A portrait of Alan Turing using music, found sounds and sound collage, featuring contributions from Professor Kevin Warwick and Professor Ernest Edmonds, quotations from Alan Turing and poetry from fifteen year old poet, Hallie, from Manchester.
The soundscape was generated from Turing Patterns using image to sound software and incorporates recordings of the Bombe, the Second World War and elements from Snow White, a story that meant so much to Alan Turing.
The intent, like a conventional painted portrait or photograph, is to represent aspects his character, life and work by using the medium of sound.
Intuition and Ingenuity
2012 is the centenary of Alan Turing’s birth. Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS (23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954), was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and computer scientist.
He was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of “algorithm” and “computation” with the Turing machine, which played a significant role in the creation of the modern computer.
Turing is widely considered to be the father of computer science and artificial intelligence. To mark what would’ve been Turing’s 100th birthday on the 23rd of June 2012, Alex May performed a live, improvised video mix visually interpreting Martin’s sound portrait using his own software called PatchBox.
Currently touring as part of the Intuition and Ingenuity exhibition
Kinetica Art Fair, London
Lovebytes Festival, Sheffield
The AISB/IACAP World Congress, Birmingham
The British Science Festival, Aberdeen
V&A Digital Design Weekend, London
Phoenix Square, Leicester
Blinc Digital Festival, Conwy
Bletchley Park
www.turingcentenaryarts.eu
Alex May
www.bigfug.com
Blinc Festival
“Alan Turing: a portrait in sound and visuals” by myself and Alex May was projected onto Conwy Civic Centre as part of the Blinc Digital Arts Festival. The BBC covered the festival and you can see part of the projection in their report. www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-20107876
Blinc
www.blincdigital.com
Digital Design Weekend at The Victoria And Albert Museum
The portrait was shown at The Victoria And Albert Museum as part of the Digital Design Weekend 2012. The video shows the artists, including me, talking about their work
Portraits In Sound
The Alan Turing is part of a series of sound portraits I am developing.
Listen to more Portraits In Sound here