Michael Century - Northern Sparks: Innovation, Technology Policy, and the Arts in Canada from Expo 67 to the Internet Age

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Northern Sparks: Innovation, Technology Policy, and the Arts in Canada from Expo 67 to the Internet Age, Michael Century, 2022

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Northern Sparks

Innovation, Technology Policy, and the Arts in Canada from Expo 67 to the Internet Age

Michael Century

The MIT Press

Cambridge, Massachusetts

London, England

2022 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

This work is subject to a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND license. Subject to such license, all rights are reserved.

The MIT Press would like to thank the anonymous peer reviewers who provided comments on drafts of this book. The generous work of academic experts is essential for establishing the authority and quality of our publications. We acknowledge with gratitude the contributions of these otherwise uncredited readers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Century, Michael, author.

Title: Northern sparks : innovation, technology policy, and the arts in Canada from Expo 67 to the Internet age / Michael Century.

Description: Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2022] | Series: Leonardo | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021033966 | ISBN 9780262045001 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: Technological innovationsCanadaHistory20th century. | Digital mediaCanadaHistory20th century. | TechnologyGovernment policyCanadaHistory20th century. | Technology and the artsHistory20th century.

Classification: LCC T173.5. C2 C46 2022 | DDC 302.23/10971dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021033966

d_r0

For Barbara Todd

List of Figures

1. Norman McLaren with Evelyn Lambart around 1958.
2. Norman McLaren, Synchromy, 1971.
3. Norman McLaren, Pas de Deux, 1968.
4. Norman McLaren at interactive display for test film Birdlings.
5. Peter Foldes Hunger, 1974.
6. Daniel Langlois in production Tony de Peltrie, 1984. Courtesy of the Daniel Langlois Foundation.
7. Hugh Le Caine with the Electronic Sackbut, ca. 1950s. Courtesy of the National Research Council.
8. Three-dimensional space used to characterize performance systems, adapted from Buxton et al., A Microcomputer-Based Conducting System, Computer Music Journal 4, no. 1 (1980).
9. Merce Cunningham (foreground) working with the computer software LifeForms during the making of Elliot Caplans (background) documentary CRWDSPCR. Photographed by Michael Stier, 1993. Courtesy of the Merce Cunningham Trust.
10. Michael Snow beside the camera activation machine in the production of La Rgion Centrale. Photograph by Joyce Wieland.
11. Glenn Gould (foreground) and Lorne Tulk, CBC Studio, Toronto, late 1960s.
12. Apparatus 1: The Living Museum conceptual floor plan. Adapted from Barbara Shapiro, in Lewis, The Living Museums Data Network, Parallelogram 3 (1979). ANNPAC/RACA, Toronto, 1979. Restructuring: reversing the hub-and-spoke model of a national museum within a revised Canadian political geography. Imagining a federation without a center. Disguise: maintains an idea of an artistic network where art administration and artist-run centers are also absent.
13. Concept of a common visual space. Adapted from Sawchuk et al., An Interactive Image Communication System Using Narrowband Lines, Computers and Graphics 3 (1978).
14. Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun at Banff, 1992.

Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology fosters transformation at the nexus of art, science, and technology because complex problems require creative solutions. The Leonardo book series shares these aims of artistic and scientific experimentation, publishing books to define problems and discover solutions, to critique old knowledge and create the new.