The following obituary was the original submitted to the Times, who published a shortened form in the paper, and a longer version online (see above).
Patrick Purcell, an Irish-born academic and researcher in social computing, the application of digital media, and human-computer interfaces, died last week a few days before his 78th birthday. One of his claims to uniqueness was that, as he used to say, he had “walked both sides of Prince Consort Road”: meaning that had held senior research positions at both the Royal College of Art (RCA) and Imperial College London. With this distinction it is, perhaps, no surprise that he was also a researcher, professor, and sponsor liaison at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Laboratory, a revolutionary experiment in bringing science and technology into art and design (and vice versa), during its heyday in the 1980s.
According to Sir Christopher Frayling, RCA Rector and Chairman of Art Council England, “Patrick was a pioneer of computing and design…long before art and design education caught up with the digital age. As a result he was something of a prophet without honour in his own country.”
Patrick was also known among his colleagues, and particularly among generations of students, as being unusually generous with his time, offering unusually good advice concerning scientific arguments and their presentation. He was one of those people who you ‘knew’ even if you didn’t know him: the famous twinkle in his eye, bow tie (not always but often), and white beard meant that he cut both a distinguished and distinctive figure around College. As a driver once said after picking him up from the airport in Los Angeles, “Yup, picked up the professor: he’s straight from central casting.”
Patrick was a private man, and talked little about his early life. However, after rigorous Catholic schooling he became a student of theology, only later turning to art and design. From 1964-1982 he worked as both a senior research fellow and tutor at the Design Research Department at the Royal College of Art under Bruce Archer. While there he was known for being among the first RCA researchers to ever receive a grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and for pushing trolleys of computer equipment through the department on the way to some demo or experiment. During part of this period, as befitted his eclectic character, he lived in a house boat near Cheyne Walk.
After a short stint as a guest scientist at the computer science division of the National Physical Laboratory he moved to MIT where he lead several significant projects. These included one called “Graphical Marionettes”, a precursor to today’s motion-capture technology where the movements of real people are transferred onto those of computer-based characters. Others included the application of expert systems to architectural design and facilities management, and a project to look at visual information systems for the Athena Project, a computer network that has become the backbone of MIT’s electronic infrastructure.
One of Patrick’s famous stories about his time at the Media Lab was when he went to see holographic video working for the very first time. “It was the middle of the night,” he said, “and message went out to the whole lab from the Spatial Imaging Group that they had managed to get their system working.” He went down to the basement to see the flickering three-dimensional images. As a line was forming he stepped back to let the next person have a turn… and his foot landed on top of Claude Shannon’s: inventor of information/communication theory and one of the most influential thinkers in electrical engineering in the 20th century. Shannon was not pleased but, Patrick used to say, it gave him a unique place in history.
As well as his technical work, Patrick spent a lot of time working on sponsor relations with the then head of the Media Lab (and now head of the One laptop per child project) Nicholas Negroponte. Even after he left he continued his association, helping with the establishment of the now-defunct Media Lab Europe, sited in Dublin, Ireland.
In 1990 he moved from MIT to the University of Ulster and an IT research campus that was being expanded to meet the needs of one of the most disadvantaged regions in the UK. According to Robert Gavin, then Provost of Magee College, as Professor of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), “Patrick was a constant source of inspiration to the group, drawing as he could, upon his wide range of experience and incessantly urging radical approaches to the then rapidly evolving discipline.” Among his innovations was a collaborative joint class on HCI with Imperial College London, done not using the university’s suite but their own computer equipment. These, says Gavin, worked remarkably well.
Upon ‘retirement’ in 1994 he was invited to Imperial as a senior research fellow. Here, a constant interest was the way in which electronic systems could enhance social cohesion: “People first” was his motto. At the same time, and with the same concerns, he was an influential advisor to a major EU research effort: indeed, some called him the father of the I3 (Intelligent Information Interfaces) programme, which later became the Disappearing Computer initiative and has now morphed into Ubiquitous Computing.
Communication was a strong part of his vocation, not just visual- and computer-based but also in terms of writing and argument. He was well known for assisting students and colleagues by (nicely) ripping arguments/documents to shreds and then helping to put them back together again: always for the better. He had a love of language and ideas (anyone’s ideas, not just his own) and a passion for scholarship and the intellectual life.
Patrick edited two books. He worked on the first, The Electronic Design Studio: Architectural Education in the Computer Era, with Malcolm McCullough and William J. Mitchell. The book came out in 1990 and was said to be one of the most comprehensive sources of information about computer-aided architectural design of its time. Last year, Networked Neighbourhoods: The Connected Community in Context was published. This book, over which he took great pains to bring together the most eminent scholars in the field, looked at the impact of the Internet on people in terms of their familial and social relationships, the way they work and live, and even their civic involvement.
As well as being an author, he was a member of the editorial boards of several journals including Image and Vision Computing and Design Studies, Oxford Studies of Information Technology, and the Computer Bulletin.
Patrick Purcell is survived by his extended family in Ireland, and by another and extremely extensive family of colleagues around the world who will greatly miss his friendship, support, and company. His long-time partner Gillian Patterson, also with close links to the RCA, predeceased him.
Dr Sunny Bains
Scientist/Journalist
I add the 'Dr' because, had it not been for Patrick's support and advice, I might still be Ms. I miss him. —SB
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