Norman White
| Norman White | |
|---|---|
Norman White
|
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| Born |
Norman T. White July 1, 1938 San Antonio, Texas, United States |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Education | Harvard University |
| Known for | Electronic Media Artist, sculptor, Educator |
| Movement | New Media |
Norman White (born 1938, San Antonio Texas) Canadian New Media artist considered to be a pioneer in the use of electronic technology and robotics in art.
White was born in San Antonio Texas in 1938. He grew up in and around Boston, Massachusetts, and obtained his B.A. in Biology from Harvard University in 1959. Originally planning to become a fisheries biologist, White changed his mind and decided to travel to places like New York City, San Francisco, London, and the Middle East during the 1960s.
While living in San Francisco, he worked as an electrician at Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard, and developed a fascination for electrical switching systems. In 1967, White moved to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where he began to build and experiment with kinetic electronics. He taught classes such as "Mechanics for Real Time Sculpture" as part of the Integrated Media Program of the Ontario College of Art & Design from 1978 to 2003.
A retrospective of his work and influence, called Norm’s Robots and Machine Life, with works by both White and several Canadian artists he has influenced, was shown at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario in 2004.
Since 1992, White has also been an essential force behind the OCAD Sumo Robot Challenge, an annual competition akin to an automaton Olympics. White teaches at Ryerson University in Toronto.
White's early electronic art consisted mostly of gridded installations of light bulbs controlled by contemporary-vintage digital logic circuits. Like most of his art, these displays were concerned more with communicating internal rules and behaviours than simple visual appeal. For example, White's first major electronic work, "First Tighten Up on the Drums" (1969), generated shimmering light patterns through the unpredictable interaction of many interconnected circuits computing simple logical questions independently. The work illustrated how complex behaviours - for example, patterns akin to swirling clouds or rain on a window pane - can emerge from simple principles. In retrospect, White recognizes this first project as an early cellular automata experiment. He constructed approximately a dozen similar light machines during the early 1970s, culminating in "Splish Splash 2" (1975), a large light mural commissioned for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Vancouver offices.
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