Basic Info
Name: Harold Cohen
Country of Origin: GB
Description
Harold Cohen (1 May 1928 – 27 April 2016)[1] was a British-born artist who was noted as the creator of AARON, a computer program designed to produce art autonomously. His work in the intersection of computer artificial intelligence and art attracted a great deal of attention, leading to exhibitions at many museums, including the Tate Gallery in London, and acquisitions by many others.[2] Cohen was born in London, the son of Polish–Russian parents, and was educated there at the Slade School of Fine Art.[3]
Cohen went to the United States as a visiting lecturer at the University of California, San Diego in 1968, but he was given the rank of professor and stayed on for nearly three decades, part of the time as chairman of the Visual Arts Department. In addition, he served as director of the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts at University of California, San Diego from 1992 to 1998.
After his retirement from UCSD, he continued to work on AARON and produce new artwork in his studio in Encinitas, California.
In 2014, Cohen received the ACM SIGGRAPH Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement award.[4]
Early 2014 Cohen began the research effort (for project with AARON called Fingerpainting for the 21st Century) and in summer 2014 it became functional. The artist utilised a touch screen to colour and finish artworks. Before AARON’s images would be outputted in physical form before Cohen made alterations.[5] The project was first publicly demonstrated (via prerecorded video) in August 2014 at the ACM SIGGGRAPH Awards. The first public exhibition showing Fingerpainted paintings was at CÓDIGOS PRIMORDIAIS -Primary Codes- — Oi Futuro Flamengo–Rio de Janeiro-Brazi which started in June 2015. The work shown there were reproductions and no originals were exhibited. The first exhibit to show an original Fingerpainting for the 21st Century was at the Art is Science II–Karuizawa New Art Museum–Karuizawa Japan which started on Oct 7, 2017.
