Charles Csuri: Art & Research, a Memorial Exhibition in Three Acts is a collaborative project featuring a number of free community programs. For the full list of exhibition and event dates, visit the Csuri project page.
In 1968, Csuri submitted a grant application to the National Science Foundation (NSF) entitled A Software Requirement for Research and Education in the Visual Arts. He was the first artist to receive an NSF grant, which totaled $99,199 ($831,934 equivalent in 2023). This was the first of multiple NSF grants, including an award in 1983 for $600,000 ($1,757,295 equivalent in 2023). With this funding, we see a shift toward an expanded type of collaboration and set of responsibilities—those of a Principal Investigator at a major research university. To accomplish his creative aims, Csuri established the Computer Graphics Research Group (CGRG), with members including faculty and graduate students from Art, Art Education, Design, Photography and Cinema, Computer and Information Science, and Mathematics. The interdisciplinary, collaborative model that Csuri established is, today, an integral part of all Computer Graphics companies and Research & Development.
CGRG research involved developing software for computer-controlled motion (T. DeFanti & M. Knemeyer); techniques of keyframe animation to blend images to create facial drawings (M. Gillenson); and geometric modeling tools for animation (R. Parent), for example. The Animation-Real-Time (ART) system (a.k.a. Real-time Art Objects and Real-time Art Films) marked a dramatic leap forward in Csuri’s ability to create artwork in real time and that incorporated color, dimension, and movement using a light pen and vector graphics. CGRG’s basic research led to the founding of Cranston/Csuri Productions, Inc. (1981–1987), a commercial computer animation company that was founded by Charles Csuri and investor Robert Kanuth to commercially exploit animation technology and talent coming out of CGRG. In 1987, Csuri and Tom Linehan (Professor of Art Education) converted the Computer Graphics Research Group into the Advanced Computing Center for Arts and Design (ACCAD) at Ohio State with funding from an Ohio Board of Regents grant.
