Planning a Pop Up Exhibition at UCL Art Museum

Today was my first day in UCL for 5 weeks, and I had a really enjoyable task to start the working day with: off to the UCL Art Museum to choose items in the archive, with the help of the curator, Andrea Fredericksen, for a pop-up exhibition I will be holding there in a few weeks time.

Pop-Up displays at UCL Art Museum are held throughout the year.  By becoming a guest curator for one day, anyone at UCL can select works from the vast art collection. They can share their choices with students, colleagues and the general public in the informal setting of a free lunchtime exhibition in the museum. I am delighted to get the opportunity to do this! But what to choose?

UCL Art Museum. One of my choices is on the easel behind the painting, handily obscured by the glare to keep it a surprise.

Given my background in computing and the arts and humanities, I thought it would be really fun to try and see what computer generated art there was in the collection. UCL has a good history of this - there was a lot of experimental computer art going on with the aid of the engineering faculty in the 1970s, and the Slade School of Fine Art (part of UCL)

established what was later called the 'Experimental and Computing Department'. The Slade was one of the few institutions that attempted to fully integrate the use of computers in art into its teaching curriculum during the 1970s. The department offered unparalleled resources with its in-house computer system. [see here for a picture of the Slade Computing System, halfway down the page]

 The Slade Centre for Electronic Media in Fine Art has been running since 1995.  What interesting art works that started their life on a computer now lurk in the UCL Art Museum archives?

Well, to find that out you'll have to come by on Tuesday 29th May, 1-2pm! Free entry. See you there?