The man that helped win World War II has earned a glowing tribute at one of the worlds busiest train stations, Paddington.
‘Message from the Unseen World’ is a public artwork that celebrates the life and work of Alan Turing, who was born in Paddington and is best known for the crucial role he played in breaking the enigma code during the Second World War.
The piece, which spans the width of Bishop’s Bridge Road, was curated by Futurecity and devised by United Visual Artists (famous for their work with Massive Attack), in collaboration with Hackney-based poet Nick Drake. The artwork features extracts from Turing’s ground-breaking ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’ in patterns based on Baudot code.
Turing, who is now widely regarded as the father of modern computing, was forced to undergo chemical castration after being found guilty of homosexual activity and subsequently committed suicide in 1954. He was posthumously pardoned in 2013.
Nick Drake, the artist behind the project said, “We are exploring the idea of a machine thinking poetically – or perhaps more accurately – appearing to write like a poet while thinking like a machine, which goes to the very heart of Turing’s explorations on artificial intelligence. I hope the piece makes people more aware of Turing’s remarkable life and ground-breaking work.”
