DOCSLIB.ORG

Technocrats of the Imagination Art, Technology, and the Military-­Industrial Avant-­Garde

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Technocrats of the Imagination Art, Technology, and the Military-­Industrial Avant-­Garde Technocrats of the Imagination Art, Technology, and the Military- Industrial Avant- Garde John Beck and Ryan Bishop Edited by John Armitage, Ryan Bishop, and Bishop, Douglas John Ryan Armitage, by Kellner Edited A Cultural Politics Book Duke University Press Durham and London 2020 © 2020 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of Amer i ca on acid- free paper ∞ Designed by Aimee C. Harrison & Drew Sisk Typeset in Garamond Premier Pro by Westchester Publishing Services Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Beck, John, [date] author. | Bishop, Ryan, [date] author. Title: Technocrats of the imagination : art, technology, and the military- industrial avant- garde / John Beck, Ryan Bishop. Description: Durham : Duke University Press, 2020 | “A cultural politics book.” | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2019023962 (print) | lccn 2019023963 (ebook) isbn 9781478005957 (hardcover) isbn 9781478006602 (paperback) isbn 9781478007326 (ebook) Subjects: lcsh: Technology and the arts— History—20th century. | Arts— United States— Experimental methods. | Military- industrial complex— United States. Classification: lcc nx180.t4 b43 2020 (print) | lcc nx180.t4 (ebook) | ddc 700.1/050973— dc23 lc rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2019023962 lc ebook rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2019023963 Cover art: Pantelis Xagoraris, untitled (1974). Created during a fellowship at the mit Center for Advanced Visual Studies. Reprinted by permission of mit. Contents Acknowl edgments vii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Science, Art, Democracy 17 Chapter 2 A Laboratory of Form and Movement: Institutionalizing Emancipatory Technicity at MIT 46 Chapter 3 The Hands- On Pro cess: Engineering Collaboration at E.A.T. 77 Chapter 4 Feedback: Expertise, LACMA, and the Think Tank 107 Chapter 5 How to Make the World Work 133 Chapter 6 Heritage of Our Times 164 Notes 193 References 201 Index 221 Acknowl edgments This book grew out of anearl ier proj ect of ours entitled Cold War Legacies: Systems, Theory, Aesthetics (2016). As we were writing the introduction to that volume, it became clear that the issues addressed the re needed more space. The pre sent book is an attempt to find that space. So in the first instance, we wish to thank all the contributors to that collection for their help in shaping the ideas that emerged here: Ele Carpenter, Fabienne Collingnon, Mark Coté, Dan Grausam, Ken Hollings, Adrian Mackenzie, Jussi Parikka, John Phillips, Adam Piette, James Purdon, Aura Satz, and Neal White. We would also like to thank our respective institutions and research centers for support to visit archives at the Getty Research Institute and the Buckminster Fuller archive at Stanford University. We owe a special thanks to Jussi Parikka, Lori Emerson, and Darren Wershler, who are currently writing a book on media and technology labs and have been in dialog with us about the many overlapping issues and materials. Courtney Berger, our excellent editor at Duke University Press, the excellent and insightful reviewers, and everyone at the press involved in realizing this book, as well as those who constantly provide support and steerage for the Cul- tural Politics book series and journal, deserve our most profound appreciation. John would like to thank the Department of En glish, Linguistics and Cultural Studies at the University of Westminster for financial and logistical support, with a special mention to Sharon Sinclair for her patient navigation of all manner of administrative knots. John is grateful for the award of a Library Research Grant from the Getty Research Institute, which made it pos si ble to consult the Experiments in Art and Technology archives. Thanks also to the Balch Art Research Library of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for making archival materials available at short notice. The warmth and efficiency of the staff at the Getty and the Balch are much appreciated. Many thanks to Douglas Kahn for sending over, unsolicited, some marvelous audio material. For their continued support and friendship, thanks to Matthew Cornford, Mark Dorrian, and Neal White, and for providing deep context, thanks to Lucy Bond, Georgina Colby, David Cunningham, Rob La Frenais, Alex War- wick, and Leigh Wilson. To Paula and Ed, the ultimate combination of art and tech. Ryan would like to thank the Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, for its continued intellectual support for this proj ect. Many col- leagues contributed directly to the shape of this book, including Ed d’Souza, Jussi Parikka, Sunil Manghani, Victor Burgin, John Armitage, Joanne Rob- erts, Jonathan Faiers, Seth Giddings, Mihaela Brebenel, Jo Turney, Alessan- dro Ludovico, Daniel Cid, Dan Ashton, and Valentina Cardo. Others whose input and friendship found its way into this volume include, in no specific order, John Phillips, Sean Cubitt, Mike Featherstone, Couze Venn, Kristoffer Gansing, Daphne Dragona, Tania Roy, Tiziana Terranova, Ben Bratton, Jordan Crandall, Ed Keller, Geoff Winthrop- Young, T’ai Smith, Ken Wark, and Elena Lamberti among many othe rs. Fi nally Ryan would like to extend infinite grati- tude to his dearest collaborator, Adeline Hoe. viii ACKNOWL EDGMENTS Introduction This is the story of two avant- gardes and their brief moment of asymmetric convergence. Each emerges out of the American experience of World War II and each is international in scope, including a contingent of Germans, and re- sponsive to the altered economic, po liti cal, and technological circumstances of the world after 1945. Each has its roots in an earlier encounter with modernity and each, in dif­fer ent ways, seeks a purchase on the future. The first is the post- war American artistic avant- garde, infused with the legacy of radical experi- mentation brought from Eu rope by those able to extract themselves from the conflagration. The second is the so- called military- industrial complex, the net- work of private and government institutions held together with Federal dollars and fortified, again, with Eu ro pean brains in flight from, or smuggled out of, tyrannous regimes and their defeated remnants. The point of convergence is the late 1960s, when a loose confederacy of artists now referred to as the neo- avant- garde (a term we wil l have cause to return to toward the end of this book), including, most prominently and influen- tially, John Cage and Robert Rauschenberg, participated in a number of collab- orative, interdisciplinary proj ects aimed at plugging American art into the power grid driving US scientific, technological, and industrial innovation. At leading universities, corporations, and museums, finding ways of bringing advanced art and cutting- edge technology together was conceived of as a way of unleash- ing the creative capacities of artists, scientists, and engineers, of sparking as- yet unimagined inventions of form and function, and of initiating new modes of inquiry unfettered by conventional distinctions based on professional loyalties, prejudices, or habits of mind. For the artists, informed by an ongoing investiga- tion of the unfinished proj ects of Dada, Surrealism, Constructivism and other aspects of early twentieth- century avant- garde, the fusion of art and technology was not only an intrinsic aspect of con temporary practice but was bound up with the avant- garde’s broader utopian challenge to the compartmentalized and administered lifeworld of modernity. For Cage and Rauschenberg, design- ers and educators like R. Buckminster Fuller and the Eames Office, and artists working closely with emerging computational and audiovisual technologies such as György Kepes, Jack Burnham, and Stan VanDerBeek, experiments in art, technology, and science presaged not merely a new aesthetic but a new so- cial order based on collective experimentation within the richest and most ad- vanced science and tech infrastructure the world had ever seen. Imagine Marcel Duchamp, Vladimir Tatlin, or El Lissitzky supported by ibm and mit. What happens when the possibility of such improbable pairings is taken seriously is the subject of this book. The collectivist dimension of art- and- technology collaborations is a vital part of their utopian promise since it represents an attempt by many artists and organizers to instantiate radical demo cratic practices, or at least to start to imagine what such practices might be, within the ostensibly hierarchical and corporate environment of the mid- twentieth- century university or business. The dilation of the coterie to include the spectator and passers-by, so central to the performative happenings, pro cesses, and interventions of artists like George Maciunas, Claes Oldenburg, and Otto Piene, and enlarged further in the multimedia broadcast experiments of Cage, VanDerBeek, James Lee Byars, and many others, posits the re distribution of artistic agency and a redefini- tion of what the aesthetic might be and do. The pursuit of common ground and a sense of the public good are key aspects of 1960s art- and- technology proj ects that are easily overlooked amid the (sometimes literal) smoke- and- mirrors spectacle of much of the activity. Without the prospect of social, as well as artistic, transformation, an ambition shared, though manifest in dif­fer- ent forms, by the historical avant- garde and aspects of progressive pedagogy reintroduced to the US through Bauhaus émigré artists and educators, the art- and- technology proj ects are largely just experiments
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Albert Wohlstetter's Legacy: the Neo-Cons, Not Carter, Killed
    SPECIAL REPORT: NUCLEAR SABOTAGE ALBERT WOHLSTETTER’S LEGACY Wohlstetter was even stranger than the “Dr. Strangelove” depicted in the 1964 movie of that name. An early draft of the film was titled “The Delicate Balance of Terror,” the same title as Wohlstetter’s best-known unclassified work. Here, a still from the film. tives—Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Zalmay Khalilzad, to name a few. In Wohlstetter’s circle of influence were also Ahmed Chalabi (whom Wohlstetter championed), Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-Wash.), Sen. Robert Dole (R- Kan.), and Margaret Thatcher. Wohlstetter himself was a follower of Bertrand Russell, not only in mathematics, but in world outlook. The pseudo-peacenik Russell had called for a preemptive strike against the Soviet Union, after World War II and before the Soviets developed the bomb, as a prelude to his plan for bully- ing nations into a one-world government. Russell, a raving Malthusian, opposed economic development, especially in the Third World. Admirer Jude Wanniski wrote of Wohlstetter in an obituary, “[I]t is no exaggeration, I think, to say that Wohlstetter was the most influential unknown man in the world for the past half century, and easily in the top ten in importance of all men.” “Albert’s decisions were not automat- ically made official policy at the White House,” Wanniski wrote, “but Albert’s The Neo-Cons, Not Carter, genius and his following were such in the places where it counted in the Establishment that if his views were Killed Nuclear Energy resisted for more than a few months, it
    [Show full text]
  • Discriminate Deterrence
    DISCRIMINATE DETERRENCE Report of The Commission On Integrated Long-Term Strategy Co -C. I lairmea: Fred C. lkle and Albert Wohlstetter Moither, Anne L. Annsinmg Andrew l. Goodraster flenry /1 Kissinger Zbign ei Brzezinski fames L. Holloway, Ur Joshua Lederberg William P. Clark Samuel P. Huntington Bernard A. Schriever tV. Graham Ciaytor, John W. Vessey January 1988 COMMISSION ON INTEGRATED LONG-TERM STRATEGY January 11. 1988 MEMORANDUM FOR: THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE THE ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS We are pleased to present this final report of Our Commission. Pursuant to your initial mandate, the report proposes adjustments to US. military strategy in view of a changing security environment in the decades ahead. Over the last fifteen months the Commission has received valuable counsel from members of Congress, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Service Chiefs. and the Presdent's Science Advisor, Members of the National Security Council Staff, numerous professionals in the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency, and a broad range of specialists outside the government provided unstinting support. We are also indebted to the Commission's hardworking staff. The Commission was supported generously by several specialized study groups that closely analyzed a number of issues, among them: the security environment for the next twenty years, the role of advanced technology in military systems, interactions between offensive and defensive systems on the periphery of the Soviet Union, and the U.S, posture in regional conflicts around the world. Within the next few months, these study groups will publish detailed findings of their own.
    [Show full text]
  • Boston Symphony Orchestra Concert Programs, Season 62,1942-1943, Trip
    Jfletropolttan Gtfjeatre • Jkototbence Tuesday Evening, April 6 Friends of the Boston Symphony and Opera Lovers WFCI has the honor to present The Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Dr. SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY Saturday Nights at 8.15 o'clock also The Metropolitan Opera Saturday Afternoons at 2 o'clock fffleirojrolttan QHj^aire • Prmritottre SIXTY-SECOND SEASON, 1942-1943 Boston Symphony Orchestra SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, Conductor RICHARD Burgin, Associate Conductor Concert Bulletin of the Fifth Concert TUESDAY EVENING, April 6 with historical and descriptive notes by John N. Burk The TRUSTEES of the BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Inc. Jerome D. Greene . President Henry B. Sawyer . Vice-President Henry B. Cabot . Treasurer Philip R. Allen M. A. De Wolfe Howe John Nicholas Brown Roger I. Lee Reginald C. Foster Richard C. Paine Alvan T. Fuller William Phillips N. Penrose Hallowell Bentley W. Warren G. E. Judd, Manager C. W. Spalding, Assistant Manager [ 1 ] SYMPHONY HALL, BOSTON Boston Symphony Orchestra SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, Conductor PENSION FUNP CONCERT SUNDAY, APRIL 25, 1943 AT 3:30 BEETHOVEN OVERTURE TO "EEONORE" NO. 3 NINTH SYMPHONY with the assistance of the HARVARD GLEE CLUB and the RADCLIFFE CHORAL SOCIETY (G. WALLACE WOODWORTH, Conductor) Soloists IRMA GONZALES, Soprano ANNA KASKAS, Contralto KURT BAUM, Tenor JULIUS HUEHN, Bass Tickets: $1.50, $2.00, $2.50, $3.00, $3.50, $4.00 (Plus Tax, Address mail orders to Symphony Hall, Boston [2] Hetrnpnlttatt Sljeatr? • Protrifottre Two Hundred and Seventy-first Concert in Providence Boston Symphony Orchestra SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, Conductor FIFTH CONCERT TUESDAY EVENING, April 6 Programme i Handel Concerto Grosso for String Orchestra in D minor, Op.
    [Show full text]
  • General Index
    General Index Italicized page numbers indicate figures and tables. Color plates are in- cussed; full listings of authors’ works as cited in this volume may be dicated as “pl.” Color plates 1– 40 are in part 1 and plates 41–80 are found in the bibliographical index. in part 2. Authors are listed only when their ideas or works are dis- Aa, Pieter van der (1659–1733), 1338 of military cartography, 971 934 –39; Genoa, 864 –65; Low Coun- Aa River, pl.61, 1523 of nautical charts, 1069, 1424 tries, 1257 Aachen, 1241 printing’s impact on, 607–8 of Dutch hamlets, 1264 Abate, Agostino, 857–58, 864 –65 role of sources in, 66 –67 ecclesiastical subdivisions in, 1090, 1091 Abbeys. See also Cartularies; Monasteries of Russian maps, 1873 of forests, 50 maps: property, 50–51; water system, 43 standards of, 7 German maps in context of, 1224, 1225 plans: juridical uses of, pl.61, 1523–24, studies of, 505–8, 1258 n.53 map consciousness in, 636, 661–62 1525; Wildmore Fen (in psalter), 43– 44 of surveys, 505–8, 708, 1435–36 maps in: cadastral (See Cadastral maps); Abbreviations, 1897, 1899 of town models, 489 central Italy, 909–15; characteristics of, Abreu, Lisuarte de, 1019 Acequia Imperial de Aragón, 507 874 –75, 880 –82; coloring of, 1499, Abruzzi River, 547, 570 Acerra, 951 1588; East-Central Europe, 1806, 1808; Absolutism, 831, 833, 835–36 Ackerman, James S., 427 n.2 England, 50 –51, 1595, 1599, 1603, See also Sovereigns and monarchs Aconcio, Jacopo (d. 1566), 1611 1615, 1629, 1720; France, 1497–1500, Abstraction Acosta, José de (1539–1600), 1235 1501; humanism linked to, 909–10; in- in bird’s-eye views, 688 Acquaviva, Andrea Matteo (d.
    [Show full text]
  • Jazz and the Cultural Transformation of America in the 1920S
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2003 Jazz and the cultural transformation of America in the 1920s Courtney Patterson Carney Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Carney, Courtney Patterson, "Jazz and the cultural transformation of America in the 1920s" (2003). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 176. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/176 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. JAZZ AND THE CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA IN THE 1920S A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of History by Courtney Patterson Carney B.A., Baylor University, 1996 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1998 December 2003 For Big ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The real truth about it is no one gets it right The real truth about it is we’re all supposed to try1 Over the course of the last few years I have been in contact with a long list of people, many of whom have had some impact on this dissertation. At the University of Chicago, Deborah Gillaspie and Ray Gadke helped immensely by guiding me through the Chicago Jazz Archive.
    [Show full text]
  • John Lowe Family Circle
    THE ANCESTORS OF THE JOHN LOWE FAMILY CIRCLE AND THEIR DESCENDANTS FITCHBURG PRINTED BY THE SENTINEL PRINTING COMPANY 1901 INTRODUCTION. Previous to the year 1891 our family had held a pic­ nic on the Fourth of July for twenty years or more, but the Fourth of July, 1890, it was suggested· that we form what vvas named " The John Lowe Family Circle." The record of the action taken at that time is as follows: FITCHBURG, July 5, 1890. For the better promotion and preservation of our family interests, together with a view to holding an annual gathering, we, the sons and daughters of John Lowe, believing that these ends will be better accom­ plished hy an organization, hereby subscribe to the fol­ lowing, viz.: The organization shall be called the "JOHN LO¥lE :FAMILY," and the original officers shall be: President, Waldo. Secretary, Ellen. Treasurer, "I..,ulu." Committee of Research, Edna, Herbert .. and David; and the above officers are expected to submit a constitu- tion and by-laws to a gathering to be held the coming winter. Arthur H. Lo\\re, Albert N. Lowe, Annie P. Lowe, Emma P. Lowe, Mary V. Lowe, Ira A. Lowe, Herbert G. Lowe, Annie S. Lowe, 4 I ntroducti'on. • Waldo H. Lowe, J. E. Putnam, Mary L. Lowe, L. W. Merriam, Orin M. Lowe, Ellen M. L. Merriam, Florence Webber Lowe, David Lowe, Lewis M. Lowe, Harriet L. Lowe, " Lulu " W. Lowe. Samuel H. Lowe, George R. Lowe, John A. Lowe, Mary E. Lowe, Marian A·. Lowe, Frank E. Lowe, Ezra J. Riggs, Edna Lowe Putnam, Ida L.
    [Show full text]
  • 2021 Transpacific Yacht Race Event Program
    TRANSPACTHE FIFTY-FIRST RACE FROM LOS ANGELES 2021 TO HONOLULU 2 0 21 JULY 13-30, 2021 Comanche: © Sharon Green / Ultimate Sailing COMANCHE Taxi Dancer: © Ronnie Simpson / Ultimate Sailing • Hamachi: © Team Hamachi HAMACHI 2019 FIRST TO FINISH Official race guide - $5.00 2019 OVERALL CORRECTED TIME WINNER P: 808.845.6465 [email protected] F: 808.841.6610 OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE 51ST TRANSPACIFIC YACHT RACE The Transpac 2021 Official Race Handbook is published for the Honolulu Committee of the Transpacific Yacht Club by Roth Communications, 2040 Alewa Drive, Honolulu, HI 96817 USA (808) 595-4124 [email protected] Publisher .............................................Michael J. Roth Roth Communications Editor .............................................. Ray Pendleton, Kim Ickler Contributing Writers .................... Dobbs Davis, Stan Honey, Ray Pendleton Contributing Photographers ...... Sharon Green/ultimatesailingcom, Ronnie Simpson/ultimatesailing.com, Todd Rasmussen, Betsy Crowfoot Senescu/ultimatesailing.com, Walter Cooper/ ultimatesailing.com, Lauren Easley - Leialoha Creative, Joyce Riley, Geri Conser, Emma Deardorff, Rachel Rosales, Phil Uhl, David Livingston, Pam Davis, Brian Farr Designer ........................................ Leslie Johnson Design On the Cover: CONTENTS Taxi Dancer R/P 70 Yabsley/Compton 2019 1st Div. 2 Sleds ET: 8:06:43:22 CT: 08:23:09:26 Schedule of Events . 3 Photo: Ronnie Simpson / ultimatesailing.com Welcome from the Governor of Hawaii . 8 Inset left: Welcome from the Mayor of Honolulu . 9 Comanche Verdier/VPLP 100 Jim Cooney & Samantha Grant Welcome from the Mayor of Long Beach . 9 2019 Barndoor Winner - First to Finish Overall: ET: 5:11:14:05 Welcome from the Transpacific Yacht Club Commodore . 10 Photo: Sharon Green / ultimatesailingcom Welcome from the Honolulu Committee Chair . 10 Inset right: Welcome from the Sponsoring Yacht Clubs .
    [Show full text]
  • Mapping Robert Storr
    Mapping Robert Storr Author Storr, Robert Date 1994 Publisher The Museum of Modern Art: Distributed by H.N. Abrams ISBN 0870701215, 0810961407 Exhibition URL www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/436 The Museum of Modern Art's exhibition history— from our founding in 1929 to the present—is available online. It includes exhibition catalogues, primary documents, installation views, and an index of participating artists. MoMA © 2017 The Museum of Modern Art bk 99 £ 05?'^ £ t***>rij tuin .' tTTTTl.l-H7—1 gm*: \KN^ ( Ciji rsjn rr &n^ u *Trr» 4 ^ 4 figS w A £ MoMA Mapping Robert Storr THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK DISTRIBUTED BY HARRY N. ABRAMS, INC., NEW YORK (4 refuse Published in conjunction with the exhibition Mappingat The Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 6— tfoti h December 20, 1994, organized by Robert Storr, Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture The exhibition is supported by AT&TNEW ART/NEW VISIONS. Additional funding is provided by the Contemporary Exhibition Fund of The Museum of Modern Art, established with gifts from Lily Auchincloss, Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, and Mr. and Mrs. Ronald S. Lauder. This publication is supported in part by a grant from The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art. Produced by the Department of Publications The Museum of Modern Art, New York Osa Brown, Director of Publications Edited by Alexandra Bonfante-Warren Designed by Jean Garrett Production by Marc Sapir Printed by Hull Printing Bound by Mueller Trade Bindery Copyright © 1994 by The Museum of Modern Art, New York Certain illustrations are covered by claims to copyright cited in the Photograph Credits.
    [Show full text]
  • Press Release E.A.T.—Experiments in Art and Technology
    Press Release E.A.T.—Experiments in Art and Technology July 25–November 1, 2015 Mönchsberg [3] & [4] The Museum der Moderne Salzburg presents an international premiere: a Presse comprehensive survey of the groundbreaking projects of E.A.T.—Experiments Mönchsberg 32 in Art and Technology, an evolving association of artists and technologists 5020 Salzburg who wrote history in the 1960s and 1970s with projects between New York and Austria Osaka. The show is on view on the Mönchsberg. T +43 662 842220-601 F +43 662 842220-700 Salzburg, July 24, 2015. The Museum der Moderne Salzburg mounts the first-ever comprehensive retrospective of the activities of Experiments in Art and Technology [email protected] www.museumdermoderne.at (E.A.T.), a unique association of engineers and artists who wrote history in the 1960s and 1970s. Artists like Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) and Robert Whitman (b. 1935) teamed up with Billy Klüver (1927–2004), a visionary technologist at Bell Telephone Laboratories, and his colleague Fred Waldhauer (1927–1993) to launch a groundbreaking initiative that would realize works of art in an unprecedented collaborative effort. The Museum der Moderne Salzburg dedicates two levels of its temporary exhibition galleries on the Mönchsberg with over 16,000 sq ft of floor space to this seminal venture fusing art and technology; around two hundred works of art and projects ranging from kinetic objects, installations, and performances to films, videos, and photographs as well as drawings and prints exemplify the most important stages of E.A.T.’s evolution. “In the past smaller exhibitions have highlighted the best-known events in E.A.T.’s history, but a comprehensive panorama of the group’s activities that reveals the full range and diversity of E.A.T.’s output has long been overdue.
    [Show full text]
  • Beyond Science and Civilization: a Post-Needham Critique1
    EASTM 16 (1999): 88-114 Beyond Science and Civilization: A Post-Needham Critique1 Roger Hart [Roger Hart is a Mellow Postdoctoral Fellow in the Program in the History of Science at Stanford University. He has a B.S. (MIT) and M.S. (Stanford) in mathematics, and received his Ph.D. in history from UCLA in 1997. He is com­ pleting revisions of his dissertation "Proof, Propaganda, and Patronage: A Cultural History of the Dissemination of Western Studies in Seventeenth-Century China" for publication; he is also working on an edited volume Cultural Studies of Chinese Science, Technology, and Medicine. He has spent a total of six years teaching, studying, and researching in China.] * * * The contention that science is uniquely Western has never been presented as a thesis to be demonstrated historically-that is, stated explicitly, formulated rigor­ ously, evaluated critically, and documented comprehensively. Instead, throughout much of the twentieth century, variants on this theme frequently appeared in panegyrics for Western civilization ("Science ... is the glory of Western culture" [Kyburg 1990: 3]), in the forgings of exalted origins for the West in Greek antiq­ uity ("science originated only once in history, in Greece" [Wolpert 1992: 35]), and in accounts that confidently offered purported explanations for the absence of science in other civilizations-accounts thus unencumbered by any require- I This article developed from the concluding chapter of my dissertation which pres­ ents a study of Chinese mathematics during the Ming dynasty and a microhistorical analy­ sis of the introduction of Euclid's Elements into China. This article presents a critique of the science and civilizations approach within which much of the received historiography on this episode has been framed.
    [Show full text]
  • Big in Japan at the 1970 World’S Fair by W
    PROOF1 2/6/20 @ 6pm BN / MM Please return to: by BIG IN JAPAN 40 | MAR 2020 MAR | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG AT THE 1970 WORLD’S FAIR FAIR WORLD’S 1970 THE AT HOW ART, TECH, AND PEPSICO THEN CLASHED TECH, COLLABORATED, ART, HOW BY W. PATRICK M PATRICK W. BY CRAY c SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | MAR 2020 MAR | 41 PHOTOGRAPH BY Firstname Lastname RK MM BP EV GZ AN DAS EG ES HG JK MEK PER SKM SAC TSP WJ EAB SH JNL MK (PDF) (PDF) (PDF) (PDF) (PDF) (PDF) (PDF) Big in Japan I. The Fog and The Floats ON 18 MARCH 1970, a former Japanese princess stood at the tion. To that end, Pepsi directed close to center of a cavernous domed structure on the outskirts of Osaka. US $2 million (over $13 million today) to With a small crowd of dignitaries, artists, engineers, and busi- E.A.T. to create the biggest, most elaborate, ness executives looking on, she gracefully cut a ribbon that teth- and most expensive art project of its time. ered a large red balloon to a ceremonial Shinto altar. Rumbles of Perhaps it was inevitable, but over the thunder rolled out from speakers hidden in the ceiling. As the 18 months it took E.A.T. to design and balloon slowly floated upward, it appeared to meet itself in mid- build the pavilion, Pepsi executives grew air, reflecting off the massive spherical mirror that covered the increasingly concerned about the group’s walls and ceiling. vision. And just a month after the opening, With that, one of the world’s most extravagant and expensive the partnership collapsed amidst a flurry multimedia installations officially opened, and the attendees of recriminating letters and legal threats.
    [Show full text]
  • Long, Long Ago / by Clara C. Lenroot
    Library of Congress Long, long ago / by Clara C. Lenroot Clara C. Lenroot Long, Long Ago by Mrs. Clara C lough . Lenroot Badger-Printing-Co. Appleton, Wisconsin PRINTED IN U. S. A. 1929 To my dear sister Bertha, who shares most of these memories with me, they are affectionately dedicated. THE LITTLE GIRL I USED TO BE The little girl I used to be Has come to-day to visit me. She wears her Sunday dress again — Merino, trimmed with gay delaine; Bare neck and shoulders, bare arms, too, Short sleeves caught up with knots of blue; Cunning black shoes, and stockings white, And ruffled pantelettes in sight. Her hair, ‘round Mother's finger curled, Looks “natural” for all the world! The little girl I used to be! So wistfully she looks at me! O, poignant is my heart's regret That ever I have failed her! yet, Something of her has come with me Along the years that used to be! I pray that when ‘tis time to go Away from all the life we know To the new life, where, free from sin, As little children we begin, This little girl I used to be Will still be here to go with me! —C. C. L. 1 LONG, LONG AGO Tell me the tales that to me were so dear, Long, long ago; long, long ago. Sing me the songs I delighted to hear, Long, long ago, long ago. F. H. Bayley HUDSON Long, long ago / by Clara C. Lenroot http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.09423 Library of Congress In the year 1861 there lived in a little backwoods town of Wisconsin a family with which this narrative has much to do.
    [Show full text]