Oral History Interview with Ernest Alan Edmonds

Abstract

This interview is part of a series on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) conducted by the Charles Babbage Institute for ACM SIGCHI (Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction). In this interview, Professor Edmonds reflects on early interests in drawing and art, his development of interactive art and his research on computer-human interaction support for creativity. He describes himself as an “artist by inclination, a logician by training, and a computer scientist by accident.” The bulk of the interview explores these areas, his pioneering in work in computer based/algorithmic (from his influential Nineteen in the late 1960s forward) and interactive art (DataPack, in 1970 with Stroud Cornock, forward), as well as important contributions to computer science. This includes relating of influences of university mentors, the Constructivist school, and collaborations and friendships within the Systems Group of UK artists. He discusses his computer science contributions—at Leicester Polytechnic, Loughborough University, and University of Technology in Sydney—including his “adaptive approach” in 1970 software development challenging established “waterfall” techniques and anticipating and helping provide foundation to what later became termed as “agile.” He also relates his contributions to fostering intellectual community with computer scientists and artists, including and especially with his and Linda Candy’s impactful “Creativity and Cognition” an annual event launched 1993, becoming a SIGCHI Conference in 1997, and thriving to this day. In his career, thinking a step beyond current technology, and drawing on his concepts of “attractors, sustainers, and relators,” he has creatively advanced interaction between human and machine, and human interaction through machines.