New Play About Gay Enigma Codebreaker Alan Turing Debuts

A new play about Alan Turing recently debuted at New York's Ensemble Studio Theatre Company's First Light Festival. Pure, by A. Rey Pamatmat, explores the relationship between Turing's work and personal life. During World War II, Turing, who is known as the father of modern computing, devised the Turing Bombe, a codebreaking device that was used to decipher the Nazi enigma codes, up to 3,000 messages per day.

He was also gay, and two years after being convicted of "gross indecency" and sentenced to undergo hormone therapy, he killed himself with a cyanide-laced apple.

Scientific American reviews the play:

"Pure is less about Turing the mathematician, however, than it is about Turing the man. Pamatmat first became enamored with Turing after reading David Bodanis's book Electric Universe: The Shocking True Story of Electricity, which suggests that Turing's passion for science was fueled by his homosexual love for a childhood friend, Chris, who died from tuberculosis when Turing was a teenager. Pure suggests that Turing may have turned his attention to artificial intelligence—a field that explores, at its core, the meaning of life—to celebrate Chris's life and let it live on in his work. In almost every scene, Turing has a brief conversation with the dead Chris; it later becomes clear that the entire play is set in the hazy moments before Turing's death, when he is hallucinating or perhaps communicating with Chris's spirit in the afterlife. Pamatmat, who wrote Pure for the Ensemble Studio Theatre's annual First Light Festival, paints Turing as a wonderfully brazen character. The mathematician was openly gay at a time when homosexuality was a criminal act in England; in one scene, Turing admits to his fiancé—three days after proposing to her—that he has 'homosexual tendencies.' (Pamatmat says this conversation really happened.) Pure suggests that Turing's insolence dances the fine line between bravery and foolishness; though he was eventually caught and forced to take estrogen supplements to curb his libido, he never doubted himself or his sexual choices. 'A lot of his greatest work came from his being different,' Pamatmat says. 'That's why he was really able to blaze the trail.'"

Alan Turing Comes Alive [scientific american]

Previously
Alan Turing's Sexuality 'Forgotten' at Statue Unveiling [tr]
Alan Turing: The Tributes Keep Coming [tr]
Alan Turing Honored in Snow Bust [tr]
Alan Turing Jack O'Lantern Cracks the Halloween Code [tr]

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Alan Turing's Sexuality 'Forgotten' at Statue Unveiling

Today, a statue of Alan Turing will be unveiled at Bletchley Park, honoring the man who has come to be known as Britain's greatest inventor.

During World War II, Turing, who is also known as the father of modern computing, devised the Turing Bombe, a codebreaking device that was used to decipher the Nazi enigma codes, up to 3,000 messages per day.

American billionaire and philanthropist Sidney Frank funded the new statue, according to The Inquirer:

"The life-size one and a half ton statue is made from half a million pieces of five hundred million year old Welsh slate. Stone which would have been in Nazi control, if Turing had not had the mathematical genius to crack the German Naval Enigma messages during world war two. Later, his Bombe machine was to provide a body of work that provided the foundations on which the modern computer age was created. Of the people who have heard of him, few know the proper context of his death. 'The only Alan Turing I know of is the mathematician, logician, and cryptographer who died in 1954 from eating an apple,' said one surveyee. The origin of the Apple symbol is meant to be a tribute to Turing."

The reason thought to be why Turing killed himself with the apple, which was laced with cyanide, is because Turing had been convicted just two years earlier of 'gross indecency' after it was discovered that he had been in a homosexual relationship. Due to that conviction, he had been ordered to undergo hormone therapy.

Turing, a brilliant inventor and mathematician, was pushed to the fringes despite his talents just because he was gay. Sound like a few Arabic linguists we know?

So, the press release announcing this new statue makes no mention of the fact that Turing was gay. Gay.com UK were sent the press release and contacted Bletchley Park. They wrote back:

"Many thanks for your email. I completely understand your comments. However, in the context of the statue and Bletchley Park, the press release relates entirely to his invaluable work during the war years and is not in any way an attempt to whitewash his sexuality. This isn’t to say that his sexuality isn’t important in the overall story of the man and that he wasn’t treated abominably in later years. However, with very limited funds and resources, the Park is not able to tell the full life stories of the many heroes and heroines who made such a difference to the outcome of the war."

They later issued a fuller apology. Said director Simon Greenish: "The press release did not include a statement about him being gay, which perhaps it could have done, this was not a deliberate ommision (sic) but, I certainly accept, could have been an opportunity which was missed."

Said Gay.com's Stewart Who: "It's a bit like talking about Martin Luther King, but not mentioning that he's black."

You may have missed...
Turing Bombe Recreated at Bletchley Park [tr]
Alan Turing Jack O'Lantern Cracks the Halloween Code [tr]
Alan Turing Honored in Snow Bust [tr]
Alan Turing: The Tributes Keep Coming [tr]
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General Pace's Remarks Ignite National Debate on Gays in Military

Former Republican Senator Alan Simpson has come out against the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in a Washington Post editorial criticizing recent comments by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace, who said that "homosexuality is immoral" and gays hould not be allowed to serve openly.

Here's an excerpt from Simpson's op-ed:

"In World War II, a British mathematician named Alan Turing led the effort to crack the Nazis' communication code. He mastered the complex German enciphering machine, helping to save the world, and his work laid the basis for modern computer science. Does it matter that Turing was gay? This week, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said that homosexuality is "immoral" and that the ban on open service should therefore not be changed. Would Pace call Turing "immoral"?

Since 1993, I have had the rich satisfaction of knowing and working with many openly gay and lesbian Americans, and I have come to realize that "gay" is an artificial category when it comes to measuring a man or woman's on-the-job performance or commitment to shared goals. It says little about the person. Our differences and prejudices pale next to our historic challenge."

Good for Simpson. Incidentally, plenty of people did call Turing "immoral" at the time, and he killed himself with a cyanide apple a year after being convicted of "gross indecency" after it was discovered he was in a homosexual relationship. Following that conviction he was ordered to undergo hormone therapy or go to prison.

According to Pentagon figures released Tuesday, the number of gays discharged from the military dropped significantly in 2006: "According to preliminary Pentagon data, 612 homosexuals were discharged in fiscal 2006, fewer than half the 1,227 discharged in 2001. On average, more than 1,000 service members were discharged each year from 1997 to 2001 -- but in the past five years that number has fallen below 730." Critics have charged the U.S. Military with hypocrisy for retaining its gay and lesbian servicement simply because it needs them in a time of war.

Meanwhile, some at the Pentagon — Undersecretary of Defense David Chu to be precise — are suggesting that any national debate on gays in the military will undermine the war on terror.

Said Slate's Nathaniel Frank: "This is an astonishing claim for Chu to make—that not only must gays conceal their homosexuality to protect unit cohesion, but the entire country must avoid discussing homosexuality or else it will undermine the war effort. By this reasoning, we should ban discussion of whether to increase troops in Iraq and prohibit an inquiry into conditions at Walter Reed."

More as it develops.

UPDATE: Presidential hopeful Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) today applauded General Pace's remarks, casting his vote on the side of the bigots. Said Brownback in a circulated letter: "The question is whether personal moral beliefs should disqualify an individual from positions of leadership in the U.S. military? We think not. General Pace’s recent remarks do not deserve the criticism they have received. In fact, we applaud General Pace for maintaining a personal commitment to moral principles."

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Alan Turing: The Tributes Keep Coming

As a follow-up to yesterday's post featuring a wintry homage to Alan Turing, persecuted gay and creator of the Turing Bombe which broke the World War II enigma code, I was sent notice for this exhibit up until January 6 at the Gulf & Western Gallery (rear of lobby) located at 721 Broadway in New York. Artist Cody Trepte has used paper and textiles to explore the technology and theory Turing produced during his lifetime of fascinating achievement and personal tragedy. Here's some background to the work.

For more on Alan Turing, don't miss this post...

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Alan Turing Honored in Snow Bust

He's the father of modern computing and was a tragically persecuted gay man. He also has a fan club that lingers into the 21st century, as evidenced by this homage from Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they actually have snow (we haven't seen a flake yet here in New York, it's very strange).

In any case, add this to the Alan Turing Halloween tribute and the Manchester park statue and you've got quite a collection.

(via boingboing)

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Alan Turing Jack O'Lantern Cracks the Halloween Code

Check out this great Alan Turing Jack-O'Lantern. It was created using a stencil taken from a blog that posts them for graffiti artists. While I've posted about Turing here before, I think that the creator of the Jack O'Lantern, Meryl, sums up the points of Turing's tragic bio quite nicely:

"The gentlemen depicted is Alan Turing, who is considered the father of modern computer science... maybe you've heard of the Turing test for artificial intelligence? He was British and worked for the British secret service as a mathematician and cryptographer until he was convicted of being a homosexual (which he was and which was considered a mental illness under the law). To avoid being sent to prison, he had to agree to undergo estrogen hormone therapy and he did for a year, but the homosexuality conviction caused him to lose his security clearance and therefore to lose his job. He killed himself a year later by eating an apple poisoned with cyanide, which seems a little ornate, I think. It's quite a sad story, but he makes a delightful pumpkin."

I'd have to agree.

For more on Turing read our previous post about the codebreaking machine he devised during World War II that has been recreated at Bletchley Park, England.
(via boingboing)

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Turing Bombe Recreated at Bletchley Park [tr]

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Turing Bombe Recreated at Bletchley Park

The Turing Bombe, a codebreaking machine devised by Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman to decipher the Nazi Enigma Codes during World War II, has been meticulously reconstructed by a team of 60 people, and is going on display September 23rd and 24th at Bletchley Park in Central England (to be reopened next summer). The machines, using techniques that are still used in counterterrorism, were used to decode more than 3,000 enemy messages every day.

Workers using the device during the war were given information on a "need to know" basis, according to the BBC:

"About 10,000 people worked at Bletchley Park at the height of the war - mostly from the Women's Royal Naval Service. One former employee was 82-year-old Jean Valentine, who described how the original machines 'worked beautifully' and sounded like 'lots of knitting machines'." Said Valentine: "I knew what I was doing but I didn't know what anyone else was doing."

Alan Turing, who was honored with a statue in 2001 in Sackville Park in Manchester, England's gay village, died in 1954 after eating a cyanide-laced apple.

Turing had been convicted just two years earlier of "gross indecency" after it was discovered that he had been in a homosexual relationship. Due to that conviction, he had been ordered to undergo hormone therapy.

Whisper it quietly...the Enigma codebreakers are back! [24dash]

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