Title Cryptograph: Revisiting An Exhibition For Alan Turing

Speaker: Steve Goddard

Abstract: This presentation reconsiders the 2012 exhibition at the Spencer Museum of Art: Cryptograph: An Exhibition For Alan Turing. The exhibition, held on the centenary of Turing’s birth, was  a thought experiment that asked,”if Alan Turing were to visit our museum, what works of art would we entertain him with, and what questions would be raised by him?” Now, nearly ten years later, we can summarize the exhibition and consider what we might add if we were to stage it again today.

About the Speaker: Stephen Goddard is Associate Director, Senior Curator and Professor Emeritus at the Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas. He has served as president of the Print Council of America for four years. His recent exhibitions, prior to his retirement in 2019, include Trees & other Ramifications: Branches in Nature & Culture; Cryptograph: An Exhibition for Alan Turing; and Big Botany: Conversations with the Plant World.

  Peter Randall-Page, Fibonacci Flip II, 2003  Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Museum purchase: Letha Churchill Walker Memorial Art Fund, 2017.0085