MEL ALEXENBERG COMPUTER ANGELS

NOVEMBER 24 " DECEMBER 24, 1987

THE FINE ARTS CENTER ART GALLERY STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT STONY BROOK

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS COMPUTER ANGELS MEL A[EXENbERq : ARTIST'S STATEMENT I want to express my gratitude to guest curator Stephen Larese, Technical Specialist in the Department of Art at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, for initiating the exhibition of works by Mel My art explores the aesthetic and socio-cultural I started to use electronic technologies in making art Alexenberg. I also want to thank Eleanor Flomenhaft, impact of the Electronic Revolution on our lives and in 1965 while I was a doctoral student at New York Charles Olson, Registrar, of The Executive Director, and consciousness. I believe that the Electronic Revolution University. I pioneered in generating images using Fine Arts Museum of Long Island in Hempstead, will be the most far-reaching revolution in the history of computers. Concurrently, I began research on the and Lewis Lusardi, Director of the Educational Communi- in at the University at Stony Brook, for their humanity. Electronic media are extensions of our psychodynamics of aesthetic experience the creative cations Center published in technical assistance with the preparation of the nervous system . They are extensions of mind. Compu- work of artists and scientists, which was Alexenberg show. ters add mindpower. Telecommunications systems give my book Aesthetic Experience in Creative Process. global range to our interactions . Our perceptions of I also want to acknowledge the assistance of Patricia ourselves and our place in the universe are being Working with computer imaging and employing Kerr Ross, Director, and Janet Brennan, of Programs in transformed . Our concepts of space and time are general systems theory to build conceptual models of the Arts of the State University of New York in Albany, shifting . creative thought and action demanded a counterbalance for making Steina and Woody Vasulka's video installation in my life, Thus, at the same time, I was painting with available to us . The two earlier revolutions of comparable magnitude colorful molten waxes in the encaustic technique were the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions . Unlike as well as writing books for The "uw1 IawgNMW popular 2000 years ago, Special thanks are also extended to Michael Gian- faw rawrxt~+i"mihi rung the Electronic Revolution which is a qualitative leap, Cow w+low urma,. children. One of my encaustic paintings, based on my grasso and Pete Pantaleo for installation assistance and ARM these two prior revolutions were quantitative changes. computer graphics explorations, was reproduced in full to members of The Fine Arts Center staff: Joyce Chen, They provided extensions of our muscular system . The color the cover of the April 1966 issue of Dugan, Ophelia Lopez, and Selena Wright, Art on Nancy ox made our arms stronger and the horse made our legs International Science and Technology. Three years later, Gallery Assistants; Cynthia Maki, Jill Muller, and Eileen faster. The tractor and automobile just added more Patrick Kelly, Technical Mel Alexenberg Prentice-Hall published the first edition of my best- Solomon, Gallery Interns; strength and greater speed. There was no shift in kind. Director, and Liz Stein, Assistant Technical Director, Fine Subway Angel, 1987 selling book for young readers, Light and Sight. Mixed media . 23" x 21 r' Arts Center, for exhibition lighting; and Mary Balduf, The circular/cyclical organization of space and time Gallery Secretary. ;n the Agricultural Revolution can be symbolized by the In a chapter entitled "High Tech/High Touch," in John Naisbitt's book Megatrends, he points out that the Most of all, I wish to thank Mel Alexenberg and round, flat pita bread . The rectangular supermarket bread fragmented into slices, wrapped in plastic to stop high tech drain of working with computers creates a Steina and Woody Vasulka for sharing their work with counter-balancing demand for high touch experiences. the Stony Brook community, olfactory and tactile contact can symbolize the rectangu- lar/lineal organization of reality in the Industrial Revolu- The human potential movement, meditation, and the tion . Art actively engaged in ritual, teaching, and revival of crafts grew alongside the Electronic Revolu- decoration were replaced by "art for art's sake," by tion. 'We must learn to balance the material wonders of still-life/nature morte, by art clearly separated from technology," Naisbitt writes, "with the spiritual demands everyday life by a golden frame. Art that told the legends of our human nature ." Rhonda Cooper of the tribe and didactically presented the cosmology of a Director I believe, moreover, that the Electronic Age of Inay eian ay pomp uP "a after people gave way to the visual illusion of three- wardlpeaown' extended mind and global range carries within it the dimensional space delineated in single-point perspective. namo you ynan anjlp aneaadina seeds of spiritual renewal. Consider, for example, that in IWra+l"Phem ma oya RU7wly77 ° The dynamic multiform experience of the Electronic the very room in which you are reading my words Age changes the assembly-line mentality that fragments thousands of events from throughout the world are time and traps it in the rectangular boxes of calendars happening simultaneously. A concert in Moscow, a and schedules . Telecommunications technology frees me baseball game in Los Angeles, cooking lessons in to simultaneously be in today and tomorrow. If I phone Jerusalem, Big Bird in New York, a carnival in Rio, sl:i Jerusalem tonight, it will be the morning of the next day jumping in the Swiss Alps, an auto race in the south of France, and more and more events all happening in the Front cover. Mel Alexenberg, Rembrandt Observing for the person who answers my call. I can speak into Computer Transformation of tomorrow. room in which you are now reading. You may ask, His Drawing, 1987 "What are you talking about? My room is quiet and Relief etching and collage, 30" x 22" In contrast to the circle and rectangle, which are empty. The only event occurring in this room is my act of closed forms, electronic information is stored, processed, reading this catalog," Think, however, if you had a TV and communicated in spirals and branching systems. receiver with a large enough dish antenna or a Spiral and branching forms are open-ended systems of shortwave radio receiver, you could tune into all the Mel Alexenberg life and growth . The genetic information for all living events that have been silently present in your room all Subway Angel, 1987 organisms is encoded in the DNA helix; electronic the time . These events will have been electronically x 21" Mixed media, 23'r information is stored in spiral computer, video, and audio transformed into signals of electromagnetic energy that tapes and discs. Like a branching tree, electronic cannot be perceived by our ordinary senses. But they are networks, computer architecture, telephone systems, and here now nonetheless, permeating our environment, electrical systems are organized for growth of new even passing unnoticed through our bodies . With the branches. right receivers, however, these hidden worlds are

revealed to us. MEL ALEXENBERG The Kabbalists tell us about other hidden worlds BORN 1937, NEW Yank intermingling with our everyday world of ordinary perceptions. These are the world of Formation from which angels of emotion emanate and the World of Mel Alexenberg studied at the Art Students League of SdECTEd MUSEUM CORECTiONS University, and . Creation from which angels of mind emanate. Some- New York, Cornell Art Museum of Nova Scotia, Halifax, Canada, Baltimore degrees from Queens College, City times we can feel good or bad "vibes" permeating our He has received Museum of Art, Maryland; Butler Institute of American University of New York, , and New environoment. These are worlds that the artist can tune Art, Youngstown, Ohio; Chiba Perfectural Museum of York University. Mel Alexenberg was Assistant Professor Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio; in that exist beyond our senses, Long Island, New Art, Chiba-Shi, Japan; of Visual Arts at Adelphi University, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York; Fine Arts York (1965-69) ; Senior Lecturer at , The Electronic Age of television, radio, and facsimile Museum of Long Island, Hempstead, New York; Green- Haifa University, and Bezalel Academy of Arts and Haags Gemeentem- machines which bring myriad events from invisible Professor ville Museum of Art, North Carolina; Design in Jerusalem (1969-73) ; and Associate Hague, Netherlands; High Museum of Art, realms into perception gives us a clue to the worlds . He useum, The our of Art at Columbia University, New York (1973-77( Georgia; Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, described millennia ago. Ramat Hanegev College, Yero- Atlanta, that the Kabbalists served as President of Tennessee; Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, ham, , and as Associate Professor of Aesthetic Jerusalem, Israel; Long Beach Israel Scotland; Israel Museum, During the past year, I have been appropriating Education at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Museum of Art, California ; Malmo Museum, Sweden; Rembrandt's angels, digitizing and transforming them (1977-84) . From 1984 to the present, Alexenberg has Art, Mississippi; Metropolitan Institute Meridian Museum of with computers and sending them on circumglobal been a Research Fellow at the Massachusetts Museum of Art, New York; Midwest Museum of machine via communications satellites . of Technology, Center for Advanced Visual Studies in Indiana; Musee des Beaux-Arts, voyages by fax 1985, Mel Alexenberg American Art, Elkhart, the spiritual. I make Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since de Arte Contemporaneo, These computer angels symbolize Chairman of Fine Arts at Budapest, Hungary; Museo posters. They emerge has served as Professor and Caracas, Venezuela; Museo National de Aries Plasticas, them ascend from the subway Institute's School of Art and Design in Brooklyn, supermarket . They hover over Pratt Montevideo, Uruguay; Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna, from the products of the New York, where he is also Director of the Pratt bar code symbols striped like ancient prayer shawls. Austria; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National UPC Graphics Research Center. Australia ; National They point out that we can reach spiritual heights in the Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, quality of our encounter with everyday life. The Modern Art, spiritual Washington, D .C .; National Museum of difference between the material world and the RECENT QNE,PERSON ExitibiTiONS Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas special way in which Tokyo, Japan; world is one's perspective . It is the City, Missouri; New Orleans Museum of Art, Louisiana; we view our everyday world that can change it into a 1987 Fine Arts Museum of Long Island, Hempstead, Portland Art Museum, Oregon; Queen Victoria Museum spiritual realm. We can see the angel or get the spiritual New York and Art Gallery, Launceston, Australia ; San Antonio message by shifting our angle of vision. The angle from Pratt Manhattan Gallery, SoHo, Museum of Art, Texas; Tel Aviv Museum, Israel ; Toronto which we see the world determines whether it is merely Horace Richter Gallery, Old Jaffa, Israel Center far Contemporary Art, Ontario, Canada; University material or it is also spiritual . A shift in point of view can Mel Alexenberg of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie, Wyoming; and Homage Rembrandr: Joseph's Brothers 1. 1986 the material world into a spiritual one, Digitized to 1986 President's Gallery, , Brooklyn, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England. transform Serigraph, 30" x 22" )not in exhibition) New York To emphasize the emergence of the spiritual from "Parentheses of Asia," Environmental art material realms, I also created computer angels on work on the beaches of Chikura, Japan and differing materials. I screen-printed, painted, and etched EXHIBITION CHECKLIST Tel Aviv, Israel, Serigraph documentation in them on bright plastics, wood, cork, black rubber, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and in the and other materials. I call National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo. masonite, rusted steel, zinc, Measurements are given in inches, height preceding width. them "Material Angels," All works are lent by the artist .

As an artist of the Electronic Age, I am most 1 . DIGITIZED HOMAGE TO REMBRANDT interested in pointing out the spiritual in everyday life . I JACOB'S DREAM, 1986 RECENT GRaup Exi+ibiTiorrs strive to make the ordinary extraordinary . I aim to show Etching, photo-etching, and aquaprint, 30" x 22'A" the miraculous in the mundane, 1987 "Lights/Orot," Yeshiva University Museum, 2 . NIGHT ANGELS, 1996 New York City 30" x 22" Lithograph, "The Hundredth Year," Art Gallery, Royal 3, DIVERGING ANGELS OVER UPC RICE KRISPIES Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia LAWN, 1987 "Second Emerging Expression Biennial : Triptych: acrylic on canvas, 52" x 126" The Artist and the Computer", Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York 4. MATERIAL ANGELS, 1987 Touch," Pratt Manhattan Senses of twelve: mixed media, 12" x 16" each "High Tech/High Gallery, SoHo, New York City t nn !oacrrx ;,snl~eroie w rlunwIIMSwnnW aNsre sameu 5 . RAINBOW ANGEL., COMPUTER ANGEL OVER UPC "Transformations," Reynolds Gallery, University 'rrur Hpf~Pw "IH'.!'S lcir!U u5 l1~,1I t. RAISIN BRAN RAINBOW, 1987 of the Pacific, Stockton, California Acrylic on canvas, 52 1' x 68" 6 . REMBRANDT OBSERVING COMPUTER 1986 "Sky Art '86," Center for Advanced Visual TRANSFORMATION OF HIS DRAWING, 1987 Studies, Massachusetts Institute of and collage, 30" x 22" Relief etching Technology, Cambridge Mel Alexenberg "Imagining Antarctica," State Museum, Subway Angel, 1987 7, SUBWAY ANGELS, 1987 Mixed media, 23" x 21" Series of eight: mixed media, 23" x 21" each Linz, Austria

STEINA ANd WOODY VASULKA: THE WEST PREVIOUS EXHIBITIONS AT THE ART GALLERY

"The West," a six screen video installation by Steina 1975 FACULTY EXHIBITION and Woody Vasulka, is a 30-minute piece which runs 1976 MICHELLE STUART continuously It employs state-of-the-art video technol- RECENT DRAWINGS IAN AMERICAN FEDERATION OF . ARTS EXHIBITION) ogy, yet is lyrical in its imagery. Since its premiere in SALVATORE ROMANO Albuquerque in May, 1984, "The West" has been seen 1977 MEL PEKARSKY JUDITH BERNSTEIN in New York City, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles, and at HERBERT BAYER IAN AMERICAN FEDERATION video centers and festivals in Spain, Switzerland, OF ARTS EXHIBITIONI Iceland, and France. The piece was originally produced 1978 LEON GOLUB WOMEN ARTISTS FROM NEW YORK by Programs in the Arts of the State University of New JANET FISH York for SONY/The Arts on Television . ROSEMARY MAYER THE SISTER CHAPEL In "The West," video artists Steina and Woody 1979 SHIRLEY GORELICK ALAN SONFIST Vasulka explore the ancient and contemporary records of HOWARDENA PINDELL mankind's actions on the desert landscape . Steina's ROY LICHTENSTEIN camera has recorded the ceremonial sites of Chaco 1980 BENNYANDREW$ ALEX KATZ Canyon, home of the ancient Anasazi people, ancestors EIGHT FROM NEW YORK of today's Pueblo Indians: the ruins of a Spanish church ARTISTS FROM QUEENS at Quarai; and New Mexico's VLA (Very Large Array) OTTO PIENE STONY BROOK 11, THE STUDIO FACULTY radio-telescope system . With Steina's mechanized 1981 ALICE NEEL camera and spinning mirrors, and with highly saturated 55 MERCER : 10 SCULPTORS JOHN LITTLE golds and blues, the imagery is in constant, stately IRA JOEL HABER motion. Woody created the four-channel audio environ- LEON POLK SMITH ment and assisted with production and instrumentation. 1982 FOUR SCULPTORS CECILE ABISH JACK YOUNGERMAN In describing the inspiration of her work, Steina says, ALAN SHIELDS "in no other region of the country does the presence of THE STONY BROOK ALUMNI INVITATIONAL the sun play such a significant role in the ecology of the ANN McCOY 1983 THE WAR SHOW land - arid and eroded, with an exceptional clarity of CERAMIC DIRECTIONS : A CONTEMPORARY OVERVIEW the bright skies - forming notions of extra-terrestrial CINDY SHERMAN inhabitants The THE FACULTY SHOW importance in the minds of its . land- 1984 BERNARD APTEKAR : ART AND POLITICS scape, by its dimension and by its geometric and textural Steins and Woody Vasulka in Kiva Rindonada, ERIC STALLER : LIGHT YEARS variety, inspires man to create harmonious structures, Chaco, New Mexico during the shooting of the West in 1883 . NORMAN BLUHM SEVEN FROM THE SEVENTIES EDWARD COUNTEY 1921-1984 dwellings, and other earth works." CARL ANDRE : SCULPTURE 1985 LEWIS HINEIN EUROPE 1918-1919 Steina was born in Iceland in 1940 and attended the FRANCESC TORRES PATHS OF GLORY Music Conservatory in Prague. She came to the United HOMAGE TO SOLOTOWSKY 1935 -1981 in 1965 and has been a seminal force in the FREEDOM WITHIN : PAINTINGS BY JUAN SANCHEZ/ States INSTALLATION BY ALFREDO JAAR development of the electronic arts since 1970. She and ABSTRACT PAINTING REDEFINED her husband, Woody, are co-founders of "The Kitchen," 1986 KLEEGE : METAL SCULPTURE TOBY BUONAGURIO: SELECTED WORKS an experimental video center in New York City. Her tapes YANG YEN-PING AND ZENG SHAH-QING have been exhibited and broadcast extensively in the EIGHT URBAN PAINTERS : CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS United States and Europe. She was a Guggenheim OF THE EAST VILLAGE TV' THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS Fellow in 1967 and has, with her husband, received WOMEN ARTISTS OF THE SURREALIST MOVEMENT grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, the The West 1987 HANS BREDER : ARCHETYPAL DIAGRAMS MICHAEL SINGER RITUAL SERIES RETELLINGS National Endowment for the Arts, and the Corporation Created by: Steina Vasulka JUDITH DOLNICKIROBERT NATKIN for Public Broadcasting . MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE : THE HUMANITARIAN VISION Woody Vasulka was born in Czechoslovakia where he Instrumentation and production assistance: studied metal technologies, hydraulic mechanics, and Woody Vasulka the arts. He emigrated to the United States in 1965, and experiments with electronic sounds, Four-channel audio environment: in 1967 began Vasulka stroboscopic lights and, two years later, with video. In Woody 1974, he became a faculty member of the Center for Produced by Programs in the Arts Media Study at the State University of New York at of The State University of New York BROOK and began his investigations into computer STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT STONY Buffalo for SONY/The Arts on Television controlled video, building "The Vasulka Imaging Sys- THE FINE ARTS CENTER tem," a personal imaging facility. Like Steina, he has With funds from the Rockefeller Foundation and the been a Guggenheim Fellow. National Endowment for the Arts. ""J art gallery

Back cover.- 5teina Vasulka . The West, 1984 . detail from video instafalion STEINA AND WOODY VASULKA THE WEST

NOVEMBER 24 " DECEMBER 24,1987 , Sfd Brvok