John Lansdown

{{Short description|British computer graphics pioneer}} {{EngvarB|date=June 2017}} {{Use dmy dates|date=June 2017}} {{infobox academic|birth_date=2 January 1929|death_date=17 February 1999|work_institutions=Middlesex University<br/>System Simulation|main_interests=computer graphics|notable_works=''Teach Yourself Computer Graphics''}}

'''Robert John Lansdown''' (2 January 1929 – 17 February 1999) was a British computer graphics pioneer,<ref>Huw Jones, [https://www.theguardian.com/obituaries/story/0,,313424,00.html Obituaries — Great plans for computers:robert John Lansdown], ''The Guardian'', 3 March 1999.</ref> polymath and Professor Emeritus at Middlesex University's Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts, which was renamed in his honour in 2000.

==Career== Lansdown was a successful architect in Russell Square in the early 1960s, and by then passionate about computers and their potential in architecture and other creative activities. He pioneered the use of computers as an aid to planning; making perspective drawings on an Elliott 803 computer in 1963 (modelling a building's lifts and services, plotting the annual fall of daylight across its site, etc.) with his own computer-aided design applications.

Lansdown joined the ACM in 1972 and Eurographics in 1983. From the early 1970s to the 1990s, he had influential roles in several professional bodies, and chaired the Science Research Council's Computer Aided Building Design Panel, through which he implemented a leading strategy for developing computer-aided architectural design in British universities. He was influential as one of the founders of the Computer Arts Society in 1968, along with Alan Sutcliffe and George Mallen, and then as secretary of the Society (1968–1991).<ref>{{cite book|last=Mason|first=Catherine|title=a computer in the art room: the origins of british computer arts 1950–80|year=2008|publisher=JJG Publishing|location=Hindringham NR21 0DP|isbn=978-1-899163-89-2|pages=100–133}}</ref> He chaired and organized many international conferences – Event One at the Royal College of Art (1969) and Interact at the Edinburgh Festival (1973) were seminal events in establishing the use of computers for the creation of art works.

In 1977, he became chairman of System Simulation (that created the Computer Arts Society in London), and explored computer graphics techniques in TV and film, following collaborative research work at the Royal College of Art.<ref>Charlie Gere, 'Minicomputer Experimentalism in the United Kingdom from the 1950s to 1980' in Hannah Higgins, & Douglas Kahn (Eds.), Mainframe experimentalism: Early digital computing in the experimental arts. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press (2012), pp. 114–116</ref> At System Simulation, Lansdown played a role in advertising techniques, and important animation projects, such as contributing to flight deck instrumentation readouts for the "Nostromo" space ship in Ridley Scott's Alien. He later worked alongside Tony Pritchett,<ref>{{cite book| last=Mason | first=Catherine | authorlink=Catherine Mason | title=A Computer in the Art Room: The origins of British computer arts 1950–80 | year=2008 | publisher=JJG Publishing | location=Hindringham NR21 0DP | isbn=978-1-899163-89-2 | pages=235–237}}</ref> producing the 3D wireframe drawings from which Martin Lambie-Nairn's original Channel 4 logo was rendered.

Lansdown left the architectural practice in 1982, and split his time between System Simulation and a Senior Research Fellowship at the Royal College of Art, before becoming a full-time academic in 1988 as professor and head of the Centre for Computer Aided Art & Design at Middlesex University (then, as Dean of the Department of Art, Design and Performing Arts, and eventually as Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University). He was also Senior Visiting Fellow at the Department of Architectural Science, University of Sydney in Australia, from 1983. He relinquished these roles on formal retirement in 1995, but continued to be very active and influential as Emeritus Professor in the Centre for Electronic Arts.

==Publications==

Lansdown's range of publications began to diversify from the early 1970s. He wrote the classic ''Teach Yourself Computer Graphics'' (Hodder and Stoughton, 1987), exhibited algorithmically generated images, animations, compositions, conversations, sword fights and choreography, such as the 18-minute dance piece A/C/S/H/O commissioned by the One Extra Dance Company and performed at the Sydney Opera House in 1990.{{fact|date=July 2024}} He contributed as author and/or editor to 34 books and worked on more than a hundred conference and journal publications.{{fact|date=July 2024}}

==References== {{reflist|30em}}

==Bibliography== * Catherine Mason, ''A Computer in the Art Room: The origins of British computer art 1950–1980''. JJG Publishing, 2008. {{ISBN|978-1-899163-89-2}}. * Paul Brown, Charlie Gere, Nicholas Lambert, and Catherine Mason (editors), ''White Heat Cold Logic: British Computer Art 1960–1980''. The MIT Press, Leonardo Book Series, 2008. {{ISBN|978-0-262-02653-6}}. * Charlie Gere, 'Minicomputer Experimentalism in the United Kingdom from the 1950s to 1980' in Hannah Higgins and Douglas Kahn (editors), ''Mainframe experimentalism: Early digital computing in the experimental arts''. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012, pp. 114–116.

==External links== * [http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=15463&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html UNESCO page] * [http://old.siggraph.org/publications/newsletter/v33n2/columns/machover.html SIGGRAPH biography]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lansdown, John}} Category:1929 births Category:1999 deaths Category:Scientists from Cardiff Category:Computer graphics professionals Category:Welsh computer scientists Category:Welsh computer programmers Category:Academics of Middlesex University Category:Academics of the Royal College of Art