[1][2] The three founder members of the Society – Alan Sutcliffe,[3] George Mallen,[4] and John Lansdown – had been involved with computing and its related concepts for some time.
It was recognised that this was an area where there had been increasing activity, but with little formal publication of methods and results and little communication between artists in different fields (music, visual, performing arts, and so on).
[7] At this time Sutcliffe was a programmer at International Computers Limited (ICL) in Bracknell, Berkshire with the official title of Manager of New Series Branch.
Zinovieff is recognised as having revolutionised electronic and avant-garde music and EMS was used by Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Stockhausen and Pink Floyd among others.
It ran code-writing workshops, held several important exhibitions, co-operated with the Scottish Arts Council at the Edinburgh Festival and produced a bulletin.
An early issue was devoted to the American branch activities and included ‘A proposal and manifesto’ by Stan Vanderbeek, pioneer of light shows and computer animation.
[15] During the early years of its existence, the Society acquired a large number of works by pioneers in the field, including Manuel Barbadillo, Charles Csuri, Herbert W. Franke, Edward Ihnatowicz, Ken Knowlton, Manfred Mohr, Georg Nees, Frieder Nake, Lillian Schwartz and Alan Sutcliffe.
It is now associated with the Computer Arts Archive, founded by Dr Sean Clark in 2020 as a not-for-profit Community Interest Company (CIC).