Dieter Daniels / Barbara U. Schmidt (Editors)
Artists as Inventors
Inventors as Artists
The Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Media.Art.Research. is an institution of the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft GmbH in cooperation with the Kunstuniversität Linz, Ars Electronica, and the Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz.
Artists_Inventors (v22b).indd 2-3 26.05.2008 11:44:44 Uhr Contents
Dieter Daniels / Introduction 7 Barbara U. Schmidt Contents Dieter Daniels Artists as Inventors and Invention as Art: 18 A Paradigm Shift from 1840 to 1900
Simon Werrett The Techniques of Innovation: Historical Configurations of Art, 54 Science, and Invention from Galileo to GPS
Paul DeMarinis / Working in a Place before Words 70 Dieter Daniels
Wolfgang Hagen Busoni’s Invention: Phantasmagoria and Errancies 86 in Times of Medial Transition
Cornelius Borck Blindness, Seeing, and Envisioning Prosthesis: 108 The Optophone between Science, Technology, and Art
Gebhard Sengmüller / Fictive Media Archeology 130 Dominik Landwehr
Simon Penny Bridging Two Cultures: Towards an Interdisciplinary History 142 of the Artist-Inventor and the Machine-Artwork
Sylvie Lacerte 9 Evenings and Experiments in Art and Technology: 158 A Gap to Fill In Art History’s Recent Chronicles
Billy Klüver / I Believed in the Art World as the Only Serious World That Existed 176 Edward Shanken / ed. Barbara U. Schmidt
Katja Kwastek The Invention of Interactive Art 182
Karin Harasser Switched-On Vulnerability: 196 Designability, Gender, and Technology with Laurie Anderson and Wendy Carlos
Amy Alexander / Building Things 208 Inke Arns
Kirsten Pieroth / Everyday Inventing 218 Barbara U. Schmidt
Biographies 229
Index 233
Sources 237
Contents 5
Artists_Inventors (v22b).indd 4-5 26.05.2008 11:44:44 Uhr The Invention of Interactive Art Katja Kwastek
Interactivity has become a virtually magic word for promoting new media and the media arts alike. Unlike photography or video, for example, the term refers not only to a certain technology that serves—among other things—the production of artworks, it also stands for social concepts and visions ranging from grassroots democracy all the way to consumer freedom.1 This fact imbues the Katja Kwastek term with its broad-ranging impact, but also contributes to its dilution. Interactivity circumscribes The Invention of Interactive Art a field of tension of the most diverse expectations and perspectives of understanding, within which artists working in this field must position themselves. Two further characteristics do not apply exclusively to interactive art, but they are manifested here especially clearly: the artists are not primarily concerned with creating a finished work but with choreographing a process that is necessary to implement. In the arrangement of processes, the artists’ practice approximates that of engineers and designers. In addition, in many cases the choreographed processes are not the means to an external end of insight, but rather the theme of the works. In this way, artists conduct fundamental research comparable to scientific practice. The various analogies indicated here—between artists and engineers, on the one hand, and between artists and researchers, on the other—are condensed in the aforementioned field of tension of interactivity, as a phenomenon in between medium, technology, and theory. A glance at the history of the term illustrates the spectrum of its interpretations: In general usage the term ‘interaction‘ conventionally denoted ‘mutual or reciprocal action or influence’. In 1901 the Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology defined interaction as: “The Figure 1: Grey Walter: machina speculatrix (Turtle), figure from Grey Walter, The Living Brain (New York, 1953) fig.11, titled“. . . modera- relation between two or more relatively independent things or systems of change which advance, tion gives place to appetite. Speculatrix finds her way home.” © Burden Neurological Institute hinder, limit, or otherwise affect one another,” citing as examples both the body-mind relationship and the interaction of objects in and with the environment, which is frequently also termed reci- procity, according to this dictionary.2 With the institutionalization of sociology as a science in the early twentieth century, the idea of interaction was applied to social and societal processes. In Germany, Georg Simmel first used the term interaction (Wechselwirkung) to characterize interpersonal relationships.3 In Anglo- American discourses, George Herbert Mead and Edward Alsworth Ross referred to “social
1 Cf. Dieter Daniels, “Strategien der Interaktivität,” in id., Vom Ready-made zum Cyberspace: Medien Kunst Interferenzen (Ostfildern, 2003), pp. 58–91; and Martin Lister et al., New Media: A Critical Introduction (London, 2003), pp. 19–23 and 40–44. 2 James Mark Baldwin, ed., Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, vol. 1 (London, 1901), pp. 561f. The German translation Baldwin offers for ‘interaction’ is ‘Wechselwirkung.’ 3 Cf. Heinz Abels, Einführung in die Soziologie, vol. 2, Die Individuen in ihrer Gesellschaft, 2nd ed. (Wiesbaden, 2004), pp. 204–206.
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Artists_Inventors (v22b).indd 182-183 26.05.2008 11:44:59 Uhr interaction” or the “interaction of human beings”.4 Mead’s student Herbert Blumer systematized sensual perception were not created specifically in the art context, although they—consciously or his research under the term of symbolic interactionism, comparing this in 1937 with the stimulus- unconsciously—made use of strategies from art practice. As was mentioned in the beginning, if it response theory. For proponents of this theory, interpersonal interaction consisted of a complex is so that media artists’ form of activity approximates that of engineers and scientists, then here, process of causes and effects of the various sensory organs and muscle groups,5 and it was the scientist’s form of expression is conversely comparable with that of the artist. therefore primarily explained in terms of physiology and investigated statistically. The symbolic The British neurologist Grey Walter wanted to test his theories on the neurological foundations interactionists, on the other hand, regarded “social interaction as primarily a communicative proc- of complex behavior patterns on the basis of experiments. To this end, he constructed the machina ess in which people share experience, rather than a mere play back and forth of stimulation and speculatrix, which he also called Turtle.11 It is part of a long tradition, beginning with mechanical response.”6 Whereas the former principally investigated reactions, the latter were more interested dolls and automata,12 followed by various electro-mechanical apparatuses imitating animals or in actions.7 Symbolic interactionism was regarded as expanding the concept of stimulus and humans, which were constructed in the first half of the twentieth century and reacted to their response with the concept of interpretation that mediated between the two. surroundings via light or sound sensors.13 These were the products of inventors and engineers and A new perspective of processes of interaction opened up around the mid-twentieth century were initially presented at fairs, and later at technology shows and world expos. Walter’s Turtles with the emergence of cybernetic theories: Norbert Wiener, who coined the term cybernetics in were new, however, to the extent that their behavior was marked by the combined reaction to two 1947, was less interested in the interactions between human beings than in analogies between the sensors—light and touch—and their actions were controlled by complex circuits14 (fig. 1). For self-organization of the human organism and cybernetics. In a book published in 1950, however, instance, a bulb attached to the back of the Turtles was designed to go out when the device he explained how society could also be investigated through analyzing messages and communica- moved towards an external light source. In front of a mirror, the device first approached the light tion processes.8 Although he focused on processes that could be statistically analyzed, like the source in its own mirror image, which resulted in its own bulb going out. The result of this was, in stimulus-response theory that Blumer criticized, his theory of feedback processes went beyond turn, that the movement stopped and the bulb went back on. Walter called the resultant mode of the stimulus-response theory in distinguishing between different types of feedback, from reflex- behavior a “flickering, twittering, and jigging, like a narcissus.”15 like reactions to systems capable of learning.9 These seemingly indecisive forms of behavior that observers could not directly explain logically Whereas sociology thus includes interpretation as a constitutive factor of interaction processes made the Turtles all the more similar to living creatures. Walter himself extensively explored the in symbolic interactionism, cybernetics is primarily interested in the idea of self-regulating systems. fact that he as a scientist “created images” and thus used methods “more appropriate to the Beginning in the 1950s, both concepts meet with a strong echo in artistic production. The far- entertainer, the artist, or the priest.” He referred to the long history of magical images, stating: reaching importance of the active inclusion of the viewer in Action Art for the genesis of contem- “The scientist cannot escape the suspicion that his projections may be psychologically the substi- porary art concepts is uncontested.10 No less significant for the development of process-oriented tutes and manifestations of his own hope and bewilderness.”16 He maintained, however, that there media art, however, is the artistic reception of the feedback concepts of cybernetics. This is all the was an unequivocal difference between the magical and the scientific imitation of life: The former more the case, as the relationship between artistic and scientific activity can be exemplified with copies external appearances, the latter deals with achievements and forms of behavior. His crea- the question of cybernetic art. This opens up the possibility of defining the criteria to ask what is ture was not to resemble an animal in appearance, but rather in behavior, and should hence specifically artistic. The contexts of the genesis and the reception of early cybernetic experiments demonstrate characteristics such as curiosity, free will (in the sense of unpredictability), the ability virtually require that the criterion of the artistic should not be fixed to the contextualization of the to learn, and social adaptation.17 The ambivalence between the scientific apparatus and a meta- projects in the art field, but rather in the sense of a certain form of expression, of sensually com- phorical imitation of life was intentional: “As tools, they are trustworthy instruments of exploration municating ideas or insights. The first apparatuses that conveyed cybernetic processes through and frequent unexpected enlightenment. As totems they foster reverence for the life they have so laboriously been made to mime in such very humble fashion.”18 4 Edward Alsworth Ross, Social Psychology: An Outline and Source Book, 2nd ed. (New York, 1909), p. I; George Herbert Mead, “Social Psychology as Counterpart to Physiological Psychology,” The Psychological Bulletin VI, no. 12 (1909), pp. 401–408; cf. the history of the term in Hans Dieter Huber, “Der Traum vom Interaktiven Kunstwerk” (2006), http://www.hgb-leipzig.de/artnine/huber/ 11 Grey Walter, The Living Brain (New York, 1953), pp. 114–132, 287–292. aufsaetze/nt.html (accessed October 24, 2007). I would like to thank Gunther Reisinger for calling my attention to this essay. 12 See, for instance, Puppen, Körper, Automaten: Phantasmen der Moderne, ed. Pia Müller-Tamm, exh. cat. Museum für Angewandte 5 Herbert Blumer, “Social Psychology,” in Man and Society: A Substantive Introduction to the Social Sciences, ed. Emerson Peter Kunst (Cologne, 1999). Schmidt (New York, 1937), pp. 144–198, here p. 170. 13 Cf. David Buckley, “History Makers,” http://davidbuckley.net/DB/HistoryMakers.htm (accessed August 24, 2007). 6 Ibid., p. 171. 14 Their actions were additionally influenced by the respective charge of the battery-driven devices. 7 Ibid., p. 191. 15 Walter 1953 (see note 11), p. 128. 8 Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society, 2nd ed. (New York, 1954), p. 16. 16 Ibid., pp. 114 and 115. 9 Ibid., p. 33. 17 Ibid., p. 121. 10 Cf. Claire Bishop, Participation (London and Cambridge, MA, 2006). 18 Ibid., p. 145.
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Artists_Inventors (v22b).indd 184-185 26.05.2008 11:44:59 Uhr The Turtles were shown in 1951 The first artist to become fascinated by the ideas of at the Festival of Britain. Margaret cybernetics was the Hungarian sculptor Nicolas Schöffer. Boden recounts that they were a In 1956 he designed his first cybernetic, spatiodynamic great success with the audience, sculpture CYSP 1, the movements of which were control- but at the same time, scientists dis- led by external light and sound impulses (fig. 3). The regarded them as toys. Norbert electronics of CYSP 1 were regulated by means of a Wiener calls Walter’s Turtles simple homeostat, which was built by Jacques Bureau, an engi- machines able to demonstrate com- neer with Philips. Schöffer presented the sculpture in the plex forms of behavior in groups. He course of performances, in which they reacted to light explains: “At present, the more com- choreographies and were accompanied by dancers.23 plicated machines of this type are Unlike the Turtles, Schöffer’s sculpture was not specifi- nothing but scientific toys for the cally intended to imitate human behavior, but instead exploration of the possibilities of the presented itself as an aestheticized machine. The inten- Figure 2: William Ross Ashby’s homeostat, from William Ross Ashby, Design machine itself and of its analogue, tion and form here were more closely related to the for a Brain (London, 1954), fig. 8.8. 19 the nervous system.” Constructivist sculptures of the avant-garde than to Figure 3: CYSP1 dancing with Béjart, 1956. Photo Bertrand Weil, Atelier schöffer. © Eléonore de Boden analyzes the disdain given to Walter’s devices by science as “counterproductive effects contemporary kinetic art. As early as 1954, Schöffer Lavandeyra Schöffer / VBK 2008 of seemingly favorable publicity.” Today, on the other hand, according to Boden, Walter’s experi- wrote in his publication Le Spatiodynamisme: “It is . . . a ments are celebrated as pioneering work in artificial intelligence research. She also points out, homeostat that will control these sounds in an always unpredictable way. It realizes a total synthe- however, that this pioneer status is equally due to William Ross Ashby, the inventor of the homeo- sis between sculpture and sound . . . with a maximum of flexibility, because it immediately adapts stat—a regulator that enables comparing a momentary value with a standard value and correcting to every change in the atmosphere.”24 deviations (fig. 2).20 Schöffer was striving for a comprehensive renewal of society with his art. In the aforementioned Boden’s explanation for why Ashby’s homeostat is so much less famous is that it has far less publication, he presented an evolutionary model describing the battle of the natural form (nature entertainment value.21 She conjectures that the popularity of the Turtles is due to the similarity with plastique) with the human-made form (plasticité humain) for predominance—even though with the behavior of living creatures that Walter emphasizes, which is immediately clear to the non-expert an uncertain outcome. Nevertheless, in his correspondence with Schöffer, Norbert Wiener was and fosters an emotional relationship between the audience and the Turtles. The impression of a extremely skeptical about his universalist ideas: “I am afraid that your interests are more remote living creature with a character of its own is enhanced here by the behavior, effected by a combina- from mine than you seem to believe.”25 tion of reactions, which is not immediately obvious. Although the homeostat also refers to living Schöffer’s affirmative view of the machine contrasts with Jean Tinguely’sHomage to New York creatures by imitating their self-regulation mechanism, it illustrates physiological insights in a physi- (1960), probably the most famous artistic machine of all, which was built solely for the purpose of cal experimental set-up. It presents itself as a machine and thus requires a process of transfer, a destroying itself. Billy Klüver, who built the machine together with Tinguely, remembers: “Jean’s theoretical consideration of its mode of functioning. Walter’s Turtles, on the other hand, convey machine was conceived out of ‘total anarchy and freedom,’ as he put it" (fig. 4).26 insights via sensual experience, thus making use of the aforementioned artistic form of expression. As Schöffer’s example clearly shows, however, it would be a mistake to attribute the role of a Even though they are not based on visual imitation, but rather on the possibility of experiencing critically reflexive examination of cybernetics to artists and that of the affirmative development of processes and modes of behavior, in this way they even anticipate art concepts of the 1960s.22 cybernetics to scientists. This is also indicated by a cybernetic apparatus by the information theo- rist Claude Shannon. In the mid-1950s, he constructed an apparatus conceived of by Marvin
19 Wiener 1954 (see note 8), p. 33. 23 Cf. Maude Ligier, “Nicolas Schöffer, un artiste face a la technique,” Cahier de recit 4 (2006), pp. 43–65. 20 William Ross Ashby, Design for a Brain, 2nd ed. (London, 1954), pp. 93–95. 24 Nicolas Schöffer, Le Spatiodynamisme (conference text June 19, 1954, amphithéâtre Turgot), http://www.olats.org/schoffer/ 21 Margaret Boden, “Grey Walter’s Anticipatory Tortoises,” The Rutherford Journal 2 (2006-07), http://www.rutherfordjournal.org/ spatiody.htm (accessed August 24, 2007). article020101.html (accessed July 3, 2007). 25 Cited in Ligier 2006 (see note 23), p. 65. 22 Cf., for instance, Roy Ascott, “Behaviourist Art and the Cybernetic Vision (1966/67),” in id., Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories 26 Cf. The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age, ed. K. G. Pontus Hultén, exh. cat. Museum of Modern Art (New York, of Art, Technology, and Consciousness, ed. Edward Shanken (Berkeley et al., 2003), pp. 109–160. 1968), pp. 168–171, here p. 171.
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Artists_Inventors (v22b).indd 186-187 26.05.2008 11:45:00 Uhr or in the field of science, on the other, suggests a distinction, but this cannot be so unequivocally derived either from the form of expression or from the intention of the works. Tinguely and Schöffer’s sculptures had already been presented in galleries and museums over the course of the 1960s. It took until the end of that decade, however, for the cybernetic experi- ments to be presented in the context of their theories, in particular as proponents of the conver- gence of art, science, and technology. The new achievements in art and technology were then celebrated in a wave of exhibitions and initiatives as the harbingers of a new culture. Galleries and museums showed exhibitions with cybernetic apparatuses, institutions were founded to promote collaboration between artists and engineers, and new science and technology centers were opened. The intention of these activities should not only be seen against the backdrop of a general euphoria for new technologies, but also in the growing significance attributed to active learning processes in society and process-based and action-based concepts in art. This is exemplified in a statement by Frank Oppenheimer, director of the Exploratorium, which was founded in 1969 in San Francisco. He wrote that he wanted to create an “exploratorium of science and technology and human perception, in which people will be able to understand natural phenomena and tech- nology through working demonstrations by themselves.”28 In a film statement for the opening, he refers to both the cooperation between artists and engineers in the Experiments in Art and Technology29 and to the exhibition Cybernetic Serendipity (1968) in London, meanwhile regarded as a milestone in the history of media art exhibitions. The aspiration of this exhibition—not unlike that of the Exploratorium—was formulated by the curator Jasia Reichhardt: “The exhibition . . . was
Figure 4: Jean Tinguely: Homage to New York, 1960. Photo: David Gahr. concerned with the exploration and demonstration of connections between creativity and technol- ogy . . . , the links between scientific or mathematical approaches, intuitions, and the more irrational Minsky, which had a certain affinity to Tinguely’s self-destruction machine. When the switch on and oblique urges associated with the making of music, art and poetry.”30 ”Cybernetic Serendipity the small box, called Ultimate Machine, is activated, it opens and an artificial hand comes out and deals with possibilities rather than achievements.”31 turns the apparatus off again.27 Reichhardt’s principle was to give no indication of which exhibits were from artists and which The ironic, self-critical impetus that Shannon’s box shares with Tinguely’s work places it in the were from engineers; the projects should all speak for themselves, and the appraisal of their aforementioned tradition of self-reflexive art. With the replication of a hand, it argues in a tradition- aesthetic qualities was to be left up to the viewers.32 In addition to computer music, literature, and ally artistic way through familiar sign systems. Unlike Tinguely and Schöffer, it suggests a living graphics, Cybernetic Serendipity also showed kinetic and cybernetic sculptures, including creature that intentionally reacts to the audience. This links it with Walter’s Turtles, although sculptures by Tinguely and Schöffer. However, there were two other works that attracted special Shannon created the similarity with the human being through depiction, not by an imitation of attention, one by a cyberneticist and the other by an artist: the English cyberneticist Gordon Pask behavior that Walter was striving for. showed his Colloquy of Mobiles, an assembly of apparatuses of two types of execution, which It is evident that in this early phase of cybernetic apparatuses, it is not possible to make a dis- he called female and male species. The male species, built of geometrical forms, sent out light, tinction between artistic and scientific strategies for visualizing the technologies and utopias of which could be reflected by the female, organically and anthropomorphically formed counterparts. cybernetics. Only the positioning of the authors and projects in the art context, on the one hand,
28 Film clip from October 10, 1969. See http://www.exploratorium.edu/frank/exploratorium_beginnings.html (accessed August 24, 2007). 29 Cf. Sylvie Lacerte’s essay, pp. 158–175, in this volume. 27 Description from Arthur C. Clarke, Voice Across the Sea (New York, 1958), p. 157. Marvin Minsky confirmed the former existence 30 Jasia Reichardt, “Cybernetics, Art and Ideas,” in Cybernetics, Art and Ideas, ed. id. (New York, 1971), pp. 11–17, here p. 11. of the machine in an e-mail correspondence with the author. Cf. on the question of ‘artness’ of these early apparatuses the essay by 31 Cybernetic Serendipity: The Computer and the Arts, ed. Jasia Reichardt, exh. cat. Institute of Contemporary Art (London, 1968), p. 5. Simon Penny in this volume, pp. xx-xx. 32 Reichhardt 1971 (see note 30), p. 11.
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Artists_Inventors (v22b).indd 188-189 26.05.2008 11:45:00 Uhr Figure 5: Gordon Pask: The Colloquy of Mobiles, 1968, installation view. ICA London 1968 (Cybernetic Serendipity). © Amanda Heitler
Figure 6: Edward Ihnatowicz: Senster, 1970, installation view, Evoluon Exhibition, Eindhoven. © Hans Joachim Schröter If the light was reflected back to the “right” place, the communication was “successful” and a sound signal was heard. Pask described the group dynamics more precisely: “Whereas males by means of hydraulics. Microphones were integrated into the four petals, which were able to compete amongst themselves and so do females, a male may cooperate with a female and vice- localize sounds from various directions. The sculpture reacted to quiet but continuous sounds by 33 35 versa” (fig. 5). bending in their direction. It might seem that the reason why SAM was a great success with the Similar to the Turtles, a technically complex feedback system is conveyed through an emotion audience was the fact that it entered into direct communication with the recipients, yet its reac- alizing attribution of meaning—here in the form of simplistic gender metaphors, whereby the tions (due to the preference for a certain type of noise) were not immediately clear. symbolism at the behavior level is also activated at the level of form (anthropomorphous vs. mecha- Following the exhibition, Philips commissioned Inhatowicz to create a sculpture for the com- nistic). Pask calls the installation an “aesthetically potent environment” which invites the recipients pany’s new technology center Evoluon in Eindhoven, the Senster: the over four-meter-high metal to participate. “The trick is that if you find them interesting then you can join in the discourse as construction perceived its surroundings not only by means of microphones, but also radar. In this well and bring your influence to bear by participating in what goes on.”34 way it was able to distinguish noises from certain directions and move its gigantic arms by means In comparison with the complex system architecture of Pask’s mobiles, the work of the Polish of hydraulics in the corresponding direction (fig. 6). Very loud noises or rapid movements, however, 36 artist Edward Inhatowicz appeared almost simple: he presented SAM—the Sound Activated made it withdraw. The explanation for the fascination that the Senster triggered recalls the Mobile. This was a small, flower-like sculpture bending forward and backward and to either side description of the Turtles: “Since the Senster responds to a number of stimuli simultaneously, its
33 Cf. Margit Rosen, “Reducing Uncertainty,” lecture at the conference When Cybernetics Meets Aesthetics held in Linz in 2006. 35 Ibid., p. 38. 34 Reichardt 1968 (see note 31), p. 35. 36 Cf. Jonathan Benthall, “Edward Ihnatowicz’s Senster: Technology and Art 30,” Studio International (November 1971), p. 174.
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Artists_Inventors (v22b).indd 190-191 26.05.2008 11:45:00 Uhr reactions are more life-like and less obvious than if merely the volume of sound were to provoke a action, for example his voice or his movements.”44 Jack Burnham even considered the perfect slow or fast movement.”37 analogy between human-human and human-machine communication as possible as the “next, and The Senster researcher Alex Zivanovic also stresses: “The complicated acoustics of the hall perhaps ultimate stage of sculpture.”45 and the completely unpredictable behavior of the public made the Senster’s movements seem a The criteria on which the evaluation of interaction processes is based, however, differ substan- lot more sophisticated than they actually were. It soon became obvious that it was that behavior tially. Whereas cybernetics in principal strives for technologically complex but scientifically and not anything in its appearance which was responsible for the impact which the Senster explainable feedback processes, the proponents of participative theories are especially fascinated undoubtedly had on the audience.”38 by the “unpredictability” of the works—and even such strong supporters of cybernetics as Jack Jack Burnham, who provided the first comprehensive art-historical contextualization of cyber- Burnham cannot deny the impact of these effects. In terms of unpredictability; however, it makes netic apparatuses and art projects in 1968, also emphasized the importance of “unpredictability” no difference whether these are the result of complex system architectures, of chains of reactions as the central analogy to living creatures.39 In addition, Burnham saw the cybernetic apparatuses that can hardly be influenced even by the technicians, or of purely interpretive attributions of as harbingers of a completely new form of art, which he expected to emerge in analogy to a new, behavior. post-biological society determined by technology. Even though many artists were striving for a Intentionally or not, apparatuses like the Turtles or Senster succeeded in addressing exactly flexible relationship between work and viewer, especially in kinetic art, according to Burnham, a the ambivalences of the various facets of interaction: as in cybernetics, it should be possible to comprehensive cybernetic system art was not yet possible.40 What were created instead were anticipate and recognize principally all actions and respond to them with preprogrammed reac- frequently “mock robots” or kinetic apparatuses that often feigned artificial intelligence more than tions; as in social interaction, however, what is fascinating about them is particularly their unpre- realizing it. Although Burnham regarded cybernetic system art that ultimately obliterates itself as dictability, their seemingly individual character with alternating moods. From the cybernetic per- realistic,41 he also expressed his skepticism: “The spectacle of an artifact adjusting to its environ- spective, the apparatuses discussed here can only be called interactive to a limited extent: they ment through a series of visible maneuvers has a certain anthropomorphic fascination, but it exhibit only a limited repertoire of reactions to an equally limited amount of perceptible stimuli. remains hardly an efficient way of handling immense amounts of information.”42 For this reason, the Combined with the unpredictability of their reactions—which can be reached in various ways— “romantic prototype robot” and modern automata theory moved further and further apart. and the semiotic character of their appearance, however, they achieve a substantial power of The possibilities of interaction are thus a central criterion for evaluating cybernetic apparatuses suggestion. and suggest a comparison with participatory art forms of the same time period. But as in Action Modern sociology divides interaction theories into the normative paradigm, which regards sign Art and happenings, which had a different mode of performance, the presence of the artist was systems and expectations as constitutive for interaction, and the interpretive paradigm, which usually necessary for the realization of the projects. They are comparable due primarily to their emphasizes the constant negotiation of stimuli and reactions in the process. With certain limita- general emphasis on processes and the activation of visitors. Yet kinetic art—which still held to tions, this division can also be applied to the cybernetic versus the reception-aesthetic perspec- the object—also put more and more emphasis on including the viewer, whether through the neces- tive of interaction: whereas all possible stimuli and reactions are already part of the conception of sity of moving in front of the object, the design of environments to be entered into and experienced, the interaction process in the ideal of cybernetics, aesthetic reception is fascinated especially by or the activation of the object actually necessary by the viewer. Frank Popper stresses the social the unpredictable that cannot be immediately explained and leaves scope for one’s own interpreta- visions that usually went hand in hand with these art forms, from shifting the art projects to the tions. The producer can explore the conjunctions between technical processes and their interpre- street all the way to arranging entire cities. 43 In the 1968 catalogue for the exhibition The Machine tations with his or her apparatuses, and may even be surprised by unforeseen combinations of as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age, Pontus Hultén bridged the gap to cybernetic art: “To reactions or seemingly human-like behavior. For the recipient, a clear separation between actually create a more intense communication between objects of art and the public is one main trend of functioning control processes and purely interpretative attributions is hardly possible. It is specifi- the sixties. . . . Technology offers the possibility of creating objects that respond to the spectator’s cally the scope that is opened up in this way, setting in motion a process of insight through sensual experience, which constitutes the attraction of these apparatuses. Hence the term interactivity 37 Jasia Reichardt, “Art at Large,” New Scientist (May 4, 1972), cited in http://www.zivanovic.co.uk/ (accessed August 24, 2007). 38 Alex Zivanovic, “The Senster,” http://www.senster.com/ihnatowicz/senster/index.htm (accessed August 24, 2007). 39 Jack Burnham, Beyond Modern Sculpture (New York, 1968), p. 341. 40 Ibid., p. 319. 41 Ibid., p. 333: “[S]culpture seeks its own obliteration by moving toward integration with the intelligent life forms it has always imitated.” 42 Ibid., p. 338. 44 Hultén 1968 (see note 26), p. 193. 43 Frank Popper, Art, Action and Participation (New York, 1975), pp. 7f. 45 Burnham 1968 (see note 39), p. 313.
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Artists_Inventors (v22b).indd 192-193 26.05.2008 11:45:00 Uhr seems to be appropriate for this field of tension between expectations, interpretations of signs, A new phase started with Myron Krueger, this time one of digital art production, which was now and technical processes when its historically developed ambivalence is taken into consideration more and more frequently called interactive art:49 interactive installations and environments, whose as a component of its significance. feedback to viewer actions was conveyed via screens and projections. In this way, artists took Although it would consequently be apt to characterize early cybernetic apparatuses as interac- leave of the cybernetic sculptures Burnham called “romantic prototype robots,” which sought to tive art, the concept of interactive art was neither coined to designate these projects, nor did these illustrate the ideas of artificial intelligence with the help of anthropomorphisms. This can also be kinds of sculptural apparatuses play a major role in the sector of media art that was later called seen as an attempt to overcome the distance that Burnham criticized to contemporaneous devel- interactive art. In the course of a general skepticism about the wide-ranging social utopias marked opments in information technology. Nevertheless, the reception of these projects followed a by technology in the 1970s, cybernetic art was regarded as a failure, especially by its most ener- schema very similar to that of their analog predecessors: after a starting period of about twenty getic promoter, Jack Burnham himself. In Burnham’s view, his visions of a total imitation of life were years, which was more or less ignored by the public, a phase of euphoric exhibition and reception not realized in the critical, self-reflexive, or metaphorical cybernetic art works and “mock robots,”46 followed in the 1990s, followed by a phase of disenchantment and criticism. The arguments of the and he was disappointed by the lack of perfection in the affirmative projects. Moreover, cybernet- critics, the lack of technical and/or artistic perfection, the financial incommensurateness, the ics itself as a general theory of feedback systems lost its impetus in light of informatics, which optimism in technology, and the economic dependency can also be found again, similar to the situ- focused on the development of digital programs to fulfill specific tasks.47 Jack Burnham had also ation in the 1970s. What is interesting here is that the proximity of artistic activity to scientific and criticized the insufficient use of computers in cybernetic art projects. Although Myron Krueger— technological activities also conditions an evaluation of the works based on criteria relevant to celebrated today as the pioneer of interactive art—was already working on a complex, computer- these fields (of profitability, of functionality, of innovativeness). However, an analysis of the specifi- controlled system at that time, it is doubtful that Burnham would have revised his opinion on the cally artistic forms of expression is frequently missing. It is to be hoped that the reception of cur- failure of cybernetic art, even if he had known about these activities. His position quickly shifted rently emerging artistic proposals of—often collaborative or body-related—interactivity will ulti- to a general criticism of technology, which was fed by the changed political situation in the United mately be more differentiated through taking into consideration their respective situatedness in the States, the increasing power of industry, and a spreading technology skepticism due to the grow- charged field of interaction concepts described here. ing opposition against the war in Vietnam, but also due to environmental policies.48
46 Jack Burnham, “Art and Technology: The Panacea that Failed,” in The Myth of Information. Technology and Postindustrial Culture, ed. Kathleen Woodward (London and Henley, 1980), pp. 200–215. Cf. p. 201: “Why should the only successful art in the realm of twentieth-century technology deal with the absurdity and fallibility of the machine?” 47 Cf. J. David Bolter, Der digitale Faust (Stuttgart and Munich, 1990), p. 231. 49 To the author’s knowledge, the first mention of the term was in 1969 in the flyer for the installation glowflow (Dan Sandin, Jerzy 48 Jack Burnham, “Corporate Art,” Artforum (October 1971), p. 67. Erdman, and Myron Krueger), exhibited at the University of Wisconsin. Flyer: Archive Myron Krueger.
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