Screening Room: John Whitney Sr.

Abstract computer animator, inventor and digital pioneer John Whitney, Sr. (1917-1995) is widely considered the "father of Computer Graphics." Whitney's films reveal his deep interest in technology as a means to art, as well as in the links he saw between music and visual forms. A resident at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies, and later on the faculty at UCLA and the California Institute of Technology, Whitney experimented with early computer graphic systems and worked alongside IBM programmers to expand the computer's graphic capabilities. He has received many awards. Originally working with his brother, James, Whitney leaves a legacy of image making in his three sons, John Jr., Mark, and Michael, who are also filmmakers.

John Whitney was a guest on the inaugural episode of Screening Room in November, 1972. He showed and discussed Permutations, 1-2-3-Osaka, Matrix, Matrix III and a film by his son, John Whitney Jr., calledTerminal Self.

“The foremost computer-filmmaker in the world, John Whitney has for more than thirty years sought new language through technological resources beyond human capacity. He has, however, remained resolutely "humanist" in his approach, constantly striving to reach deep emotional awarenesses through a medium essentially austere and clinical.” — Gene Younggblood