LO 9: A Focus on Women and Non-binary Practitioners in Computational Art

Wendy Carlos is a pioneer of electronic music, particularly with her work from the late 1960s into the early 1980s. She studied physics and music at Brown University as well as Columbia University. Her work in developing new instruments led to the creation of the Moog synthesizer, which changed the way music was played and recorded dramatically. Her work is most prominently displayed in her album Switched on Bach as well as the scores for several movies: A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Tron. All of these pieces explored the emotional effects that the new timbre of computer music opened up. She also is a particularly important figure to study with the place of gender in technological fields. Although she privately began transitioning in 1966, she wasn’t able to publicly appear as a woman until 1972, after the commercial success of Switched on Bach.