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Art in the Information Age: Technology and Conceptual

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Art in the Information Age: Technology and Conceptual S A I N G D Art in the Information Age: G R C A U P L H T Technology and Conceptual Art U A R R E T A B S T R A C T Edward A. Shanken Art historians have generally drawn sharp distinctions be- tween conceptual art and art- and-technology. This essay reexamines the interrelationship of these tendencies as they developed in the 1960s, focus- n the mid-1960s, Marshall McLuhan prophesied protocols of computer software and ing on the art criticism of Jack I Burnham and the artists in- that electronic media were creating an increasingly intercon- the increasingly “dematerialized” cluded in the Software exhibition nected global village. Such pronouncements popularized the forms of experimental art, which that he curated. The historiciza- idea that the era of machine-age technology was drawing to a the critic interpreted, metaphori- tion of these practices as close, ushering in a new era of information technology. Sens- cally, as functioning like informa- distinct artistic categories is ing this shift, Pontus Hultén organized a simultaneously nos- tion processing systems. Software examined. By interpreting talgic and futuristic exhibition on art and mechanical included works by conceptual artists conceptual art and art-and- technology as re¯ections and technology at the Museum of Modern Art in New York such as Les Levine, Hans Haacke constituents of broad cultural (MOMA) in 1968. The Machine: As Seen at the End of the Me- and Joseph Kosuth, whose art was transformations during the chanical Age included work ranging from Leonardo da Vinci’s presented beside displays of tech- information age, the author 16th-century drawings of !ying machines to contemporary nology including the "rst public ex- concludes that the two tenden- cies share important similarities, artist-engineer collaborations selected through a competition hibition of hypertext (Labyrinth, an and that this common ground organized by Experiments in Art and Technology, Inc. (E.A.T.). electronic exhibition catalog de- offers useful insights into E.A.T. had emerged out of the enthusiasm generated by nine signed by Ned Woodman and Ted late±20th-century art. evenings: theatre and engineering, a festival of technologically en- Nelson) and a model of intelligent hanced performances that artist Robert Rauschenberg and architecture (SEEK, a recon"g- engineer Billy Klüver organized in New York in October 1966. urable environment for gerbils designed by Nicholas Negro- E.A.T. also lent its expertise to engineering a multimedia ex- ponte and the Architecture Machine Group at the Massachusetts travaganza designed for the Pepsi Pavilion at the Osaka World’s Institute of Technology) [1]. Fair in 1970. Simultaneously, the American Pavilion at Osaka Regardless of these points of intersection and the fact that included an exhibition of collaborative projects between artists conceptual art emerged during a moment of intensive artis- and industry that were produced under the aegis of the Art tic experimentation with technology, few scholars have ex- and Technology (A&T) Program at the Los Angeles County plored the relationship between technology and conceptual Museum of Art. art. Indeed, art-historical literature traditionally has drawn Ambitious as they were, few of the celebrated artist-engineer rigid categorical distinctions between conceptual art and art- collaborations of this period focused on the artistic use of in- and-technology. The following reexamination, however, chal- formation technologies, such as computers and telecommu- lenges the disciplinary boundaries that obscure signi"cant nications. Taking an important step in that direction, Cybernetic parallels between these practices. The "rst part describes Burn- Serendipity, at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London in ham’s curatorial premises for the Software exhibition and in- 1968, was thematically centered on the relationship between terprets works in the show by Levine, Haacke and Kosuth. The computers and creativity. This show, however, remained fo- second part proposes several possible reasons why conceptual cused on the materiality of technological apparatuses and their art and art-and-technology became "xed as distinct, if not anti- products, such as robotic devices and computer graphics. thetical, categories. The conclusion suggests that the corre- Art critic Jack Burnham pushed the exploration of the rela- spondences shared by these two artistic tendencies offer tionship between art and information technology to an un- grounds for rethinking the relationship between them as con- precedented point. In 1970, he curated the exhibition Software, stituents of larger social transformations from the machine Information Technology: Its New Meaning for Art, at the Jewish Mu- age of industrial society to the so-called information age of seum in New York. This show was the "rst major U.S. art-and- post-industrial society. technology exhibition that attempted to utilize computers in Before proceeding, some working de"nitions will clarify the a museum context. Software’s technological ambitions were terminology of conceptual art and art-and-technology in order matched by Burnham’s conceptually sophisticated vision, for to open up a discussion of their relatedness beyond the nar- the show drew parallels between the ephemeral programs and row con"nes of extant discourses. Resisting the arch formal- ism that had become institutionalized by the 1960s, conceptual art has sought to analyze the ideas underlying the creation and Edward A. Shanken (art historian), Information Science 1 Studies (ISIS), 17 John Hope reception of art, rather than to elaborate another stylistic con- Franklin Center, Box 90400, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, U.S.A. E-mail: <[email protected]>. vention in the historical succession of modernist avant-garde Based on a paper originally presented at SIGGRAPH 2001 in Los Angeles, California, 12–17 movements. Investigations by conceptual artists into networks August 2001. The paper was presented in the art gallery theater as part of the Art and of signi"cation and structures of knowledge (which enable art Culture Papers component of N-Space, the SIGGRAPH 2001 Art Gallery. An earlier, shorter version of this essay was published in SIGGRAPH 2001 Electronic Art and Animation Catalog to have meaning) have frequently employed text as a strate- (New York: ACM SIGGRAPH, 2001) pp. 8–15. Reprinted courtesy ACM SIGGRAPH. gic device to examine the interstice between visual and verbal © 2002 ISAST LEONARDO, Vol. 35, No. 4, pp. 433–438, 2002 433 S A I N G D languages as semiotic systems. In this re- Esthetics” (1968) and “Real Time simulations and representations—i.e. G gard, conceptual art is a meta-critical and Systems” (1969) [4], Burnham designed software—as opposed to "rst-hand, di- R C A U self-re!exive art process. It is engaged in Software to function as a testing ground rect, corporeal experiences of actual ob- P L H T theorizing the possibilities of signi"ca- for public interaction with “information jects, places and events, i.e. hardware. U tion in art’s multiple contexts (including systems and their devices.” Many of the A R All activities which have no connection R E its history and criticism, exhibitions and displays were indeed interactive and T with object or material mass are the re- markets). In interrogating the relation- based on two-way communication be- sult of software. Images themselves are ship between ideas and art, conceptual tween the viewer and the exhibit. Software hardware. Information about these im- art de-emphasizes the value traditionally was predicated, moreover, on the ideas of ages is software. The experience of seeing something "rst hand is no longer accorded to the materiality of art objects. “software” and “information technology” of value in a software controlled society, It focuses, rather, on examining the pre- as metaphors for art. Burnham conceived as anything seen through the media car- conditions for how meaning emerges in of “software” as parallel to the aesthetic ries just as much energy as "rst hand ex- art, seen as a semiotic system. principles, concepts or programs that un- perience. In the same way, most of the Art-and-technology has focused its in- derlie the formal embodiment of actual art that is produced today ends up as in- formation about art [8]. quiry on the materials and/or concepts art objects, which in turn parallel “hard- of technology and science, which it rec- ware.” In this regard, he interpreted con- Levine conceived of the 31,000 indi- ognizes artists have historically incorpo- temporary experimental art practices, vidual photos as the residual effects or rated in their work. Its investigations including conceptual art, as predomi- “burn-off” of the information system he include: (1) the aesthetic examination of nantly concerned with the software aspect created—as the material manifestation the visual forms of science and technol- of aesthetic production. of software. In other words, Systems Burn- ogy, (2) the application of science and In his 1970 essay “Alice’s Head,” Burn- Off was an artwork that produced infor- technology in order to create visual forms ham suggested that, like the “grin with- mation (software) about the information and (3) the use of scienti"c concepts and out the cat” in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in produced and disseminated by the media technological media both to question Wonderland, conceptual art was all but de- (software) about art (hardware). It of- their prescribed applications and to cre- void of the conventional materiality as- fered a critique of the systematic process ate new aesthetic models. In this third sociated with art objects. He subsequently through which art objects (hardware) be- case, art-and-technology, like conceptual explained Software in similar terms, as “an come transformed by the media into in- art, is also a meta-critical process. It chal- attempt to produce aesthetic sensations formation about art objects (software). lenges the systems of knowledge (and the without the intervening ‘object’” [5].
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