C.B. Rubenstein

Charles B. Rubinstein was born in the Bronx in 1933. He studied electrical engineering at the City College of New York and New York University before joining Bell Labs in 1959. His early work involved research on visual thresholds, followed by studies in digital color video encoding. He authored numerous technical publications and secured multiple patents related to improving the prediction and compression of color video signals. In 1977 he was elected a Fellow of Optica, the international society for optics and photonics. At Bell Labs he later headed the Human Factors department, which became part of the work leading to the introduction of the AMPS cellular system in 1983.

Rubinstein collaborated with computer-art pioneer Lillian Schwartz, who worked at Bell Labs as a resident visitor from 1969 to 2002, where she developed early digital imaging and animation with engineers and computer artists. Their joint projects include the _Picturephone Self Portrai_t and the film Motion #2. They also co-authored the 1979 publication Film-making with Computer: Adapting a New Technology for Art, which documented how computer processes were being used in film at the time. Rubinstein passed away in 2021.