THE HISTORY AND FUTURE OF THE LAB: Collaborave Research at the Intersecons of Art, Science, and Technology

Edward A. Shanken www.artexetra.com

Grad Media Design Art Center College of Design 1 March 2012 I have seen the future and it doesn’t work

- Robert Fulford (Canadian journalist)

Convenonal criteria are insufficient

Hybrid forms transcend disciplinary limits, push convenonal structures of knowledge

Evaluave methods parcular to a given discipline may not offer adequate measures of success or failure

New methods must be developed Must recognize the importance of process Deep Interdisciplinarity and Breakthrough Innovaons

“… a creave team [comprised ] of very similar disciplines … will be unlikely to achieve a breakthrough.” One made up of “very diverse disciplines is more likely to achieve breakthroughs – but will also produce many more low-value innovaons” - Lee Fleming, “Perfecng Cross-Pollinaon,” Harvard Business Review, Sep 2004. Revel in Failure

Breakthroughs demand extraordinary risks Must be willing to fail most of the time

“If you’re not failing at least 90% of the time, Alex Hay, E.A.T. 9 evenings, 1966 you’re not aiming high enough” – Alan Kay

Some of the biggest flops in history provide some of the future’s brightest successes

Ihnatowicz, Philips collab 1969-70 Predicon is very difficult, especially about the future

- Niels Bohr

The present has difficulty recognizing what the future will valorize from the past

Especially true of cung-edge research whose outcomes do not easily fit establish norms

Throughout history, the present has demonstrated a remarkable inability to recognize what its most important contribuons to the future will be

Outcomes of experimental transdisciplinary research, although seemingly banal today, may be the breakthroughs of tomorrow.

7 Nobel Prizes Invenons include: the transistor, laser, informaon theory, UNIX, C++

Pioneering work in computer music, computer graphics, computer animaon

John Pierce, Exec Dir Research Communicaons • “Father of the communicaons satellite” • Led invenon of the transistor, a term he coined • Pulse-code modulaon (basis of digital audio) • Science ficon author (J.J. Coupling pseudonym)

Max Mathews, Dir, Behavioral and Acousc Research 1962-85 • “Father of computer music” • Demonstrated music synthesis,1957. $200/hr IBM computer • Developed real-me computer systems for live performance • Max MSP soware named in his honor Bell Labs

Arsts in Residence

James Tenney, 1961-64

Stan Vanderbeek and Ken Knowlton, Lillian Schwartz and Ken Knowlton, Poem Fields #2, 1968. Pixillation, 1971. E.A.T. Experiments in Art and Technology

9 evenings: theatre & engineering, 1966 ‘Have you ever met a normal, healthy and working engineer who gives a damn about contemporary art? Why should the contemporary arst want to use technology and engineering as material?’

- Billy Klüver, 1967

Billy Klüver with reflective Mylar balloons, later used by Andy Warhol in Silver Clouds, 1966. Bell Labs operated the Mylar communications “satelloons” of Project Echo, 1960-65. 9 evenings was a ‘deliberate aempt by … arsts to find out if it was possible to work with engineers.’ - Billy Klüver

everyone’s ‘investment in terms of putting-yourself-out-on-a-limb was considerable’ - Billy Klüver

9 evenings: theatre & engineering

• E.A.T. founded by Billy Klüver, Fred Waldhauer Robert Rauschenberg, in 1967 • Arsts: John Cage, Lucinda Childs, Öyvind Fahlström, Alex Hay, Deborah Hay, Steve Paxton, Rauschenberg, David Tudor, Whitman • Audience of 10,000 • 8500 engineering hours • “midnight requisions” from Bell Labs 9 evenings cast, 1966 9 evenings: theatre & engineering, 1966 Most crics considered it a flop…

But…

Captured public’s imaginaon about arst-engineer collaboraons

E.A.T. helped make “materials, technology and engineering available to any contemporary arst” (Klüver)

6000 members, 28 chapters in US and more internationally E.A.T.’s ROLE IN EXHIBITIONS

E.A.T. compeon, 1967 NY Times, Scienfic American E.A.T. Some More Beginnings, Museum of Art, 1968

Jean Dupuy and Ralph Martel Heart Beats Dust, 1968 (winner)

Pontus Hulten, The Machine as Seen at Norm White, First Tighten Up on the Drums, the End of the Mechanical Age, 1968 1968, in Some More Beginnings PEPSI PAVILION, EXPO 70, Osaka Japan

Designed and engineered by E.A.T. (unl Pepsi fired them over arsc differences and budget issues)

seen by an esmated audience of 1 million visitors E.A.T.’s LEGACY

• vital inspiraon for arsts’ ongoing invesgaon of emerging technology • especially for arsc collaboraons with engineers and sciensts • gained legendary status as a visionary iniave ancipang the future • extensive archives sll overseen by long-me E.A.T Secretary, Julie Marn The future ain’t what it used to be…

- Baseball legend Yogi Berra

What once looked shiny, new, and futurisc – like fins on automobiles – later become the quaint objects of nostalgia.

How can we preserve the essence of our own forward-thinking visions and pracces – both the historical, cultural contexts in which they emerge and the crucial lessons learned through experimental processes of grappling with the unknown – so that future generaons can learn from and build upon them? Philips Corporation

Philips Evoluon Hall, Eindhoven, 1966 Louis Christiaan Kalff, architect

• Inventions and innovations: lighting, cassette tape, CD, DVD • Innovative collaborations with artists since 1950s • Important examples of that work perished, including archives Historic Arst Collaboraons at Philips

Nicholas Schöffer , CYSP I, 1956 CYSP = cybernec + spaodynamic Historic Arst Collaboraons at Philips

Le Corbusier; Xenakis; Varèse, Poème Électronique, Philips Pavilion, World’s Fair, Brussels, 1958 Destroyed.

a ‘liturgy for tweneth-century humankind, dependent on electricity instead of daylight and on virtual perspecves in place of terrestrial views.’ – Marc Treib Historic Arst Collaboraons at Philips

Edward Ihnatowicz

Sound Acvated Mobile (SAM) 1968 =>

<= Senster, 1969-70

• 4m roboc sculpture controlled by a computer connected to sensors including sound and radar. • Responded to the sound and movement of audience. • Dismantled in 1974. Electronic components given away. • Philips’s archives related to the Senster destroyed. • As of 2003, the mechanical structure displayed as outdoor sculpture

Unanimated and decontextualised, the welded steel armature remains but a weathered ghost of a formerly Senster, 1969-70. Exhibited at Philips’ glorious surrogate being that in its prime enchanted Evoluon Hall, Eindhoven, 1970-74 thousands, providing them with a glimpse into the future. The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet

- William Gibson

It’s a maer of spreading and disseminang it. New Media Art Instuons, 1990s - on

Entrance to ICC, Tokyo, 1997

Graffi Research Labs, Train Bombing, ZKM, Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Ars Electronica, 2006 (top); AE Center, Karlsruhe. Founded 1989; building 1999. Lichtkunst Linz. AE founded 1979; AEC 1995. aus Kunstlicht exhibion (2006) and catalog (top). Expanded 6500m2 €30mil 2008. So what can we learn from Bell Labs, E.A.T., and Philips?

The success of an extraordinary transdisciplinary project oen cannot be gauged at the moment of its creaon.

Its recepon will likely be confused and contradictory.

Those who lack experse in the key fields contribung to it will have difficulty evaluang it in either arsc or scienfic terms, much less in framing its potenal historical significance. Transdisciplinary Collaboraon

“Collaboraons are the black holes of knowledge regimes. They willingly produce nothingness, opulence, and ill- behaviour. And it is their very vacuity that is their strength…. It does not entail the transmission of something from those who have to those who do not, but rather the seng in moon of a chain of unforeseen accesses.” - Florian Schneider, “Collaboraon. Seven Notes on New Ways of Learning and Working Together,” 2007 It is into these vacuous black holes that the labs of the future must boldly plunge, enabling the unforeseen to emerge in its opulent nothingness.

However, in a context mediated by a boom-line mentality, experimental labs must facilitate translaon not just between arsts and sciensts but between visionaries and accountants. Venture Capital (VC) Model for Transdisciplinary Collaboraon

100 ventures 100 x €1000 = 100.000 (loss) - 99 x 1000 (99.000) gain + 1 x 1000 x 1000 1.000.000 Net 1.001.000

Following this model and Fleming’s research, only a very small fracon will achieve extraordinary success.

Must instute rigorous criteria and develop experse to support, recognize, and nurture: • innovave research • breakthrough value (eg. Xerox GUI OS) • knowledge transfer to applicaon • incubaon

Pool resources to spread risk, share success In the history of human thinking the most fruiul developments frequently take place at those points where two different lines of thought meet. - Werner Heisenberg

We must be willing to take risks, to cross boundaries, and to collaborate in unconvenonal ways that involve ‘pung themselves out on a limb,’ as Klüver noted.

Misunderstandings will arise, tensions will build, and egos will be bruised. Such conflicts should be embraced as a crucial and creave catalyst for innovaon.

Breakthroughs may occur not just at “those points where two different lines of thought meet” but at the points of fricon where they rub or grate against each other. The resoluon of such creave fricons demands the development of hybrid forms of knowledge producon.

Such approaches may yield insights and results that could not have been achieved by using the methods and techniques of any single discipline. It is a supreme understatement that … collaboraon is difficult.

extraordinary commitment and dedicaon, taking it largely on faith that the outcome – which could not be ancipated in advance - will be worth the effort.

• fasdious project coordinaon • managing and movang people • inspiraon and creavity

TIME: • develop a shared language to communicate across disciplines • idenfy boundary objects as common locus of research • develop trust in one’s colleagues • develop effecve and efficient modes of collaborang together

Must believe in each other and in shared vision, even when misunderstood by the public and panned by crics and colleagues; even when their labors might not result in an exhibion-worthy artwork or peer-reviewed arcle. HYBRID PRACTICE/PRACTITIONERS

As the number of hybrid practitioners increases, their impact on the centrality of technology and science in the production of art and design (and vice-versa) will force a reconsideration of the canons of art and design history and the histories of science and technology. Ideally, such work will create new forms and structures of meaning that expand the languages of art, design, engineering, and science, and that open up new vistas of creativity and invention. COMMITMENT

it is truly remarkable what the collaborators in the 9 evenings were able to achieve in less than a year.

Klüver was so commied to AST collaboraon that he quit a presgious job at Bell Labs and relied on philanthropic sources to fund E.A.T. and provide for his livelihood.

Does such impressive vision and commitment exist today? Where can it be found? SUSTAINIBILITY, INTERPRETATION, AND RATIONALE

If it’s not strictly art, science, or engineering … then what is it? What new knowledge does it produce or enable? What is its function in the world?

Labs, artists, and scholars whose work fuses disciplines, will be prematurely curtailed if their contributions are not recognised and rewarded

Must develop: 1) rigorous criteria for evaluating and documenting processes and products of transdisciplinary collaborations

2) compelling rationales for research as engine for innovation – innovation not just as a marketable commodity, but as constituting more subtle and perhaps more insidious and profound shifts in the conception of knowledge and society. THE HISTORY AND FUTURE OF THE LAB: Collaborave Research at the Intersecons of Art, Science, and Technology

Edward A. Shanken www.artexetra.com

Grad Media Design Art Center College of Design 1 March 2012