Interview with Will Anielewicz
by Zbigniew Stachniak and Mark Hayward, 2024-25
The career of a computer art pioneer and animator, Will Anielewicz, spans an important period in the history of computer graphics, bridging the experimental innovations of the 1960s with the subsequent proliferation of graphics software that laid the foundation for today's world of ubiquitous digital visual media. This interview not only traces Anielewicz’s development as a computer artist and explores his image-making process in his own words, but also provides insight into a largely overlooked chapter in the history of computing in Canada.
Born in Poland, Anielewicz moved with his family to Israel as a child before relocating once more to Canada. Coming of age in late 1960s Toronto, he was drawn to the era's popular music (the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Doors), comics (mostly Marvel) and science fiction of the period. It is these popular cultural references that inspired his desire to create both music and visual art. Another key influence was computers. In 1971, he enrolled at York University to study computer science.
Anielewicz began experimenting with computer art while pursuing his master’s degree, which combined computer science, fine art, and philosophy. As a teaching assistant, he used plotters to generate graphs, histograms, and pie charts visualizing statistical data for the York University administration. Between 1977 and 1980, the artistic side of his plotter work yielded dozens of unique pieces of computer-generated art, which, alongside the work of other computer artists on campus, decorated not only the walls of the university's computer labs but also frequently appeared on the covers of university newsletters, technical manuals and reports. His first exposure beyond the university came in 1978, when his work was exhibited during the Canadian Computer Show and Conference in Toronto. In 1981, he participated in SIGGRAPH’s Computer Culture Art Show ’81, with exhibitions in both Dallas, Texas, and Toronto.
In 1979, Anielewicz began seeking work in the still-precarious computer industry in and around Toronto. After spending a few years at Omnibus (an early computer graphics company where he headed the Computer Animation Division), he joined newly formed Alias Research Inc. as a lead software engineer. There, he contributed to the development of Alias’s first 3D software packages designed for creating realistic 3D video animations and supporting computer-aided design.
By the mid-1980s, Anielewicz had moved to the United States to take on a role at Industrial Light & Magic, marking the beginning of a decades-long career as a digital effects artist in Hollywood.
"I have always thought of myself as an artist. The
computer is both my brush and colour palette."
Will, would you be able to talk a little about your education and upbringing before you arrived at York University? Where did you grow up, and go to high school? Could you talk about any experience you had working with computers before you arrived at York? For example, did you play video games, etc.?
Interesting question. At the risk of going back too far. My family rushed out of Poland in 1956 in fear of anti-semitism. We lived in Israel for several years, then immigrated to Toronto, Canada. As a young boy, I went through three extreme changes in culture and language. Perhaps that is why I see myself as different than the people around me.
Anyway, what is quite relevant to your question is where I went to high school. It was Northview Heights, located at Finch and Bathurst in Toronto. That school was the first and only school in Canada to acquire an IBM 1130 mainframe computer. When I spotted the room, the many hardware racks were installed, it was the end of all my free time. I learned how to run it and volunteered to maintain it. That machine made me realize computer science at York was my clear path forward.
In the 1970s, you studied Computer Science at York University in Toronto and were drawn to fine arts. Naturally, one would conclude that your academic background would steer your artistic curiosity toward computer art. Was there anything specific that triggered your initial experiments with plotter art?
My Bachelor of Arts was strictly computer science but included the other obligatory science-slanted topics. I never did take a fine arts course at York, but I stalked the building often, sort of like a moth drawn to light. It was my master's that combined fine arts, computer science and philosophy disciplines. Anyway, in the early 1970s, I was teaching myself how to play guitar. Rather than learning popular songs, I decided to take a shortcut and write my own songs. Executing creative urges was very satisfying, thrilling actuall,y. Realizing I could do that with a guitar and my voice made it obvious I could also do it with a computer.
You mentioned that you came to computer graphics and plotter art following your experimentation with music. What were you listening to in this period? Were you at all interested or aware of electronic music or instruments? Was this an avenue that you ever considered pursuing? Were you aware of any of the work taking place at York around music involving people like David Rosenboom or the York Electronic Music Studio?
In those days, I listened to bands like the Beatles, the Stones and the Doors. I fantasized about being a rock star and started to learn how to play guitar. The thing is, the songs I was listening to were too difficult for me to play. So, I started writing songs within my amateur abilities. I realized how satisfying creating original works can be. The songs were inside me waiting to come out.
At the time, I was unaware of electronic music. I only experimented with my acoustic guitar and vocals. Combining my infatuation with the IBM 1130 and realizing that I could be an artist resulted in my future CGI career path.
Would you be able to talk about some of the writers and thinkers who influenced your creative work during your time at York? Were you aware of people writing about new technologies and new media during this period, people like Marshall McLuhan, for example?
In my humble opinion, my creative work at York came from within me. I had been reading lots of science fiction books, my favorite being Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. I have to say, in my time at York, I didn't realize how many people were already experimenting with computer augmented media. I thought I was doing this stuff alone.
Your first art plots were made shortly after the arrival of a CalComp 936 digital plotter at York. These plots were made of mathematically defined curves and line segments, resulting in elongated spheroids and cubes. How would you describe this early probing of digital plotting technology as a means to unlock your creative potential?
How it all started was, I had a part-time position with York Vice President(Sheldon Levi). He needed a statistical analysis of staffing related to costs. Initially, I provided volumes of printed tabulations of the data acquired from the payroll office. Seeing the Calcomp plotter made me realize I could display the data as histograms, pie charts, trending curves, all nicely annotated and labeled. The graphic display of the data was a big hit with Sheldon, which he included in his reports and negotiations. After satisfying Sheldon's request, I asked him if it was ok for me to use the plotter to make pictures. His immediate response was "Sure, if you need any other equipment on campus, let me know, and it will be arranged". His support was consistent, and I managed to meet his needs and play with the plotter at the same time. I became quite proficient with the plotter. Draw a line from position 1 to position 2. I knew some math and started drawing circles, ellipses and rectangles. My creative urges from writing songs spilled out to the plotter.
One of the first plotter arts by Will Anielewicz, c. 1975.
From 1977 to the early 1980s, your plotter art was featured on the covers of various York publications, most notably the Department of Computer Services Users' Newsletter (or DCS Newsletter). Reflecting on these art plots, one can observe the development of your artistic endeavors over time. How would you describe the evolution of your work during that period? What were your sources of inspiration, and where did you find ideas for your creations?
I don't recall who decided to put my plotter art on the cover of the Newsletter, but it did make me feel appreciated. Now that you sent me those two covers of the newsletter, I think it occurred to me that I had a campus-wide fan base, so I kept creating new images to satisfy/challenge myself and the audience.
I do recall that the support technicians who maintained the hardware were amused when one of my plots started running. The motors moving the paper and pens made lots of rhythmic noise because my plots were overly detailed. I was told by one of the engineers that the whole plotter started moving across the computer room floor on occasions. Silly as it may sound, I felt like I was entertaining them. The ideas came from my head. I was a pretty good coder, and the plotter was like a guitar to me.
Will Anielewicz's plotter arts on the cover of the DCS Newsletter (October 1979) and one of the Department of Computer Science Technical Reports (1985).
Your first published plotter art, Butterfly, already revealed several directions you would later explore in your work, such as moving beyond purely mathematical shapes by incorporating more organic forms and developing shading techniques. Let's focus on shading for now. Plotter art experimentation with shading dates back to the 1960s. Did you draw upon these early techniques, or did you develop your own methods?
Mathematical shapes are interesting, but mostly boring. I realized that I needed organic shapes to better express feelings. I started introducing organic shapes by using grid paper and manually making lists of 2D (x,y) coordinates. It was laborious. I think the butterfly shape was done that way. I want to mention that my boss, Sheldon, offered "other equipment on campus". I found a data input device in the Geography department. It was a tabletop digitizer with a puck that was used on maps. Just by putting my reference image on the table, I could quickly record lots of points and save it. I was there often. As far as shading goes, back then, I knew nothing about surface shading. I didn't know anyone else who was making pictures on plotters. My approach was trivial. It was scaling the outlines enough to fill in the shape. Another approach was to interpolate between two shapes that had an equal number of points.
Will Anielewicz, Butterfly, 1977.
In 1978, you began introducing simulated three-dimensional elements into your artwork, which, of course, is inherently a 2-dimensional medium. One of your works from that year consists of a sequence of deformations of a diamond-shaped object. The piece illustrates a progression of steps that transform a diamond-like shape into a three-dimensional space, giving the illusion of perspective achieved through shading. Could you discuss this interesting plot in more detail?
The piece you mention was strictly 2D. Perspective distortion based on distance from the camera was not applied. This piece was an experiment introducing randomness and rotation around a shape's center while it was being scaled down. This somehow resulted in an illusion of shading and three-dimensionality. To me, it was a happy accident. Oh, and although I did not reveal this to anyone, I called the piece Sphincters.
Will Anielewicz, Sphincters, 1978.
In your 1977 plot, Season Greetings and the 1979 Hammer, you employed randomness and the use of ASCII characters to fill lines, curves, and surfaces. In Manifesto, one of your last plotter artworks created in that period, you added another textual element by placing the verses of a poem in the center of the plot. These works explore techniques similar to those employed by other artists, such as Lesli Mezei in his Babel Shook and Ken Knowton, who used text in his Universal Declaration of Human Rights piece. Could you discuss this phase of your experimentation further?
The use of text, provided for free, extra gradation of shading by using arbitrarily rotated fonts. I think there was a message in Hammer, but I can't read what it was. At the time, I was an avid reader of Marvel comics, so it probably has something to do with Thor.
Will Anielewicz, Hummer, 1979 (left) and Season Greetings (right), 1978.
The other image is Season's Greetings. It was I using mathematical definitions of trigonometry and noise to generate a snowfall impression. I was flexing my programming and math knowledge just because I could. Clearly, I was enjoying myself, fooling around whenever I felt like it. York was a friendly, convivial place for
a weirdo pioneer like me.
The piece I called Manifesto was an attempt on my part to express my interest in communism. I had been reading The Communist Manifesto pamphlet by Karl Marx and decided to write a poem. I guess I was pretending to speak like Karl Marx. There were several fonts available in the Calcomp application drivers. I used the fonts to label and annotate the many statistical reports I had produced. The Manifesto image was me trying to draw a close-up of an owl's eyes using mathematically generated curve paths of the text of my poem. My use of fonts was an attempt to provide a shortcut to fill the plot with detailed textures.
Will Anielewicz, Manifesto, 1970s.
The computer room at Steacie Science Library, where the CalComp 936 plotter was located, was always busy with students working on their course assignments. While the noise produced by the plotter's operation was certainly disruptive, it also signalled a promise of a new artwork. Was there significant interest among the lab occupants in the actual process of artwork plotting?
Honestly, I don't recall very many "non-programming" people watching the plotter as one of my pieces was being rendered. I do recall that the support staff in the main computer room let me know they enjoyed the slow reveal and told me they were entertained because my plots were so active it moved the Calcomp across the floor. The mystery to me is how my artwork got on the newsletter cover with regularity. I would love to connect with the person who did that so I could tell them how much I appreciated the appreciation.
Plotter art activities at York began in the early 1970s, predating your enrollment at the university. From 1971 to 1974, the Computer Centre Users' Newsletter showcased computer-generated graphics by York students, including Arthur Ryman. When the Newsletter resumed featuring plotter art on its cover in 1977, it included works by David Thompson, Ted Shepherd, Dirk Becker, Charles Matthews, Paul Mortfield, Peter Kristensen, and others alongside your own. Did these computer art activities encourage you to form the Plotter Club at York in 1978?
I was not aware of previous plotter art activities. Nor did I know there artists making computer art after I left York. I wish I had kept some kind of record of the Plotter Club. Obviously, my age has disintegrated many of my memories of York. What I do remember is my surprise that people thought my works were "fascinating" art at all. I often heard the question "This was done with a computer?". When I compared my computer generated doodles with the master oil painters, it was like pre-kindergaten child scratches. I figured the positive reaction was mostly because a computer was involved. I remember that my works were just for me. Ideas kept popping up, and I had plenty of spare time. Daydreaming of being a wandering, starving artist someday.
Arthur Reman, untitled plotter art published in the York University Computer Services Users' Newsletter, 1972.
During the October 28, 2022 discussion, Pioneers of Digital Art and Animation organized by SPARKS of The SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Committee, you mentioned that dealing with purely math-defined shapes eventually became mundane. Despite that, you successfully continued your experimentation with this technique and produced several unique pieces, including Boxes, Tubes, ElipseCube, and PolyFilla. Were these pieces the result of some outstanding ideas that needed further exploration, or were they the result of an internal contest between you as an artist and as a programmer?
I was using common geometric shapes to accomplish some shading. I wanted to explore randomness. The Calcomp api library had a built-in function that filled a simple shape with a cross-hatch pattern. I used the cross-hatch density attribute to provide gray shaded areas. In some of my explorations, I accidentally made some coding errors. The results were better than what I was actually attempting to draw. So, I started doing that on purpose. Scramble a couple of lines of code to see what would happen. I called them "happy accidents".
Will Anielewicz, Boxes (left) and Tubes (right), 1978.
Will Anielewicz, ElipseCube, 1979 (left) and PolyFilla, 1978 (right).
Runner is one of the most intriguing plots that you created in 1978. It incorporates an organic form, mathematically defined transformations, and shading. The result is an illusion of dynamic space transformation as if caused by a gravitational wave created by the runner's movement. You have created several versions of Runner and selected it to advertise the exhibit of your artwork during the 1978 Canadian Computer Show and Conference. Clearly, this theme and technique to explore it held a special place on your artistic agenda at that time. What was special about Runner, and how did you explain it to the audiences of the Canadian Computer Show?
The thing I remember about most of the pieces was my desire to produce gradations that turned a thin pen line into tonal shading. At the time, my knowledge about the lighting of 3-dimensional surfaces was non-existent. First, I experimented with overlapping lines. The easy way to do that was to morph one shape into another shape. As long as each shape had exactly the same number of points, it was a simple point-by-point transform. Mathematically defined shapes, like ellipses or circles, were a convenient way to generate a specific number of points.
I think Runner was a result of my fascination with Xmen comics.
Will Anielewicz, Runner, 1978.
You have made a few mentions of comics – mostly Marvel – through the interview. Would you be able to talk a little bit more about the relationship between your computer-based work and your interest in comics during this period? How did it influence your work as an artist? Are there particular comic artists whose work influenced you during this period?
I was an avid collector of comics. Marvel was my preference because it was more in tune with the heroes' profound personal dilemmas. The Marvel comics were rich in colour and fantasy worlds. My favorites were Silver Surfer and Wolverine.
I can't say comics had a significant direct impact on my plotter art, but it fueled my keen interest in sci-fi movies, which led to my SFX movie career.
In the 1970s, the Department of Geography had a tabletop digitizer that you had access to and used it to create artwork based on organic forms such as the human body, flowers, insects and birds. The Bunny, Butterfly, Eagle, and Adam and Eve series of plots demonstrate this approach the best. The York community was so impressed with your Butterfly plot that a full-color copy was displayed in the front lobby of the Steacie Science Library. Furthermore, the plot was featured on the covers of the Department of Computer Science technical reports for years. Can you explain the process of creating such work using a digitizer and a plotter, using the Butterfly plot as an example?
Discovering the Department of Geography table-top digitizer was an era-like change for me. Before that, I had been using graph paper to manually digitize organic shapes. I was getting bored with trigonometric shapes. In my mind, I saw myself as a painter, not a computer scientist.
Will Anielewicz, Bunny, 1979 (left) and Adam and Eve, 1979 (right)
The puck input digitizer opened up a whole world of organic shapes for me. I had unlimited access to that digitizer thanks to my boss, Sheldon Levi.
Will Anielewicz, Eagle, 1979.
I had no idea, until your recent discoveries about where my works were appreciated on the York campus. It certainly makes me feel proud of my artistic explorations so many years ago.
In an artist statement for the ACM SIGGRAPH Archives, which holds copies of some of your work, you explained that you were "always self conscious about the lack of detail and shading with computer controlled plotters when compared to other media like acrylics, oils and watercolor." Your composition, Bunny 2 morphs a photograph with computer-generated background texture. Was this an attempt at the introduction of details and more realistic shading effects into your art?
The Bunny piece was one of my several attempts at introducing erotica in my plotter art. The plot was printed on transparent mylar paper, which provided an easy way to layer the plot and the photograph. The layering approach was simply because I spotted that one of the plotter paper options was Mylar transparent paper. It was one of my ongoing attempts to add more oomph to my pieces by mixing media.
Will Anielewicz, Bunny 2, 1979.
The piece called Worm, which ended up on the cover of the DCS newsletter, was a more hardcore attempt. I don't know if people realized it was meant to test my bounds in the York community.
Will Anielewicz, Worm, 1980.
Your plotter art was showcased at the 1978 Canadian Computer Show and Conference, a premier Canadian computing event organized annually by the Canadian Information Processing Society since 1969. The attendance at the show was estimated at over 12,000, which was a lot of potential eyeballs for your exhibition. How did your art find its way to that event and the subsequent one the following year?
I recollect that somehow the CEO of Calcomp Canada heard that I was creating unusual works with their plotter. I met with him and brought an actual art portfolio bag with some of my works. I asked him if I could occupy a wall of their booth at the 1978 Computer Show and Conference. I guess he liked my stuff and granted me the opportunity to show off my pieces.
Will Anielewicz, Einstain. An advertisment of Anielewicz's Computer Art exhibit at the 1979 Canadian Computer Show in Toronto.
The CEO and I continued contact, and he let me have the wall space the following year. It was part of my dream of being a wandering computer artist.
In 1981, you participated in SIGGRAPH’s Computer Culture Art Show ’81, presented at City Hall in Dallas, Texas. The exhibit later moved to the Flavio Belli Gallery in Toronto. It must have been a special experience for a young artist to have his work showcased alongside such renowned computer artists as David DiFrancisco, Herbert Franke, Ken Knowlton, Robert Mallary, Leslie Mezei, Stan Vanderbeek, Norman White, and Edvard Zajec.
I consider being part of the SIGGRAPH Computer Culture Art Show 1981 as my crowning achievement as a computer artist. It was the first art exhibit of SIGGRAPH. The tradition continues to this day. I should mention that I recently had contact with Flavio, who recalled the event and said that some of my works were his favorite.
Will Anielewicz, untitled plotter art, 1979.
Do you have any recollection of how you navigated the shift from plotter art to animation? Were there aesthetic aspects that you recall being interested in as part of this shift, or was your work engagement primarily technical?
Let me say that after finishing my degree at York, I thought I was going to wander Canada as a starving artist selling my plotter art. Then I spotted an ad in the Toronto Star for a "computer animator". When I spoke to the recruiter, they were happy to hear from me. There were no other candidates. I went for the interview, was offered a generous salary, and asked to start in a week. My Bachelor of Science degree, my knowledge of state-of-the-art hardware and my plotter art portfolio were what got me the job. So my starving artist plans were set aside, but I was always tasked with projects that needed an engineer to build tools and an artist to produce the content. This is how my role continued in future productions.
You started your over 40-year-long career in computer graphics at Omnibus Computer Graphics, a short-lived Toronto-based computer animation company. In 1982, you joined another Toronto computer graphics startup, Alias, as a lead engineer. Alias, later known as Alias|Wavefront, quickly became world-renowned for its groundbreaking products, including the Maya computer animation software. Alias was followed by Industrial Light and Magic, Imagination Technologies, VesaliusCreations, and DreamView, where you worked on computer-animated special effects for blockbusters such as Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Men in Black II, and A.I. Artificial Intelligence.
How important was the computer graphics experience you gained at York in launching your career in designing tools for computer graphics and animation, and later applying them to create computer-generated special effects?
Thanks to the York computer science program, I became a proficient coder. As I continued to make plotter art I realized I was 50% artist and 50% engineer. To be honest, I learned most of what I know about computer-generated imagery technology on the job. Most people participating in animated special effects are artists or engineers. Being both, allowed me to be a mediator on the crews. Also, my experience at York as an artist provided an insight into the artist's needs. The tools I designed were focused on making life easier for the artist.
Plotter, or pen plotter art, is still practised around the world as part of the generative art movement. According to data from Generative Hut, one of the largest platforms for generative art, this hub alone brings together over 70k generative artists worldwide. Toronto's pen plotter art community is also vibrant, with young artists such as Benjamin Lappalainen often revisiting concepts from the early years of plotter art. Why, in your opinion, is code or procedural art still appealing to artists after more than half a century of computer art?
I'm glad to hear that plotter art is still vibrant. Although I must admit I was self-conscious about how good my pieces were when compared to traditional media. The comments from my viewers consistently included the phrase "you did that with a computer?" For me, some of my works were a pleasant surprise. Some were different and better than I thought I was coding. After that happened the first time, I would purposely scramble some of the code lines to create a “happy accident”. I think I understand the ongoing appeal. Code-based or procedural plotter art shows off results that are practically impossible by hand.
Benjamin Lappalainen, Noise Field - red 1, 2024
Our current digital reality is filled with digital art and realistic AI-generated imagery almost everywhere we go, in almost everything we do. This, of course, was not the case in the 1970s. How would you compare the response to computer art created during the period when you were active as a plotter artist to the way such art is consumed and appreciated today?
In my community in the 70s, computer art was uncommon. In fact, I don't think I heard the two words together. I may have told you this already, but one of the lead professors in the York computer science department advised me, "Computer art, there is no future in it." Today, he could not be more wrong.
Will Anielewicz, Ovoid, 1970s.
In your 1978 call to establish the Plotter Club at York University, you posed the question: "Is a programmer an artist or is he merely a devout technician dependent upon external creative sources for his motivation?" You then answered: "For me, computer graphics allows one to be both an artist and a devout technician. The artist in me thrives on audience reaction while the technician appreciates the guiltless solitude." How relevant is your question in the context of AI's impact on visual art?
I have to say, I'm not a fan of AI because of the unethical robbery going on. I took part in the evolution of computer-generated imagery. When CGI came on stage, many experienced contemporary artists panicked about their jobs. I guess computer artists are now panicking about losing their jobs. I have to say, I see AI will enable artists to create art that could not be produced by the human hand. The same was the case with CGI, just give the sources their well-deserved credit.