"Peter Bogh Andersen was a humanist computer scientist who proposed a semiotic approach to computer programming as an alternative to the widespread object-oriented approaches. Firmly based within the Scandinavian school of participatory design, Andersen’s approach was to map the language used by workers in a workplace, then constructing the system by modelling not the workplace, but the language, in the computer system, using concepts from Hjelmslev’s structuralist semiotics (Andersen, 1990)." (Berry, Fagerjord 2017 – Digital humanities, 134)
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– Professor emeritus Peter Bøgh Andersen passed away on Sunday 10 January 2010. This marked the end of a long research career for an internationally recognised pioneer in humanities IT research. With the exception of a three-year professorship at the Department of Computer Science, Aalborg University 2000-2003, he was affiliated with Aarhus University throughout his career. First as licentiate and assistant professor at Nordic Language and Literature, later as lecturer, associate professor and professor at the Department of Information and Media Science, which he helped to found.
Peter Bøgh Andersen leaves behind a distinguished oeuvre. He has written and edited a large number of non-fiction books and some 130 scientific articles. Topics range from studies of the syntax of action in the early 1970s, to working language studies and communication aesthetics, to artificial intelligence, computer games, and self-organizing systems.
Throughout his career, his main interest was computer semiotics, a field he helped to define. Peter Bøgh Andersen wrote his doctoral thesis in 1990 entitled *A Theory of Computer Semiotics*, in which he put forward the first theoretical analysis of the specific - interactive - characteristics of computer-based signs. The title reflects the innovative complexity of his contribution to international IT research. It was at once a challenge to and a complement to computer science's understanding of IT. In 1993, he co-edited an equally groundbreaking anthology *The Computer as Medium*. But his efforts were not limited to humanistic information science. Indeed, he was also a key driver of a research project that led to the publication of Downward Causation - Minds, Bodies, and Matter in 2000, on the possible impact of macrostructures on microstructures, with contributions from eminent physicists, biologists, psychologists, philosophers, linguists and media researchers.
In the 1980s he was the driving force behind the development of Information Science and in the 1990s in the development of multimedia education at Aarhus University. He was a reviewer on several internationally recognized journals and co-founder and editor of the journal *Systems, Signs, and Actions*.
Peter Bøgh was an institution builder, but his driving force was always research. He rarely took part in public debate, but when he did, he did so with an emphasis on research freedom, but also against rigid disciplinary boundaries and inertia in universities.
He was always willing to engage in debate on a professional matter, often at a subtle, detailed level where only those particularly interested could follow him. His infectious commitment and professional curiosity have lured many colleagues, younger and older, onto new professional galleys. More often than not, the new projects reached port after an instructive, stimulating voyage. Many colleagues owe him a debt of gratitude for his influence and inspiration in defining their own positions. Danish humanities research has lost one of the great, pioneering innovators of recent decades.
Professor Niels Ole Finnemann & Lektor Finn Olesen, Institut for Informations- og Medievidenskab. Aarhus Universitet