In the City of the Angels (SG 05, 2)

The first time I went to Siggraph, it was being held in Anaheim. I drove down from West Los Angeles a couple of nights. My roommate at the time was part of a small computer graphics company that had its party at the Disneyland Hotel. The world of computer imagery was still, in many ways, a primitive art form in the mid-80s: as I recall the best minds in the business were still working on how to make plants look real, rather than like little explosions of color. Simulating human skin was still impossible, and there was still a distinctive "look" to any work that included "CGI" (Computer-Generated Images).

A few years later Terminator 2 would be made; the quantity and quality of computer images would spike.

Two years ago, I returned to Siggraph. It was in San Diego that year, and despite my being what they call "an English major's English major" I was talked into attending again. I found myself marvelling over and over about the kinds of technologies that were becoming "hot." Siggraph is not only about visual art: it explores that place where art and technology meet, no matter the sense that is being engaged. As I write this I have on my desk two little objects that were created by 3-D scanners/"printers." One of them is a tube containing little ball bearings, all of which were created inside the tube. The other is a little box with a lid that screws on: the threads are perfect. The object was made in two pieces, and they match exactly.

These little objects are passe now, two years later. Now the cutting edge is to be found in little devices that can be inserted into one's inner ear to disrupt equalibrium and make a person dizzy when he or she is not moving at all. Or machines that simulate the act of drinking through a straw, though one isn't consuming anything. Or virtual-reality hangliding.

My usual tourguide is Scanmaster, who knows everybody in the business. He's the go-to guy for scanning fine artwork, and the scanner he uses is one he had to invent. Last night, at the Aztec club, he introduced me to the legendary Jim Blinn, and I was nearly speechless.

"What am I on the lookout for this year?" I asked before we set out. I always want to know what the hardest effects are: last year it was hair that moves realistically, a la Violet's mane in The Incredibles, and that eternal bane of the special effects world: water. And fabric. Fabric was the hardest thing to do well at that time. Think of the long flowing robes worn by the dementers in Prisoner of Azkaban. That was plain old showing off.

This year, Scanmaster explains that the vogue is beautiful, stylized portrayal of technology of the kind we saw in Star Wars: Episode III. Now that a lot of the technical problems involved in creating fabric are considered fixable, we'll be seeing more and more exotic treatments of fabric in some of the less "photo-realistic" movies: neon fabrics. Fabrics that catch light in ways that appear nearly impossible.

And eye candy, as always: not just the buxom women we've been seeing since this technology moved beyond cubes outlined in green against a black screen, but more and more computer-generated images meant to be appreciated as high art in and of themselves, rather than imitating some other medium. Landscapes based on fantasy worlds; abstract art. Machines that use magnetic fields to create patterns in a shallow sandbox by means of a small metal ball.

This is a pursuit of beauty itself. The people around me who are often dismissed as "geeks" are really artists masquerading as engineers, underappreciated painters in pixels. And it's glorious to behold.