[Crib-list] Connection Machine abstract

[Shirley Entzminger]

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Parallel Scientific Computing Class Guest Lecture

Dear Crib List:

   I am opening up this coming Tuesday's class to a general audience. This 
is a wonderful piece of history excellently delivered by Tamiko Thiel. 
Some of you who heard this talk last November know what fun this is.

Sincerely

Alan Edelman
MIT

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"How the Connection Machine Got Its Blinking Red Lights"

SPEAKER:	Tamiko Thiel
DATE:		Tuesday April 26
LOCATION:	Room 4-237
TIME:		2:30 - 4:00 PM

In 1983 Tamiko Thiel joined the start-up Thinking Machines Corporation
to direct the packaging design of the Connection Machine CM-1 / CM-2.
The doctoral thesis of  W. Daniel Hillis, then PhD. candidate under
Marvin Minsky at the MIT AI Lab, the Connection Machine was the first
commercially available massively parallel supercomputer and in its time
one of the fastest computers in the world. Thiel’s design challenge was
to find a form for its 12-dimensional network of 65,536 processors that
was not only buildable, but also communicated the passion and conviction
of its makers that this was indeed the first of a new generation of
machines.

She will talk about the images from history and science fiction that
influenced the design, and how her desire to use physical form in a
symbolic manner led her to – as she thought – depart from the modernist
dogma “Form Follows Function.” In reality, she was rediscovering the
original meaning intended by architect Louis Sullivan, who considered
“function” to include “the aspirations, values, ideals and spiritual
needs of human beings.”

Bio:
Tamiko Thiel has a B.S. in Product Design Engineering from Stanford
University, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, and a Diploma in
Applied Graphics from the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. She considers
the Connection Machine to have been her first artwork and has gone on
since then to develop an international reputation in the media arts.
Currently she is a Research Affiliate at the MIT Center for Advanced
Visual Studies, where she is developing the narrative potential of
interactive virtual reality as an artistic medium for addressing
cultural and social issues.