Art and Technology: Bridging the Gap in the Computer
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ART AND TECHNOLOGY: of the electronic implementation, computer-aided art BRIDGING THE GAP IN THE is still in many ways as much a handcrafted product COMPUTER AGE as conventional art forms but simply processed in a different manner. Furthermore, because most artists Cynthia Goodman are as of yet unacquainted with the mechanics and potential of computers, their accomplishments on Cynthia Goodman, art critic, historian, and curator, computer systems, which may assume various forms has published widely in various publications including including color xerography, photo enlargements, Arts Magazine, Portfolio, and Harper’s Bazaar. plotter drawings or video, to name only a few, are Her numerous exhibitions and catalogue essays often the product of intense collaboration in a include; “Hans Hofmann as Teacher: Drawings by laboratory-like environment between the artist and His Students” (Metropolitan Museum of Art), From someone technically proficient in the computer the Collection of Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller field. This practice is in antithesis to the myth of the (State Legislature Building, Albany, NY), Frederick sculptor or painter struggling preferably solitary in a Kiesler’s Endless Search (Andre Emmerich Gallery, studio setting, to realize his artistic concepts in pencil, N. Y.), Helen Frankenthaler in the 1970’s (Saginaw Art paint, metal, stone, or other common materials. Museum), Judith Godwin (Ingber Gallery, N. Y.), and Hans Hofmann: A Centennial Appreciation (Andre The products of art and technology have often been Emmerich Gallery, N. Y). Goodman is currently writing out rightly rejected. Lillian Schwartz’s frustrating, yet an article on computer art for Portfolio Magazine as enlightening encounter probably typifies countless well as compiling a catalogue raisonne of the paintings others experienced by her colleagues. In 1969 a of Hans Hofmann, and a catalogue of the Hofmann computer-generated print, which Schwartz submitted collection at the University Art Museum, Berkeley, for to a competition in New Jersey, was rejected. The publication by Cornell University Press. following year, she entered the same print, listing the medium as silkscreen. This time, not only was the print accepted but also bought by the Trenton Much as the majority of the art public has tried to Museum for its permanent collection. ignore the art and technology phenomenon, it is no In spite of popular misconceptions, developments in longer either possible or fashionable to do so. The technology have gone hand in hand with evolution large retrospective of video artist Nam June Paik, at in the field of the arts throughout much of history, the Whitney Museum in New York during the Spring and the accomplishments of numerous outstanding of 1982 was just one of numerous recent examples of artists have been intertwined with and enhanced the acceptance of the new technology in a traditional by their knowledge of science. Leonardo da Vinci art environment. A lack of familiarity with the actual most frequently comes to mind as the artist whose process by which the works are made, has caused profound curiosity about the mechanical sciences the word “computer” in connection with art to be coupled with his fertile imagination and ingenuity as met with particular distrust out of the ill-founded fear an inventor, produced a great number of drawings that this mystifyingly complex machine might soon that were of interest to the scientist as well as the replace the artist in the creation of art. Yet in spite ART AND TECHNOLOGY:BRIDGING THE GAP IN THE COMPUTER AGE Page:2 lover of art. Representing only one of his many intrigued and challenged many artists of the twentieth engineering concerns, among his sketches are century. In this respect, the Futurists were particularly over five hundred dealing with the phenomenon of explicit about their goals, proclaiming in their flight including drawings of helicopters, parachutes, “Technical Manifesto” of April 11, 1910, that art should gliders, and flying machines propelled by man. portray the world as created by “victorious science.” Although not as consistent as the Futurists in their Nevertheless, Leonardo’s aeronautic studies had no allegiance to modern technology, recent discoveries direct application on aviation. However, according to also exerted a force upon the art of the Russian Dr. Jon B. Eklund of the National Museum of History Suprematists. In an early manifesto, Kasimir Malevich, and Technology in Washington D.C., who organized one of the leaders of this group, extolled an art based with Dr. Cyril Stanley Smith of the Massachusetts on “weight, speed, and the direction of movement.” Institute of Technology the exhibition “Aspects The references to non-Euclidean geometry in the of Art and Science” for the Smithsonian in 1978, Cubist writings of Guillaume Apollinaire, Albert their researches have led them to conclude that in Gleizes, and Jean Met Zinger are most likely based numerous situations the technology developed by on a contemporary interest in geometry rather than artists has had a direct application to science as a knowledge of Einstein’s “Theory of Relativity” as well as science contributing to the arts. The use of has been postulated. However, Einstein’s affect on acids and other corrosive materials in the etching scientific and artistic communities alike after 1919, process is a prime example of his theme and one when his theories on space came to public notice was which he illustrated with a group of carnelian beads enormous. Hans Hofmann, for instance, one of the from Chanhadaro, India, show how as early as 3000 major figures in the group of American artists known B.C. craftsmen were using an alkali substance as the New York School, who rose to international to etch decorative patterns into such ornaments. prominence after World War II, called his last series Acids were also used by the Pre-Columbian cultures his “Quantum” paintings, undoubtedly a reference to of Central and South America in order to create a Einstein’s theoryHofmann also noted on a number of gold surface in a process that has become known occasions how integral he felt art and science were. as “depletion gilding.” In Europe, the potential of the The “Preface” to the 1931 edition of his unpublished etching medium was later developed as a means of manuscript Creation in Form and Color opened with decorating armor. Finally, this technique culminated the observation that: “All productivity finds realization artistically in the production of works of the high caliber simultaneously in an artistic and scientific basis. For of Rembrandt’s prints. As Eklund has noted, some that reason in the end, creative science is art and of the first mentions of the use of acids appeared in creative art is science.” Perhaps three of his youthful conjunction with etching, and in spite of the eventual achievements as an inventor led him to choose to improvements upon the artisans’ knowledge of acids stress the creative aspects of the scientific process based on an intimate familiarity with their medium, rather than its rigid formulas. Assuming an attitude their preparations remained in the literature on this that was to contribute greatly to the acceptance of subject well into the eighteenth century. the scientist in the realm of art, Hofmann announced that “the scientist is also a creator when his search A link between the worlds of art and science has ART AND TECHNOLOGY:BRIDGING THE GAP IN THE COMPUTER AGE Page:3 leads him to new dimensions. operable miniature television set in his assemblage Great American Nude #39” of 1969. Other artists A fascination with machinery has played an increasingly employed the advances of modern technology as larger role in the world of art since 1900. The form a means of expanding their traditional vocabulary. of the machine has appeared in the work of many The innovations in the stain paintings of Helen painters and sculptors including Fernand Leger, Max Frankenthaler and Morris Louis, created by soaking Ernst, Robert Delaunay, and Paul Klee, who in such paint into unprimed canvas beginning in the fifties, paintings as his famous Twittering Machine was able may be attributed to a great extent to the properties to combine his attraction to mechanical devices with of the newly invented water-based acrylic paints. his sense of humor and exquisite draughtsmanship. In the sixties, Dan Flavin first executed pieces of Many other artists incorporated modern technology sculpture from fluorescent light bulbs, and sculptor in their artistic concepts. In 1920 Marcel Duchamp in Larry Bell sensitively colored glass boxes, using a collaboration with Manray constructed a Rotary Glass technique initiated by the U.S. Air Force to cover the Plate (Precision Optics) as a motorized construction glass surfaces in the pits of their fighting planes.. of painted Plexiglas and metal in which the five panels rotated to create the illusion of existing as one spiral In the late 1960’s art world attention began to be when seen frontally. Russian Constructivist Vladimir notably focused on the Liaison between art and Tatlin’s fifteen foot high model for his Monument technology. Engineer Billy Kluver and artist Robert for the Third International to honor the Bolshevik Rauschenberg founded EAT. (Experiments in Art and Revolution also designed in 1920, was constructed of Technology) in 1967 based on a goal they expressed wood and metal with a motor to move it as he hoped jointly in one of the first publications of E.A.T. News, the full-scale structure of iron and glass would, when that is, “to catalyze the inevitable active involvement built. Frederick Kiesler - always abreast of the latest of industry, technology, and the arts.” In order to do technological advances - incorporated film instead so, “E.A.T. assumed the responsibility of developing of a backdrop for the first time in live theater in 1922 an effective collaborative relationship between artists in a Berlin production of Karl Capek’s play,R.U.R.