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The Artist that invented Computer Animation

Aapo Saask on the artist Ture Sjolander

2004

On an island aptly named Magnetic Island off the coast of Australia, a Swedish artist lives in exile. Just like so many others in today's media-landscape, he was first praised and then brought to dust. However, he has left a lasting imprint on the world. As early as the 1960's, he made the first electronic animation. Had he been an inventor, he would have been celebrated as a genius today, but because he is a predecessor in the world of art, things are different. In that world, the great ones often have to die before they are recognized. We all know how Disney's famous cartoons were made: thousands of drawings, filmed in sequence. Even today some films are made this way. However, electronic animation has opened up a new world within the film industry and it has also made computer games and countless graphic solutions possible in business and science. Pixar, which used to be part of Lucasfilm and then sold to Steve Jobs in the lat 1980's, made the first completely computer animated film called "Andre and Wally B" in 1983. The first feature length fully animated movie was Toy Story from 1995. It was made by Pixar and distributed by Disney. Disney had already started to use computer animation in Little Mermaid from 1989, and then on through Aladdin, Lion King, Pocahontas, etc In those fantastic movies the pictures were however first drawn on paper and then scanned into computers for painting and cleanup and superimposition over painted backgrounds.  Decades earlier, in 1965, Ture Sjolander’s electronically manipulated images were broadcasted by the Swedish Television (SVT). Among other things, Ture Sjolander was experimenting with the question of how much the portrait of a person could be changed before it was unrecognizable, something which has pioneered the amazing morph-technique that is used today. Gene Youngblood, who, alongside with Marshall McLuchan, is the most celebrated media-philosopher of today, devoted a whole chapter in his book Expanded Cinema, 1970, (Pre face by Buckminster-Fuller) to the experiments of the SVT. Expanded cinema means transgression of conventions as well as mind-expanding transgressions and new definitions. Sjolander’s broadcasts were not technically sophisticated, but they were ground-breaking.

The film mentioned by Youngblood  is "Monument" (1968) by Ture Sjolander and Lars Weck. The other earlier televised pioneering animation were "TIME" (1965/66) by Ture Sjolander and Bror Wikstrom, and later "Space in the Brain" (1969) by Ture Sjolander, Bror Wikstrom, Sven Hoglund and Lasse Svanberg. Whereas most of the modern-day artists fade into oblivion, Ture Sjolander has found his place in the art history by the making of those films. Ture, a lad from the northern city of Sundsvall, had instant success with his opening exhibition at the Sundsvalls Museum 1961. He moved to Stockholm in the beginning of the 1960's. At an exhibition in 1964 at Karlsson Gallery his imagery upset the public so much that the gallery immediately became the trendiest place for young artists in Stockholm. In 1968, he created another scandal, when the film "Monument" was televised in most European countries. For a couple of years, Ture Sjolander was celebrated in France, Italy, Switzerland, Great Britain and the USA. In Sweden there was a lot of jealousy. The Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Sweden, to name a few, bought his works, but the techniques he worked with were expensive and after a few years, he found himself without resources. Instead he started to work with celebrities such as Charlie Chaplin and Greta Garbo. They taught him that exile – mental and physical - is the only way to escape destruction for a creative genius. He moved to Australia. Ture Sjolander's works include photos, films, books, articles, textiles, tv-programs, video-installations, happenings, sculptures and paintings – all scattered around the Globe. Tracing will be a challenging and exciting task for a future detective/biographer and web-archaeologist's.But mostly, his work consists of a life of questioning and creation. This is what sets him aside as one of the great artists of the 20th century. Another forerunner in the art world, the internationally celebrated Swedish composer Ralph Lundsten, says in an interview in the magazine SEX, 5, 2004: "In those days (the 19th century), a painting could create a revolution. Today people look idly at all the thousands of exhibitions that there are.’ Hmm. Oh, really. How clever he is’, and they yawn… If I were a visual artist, and if my ambition was to create something new, I would devote myself to the possibilities of the computer." In 1974, Sherman Price of Rutt Electrophysics, wrote to the Swedish Television Company (SVT): "Video Synthesis is becoming a prominent technique in TV production here in the United States, and I think it will be interesting to give credit to your broadcasting system and personnel for achieving this historic invention." He was referring to Ture Sjolander's revolutionary work in the 1960's. No one at the SVT could at that time imagine the importance that this innovation would have for television, and hereby lost a lead position in the computer-development business. Amongst the younger generation of computer animators, few know that they have a Swedish predecessor. Many engineers were probably working away in their cellars in those days, trying to do the same thing, but Sjolander was the first person to show his results on the air. If any of you would like to have a look at the Godfather of animation, you can find a glimpse of him by googling. He did not seek to patent his inventions and he has made no money from it. However, he has made it to the history books as one of the great precursors of art - and perhaps also of technology - of the 20th century. For the past decades, Ture Sjolander has mostly lived in Australia, but he has also worked in other countries, such as Papua New Guinea and China. After a couple of decades of silence, Sjolander's groundbreaking work was shown at Fylkingen, the avant guard media and music hide out in Stockholm in the spring of 2004. In the autumn of 2004, some of his recent acrylic paintings on canvas were exhibited at the Gallery Svenshog outside of Lund, Sweden. This was to commemorate the forty years that have gone by since his last (scandalous) exhibition at Lunds Konsthall. Many artists take a pleasure in provoking the established art world. Ture Sjolander also provokes the rest of the world.

Aapo Saask

2004-08-26


 

New Media in Late 20th-Century Art   by  Michael Rush
 
Publisher: Thames & Hudson 1999.
From Chapter 2: Video ArtPages: 92, 93.
 
 
" Public television stations in the United States and Europe fostered experimentation by allowing accessto fully equipped studios. Starting in the late 1960's Boston's public television station, WGBH, with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, produced the New Television Workshop under the leadership of Fred Barzyk.
In 1969 six artists (Nam June Paik, Allan Kaprow, Otto Piene, James Seawright, Thomas Tadlock, and Aldo Tambellini ) made videotapes using WGBH equipment for a program called "The Medium is the Medium" which aired nationally. This was the widest exposure the new practice of video art had yet received."
 
"Swedish artists Ture Sjolander, Lars Weck, and Bengt Modin produced  M o n u m e n t  ( 1967 ),  a program for experimental television which combined pre-recorded film, slides, and videotapes in a process that distorted images during the transmission of the image from the tape to the television.  After seeing these for the first time, historian Gene Youngblood said, 'We see the Beatles, Charlie Chaplin, Picasso, the Mona Lisa, the King of Sweden, and other famous figuers distorted with a kind of insane electronic disease."
 
"Many innovations in what later became computer animation were inaugurated by video artists who early on developed electronic imaging techniques."
 
Michael Rush, 1999.
 
 

GENE YOUNGBLOOD 1970

 
 
1966
see below:
 
DAGENS NYHETER
The largest daily news paper in Sweden
Bonnier AB
 
 
This following article about:  "TIME" by Ture Sjolander and Bror Wikstrom,  was published in Dagens Nyheter
August 29, 1966.
 
Signed: DIA
(Dick Idestam-Almqvist)
-----------------------------------------------
 
TV  "exposes" the present in electronic pictures during the Jazz Festival.
 
 
"We want to exhibit, not to inhibit"
 
So the artists Ture Sjolander and Bror Wikstrom say, of current interest as they are for the coming jazz festival within the Festival of Stockholm. Some time during the three days of the jazz festival (Sept 16 - 18) the two picture experimenter's new film is shown on TV. It is ready made for TV with the apparatus of the TV and with the basic function of the TV before one's sight.
 
Some year ago Sjolander and Wikstrom brought about a sensation by exposing pictures on giant billboards outdoor's in Stockholm's City. If you had something to display you shouldn't fence it, neither in the museums nor among the private art galleries, but expose it where people are to be found, they thought. So consequently they have chosen the biggest medium of communication, television, for their latest exhibition.
 
Sjolander - Wikstrom are fully conscious of the topicalness of today, another reason for choosing television. What else can be more actual than to demonstrate the formal possibilities of TV, and what else can be more actual than mirror the present while you are demonstrating these formal possibilities?
 
"Scanner" re-interprets.
"Time" is the name of the exhibition, which is based upon various actualities that Sjolander-Wikstrom have come across during the spring, for instance "Gemini" and foetal-pictures. The main part is taken up by the very much to fore avant-garde jazz-musician Don Cherry and his quintet at the Golden Circle.
 
The pictures are run through a specially built "scanner", an apparatus that in the ordinary cases is producing "real" pictures, but which in this sensitized state is "re-interpreting" what the camera has seen, and thus is creating new pictures. The technicians and the artists have decided what the apparatus looks like, and the apparatus has decided what the pictures look like.
 
The present is reflected.
Consequently the couple Sjolander-Wikstrom is demonstrating a phenomenon that is very much up to date just now: the electronic "machine" picture.
The Korean Nam June Paik is for the moment sitting at the Swedish Radio and is working with similar things. He will show his result at the festival of Fylkingen "Visions of the Present". But this will take place one week after Sjolander-Wikstrom's demonstration, televised on Swedish National Television.
 
Ture Sjolander and Bror Wikstrom hold that they by "TIME" have accomplished a total reflection of the present. Novelties and actualities have been interpreted by an apparatus that per se is a novelty and an actuality. A vision of the present.
Their Ideas they spread in different quises like rings on the water. "Time" will be shown at ABF (The Worker's Federation of Culture) during the festival, still pictures of the film - made on silk-screen - will be exposed, and an edition of 300 prints have already been sold to MULTIART, the darling of Kristian Romare.
Finally a summary of the film will be edited in book-form very soon. And then, furthermore, Sjolander-Wikstrom are negotiating just now about contributing at the festival which the Americans of "Fylkingen" are planning in New York in October.
Possibly parts of "Time" are going to be transmitted by satellite.
 
 
DIA
(Journalist Dick Idestam-Almqvist)

 

You are art!

by Aapo Saask

"Art is in the soul of the beholder." That is the expression that I associate the most with Ture Sjolander. By reaching into the soul of the individual person, the artist contributes to the building of the collective consciousness - the spirit of our society, our cultural inheritance, our collective subconscious.

In the beginning, art was communication, magic and adornment - all at once. A couple of hundred years ago, the notion of "art" came to be used more and more as a synonym for ornamentation in rich people's homes.

Ever since, there has been a struggle between art as expression and art as decoration (and private property, and later on, even tax shelter). Since most artists want to make a living out of their work, it is easy for the money side to win. This has not been the case for Ture Sjolander. He doesn't say: "Look at my work and buy it!" He says: "I am your mirror."

In order to find the roots of art, he travelled to what is today considered primitive societies in Papua New Guinea. He found body painting and learnt about the original meaning of art - communication, magic and adornment. Many artists have been inspired by body painting and developed it into various expressionistic experiments with erotic undertones, but Sjolander left it as he found it. It is of an ephemeral nature. It cannot be sold at Sotheby’s and it cannot be exhibited at the Tate (at least not without losing its soul). Perhaps it can be nailed to a cross? Yes, only he who sacrifices himself for his fellow men, is an artist. But sacrifice does not mean that the artist must be good - or God.

After studying the culture of the Aborigines in Australia, Ture Sjolander did not come out with quaint proposals on how to promote Aboriginal Art as others have done. He saw a bigger picture and wrote: "The Aboriginals still have what we lost: cultural dignity. Undoubtedly the Aboriginal is Australia’s richest heritage… The British/Australians have historically proved that they are unable to deal with the problem. These bullies … have always been the problem for the Aborigines and still are, as well as they are the problem for today’s immigrants."

Sjolander’s study was commissioned by the Queensland Government. But when it was completed it was not published. The newspapers would not publish the summary. No newspaper would even accept the summary as an ad. Finally, it was broadcasted on a local TV-show. And the Aborigines still live their lives on reservations under very primitive conditions. Although most of Australians are of non-English speaking background (the term used is NESB), the queens dutiful convicts still hold a firm grip of the island/continent.

Going from the most ancient to the most modern, Ture Sjolander has been called to Godfather of computer game-players, because he was the first person in the world who created a film with electronically animated images for TV. From Sjolander's point of view, this was not an individual achievement, he was simply part of a collective process of the development of mankind. I claim he had antennae. "Not at all," he says, "just a curious mind."

In 1997, when Ture Sjolander was invited to work in China, the closed fist was still a very strong symbol in this country. Sjolander displayed two gigantic closed penises (marble knots). Everybody, except customs, understood the symbolism. The statues still remain in Changchun as a reminder that there are many kinds of freedom to be won, in addition to the obvious first one, the freedom from poverty.

Was this a political manifestation? Yes and no and certainly not party politics. Real politics is that which makes society progress, all else is a charade. This is what Sjolander showed the Australian public when he caused a government crisis by prompting the Prime Minister to sign a five-dollar bill. As in many other countries, to scribble on a bill is an illegal act in Australia, and the opposition called for the government to resign.

"Aren't there more important things to argue about?" many Australians asked themselves when the debate was at its worst. Many people realized that their cherished democracy was nothing but a game of chess for the power hungry wannabe aristocracies, and that they themselves were nothing more than pawns.

Another "installation", set in Sweden, made it to the front pages of the nations' two dominating evening papers: "Famous Swedish artist threatens to kill Prime Minister."

The back-ground was that American private eyes had been hired by the Swedish Law Enforcement Authorities to act in the Philippines on behalf of Swedish and American courts in a custody case about Sjolander's son Matu. Sjolander wanted to call attention to the fact that private investigators were cheating the Swedish Government for millions of dollars. He travelled to Sweden. Being a famous artist, he got an appointment with the PM, at that time Ingvar Carlsson, but at the last moment Carlsson had to cancel the meeting to go to a state-funeral in Israel.

Sjolander, who was used to censorship and cancelled exhibitions, laconically told the secretary that the PM would soon have to go to another funeral - meaning his, i.e. Ture's, own, as it was well known that his life was threatened by three contract killers from the Philippines!

The secretary misinterpreted it for a threat against the PM. For this Ture Sjolander's spent two months in police custody. When the private eyes found out about this, they thought of a way to hide their million-dollar-scam, and filed additional complaints against Sjolander. He was supposed to have threatened one of them. In court, the only threat turned out to be to squeal to the PM, unless the privates returned the money to the Swedish Government.

The trial was more interesting to me than any of the more spectacular happenings in the 60’es. The dark lounge suit guys had their pants down during the entire trial (half monty) and yet had the nerve to lie throughout all of it - a rock steady picture added by Sjolander to our common understanding of the world. I wish someone would paint it – remember pants down.

Of course, Ture Sjolander was completely acquitted and was awarded a compensation for the months spent unjustly in police custody. The private eyes were neatly fired and Sjolander was not assassinated. However, cognoscenti and literati in Sweden would say "no smoke without a fire" and a leper was once again (voluntarily) exiled. But, you know, if you have not spent a month or two in jail, you’re not a real artist.

Had he lived in the 18th century, Ture Sjolander would have died in front of a firing squad already as a young man. Had he lived in the 19th century, he would have slowly wasted away in a dungeon. But since we are talking about the 20th century, he was only crucified a couple of times - and has resurrected himself by recreating himself. In spite of all this, Sjolander says: "I am not art. You are! I am just your tool – mirror."

 

Aapo Saask 2004-09-13