Gene Youngblood, Expanded Cinema

pg. 189

It is quite clear in what direction man's symbiotic relation to the computer is headed: if the first computer was the abacus, the ultimate computer will be the sublime aesthetic device: a parapsychological instrument for the direct projection of thoughts and emotions. A. M. Noll, a pioneer in three-dimensional computer films at Bell Telephone Laboratories, has some interesting thoughts on the subject: "...the artist's emotional state might conceivably be determined by computer processing of physical and electrical signals from the artist (for example, pulse rate and electrical activity of the brain). Then, by changing the artist's environment through such external stimuli as sound, color and visual patterns, the computer would seek to optimize the aesthetic effect of all these stimuli upon the artist according to some specified criterion... the emotional reaction of the artist would continually change, and the computer would react accordingly either to stabilize the artist's emotional state or to steer it through some pre-programmed course. One is strongly tempted to describe these ideas as a consciousness-expanding experience in association with a psychedelic computer... current technological and psychological investigations would seem to aim in such a direction.''