From left to right: Ernest Edmonds, Matthew Attard, Francesca Franco
In this episode of SIGGRAPH Spotlight, SIGGRAPH 2025 Art Gallery Chair Francesca Franco welcomes friends and colleagues Ernest Edmonds and Matthew Attard to the podcast. These distinguished artists discuss their pivotal works and how generative art can bridge the gap between the natural world and digital technology.
Make your mark on SIGGRAPH 2025 by submitting to the Art Gallery by 28 January.
About Our Guests
Ernest Edmonds was born in London in 1942. He is an artist/researcher: a pioneer in both Generative Art and Computer Human Interaction. He first used a computer to make an artwork in 1968, first showed an interactive artwork in 1970, and a networked art system in 1971. He has exhibited throughout the world, from Moscow to LA. In 2017 he received the ACM SIGGRAPH Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement in Digital Art as well as the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Achievement Award for the Practice of Computer Human Interaction. Recent retrospectives have been shown at Microsoft Research Asia Beijing, De Montfort University Leicester, UK, and Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney Australia. He has very many publications on human-computer interaction, creativity and computer-based art. His most recent books are From Fingers to Digits: An Artificial Aesthetic (MIT Press, 2019), written with Margaret Boden, and art: notes and works (Boco Publishing, 2022). His work was described in the book by Francesca Franco, Generative Systems Art: The Work of Ernest Edmonds, Routledge, 2017. Ernest is Emeritus Professor at De Montfort University, UK. http:www.ernestedmonds.com
Matthew Attard (Malta, 1987). His practice investigates images as social and cultural constructs. Matthew is strongly interested in situating his practice within the realm of contemporary drawing through a multimedia approach that highlights drawing’s versatile, performative, and time-based nature. Matthew was the solo artist representing the Malta Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale, with the project I WILL FOLLOW THE SHIP, commissioned by the Malta Arts Council and co-curated by Elyse Tonna and Sara Dolfi Agostini. His interest in understanding the gaze as a form of drawing – its perceptual, physiological and cultural dimensions – were the focus of his practice-based PhD research at the Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh, funded by the Malta Arts Scholarship scheme. Raised in Malta, in 2009 he moved to Venice. He first exhibited his work in a double solo show organized in 2014 at Galleria Michela Rizzo in Venice. Since then, he has exhibited in Venice, Rome, Valletta, Genoa, London, Beijing and Los Angeles among other cities. Also, in 2017 he was selected for the 3rd edition of the Le Latitudini dell’Arte Biennale, at the Palazzo Ducale, Genoa, while in 2018 he was awarded the Under 30 Euromobil Prize at ArteFiera, Bologna. He was selected three times to show in the context of Ten Artists to Watch at LACDA (Los Angeles Centre for Digital Arts) and in 2019 he was invited to participate in Artissima Telephone at the OGR spaces in Turin. Recently, he was shortlisted for the Lumen Prize 2021. Rajt ma rajtx… naf li rajt is one of Matthew’s major solo shows, curated by Elyse Tonna at Valletta Contemporary in 2021. In 2022 he was commissioned the work Here’s How I Did Not See What You Wanted Me To See as part of the OPEN digital residency at Blitz, Valletta, curated by Sara Dolfi Agostini.
