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Jack Burnham: The SystemsApproach

JackBurnham played a prominentrole in the sceneat the endof the sixties.Burnham started out as an artist but establishedhis reputation, aboveall, as a writer/theoreticianand organizerof exhibitions.From 1968-1969he was a fellow at the Centerfor AdvancedVisual Studies. In an article,"The Aestheticsof IntelligentSystems," he describedhow his residencyallowed him to use the time-sharingcomputer at MIT's Lincoln Laboratories.His fellowshipat the Centerobviously also allowedhim to touch on the different areasof scientific and technologicalresearch whenever possible, and to participatein the exchangeof ideas with scientists.His interestin the possibilitiesof informationsystems, networks or artificial intelligencewas certainlystimulated by the researchdone at MIT. Here Burnhammet, amongothers, Marvin Minsky, one of the pioneersin researchon artificial intelligence,whose chess programs and ball-catchingrobots had receivedmuch publicity. He alsobecame acquainted with Nicolas Negroponteand his ArchitectureMachine Group, and invited themto participatein Softwarewith theinstallation SEEK,mentioned above.130 Writer/artistJack Burnham belonged to thosefew who werein the vanguardto connectthe twentieth-centurydevelopments in technology andscience with the visualarts, in particularsculpture. He felt that the westernworld was changingfrom an object-orientedto a - orientedsociety.r3l Sculpture's change from objetd'art to systCmed'art paralleled,as he definedit, the intellectualframework produced by the scientificcommunity. The traditionaltools of art-historyand criticism - whetherit is a stylisticand formal analysis,iconographic, or the linear developmentmodel - couldnot explainthese changes sufficiently and in BeyondModern Sculptureand his subsequentwriting he set out to developan approachwhich presupposed twentieth-century sculpture as a system,in whichchanges showed a continuouscorrelation with those in scienceand technology.He met with severecriticism of his methodologyfrom art-historicalsides, which was to be expected. Burnham'sattempt showed weaknesses, indeed, when it cameto ex- plain not so much the relationshipsbut rather the dissimilaritiesthat occunedbetween art andscience during the first part of the century.t3t Most confroversial,however, was his speculativeprediction that the art object,being an inert artifact,would eventuallydisappear as a cultural 68 69

expression!9 be replaced by what he called a "systems con- sciousness."l33 action" ().The elementsof theserelationships implied change(s)in time, that is process(es),which were interde- His prophesyat the end of the book clarifies what he meantby pendentand non-deterministic, however, since influences from the out- that: "The stabilizeddynamic system will becomenot only a symbolof sidewere not predeterminedand could only be describedscientifically life but literally life in the artist's handsand the dominantmedium of in possibilities. further aestheticventures. ... As the cyberneticArt of this generation termsof Formal interpretationis basedon the visible elementsof a com- growsmore intelligent and sensitive,the Greekobsession with .living' position.In a systemscontext, equal attention is paid to invisibleele- sculpturewill take on an undreamedreality. ... The physicalbeauty ments,to processesand changes in the work, as well as its relationship which separatesthe sclllptorfrom the resultsof his endeavorsmay well with the outside.These thoughts were the beginningsof what Burnham disappearaltogether."r3o It is significantthat he could only have de- was to call a "systemsesthetics." He proposedthis term in opposition velopedthese theories right at that time, allowinghim to synchronize to Michael Fried's adjectivestheatrical, literalist, and post-formalist the new directionsin sculpturewith the ideasappertaining to the gen- esthetics,in his well-knownarticle Art and Obiecthood,in whichFried eral systemtheory and its practicalapplications in computerand com- had comprisedthe materialisttendencies in modernsculpture into the municationnetworla. Jack Burnham'sideas of a systemsart werein one term "objecthood."136Fried thoughtthat contemporarysculpture, fact derivedfrom Ludwig von Bertalanffy'sgeneral system theory, beingmore and more a compositionof differentkinds of materials,was whichhe referredto as well. During the sixtiesand early seventiesthe movingtoward theatricality,a tendencyhe considereddangerous for numberof publicationson systemsanalysis quickly mushroomed,and the independenceof art. For Burnham,the term 'systemsesthetics' Bertalanffy'sapproach found a modifiedbut wide applicationfrom the seemedto encompassthe situationmore fully, as it includedthe con- seventiesonwards. Its basicideas were generally accepted by different For, when an art work crossedits disciplines,one of which wasthe visualarts. cept of the boundariesof art. boundaries,it becamepart of a context,or a system.consequently, a To summarizethe motivesfor the developmentof the generalsys- systemsesthetics was no longersolely limited to the specificconcen$ tem theory:it reciprocatedthe growing demand for theintroduction of a of the .137In Burnham'sview, this meantthat an analysisof generalizationof scientificconcepts, due to the fact that similar con- theseart works only madesense if one took into account"their as- ceptsand models had appearedin differentfields, making a conceptual signedcontext." As context,he not only definedthe immediateliteral modelnecessary which would make interdisciplinary understanding and art space,but alsothe larger spaceof social,political, andtechnologi- collaborationpossible. It facilitatedthe introductionof new categories cal contactsand collaborations with whichthe artisthad to deal. in scientific thought and research,with conceptslike organization, It wastherefore not possibleto regarda fragmentof a work of art directiveness,teleology, using and statisticsas descriptive and attachhigher or symbolicmeaning to it, all systemcomponents methods.Most issuesnowadays require a systemsapproach, being being interdependent.Among the artists who had acknowledgedthis problemsof interrelationswith manyvariables. One of the mostimpor- approachaccording to Burnham'sthesis were, amongothers, Hans tant featuresof the introductionof theseconceptual models based on Haacke,Les Levine,Dennis Oppenheim and . The fol- mathematicalformulae was that they wereinterdisciplinary, and tran- lowing sectionsare revealingin that Burnhamused the array of sys- scendedthe conventionaldepartmentalization of science.By now, a tems terminologyto describeand interpretthe work. Burnham:"If vast realm of systemstechnologies, related to technologicaldevelop- Smithson'sSite-Selectiol,J are didactic exercises,they show a des- ments,has arisen, ranging from informationtheory, control technology, perate need for environmental sensibility on a larger than room graph and networktheory, to automation,computerization, software scale...Smithsonhas transcended this by puttingengineering works into programsapplying systems, etc.r3s In Burnham'sinterpretation, the art their natural settingsand treating the whole as a time-boundweb of objectas the subjectof analysisitself was replacedby the notionof a man-natureinteractions." Dennis Oppenheim's September Wheat Pro- system,whereby a systemwas definedas "a set of relationshipsin ject wascharacterized as "Oppenheim is usingthe untapped energy and 77 ^) of the researchersin artificial intelligencethat it was possibleto create information networks of the day-to-day environment." In this and other systemswith an artificial intelligencethat could do the samethings as sowing and harvest projects, searchingthe land, sowing the wheat or humanbeings, that is have a life-like cognition,certainly influenced oat, "cutting, gathering, baling and trucking" were all part of the art him to envisiona situationwhere art and technologywere advancing process or art work, according to the artist and Burnham. Levine's life, albeitfrom oppositedirections, and that their meetingpoint would Restaurant (1969), at 19th Street and Park Avenue, was describedas resultin a resolutionof art andtechnology: in thecreation of life itself. "a self-organizing, data-gathering system," a "real time" process/ In a later article Jack Burnhamset out to rectify this position, system.l38In terms of art, the move from object to system imptieO for havingcome to the conclusionthat it had "erredgravely in its tendency Burnham that the new art forms were no longer defined by a fixed to anthropomorphizethe goals of technology.... What we are seeing shape or boundary, but behavedlike a system that alters in time and whenwe view art is a fusionof cognitionand gesture; as the historical spaceaccording to both internal mechanismsand external conditions.l3e semioticof art evolves,this becomesincreasingly apparent."to' Of He arrived at the conclusion that sculptors were not simply adopting course,neither happened. Burnham's utopian idea aboutthe future of new materials and new standardsof fabrication. There was also a new art extrapolatedtoo far from the existingsituation. However, his con- aestheticevolving from the synchronizationwith the technological and nectionof the changesin the visual with systemsideas still seents scientific ideas, for, as he explained, "the artistic concems with man- relevant,ifrestricted to thoseartists who soughta new contextfor art, made systems, processes,ecological relationships, and philosophical- andat that time. For it is cenainlytrue that thoseartists who werein- linguistic involvement of ... deal with underlying volvedwith processes,events, time and space,and technicalapplica- structures of communication or energy exchange," whereby computer tions that involvedinterdisciplinary research, had a generalknowledge technology would be "instrumental in redefining the entire area of of systemsanalysis. The use of cyberneticideas, requiring scientific estheticawareness."16 and technologicalknowledge, was found more amongartists involved As mentionedpreviously, in 1970 Burnham organized an exhibi- with computer-basedart formsor sculptures,video, television, satellite tion with the title Software, in which he attemptedto realize his utopian andother communication media. The statementsand writings of artists ideas about new interdisciplinary art forms in an environmentgoverned like RobertSmithson, Nam JunePaik andPaul Ryanindicate that they by information and communication processing systems: technologies werenot only informedabout these theories but could alsoincorporate that would changethe knowledgesystem of our society. The computer the implications,artistically if not scientifically,into their art work. technologies would require new organizational structures for the RobertSmithson systematically refened to the newthoughts on entropy exchangeof information. These would no longer be based solely upon in scienceand technology,and the applicationin his work.ra3In his technology,but dependupon the knowledgenecessary to have accessto contributionsto RadicalSoftware video artist Paul Ryan, in particular, thesetools; for those with knowledge and accesswould have the power. describedthe utilizationof the newartistic medium video in relationto If afiists wanted to participate in this environment,let alone exert some the cyberneticand systemstheories, He was activein the guerrillaTV influence, they would have to learn about thesetechnologies. Whether scenefor a while, thendisappeared more or lessfrom the art circle to the result was called art or not was irrelevant at this point, accordingto purposivelyconcern himself with social and, in particular,ecological Burnham. In fact, he thought that this realm would contribute to issues.His writing is an exampleof an artist who wasvery knowledge- blurring the classical distinctions betweenart and non-art, between art able aboutthe cybernetictheories of NorbertWiener, the mediatheo- and technology, or these distinctions might even become obsolete. ries of MarshallMcluhan andso forth, interpretingthe portablevideo Wrote Burnham: "As the computer environmentfurther condensesthe systemas an instrumentto get accessto information,to controllingthe known world and as it increasingly becomesan elegant surrogate for flow of informationby meansof "guerrilla warfare"systems.l4 What globat experience,a profound changewill take place in the acquisition is significanthere is notjust the fact that Ryanwas quite informed, but of knowledgeand sensitivity."ralHis involvementwith cybernetic ideas that he theoreticallyconnected the developmentand function of a new and self-organizingintelligent systemsand the current optimistic belief '12 73

new medium,a technologyin the visual arts - videoin his case- with by artists' collaborationswith scientistsand engineers, should be seen thesetheories to createa theoreticalconstruct, using guerrillawarfare .t asa logicalaccompaniment. asa model.las I ',t As I havesaid, artistswere thus broughtinto direct contactwith Nam Paik i June hasalso refened to the scienceof ,and newtechnologies and scientific developments and theories. Thus, it was in particular tl the new communicationand informationtheories in rela- not only the systemsterminology that was used as a way to describethe his tion to own work in video,television and satellites in his writing. In newdirections in art. A groupof artiststruly relatedtheir work to the 1.961article, "Norbert a Wienerand Marshall Mcluhan," Paik set out developmentsthat weretaking place in the sciences,even if the extent Norbert to compare Wiener's theory of cyberneticswith Marshall of their understandingremains difficult to measure.A main problem Mcluhan's media perceived theory.16A few artists their work as cy- wasconstituted by the fact that the systemsanalysts and cyberneticians suchas bernetic, sculptorsJames Seawright and Wen-Ying Tsai. themselvesapplied different definitions.The terminologyitself had During the sixtiessystems theory and cyberneticsrapidly spread varied meaningstoo, and was often used wrongly. Some artists amongother disciplines, and its jargon popularizeA, was andalso found emphasizedthe continuingabstraction of the sciences,as denotedby its into (and way the visualarts. Many of Burnham'sideas useof lan- the growing importanceof mathematicalconcepts or formulaeas a guage)about the consequencesof the continuinginfiltration of com- conceptualframework and that of twentieth-centuryart as expressions putertechnologies into lives our daily can alsobe found in contempo- of a similar development.Others perceived the new conceptsof time- rary publicationswith a concernfor the political, social, andforemost, space, the changedsubject-object relationship, indeterminacy and humanconsequences of the computertechnologies. Compare economist uncertaintyas similarto thosein the visual arts, althoughthere was in PeterDrucker's muchread "The analysis, at the time: systematicand my view no specificcorrelation between the developmentsin the visual purposefulacquisition information of and its systematicapplication, arts and the sciences.Although a systemsanalysis in the nalrow rather 'science' 'technology', than or are emergingas the new scientificsense proved difficult - HansHaacke was the only artist who foundation for work, productivity and effort throughout the world," adheredto this definition for his art for a longer period of time - the when he discussed political someeconomic and consequencesof the multipleinternal and external relationships of Haackeand other artists new computertechnologies.lot Or the economictheories of Alvin in searchof anothercontext and tenitory for art do require an interpre- Toffler's Future Shock,and the ecological concernsof CharlesReich tationthat accountsfor this 'organizedcomplexity,' in particularsince n The Greening America, published of both in 1970,as well as the theseworks cameto involvethe knowledgeand expertiseof otherdis- mediatheories of MarshallMcluhan, alreadymentioned. ciplines,creating a complexlayering in the contentof the work of art. MarshallMcluhan's notion of the computeras an extensionof the The systemssciences and cyberneticshave becomeaccepted as sensesis met frequently,as well as the idea that we have becomea valid methodsin many disciplines,including the socialsciences. Why based on knowledgerather society than experience.This led to the this approachhas been neglected by the scholarlyart world is a ques- infoducdonof a wholeterminology that from disciplines.It came these tion I feel incapableto answer.One possible answer is that the direc- had given words like structure,pattern, indeterminacy, organization, tion of the official art world movedtoward the objectagain, while the intenelatedness,a new and specificmeaning. introduced Cybernetics artistswho workedon and with the land movedin the oppositedirec- yet anothernew lexicon which was reflected like feedback, by words tion, showinglittle inclinationto participateactively in exhibitionsor information, parameter, As an software, hardware,entropy. said, otherart activities.Another possibilify is the fact that technologically- importantaspect was interdisciplinaryapproach, of both sciences their basedart forms,with the exceptionof videoart (which alsoremained and one can seethat exactlythis aspectwould attractthe artistswho marginal)disappeared from the main streamof attentionaround 1974, wantedto reachbeyond art's knownboundaries. That an infiltrationof andcomputer art forms were systematicallyneglected by the art world. ideasof cyberneticsand systemsthinking was facilitatedby the the Also, otherphilosophical approaches, such as structuralism,followed experimentswith new communicationmedia, which were accompanied il by the post-modernistFrench philosophy advocated by JeanBaudril- 74

lard, JacquesLacan, or Jean-FranpoisLyotard, became en vogue. In- terestingly, arlists cunently working in the field of interactive computer networks show a renewed interest in the systems theories and cybernetics of the late sixties and early seventies,now related to yet another wave of concern about the dynamics of ecological systems. This probably also explains current interest in the philosophy of . The theoriesabout a civic art form as proposedby Gydrgy Kepes never materializedin the ways envisioned.Neither did the ideas of Billy Kltiver, nor Jack Burnham's notion of the disappearanceof the art object to assimilatewith an overall 'systems' orientation as the domi- nant view of the world's organization,whether man-madeor natural in origin. Yet one cannot do away with these ideas simply as idealistic concepts guided by an overall but vague call for social and political change of the times. Altlrough the experimental, non-object, non-pre- cious art forms, which were perceived as necessaryindeed to break with the traditional concepts in the first place, still fitted the avant- garde idea of art as the expression of revolt and protest, a genuine belief that the ftaditional concept of art no longer had a function in a changing society - and the necessityfor new forms made them search for possibilities outsidethe realm of the art systeminto what one might define as the environmentat larse.

Radical Sofware

"Electronicmedia have become looped-in to our neuralnetworks. We needa minimumof informationflow not only for physicalsurvival, but alsofor psychologicalbalance, because electronic media are as omni- presentas light" statedMichael Shamberg in 1971.r48 RadicalSoftware was published from 1970to 1974by Raindance Corporation,and founded by MichaelShamberg. The first editionwas printedin July 1970and reprinted as Radical Sofware/I'lumber One in September7970. Radical Sofrwarebegan as a "serviceto alternate televisionpeople," but with the adventof videotechnologies the maga- zine immedialelyfollowed "the trend towardsalternate uses of tech- nologyand media. ... In fact,we think the combinationof hardwareand softwaretrends (e.g. in additionto high accesstelevision, the availabil-