2012 is be the 100th anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing, one of the greatest minds Britain has ever produced. Between inventing the digital computer and helping to decode the German Enigma machine, to founding the science of Artificial Intelligence, the world today would have been a very different place without him and his ideas. His work on morphogenesis (the biological processes that cause organisms to grow in a particular shapes) and the now famous “Turing Test” for machine intelligence have captured the imagination of artists for decades whilst his technological developments have given them the tools to create new kinds of artworks.
This exhibition, which takes its name from Turing’s own writing on the subject of mathematical reasoning, brings together a number of important artists from digital art pioneers to emerging contemporaries to investigate Turing’s enduring influence on art and contemporary culture.
This is an official Turing Centenary project curated by Anna Dumitriu, Sue Gollifer and Nick Lambert. Arts Council England, The Computer Arts Society and The University of Hertfordshire have kindly supported the exhibition. The Phoenix exhibition has also been supported by Leicester-based digital arts organisation Interact.