Live audio/video performance for Alan Turing's 100th Birthday Party at Watermans Gallery in London

Live audio/video performance for Alan Turing's 100th Birthday Party at Watermans Gallery in London from Alex May on Vimeo.
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.

Martin A. Smith created a sound 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.

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.