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THE MANCHESTER
ILLUMINATED UNIVERSAL TURING MACHINE
by Roman Verostko, 1998

Note: Originals from the series may be seen in Europe at: 

London: Victoria & Albert Museum, Permanent Collection
             Available originals: contact Keith Watson   kwatson@romanesque.co.uk

Germany. Available originals: DAM Gallery, Tucholskystr. 37, 10117 Berlin, Germany, Tel: 0049-30-28098135  Fax: 0049-40-3603753454  Contact:  Wolf Lieser

The Project: A family of algorithmic pen plotted drawings, each presented with the binary text for a Universal Turing Machine (UTM), was created for an exhibition in Manchester on the occasion of the Ninth International Symposium on Electronic Art (1998). These drawings, reminiscent of medieval manuscript illuminations,  celebrate Alan Turing's work with universal problem solver procedures.  They were created especially for the Manchester-Liverpool context as homage to Alan Turing in memory of his historic work in Manchester.  Executed on hot pressed Arches, each piece includes a burnished gold leaf enhancement.

	Manchester Illuminated Universal Turing Machine, #23 1998, 30" by 22" pen plotted drawing with gold leaf Note: The image links for this specific work lead to high resolution details.
	Manchester Illuminated Universal Turing Machine, #24 1998, 30" by 22" pen plotted drawing with gold leaf
	Manchester Illuminated Universal Turing Machine, #20 1998, 30" by 22" pen plotted drawing with gold leaf

What is a Universal Turing Machine? The gating logic for circuit boards in all general computers descends from a logical procedure known as a Universal Turing Machine (UTM).  The logic for this algorithm by Alan Turing (1912-54) was written in 1936 and published in 1937 in the Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society. This paper, “On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem", planted the seminal idea for all general computers. 

Detail of the UTM binary text with gold leaf. Click here for full text page (719 kb).

The UTM version for these art works is quoted from Roger Penrose’ The Emperor’s New Mind (Chapter 2) and consists of 5,495 binary digits.  These digits represent an algorithm, in expanded binary, for a UTM. In the tradition of illuminated sacred texts this algorithm is presented as a highly treasured text because it played a seminal role in the birth of 20th Century computers.  The form enhancements celebrating the algorithm are generated with the artist’s code that requires the logic of  a UTM for its execution, thus being a form of  “Turing on Turing”.

Detail shows algorithmically generated pen plotted lines from illumination #23 above.

Procedure. The artistic procedure employs a form-generation method which, by analogy to biological process, may be viewed as epigenetic. The software (code), created by the artist, behaves as genotype capable of generating a distinctive “family of forms” within any given set of parameters.  The hyperspace of all possible forms, based on the specific parameter settings for this Manchester edition, is infinitely vast. This page pictures 5 specific examples from those created for this project. 

	Manchester Illuminated Universal Turing Machine, #9 1998, 30" by 22" pen plotted drawing with gold leaf
	Manchester Illuminated Universal Turing Machine, #19 1998, 30" by 22" pen plotted drawing with gold leaf

Each member of the Manchester series includes a unique pen-drawn form materialized from the vast family of possible forms. The pen-drawn form for each member of the edition is pen plotted using multi-pen plotters driven with original algorithms.  Every line for each work is a unique pen drawn stroke with no repeats. Each finished work, illuminated with an original “code generated” form is signed and identified with its Manchester serial number.  Selection of materials, plotting procedures and the use of gold leaf conspire to achieve a valued object to be treasured.

For the 1998 Manchester showing of this project Roman wrote a brief essay touching on his experience of the UTM concept:   The Cloud of Unknowing revisited: notes on a Universal Turing Machine (UTM) and The Undecidable

Other UTM features by the artist. 

UTM as a Self Portrait <www.verostko.com/u.html>  This page includes further documentation with several UTM versions.

www.verostko.com/archive/shows-gr/ringling02/math-art.html This page shows another version  of an illuminated UTM.

Reference:

For a collection of essays and further reference both general and technical see The Universal Turing Machine: A Half-Century Survey, Edited by Rolf Herken. Springer Verlag 1995, Wien, NY.

Roger Penrose, THE EMPEROR'S NEW MIND: concerning computers, minds and the laws of physics (Oxford University Press, 1989).  Chapter two, "Algorithms and Turing machines " provides a detailed presentation of Turing machine logic including step by step procedures for structuring simple machines such as "+1".

Exhibition for ISEA'98: Works from this series were presented for the symposium in Manchester at the Metropolitain University, Department of Fine Arts (September 1998).

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