Ghost Story ER IC C. H. DE BRUYN ON KINETIC ART AND NEW M EDIA FROM ITS START, kinetic art has been possessed- by the uncanny end. But might we instead see kineticism as the very foundation Surrealist automaton as much as by the technological promise of contemporary modes of experience, from the projected image to of a utopian future. And, in turn, it has haunted modern sculpture, spectacle to the media network? Taking his cue from Artforum'S which had long been vexed by Marx's famous description of the inaugural cover, which featured a Jean Tinguely automated sculpture, commodity as a diabolical dancing object. Kinetic art, we came to art historian Eric C. H. de Bruyn reexamines kinetic art's labyrinthine think, was a bit of an embarrassment-indeed, an aesthetic dead past and maps a new space for its passages among us. Ghost Story ERIC C. H. DE BR UYN ON KI NETIC ART AND NEW M EDIA etic art has been possessed-by the uncanny end. But might we instead see kineticism as the very foundation as much as by the technological promise of contemporary modes of experience, from the projected image to .nd. in turn, It has haunted modern sculpture, spectacle to the media network? Taking his cue from Arrforum' s vexed by Marx's famous description of the Inaugural cover, which featured a Jean Tinguely automated sculpture, oli cal dancing object. Kinetic art, we came to art historian Eric C. H. de Btuyn reexamines kinetic art's labyrinthine I embarrassment-indeed, an aesthetic dead past and maps a new space for its passages among us. Above : Jean TInc" . Iy. H""",g.. 10 New YOrl< . 1960. OppasH e page: R ic ~, d C, GrQW''''. mi. cd media. "eft.,.."......,' .. ~ e", "'bI.l',' ... I~"ch NuWn B o ~ , 1955, ~I"m,nvm ", , \ h Roo:: ~ Mel l ~ ' S<: "lptU1~ ~ "luuum of M(I(\I"In An . hammortCOll ~nlSl'l , I!I ~ S. 4' New y",k , M~rc ~ 1 ~ l;?o:.V ~rot~: Daol d Goo, NumN MACHINES amomatically or mechanicall y, ramer than of its own All genealogies of media art have their roOlS in a voli tion " (Oxford English Dictionary). Kinetic ghost slO ry. And perhaps none more so than kinetic sculpture is haunted by this history, and its spectral art, which wa s paraded on Artforum's inaugural traces may be seen equally in Homage and the Nullin cover til the fo rm of a shadowy, slighdy sinister si l­ Box, the "diabolical machine" and its parodiccoun­ hOllette o f one ofJean TinKuely's animated scul p­ terparr, JUSt as they may still be sensed in the present. lU res. No doubt the anist would appreciate tales of To revisit this phantomatic history of kinetic an is, 1 the spectral if nOt infernal roots of his automatic think, to recount a ghost story worth telling. creations. propagating the Faustian complex of an artist-constructor who dabbles in the mechanical A THEATER OF GHOSTS simulation of life and its explosive demise. Tinguely's In the pages of Artforum in 2000, Yve-Alain Bois most famous iteration, Homage to New York, which provided a ha ndy sketch of the rather inglorious his­ se lf-destructed in the courtyard of the Museum tory of kinetic art. According to this abbreviated of Modern Art in 1960, was dubbed by the artist a trajectory, kinetic art had a brief moment of suc­ "simulacrum of catastrophe,'" a "cymcal object, both cess-only to suffer a quick demise, largely due to its luciferian and phantomatic in nature."1 Not every­ public confusion with Op an: "Because kinetic art one was impressed by such apocalyptic spectacles, was (wrongly) perceived as an art based almost which served up the fiery wreckage of industrial soci­ entirely on easy optical tricks, it would soon be ety as a pyrotechnic display to an enthra1!ed audi­ trashed as utter kitsch, on a par with sllch risible by­ ence. Indeed, a 1961 ed itorial in the Situationist products as the Courreges dress and the lava lamp."s International mocked the Swiss sculptor's kinetic Bois makes an exception for one critic (rightfully so, contra ption, constructing a less heraldic lineage fo r I would agree), Guy Brett, who in Kinetic Art: The Uisd6 Moholy-N"Il'. UC'h~y: BJadV Tinguely's work. According to 51, a certain Richard Language of Movement (1968) argued that the true prInt. 14 'l1.. 10'JI' . De t ~ il of M o/"IoIy­ C. Grosser had beaten Tinguely to the punch a few exponents of ki netic art were not such figures as SllI6e. 1922-30. years earlier with his prototype of a "useless machine," Nicolas Schaffer and Julio Ie Pare- those merchants the so-ca1!ed "Nuttin Box, a gray aluminum box of an "art of gadgerry"-but Lygia Cla rk, Helio with th e work of (ersatz with eight small neon lamps which blin ked in a Oiticica, and David Meda lla (with Tinguely in a Naum Gabo in order to fee> totally random pattern."l mere "supporting" role). [n short, Brett developed a body of "New Tendency, We get the joke: Complete chaos is but another genealogy of ki neticism tha t was determined less by others, Group Zero in ( form of toral order. Indeed, the randomly flashing its technological aspects than by its collective engage­ Recherche d'Art Visuel in lights of the Nuttin Box evince the double bind of al! ment with the spectator. Unlike the cybernetic seu Ip­ ment in the Netherlands. commodities. That is, they speak in order to have tures of Schaffer, Clark's and Oiticica's work did nOt If Krauss left no dOli ; commerce with other commodities and huma n .require the implementation of advanced fo rm s of sellted an artistic practice beings, but on the topic of use-value, they have noth­ information tech nology. Whar rhis work req uired gested that its predecessor ing to say. Or as ou r inventor (who would playa instead was the conception of a spatial mod el of used to simulaTe rhe movet significant role in the early days of computer engi­ organizing social relations, a model thar would rely as clockwork automata. In neering) explained at the time: "fA Nuttin Box ] on a topological rather than pro;ective paradigm of ing the ilrgu mem of ~"fitic serves its purpose merely by existing. It attracts geometry. In contrast to th e programmed behavior Modem SClllpture (1968), attention and confuses your friends. It's a wonderful of Schaffer's tobotic scu lptures, one may think, for nlre follows a "Faustian"! thing for a businessman, when he has a customer instance, of Clark's and Oitieica'5 coll aborative work un stoppable craving to w come into the office .... This really breaks the ice."J Dialogue ofHands, 1966-ao elastic Mabius strip order from God-with thl But for all their display of wit, what the Siruationists that creates a sensory feedback loop with one's own trolling human destiny, if miss is the uncanniness of Tinguely's machines, an hody-or Oiticica's aptly titled Topological Ready­ itself. "6This porrentOus cla uncanniness defined by the spectral nature of a recur­ Made Landscapes, 1978- 79. elusion that benearh the rent yet utterly enigmatic thing or event.4 This is all Almost two deca des after the Situation ist editorial kinetic sculpture lies norhin the more surprising because the Situationists might suggested it was best suited to be office kitsch, kinetic ideal of art: The main pu have turned to the specifically Dadaist and Surreali st an would receive a more extensive if still dismissive Light Prop was to exist as a tradition of the machine, populated by all kinds of treatment in Rosalind E. Krauss's Passages in Modern In this capacity, it prefigur uncanny devices, including automatons, manne­ Scul/)ture (1977) . Krauss situated kinetic sculpture as rures of Schaffer, already e' quins, schizoid " influencing machines," and erotic a suhset of the environmental art of " light -space" learn ro dance with aerua " bachelor machines." Th is genealogy extends even (Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's terml, as exemplified by machina: Kinetic sculpru earlier, to a mo ment when machine had not yet Moholy-Nagy's Light Prop {or aft Electric Stage (also simulacru m of life. And found an industrial or informational use but referred, ca lled Light-Space Modulator), 1922- 30, which ideological; it projects a " I among other meanings, to a movable contrivance for immersed the sp«1ator in a f1ucruating field of stun­ We find this simulacr­ the production of stage effects (e.g., the deus ex ni ng optical effects achieved by mechanica l means. reception of the modern machi na ) or the li ving body that "" moves or acts Kinetic art's bloodstream, Kra uss claimed, merged an.xious relationship to th 528 AR TFORUM r [han of its own The arts of"theatricality" - kinetic mary ). Kinetic ,and its spectral art as well as Minimalism and its e and the Nllttin aftermath- would contaminate the IS parodic COllll­ (technical) image with the specta­ :d in the present. tor's body and dangerously com­ If kinetic art is, 1 h telling. mingle visions and things, radically destabilizing the visual field. Yve·Alain Bois ~r inglorious his­ his abbreviated noment of suc­ largely due to its :ause kinetic art ·t based almost would soon be 1 such risib le by­ the lava lamp. "J :ic (rightfu Ily so, "{inetic Art: The L6S116 MOIIOIy-Kaft. uthlpl,ay; 8lacIVWItit'l/Gn!r. ca.. 1926.gelatin sil.er Jed that the true prinl .