Ivan E. Sutherland's Sketchpad and the Birth of the “Universal” Computer Drawing

This chapter directs its attention to Ivan E. Sutherland, one of the individuals whose research still shapes the imaging process of computer graphics today. The focus is directed toward his Sketchpad program that he developed in 1963, which is one of the earliest graphical input methods for screens. A production aesthetical analysis of the program reveals not only valuable insight into Sutherland&s;s worldview as well as conception of imagery but also into how we work with computers generally today and how this affects our creative work on the computer. Central to this creative work today are Sutherland&s;s first attempts to establish an interactive work process on the computer, something that was further developed in the 1970s by Sutherland&s;s student Alan Kay into what he called object-oriented programming. The advantages and disadvantages for creative work on the computer today that go hand in hand with these developments are demonstrated in this chapter. The accounts on Sutherland serve as an entry point into a more elaborate examination of developments that occurred at MIT&s;s Lincoln Laboratory in the 1960s.