The pixel as the organizing principle of all pictures from cave paintings to Toy Story. The
Great Digital Convergence of all media types into one universal digital medium occurred with
little fanfare at the recent turn of the millennium. The bit became the universal medium and
the pixel--a particular packaging of bits--conquered the world. Henceforward nearly every
picture in the world would be composed of pixels--cell phone pictures app interfaces Mars
Rover transmissions book illustrations videogames. In A Biography of the Pixel Pixar
cofounder Alvy Ray Smith argues that the pixel is the organizing principle of most modern media
and he presents a few simple but profound ideas that unify the dazzling varieties of digital
image making. Smith's story of the pixel's development begins with Fourier waves proceeds
through Turing machines and ends with the first digital movies from Pixar DreamWorks and
Blue Sky. Today almost all the pictures we encounter are digital--mediated by the pixel and
irretrievably separated from their media museums and kindergartens are two of the last
outposts of the analog. Smith explains engagingly and accessibly how pictures composed of
invisible stuff become visible--that is how digital pixels convert to analog display elements.
Taking the special case of digital movies to represent all of Digital Light (his term for
pictures constructed of pixels) and drawing on his decades of work in the field Smith
approaches his subject from multiple angles--art technology entertainment business and
history. A Biography of the Pixel is essential reading for anyone who has watched a video on a
cell phone played a videogame or seen a movie.
