12 Facts About Ken Knowlton

Kenneth Charles Knowlton was an American computer graphics pioneer, artist, mosaicist and portraitist.

Kenneth Charles Knowlton was born to Frank and Eva Knowlton in Springville, New York, on June 6,1931.

Ken Knowlton completed high school one year early, then entered Cornell University to study engineering physics.

Ken Knowlton's thesis was titled "Sentence Parsing with a Self-Organizing Heuristic Program".

In 1963, Knowlton developed the BEFLIX programming language for bitmap computer-produced movies, created using an IBM 7094 computer and a Stromberg-Carlson 4020 microfilm recorder.

Ken Knowlton worked with artists, including Stan VanDerBeek and Lillian Schwartz.

Ken Knowlton created another programming language named EXPLOR.

Ken Knowlton's work had been previously exhibited at Cybernetic Serendipity, an exhibition held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London from August 2 to October 20,1968.

Ken Knowlton co-invented Ji Ga Zo with Mark Setteducati, released in the United States on March 30,2011.

Technology historian Jim Boulton worked with Ken Knowlton to reconstruct the algorithm used to generate Studies in Perception I, which was used to make a remastered version of the original work in 2016.

Ken Knowlton had three sons and two daughters from his first marriage to Roberta Behrens, which ended in divorce.

Ken Knowlton died at a hospice facility in Sarasota, Florida, on June 16,2022, ten days after his 91st birthday.