured in a cover article of the Smithsonian magazine.)

Other early Csuri work

Csuri website