Rosebush Visions Corp. 154 West 57th Street, #828 New York, NY 10019 Office: (212)581-3000 Home: (212)956-6020 Email: judson@rosebush.com
Judson Rosebush is a producer and director of computer animation, an author, and media theorist. He was born in 1947. He is a graduate of the College of Wooster in art and has a Ph.D. from Syracuse University in Public Communications. He has worked in radio and television broad- casting, sound and video production, print, and hypermedia. His specialty is computer animation.
Rosebush completed his first computer animations in l970 and has worked artistically and professionally with the medium since that date. His best known animations include Space++ (1974), a collection of MTV-styled demonstration reels from Digital Effects Inc. (1978-1984), and work from his own company (formed in 1985). He has exhibited computer-generated films, numerous museum shows, conferences, and on television. His syn- thetic images are reproduced in hundreds of magazines and books, as well as art exhibits. His credits include work for national advertising accounts, networks, and scenes from feature films including TRON. Rosebush is the programmer of much of the software used to make his pictures.
Rosebush is the coauthor of Computer Graphics for Designers and Artists, published in 1986 by Van Nostrand Reinhold Co. He is currently com- pleting a book on Computer Animation and is the author of the serialized "Pixel Handbook" for Pixel Vision magazine. He has lectured at computer graphics conferences worldwide as well as to more generalized audiences in entertainment, business and industry, education, and art, where he explores the broader implications of his work.
He currently produces and directs computer animation and special effects work for film and video, consults on software and facility planning and writes--words as well as software. Typical projects during the past year have included coauthoring and directing two one-hour television programs on Volume Visualization and HDTV and the Quest for Virtual Reality, writing "The Proceduralist Manifesto" a statement on computer art published in Leonardo, publishing a tutorial on "Using APL for Com- puter Graphics Notation", and programming a HyperCard controlled videodisc system.
You thought the Internet was free? Do you need one website or 300 to feed into it? Do you know how to "steal" bandwidth, or if it is getting "stolen" from you? Just what is "traffic" anyway? If we told you the secrets here you wouldn't need the lecture, would you?
Few people are better qualified to talk about the use of computer graphics in advertising, feature film, and television than lecturer Rosebush. Profusely illustrated with slides and videotapes, this insider's view presents the step-by-step process of how computer graph- ics and animation are designed and fabricated, how a commercial studio is organized, what hardware and software id employed, and what things cost. Besides reviewing the history of the medium, Rosebush will also detail state-of-the-art research in kinematics, dynamic physical model- ing, character animation and the simulation of famous people, and the emerging relationships between animation and architecture, CAD, frac- tals, growth simulation, and genetic compilers.
Since antiquity, sapiens have attempted to construct graphical models of their environs; some, like calendars and maps, are static, others, like the zodiac, depict temporal events. In the industrial era, as science undertook increasingly abstract descriptions, visualizations like the periodic table and the Bohr atom facilitated understanding. The very first computer animations, in 1963, involved scientific visualizations of earth satellite orbits. And today, supercomputers, often using mas- sive discrete approximations, are animating detailed nuclear reactions, fluid flows over airplane wings, weather systems, and a host of other applications where computer animation is used to visualize extremely complex abstract and realistic systems. Model construction and the role of the artist are also addressed in this extremely contemporary topic.
Computer art is entering its fourth decade, yet it remains ostracized from widespread, mainstream critical review and acceptance. Why is this? Is the computer a new medium or just another tool for the artist? Can a person who programs a computer be considered an artist? Can a user, for example, of a paint system ever be considered to be creative? Rosebush will argue that the proceduralist approach to art - making art by manipulating codified parameters - represents a major art movement in this century, and in this lecture he will address these questions as well as place computer art into the context of the 20th century.
Dr. Rosebush, an award-winning computer animation director and producer, will address new technologies beyond computer graphics and computer animation. He will discuss the way these technologies will affect com- munications, ideas, and marketing in the 1990's. This includes the technologies and roles interactive CD-ROM, virtual reality, emerging multimedia, and high-definition TV (HDTV) will play in future communi- cations. In addition, Rosebush will show clips from his most famous computer animations, and discuss how they were produced.
A videotape of Beyond Computer Animation, produced for the ACM Lecturers on Tape series, is available on loan or for purchase. Contact the Local Activities office at ACM Headquarters for more information.