Ken Perlin: Pages from Ken Perlin’s Sketchbook
January 2004
Ken Perlin: Pages from Ken Perlin’s Sketchbook
Pages from Ken Perlin’s Sketchbook is an entry portal to seventy-seven of the artist’s studies, originally written as Java applets and presented as icons in a square grid. Using multiple interfaces, 3D characters, and forms of data visualizations, the sketches explore possibilities of virtual behaviors. They include design widgets, tools for tracing neuron connections in the human brain, robot-path planning, and experiments tracking gesturing during the delivery of speeches. Some sketches have been adapted by others and have taken on a life beyond Perlin’s original design. A sketch allowing users to change expressions on a face, for example, was used by parents to help their autistic children identify emotions.
Ken Perlin (b. 1958; Bronx, New York) works in a range of mediums, including multi-participant extended reality, computer graphics, animation, and user interfaces. He is a professor at New York University, where he directs the Future Reality Lab. He received an Academy Award for Technical Achievement in 1996 from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Other awards and honors include membership in the ACM SIGGRAPH Academy; the 2020 New York Visual Effects Society Empire Award; the 2008 ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award; the TrapCode [Creative] Award for achievement in computer graphics research (2006); the New York City Mayor’s Award for excellence in science and technology (2002); the Margaret and Herman Sokol Award for outstanding science faculty at New York University (2002); and a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation (1991).
Gate Pages
Every month from March 2001 to February 2006, the Whitney invited an artist or collective to present their work in the form of a “Gate Page” on artport. Each page was meant to function as a portal to the artist’s own sites and projects. The Gate Pages comprise a range of artistic approaches to the format—while some of them are designed as entry points to the respective artist’s website or promote a recently launched work, others take the form of a more complex stand-alone project.
Wherever necessary and possible, these works are made functional through emulation and reconstructions from the Internet Archive. Not all of them have been restored to their original state and their conservation is ongoing. You can also view the original Gate Pages archive to see how they were presented at the time of their creation.
artport
View more on artport, the Whitney Museum's portal to Internet and new media art.