Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts

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The Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts was a research centre at Middlesex University in North London. It helped shape the early world of computer graphics and later worked in interactive media, sonic arts and moving images. It also taught students at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The centre was renamed after John Lansdown, a computer graphics pioneer who led it from 1993 to 1997, after his death.

Its roots go back to John Vince’s work to develop computer graphics at the university, which was then a polytechnic. In the 1970s, Vince and colleagues built two sets of FORTRAN subroutines to create 2D and 3D drawings, and later produced full-colour images with Gouraud and Phong shading. This work fed short courses for media professionals. In 1985 Middlesex was named the National Centre for Computer Aided Art and Design, led by Paul Brown. The university developed the UK’s first MSc in Computer Graphics there. One graduate, Keith Waters, earned a PhD in 1988 for a muscle-based model of facial animation. The impact of Middlesex Polytechnic on British computer art is noted in the 2008 book White Heat Cold Logic and by the CACHe project.