Desmond Paul Henry (5 July 1921 – 28 October 2004) was a Manchester University Lecturer and Reader in Philosophy (1949–82). He was one of the first British artists to experiment with machine-generated visual effects at the time of the emerging global computer art movement of the 1960s (The Cambridge Encyclopaedia 1990 p. 289; Levy 2006 pp. 178–180). During this period, Henry constructed a succession of three electro-mechanical drawing machines from modified bombsight analogue computers which were employed in World War II bombers to calculate the accurate release of bombs onto their targets (O'Hanrahan 2005). Henry's machine-generated effects resemble complex versions of the abstract, curvilinear graphics which accompany Microsoft's Windows Media Player. Henry's machine-generated effects may therefore also be said to represent early examples of computer graphics: "the making of line drawings with the aid of computers and drawing machines" (Franke 1971, p. 41). Henry often subsequently added hand-embellishments to his machine-generated effects in response to their suggestive features.
During the 1970s Henry focused on developing his Cameraless Photography experiments. He went on to make a fourth drawing machine in 1984 and a fifth pendulum design one in 2002 .
Artistic career It was thanks to artist L. S. Lowry, working in collaboration with the then director of Salford Art Gallery, A. Frape, that Henry's artistic career was launched in 1961 when he beat a thousand contestants to win a local art competition at Salford Art Gallery, entitled "London Opportunity." The picture that won Henry this prize was one based on his own experimental photo-chemical technique, and not a machine-drawing. The prize for winning this competition was a one-man exhibition show in London at the Reid Gallery. Lowry knew how crucial such a London show could be in bringing an artist to public attention. As one of the competition judges, Lowry visited Henry's home in Burford Drive, Manchester, to view his range of artistic work. (O'Hanrahan 2005). Here it was Lowry first saw Henry's Drawing Machine 1 in action. This led to Henry having "the world's first ever one-man machine show" (Henry) at Salford Art Gallery starting August 30th,1962 (Daily Herald, 30/08/1962). Lowry insisted Henry also include some machine drawings alongside his photo-chemical ones, in the concurrent London exhibition at the Reid Gallery also starting August 30,1962 and called "Ideographs" (O'Hanrahan 2005, Daily Herald, 30/08/1962). This London exhibition was his prize for winning the 1961 "London Opportunity" competition with a photo-chemical drawing, not a machine-drawing.
Following the concurrent 1962 Salford and London exhibitions of machine-produced effects together with their positive media coverage, Henry and his first drawing machine were included in the first ever programme in the BBC's North at Six series (September 1962). In 1963 Henry was approached by the American magazine Life (O'Hanrahan 2005). Henry and his first drawing machine were to be featured in this magazine, but the article was scrapped following the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy on November 22nd, 1963. The generally positive response his machine-pictures received reflects the zeitgeist of technological optimism of the 1960s (O'Hanrahan 2005). The Guardian of 17/9/62 described the images produced by this first machine as being "quite out of this world" and "almost impossible to produce by human hand".
Henry's machine-generated effects went on to be exhibited at various venues during the 1960s, the most major being Cybernetic Serendipity (1968) held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (I.C.A) in London. This represented one of the most significant art and technology exhibitions of the decade (Goodman 1987). In this exhibition Drawing Machine 2 itself was included as an interactive exhibit. "Cybernetic Serendipity" then went on to tour the United States, where exhibition venues included the Corcoran Gallery in Washington and San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts (O'Hanrahan 2005).
This second machine returned from its tour of the United States in 1972 in a complete state of disrepair (O'Hanrahan 2005). Such technical failures were not unusual in electric and motor-driven exhibition items (Rosenburg 1972). More recently, frequent mechanical and/or electronic computer breakdowns contributed to the decision to close Artworks, (The Lowry, Salford Quays, Manchester) in March 2003 after just less than three years in operation as a permanent, technology-based, interactive exhibition (O'Hanrahan 2005).
Inspiration: the bombsight computer The main component of Henry's three drawing machines of the 1960s was the bombsight computer. These mechanical analogue computers represented some of the most important technological advancements of World War II. However, by the 1960s they already represented "old" technology when compared to the more modern digital computers then available (O'Hanrahan 2005).
The mechanical analogue bombsight computer was employed in World War II bomber aircraft to determine the exact moment bombs were to be released to hit their target. The bombardier entered information on air and wind speed, wind direction, altitude, angle of drift and bomb weight into the computer which then calculated the bomb release point, using a complex arrangement of gyros, motors, gears linked to a separate telescope (Jacobs 1996).
It was in 1952 that Henry purchased his very first Sperry bombsight computer, in mint condition, from an army surplus warehouse in Shude Hill, Manchester. This purchase was inspired by Henry's lifelong passion for all things mechanical, which had been further fuelled by seven years serving as a technical clerk with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during World War II (O'Hanrahan 2005). Henry so marvelled at the mechanical inner workings of this bombsight computer in motion, that nine years later in 1961 he decided to capture its "peerless parabolas" (as Henry termed its inner workings), on paper. He then modified the bombsight to create the first drawing machine of 1961. This first machine was "cannibalised" (Henry) to create a second one in the autumn of 1962. A third machine was constructed in 1967 (O'Hanrahan 2005). These machines created complex, abstract, asymmetrical, curvilinear images, which were either left untouched as completed drawings or embellished by the artist's hand in response to the suggestive machine-generated effects. None of Henry's drawing machines are currently in operational order and what remains of Drawing Machine 2 is held by the Science Museum London. Between 2012-19, artist-engineer Dr. Jack Tait developed an analogue drawing machine which he called "Homage to Henry" using the principles of reverse engineering and capable of producing effects similar to those of Henry's drawing machines.
The drawing machines
Each Henry electromechanical drawing machine was based around an analogue bombsight computer in combination with other components which Henry happened to have acquired for his home-based workshop in Whalley Range, Manchester (O'Hanrahan 2005). Each machine took up to six weeks to construct and each drawing from between two hours to two days to complete. The drawing machines relied upon an external electric power source to operate either one or two servo motors which powered the synchronisation of suspended drawing implement(s) acting upon either a stationary or moving drawing table (O'Hanrahan 2005). With the first drawing machine Henry employed biros as the mark-making implement; however with the machines that followed he preferred to use Indian ink in technical tube pens, since these effects, in contrast to biro ink, do not risk fading upon prolonged exposure to sunlight (O'Hanrahan 2005).
How the drawing machines operated Henry's drawing machines were quite unlike the conventional computers of the 1960s since they could not be pre-programmed nor store information and nor did they use plotters to generate images on paper. (O'Hanrahan 2005). His machines relied instead, as did those of artist Jean Tinguely, upon a "mechanics of chance" (Pontus Hulten in Peiry 1997, p. 237). That is to say, they relied upon the chance relationship in the arrangement of each machine's mechanical components, the slightest alteration to which, (for example, a loosened screw), could dramatically impinge on the final result. In the words of Henry, he let each machine "do its own thing" in accordance with its sui generis mechanical features, with often surprising and unpredictable results. The imprecise way Henry's machines were both constructed and operated ensured that their effects could not be mass-produced and would be infinitely varied (O'Hanrahan 2005).
Such imprecise tools as Henry's machines, have been judged by some to enhance artistic creativity as opposed to modern computer imaging software which leaves no scope for artistic intuition (Smith 1997). Nor could Henry's machines have been accused of preventing the artist from exercising aesthetic choice. They were truly interactive, like modern computer graphic manipulation software. With a Henry drawing machine, the artist had general overall control and was free to exercise personal and artistic intuition at any given moment of his choosing during the drawing production process (O'Hanrahan, 2005).
Both these elements of chance and interaction were in contrast to most other computer artists or graphic designers of the period, for whom the first stage in producing a digital computer graphic was to conceive the end product. The next stage was one where, "mathematical formulae or geometric pattern manipulations (were) found to represent the desired lines. These were then programmed into a computer language, punched onto cards, and read into the computer" (Sumner 1968 p. 11).
Machine-generated effects
In 2001 Henry's machine-generated work was discussed in terms of the use made, since earliest times, of a range of tools for producing similar abstract, visual effects (O'Hanrahan 2001). Once Henry himself had beheld the visual effects produced by his first machine, he then strove to find possible precursors such as the organic forms described in natural form mathematics. (D'Arcy-Thompson 1917; Cook 1914). Henry also compared his machine-generated effects to those produced using earlier scientific and mathematical instruments such as: Suardi's Geometric Pen of 1750 (Adams 1813), Pendulum Harmonographs (Goold et al., 1909) and the Geometric Lathe as used in ornamental and bank-note engraving (Holtzapffel 1973 ).
His inclusion in 1968 in "Cybernetic Serendipity" enabled him to further contrast his machine-generated effects with similar though less complex and varied ones produced using a variety of tools. These included effects displayed on a visual display screen using a cathode-ray oscilloscope (Ben F. Laposky in Cybernetic Serendipity 1968) and those produced using a mechanical plotter linked to either a digital (Lloyd Sumner in Cybernetic Serendipity 1968) or analogue computer (Maughan S. Mason in Cybernetic Serendipity 1968). However Henry's drawing machines, in contrast to other precision mark-making instruments like the lathe and mechanical plotter, relied heavily upon the element of chance both in their construction and function (O'Hanrahan 2005). This random characteristic ensured the unrepeatable quality of his machine-generated effects.
Fractal mathematics Henry's introduction in 2001 to the aesthetic application of fractal mathematics (Briggs 1994 ) provided Henry with the necessary terms of reference for describing the chance-based operational aspects of his machines. Fractal mathematics could also help describe the aesthetic appreciation of his machine-generated effects or "Mechanical Fractals" (Henry 2002) as he came to term them (O'Hanrahan 2005).