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 Columbia University. 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, Yeshiva University, 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 Tel Aviv University, 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, Israel, 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 .