Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 6: Personal Computer Era (1980s)
1983
Jim Blinn receives the first (1983) ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award
Jim Blinn was the first person to receive SIGGRAPH’s Computer Graphics Achievement Award, “given [each year] to an individual for outstanding achievement in computer graphics and interactive techniques.”
Blinn was a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) mainstay who would greatly impact the world of computer graphics, influencing those who also came through JPL, including David Em, Alvy Ray Smith and Pat Cole. Blinn was particularly known for his NASA simulations of the Voyager spacecraft in 1979.
Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.
Sources
People
Alvy Ray Smith, David Em, Jim Blinn, Pat Cole
Movements
computer animation, computer art
Filed under
- Ideas
- simulation
- Technologies
- computer graphics, Voyager
- People
- Alvy Ray Smith, David Em, Jim Blinn, Pat Cole
- Works
- David
- Organisations
- ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), NASA, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), SIGGRAPH
Related moments
Echoes across time
- 1964 · The First Man (Boeing Man) by William Fetter
- 1963 · Simulation of a Two-Gyro Gravity-Gradient Attitude Control System by Edward E. Zajac
- 1967 · Hummingbird by Charles Csuri
Le Random editorials
- Casey Reas on the History of Generative Art - Part 2, Peter Bauman, July 5, 2023
Le Random podcast
- Timeline Ch 6—Personal Computer Era (1980s) with Mark Wilson, Copper Giloth, Dan Sandin, David Em, William Latham, Stephen Todd, Darcy Gerbarg & Geoff Davis — listen with transcript on Le Random (08 Feb 2024, 85 min). Featuring David Em. Chapter 6’s episode. Apple Podcasts · Spotify