This major generative, transmodal, and interactive installation for SIGGRAPH 2023 celebrates the 50th conference of this most famous computer graphics conference series.

Why "Synaptic"? By referring to neural nets, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and cognitive neuroscience, the "synaptic" concept connects the last fifty years to the next.

Imagining the past, present, and future of the SIGGRAPH archive as a dense evolving network of artificial neurons, dendrites, and synapses, and likening the spread of ideas to branching neural signals firing across countless synaptic connections, flashing like lightning, this interactive, performative, and data-driven work traverses the landmark developments of an ever-emerging ever-expanding field, tracing the propagation of influences and innovations across time, extrapolating from the past fifty years to the future fifty.

Fusing past (five decades of SIGGRAPH archival materials), present (live interactivity, generativity, and performance), and future (AI/ML extrapolations of the past fifty years into the next fifty), this transmodal project explores synaptic interconnections between pioneering individuals, landmark ideas, technical innovations, breakthrough projects, and visionary artworks that carried the computer graphics revolution from the edge of research through the mainstream of global culture and on into the restless invention of the future.

This project originates at the MAT transLAB at UCSB, and is a collaboration between the transLAB and AlloSphere at MAT, the Alice Lab at York University, SBCAST (Santa Barbara Center for Art Science and Technology), Biopac Systems Inc., and the ACM SIGGRAPH Archive team. Realized with the generous support of AUTODESK.