Charles “Chuck” Csuri

Basic Info

Name: Charles “Chuck” Csuri
Country of Origin: US
Website: http://www.csurivision.com/

Description

Charles A. Csuri was an artist, computer graphics pioneer, and Professor Emeritus, at The Ohio State University. He began experimenting with computer graphics technology in 1963, and by 1965 had started creating computer animated films, most well known of which is the ‘Hummingbird’ from 1967, purchased by the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

The 4th International Experimental Film Festival, Brussels, Belgium, 1967, awarded him the prize for animation. His work was highlighted in the exhibition Cybernetic Serendipity held at The Institute for Contemporary Art, London in 1968.

With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), he directed basic research in computer graphics for over 22 years which generated 15 major projects and engaged more than forty graduate students in computer science and over fifty students from the field of art in the research. The results of the research have been applied to flight simulators, computer-aided design, visualization of scientific phenomena , magnetic resonance imaging, education for the deaf, architecture, and special effects for television and films.

Csuri’s recurring themes that have effected his “creative partnership” with the computer in exploring the aesthetic object include object transformation, randomness, collaboration and hierarchical levels of control.

Media art history texts have always featured Csuri’s early works as important examples computer generated art. Siggraph officially recognized him as a computer graphics pioneer. He has been referred to as the “master of the digital renaissance” for his skillful blending of fine arts and science by Karla Loring.

The Charles A. Csuri Collection is located in the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD), College of the Arts, The Ohio State University which also maintains a biographical website – CsuriProject.

Early works of Charles Csuri are in the collections of Joe Ferrer, Roy Lichtenstein and Georg Segal.

Explore Artworks By Charles “Chuck” Csuri

Da Vinci Series

Created in 1966 by Charles “Chuck” Csuri

signed and dated lower left in ink hardware: IBM 7094 output machine: CalComp 565 drum plotter Csuri continued to work with transformations on drawings and created several works based on Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. To do this, Csuri first made a drawing based on Leonardo’s famous sketch. He then invoked the mathematical concept of […]


Da Vinci Series

Created in 1966 by Charles “Chuck” Csuri

signed and dated lower left in ink hardware: IBM 7094 output machine: CalComp 565 drum plotter Csuri continued to work with transformations on drawings and created several works based on Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. To do this, Csuri first made a drawing based on Leonardo’s famous sketch. He then invoked the mathematical concept of […]


Da Vinci Series

Created in 1966 by Charles “Chuck” Csuri

signed and dated lower right in ink hardware: IBM 7094 output machine: CalComp 565 drum plotter Csuri continued to work with transformations on drawings and created several works based on Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. To do this, Csuri first made a drawing based on Leonardo’s famous sketch. He then invoked the mathematical concept of […]


Sine Curve Man

Created in 1967 by Charles “Chuck” Csuri

a serigraph after an original unique computer generated plotter drawing signed and dated “Csuri began this Sine Curve Man work with an original drawing and transformed it using the sine curve function. His abstraction of the face suggests parallels with early Cubist movements and manages, without having the advantage of color, to invoke the emotive […]


Random War

Created in 1967 by Charles “Chuck” Csuri

signed and dated lower right in ink hardware: IBM 7094 output machine: CalComp 565 drum plotter “Featured at the opening at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts ICA in 1968, “Cybernetic Serendipity” was one of the first international exhibitions devoted to the relationship between the computer and the arts. Artists, mathematicians, engineers, composers and poets all […]


Feeding Time

Created in 1966 by Charles “Chuck” Csuri

signed and dated lower right in ink hardware: IBM 7094 output machine: CalComp 565 drum plotter The concepts of randomness and chance have influenced Csuri’s art since he began working with computers in the early 1960s. Feeding Time, like Random War, explores the notion of randomness, but uses Csuri’s light-hearted drawing of a common housefly. […]


Sine Curve Man

Created in 1967 by Charles “Chuck” Csuri

signed and dated in ink hardware: IBM 7094 output machine: CalComp 565 drum plotter “Csuri created this revolutionary self portrait known as the first figurative computer drawing done in the U.S. As a fine art professor at The Ohio State University, he used an IBM 7094 considered one of the most powerful computers of the […]


Cybernetic Serendipity (The Computer and the Arts) Portfolio

Created in 1968 by Masao Kohmura, Makoto Ohtake, Koji Fujino, Maughan Sterling Mason, Kerry Strand, James Shaffer, Charles “Chuck” Csuri, Donald K. Robbins, Kunio Yamanaka, William Alan Fetter

a portfolio containing a colophon page and seven lithographs all after original unique computer-generated plotter drawings in a custom made box printed and published by Motif Editions, London in 1968 each print has the artist name(s), title, date(s), associated university/company/location, and publishing information printed along the lower left edge of the paper 1. CTG – […]


Random War

Created in 1969 by Charles “Chuck” Csuri, James Shaffer

from the Cybernetic Serendipity portfolio containing a colophon page and seven lithographs all after original unique computer-generated plotter drawings in a custom made box printed and published by Motif Editions, London in 1968 artist’s names, title, dates, associated university/location, and publishing information printed along the lower left edge of the paper artist’s were associated with […]