Edward A. Shanken
Cybernetics and Art: Cultural Convergence in the
1960s
EXCERPT:Full text available via email by request
Edward A. Shanken, Duke University
Please do not quote or cite without author's permission
Revised and excerpted from "From Cybernetics to Telematics: The
Art, Pedagogy, And Theory Of Roy Ascott," in Edward A. Shanken,
ed., Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness
by Roy Ascott,University of California Press, 2001. This version is
forthcoming Linda Dalrymple Henderson and Bruce Clarke, Eds. From Energy
to Information. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2000.
Introduction
Hungarian-born artist Nicolas Schöffer created his first cybernetic
sculptures CYSP 0 and CYSP I (the titles of which combined the first
two letters of "cybernetic" and "spatio-dynamique")
in 1956. In 1958, scientist Abraham Moles published Théorie de
líInformation et Perception Esthétique, which outlined
"the aesthetic conditions for channeling media." Curator Jasia
Reichardtís exhibition Cybernetic Serendipity popularized the
idea of joining cybernetics with art, opening at the ICA in London in
1968, and travelling to Washington, DC and San Francisco between 1969-70.
Not surprisingly, much artistic research on cybernetics had transpired
between Schöfferís initial experiments of the mid-1950s
and Reichardtís landmark exhibition over a decade later. Art
historian Jack Burnham noted that these inquiries into the aesthetic
implications of cybernetics took place primarily in Europe, whereas
the United States lagged behind by "five or ten years." Of
the cultural attitudes and ideals that cybernetics embodied at that
time in Britain, art historian David Mellor has written, A dream of
technical control and of instant information conveyed at unthought-of
velocities haunted Sixties culture. The wired, electronic outlines of
a cybernetic society became apparent to the visual imaginationóan
immediate future ... drastically modernized by the impact of computer
science. It was a technologically utopian
structure of feeling, positivistic, and "scientistic."
The evidence of such sentiments could be observed in British painting
of the 1960s, especially by a group of artists associated with Roy Ascott
and the Ealing College of Art such as Bernard Cohen, R.B. Kitaj, and
Steve Willats.Similarly, art historian Diane Kirkpatrick has suggested
that Eduardo Paolozziís collage techniques of the early 1950s
"embodied the spirit of various total systems," which may
possibly have been "partially stimulated by the cross-disciplinary
investigations connected with the new field of cybernetics." Cybernetics
offered these and other European artists a scientific model for constructing
a system of visual signs and relationships, which they attempted to
achieve by utilizing diagrammatic and interactive elements to create
works that functioned as information systems.
This essay begins with a general overview on the origin and meaning
of cybernetics, and then proceeds to examine the convergence of cybernetics
with aesthetics, paying particular attention to connections between
the scientific paradigm and several distinct tendencies in post-WWII
experimental art that emerged independently of it. These complementarities
are
crucial in explaining not only why it was even possible for art to accommodate
cybernetics, but why artists utilized cybernetics in particular ways.
The discussion focuses on the artistic practice, art pedagogy, and theoretical
writings of British artist Roy Ascott. In 1968, Ascott rightly described
himself as "the artist responsible for first introducing cybernetic
theory into art education [in Britain] and for having disseminated the
concept of a cybernetic vision in art through various art and scientific
journals." True to his "cybernetic vision," Ascott conceived
of these various aspects of his praxis as interrelated components of
a larger system comprising his total behavior as an artist. The conceptual
continuities that run through his work as an artist, teacher, and theorist
offer unique insights into the impact of
cybernetics, not only on Ascottís oeuvre, but on art in general.
The intersection of cybernetics and art provides access, moreover, into
a richly textured convergence of cultural ideas and beliefs in the 1960s
. . .
Conclusion: The Cybernetic Sixties and Its Legacy
Cybernetics had a decisive impact on art. That impact was itself mediated
by the aesthetic context that coincided with the scientific theoryís
emergence in the late 1940s, and by the complementarities between cybernetics
and central tendencies of twentieth-century experimental art. Given
the emphasis of post-WWII art on the concepts of process, system,
environment, and audience participation, cybernetics was able to gain
artistic currency as a theoretical model for articulating the systematic
relationships and processes among feedback loops including the artist,
artwork, audience, and environment. In the absence of that common ground,
it is possible that cybernetics might not have been accommodated to
art, or that it would have been accommodated in a very different way.
Roy Ascottís early Change Paintings exemplify how ideas derived
from aesthetics, biology, and philosophy could result in the creation
of a visual analog to cybernetics, even though the artist was not yet
aware of that scientific theory. More generally, this example shows
how various fields and disciplines can independently produce homologous
forms in
response to a more or less common set of cultural exigencies. Ascottís
work as an artist, teacher, and theorist also indicates how the flexibility
of cybernetics allowed that theory to be applied to a wide range of
social contexts. However, this programmatic quality in the application
of cybernetics gives reason for pause: for given that related ideas
had already
been incorporated into mid-century aesthetics, artists had a wealth
of ideas from which to derive and develop formal strategies, pedagogical
methods and theoretical exegeses. In other words, the accomplishments
that were made in visual art under the banner of cybernetics might very
well have been achieved in the absence of that scientific model.
Cybernetics, however, possessed the authority of science, and for better
or worse, Ascott brought that seal of approval to bear on his work.
Ironically, while Ascottís CAM theory adopted a rigid cybernetic
language and organizational schema, his creative imagination was far
from limited to the domain of scientifically provable facts and formulas,
but incorporated a wide array of ideas from diverse systems of knowledge.
As a result, cybernetics was transformed in his hands from science into
art.
Cybernetics also offers a model for explaining how ideas that emerged
in the domain of experimental art eventually spread into culture in
general. Ascott theorized this transference in terms of a series of
interconnected feedback loops, such that information related to the
behavior of each element is shared and exchanged with the others, regulating
the state of the system as a whole. Such is the case with Ascottís
own theorization in 1966 of interdisciplinary collaborations over computer
networks, a concept that became the central focus of his theory and
practice in 1980, subsequently popularized through web-based multimedia
in the 1990s.
In conclusion, Ascott drew on cybernetics to theorize a model of how
art could transform culture. He was particularly insistent that cybernetics
was no simple prescription for a local remedy to the crisis of modern
art, but represented the potential for reordering social values and
reformulating what constituted knowledge and being. In 1968 he wrote:
As feedback between persons increases and communications become more
rapid and precise, so the creative process no longer culminates in the
art work, but extends beyond it deep into the life of each individual.
Art is then determined not by the creativity of the artist alone, but
by the creative behaviour that his work induces in the spectator, and
in society at large. . . . The art of our time tends towards the development
of a cybernetic vision, in which feedback, dialogue and involvement
in some creative interplay at deep levels of experience are paramount.
. . . The cybernetic spirit, more than the method or the applied science,
creates a continuum of experience and knowledge which radically reshapes
our philosophy, influences our behaviour and extends our thought.
Here, Ascott staked a passionate and ambitious claim for the significance
of art conceived as a cybernetic system. For ultimately he believed
that cybernetic art could play an important role in altering human consciousness,
and thereby transform the way people think and behave on a social scale.
Ascottís visionary claim is impossible to either prove or
disprove. However, by the late 1990s cybernetics has become so inextricably
woven into the fabric of the industrialized West that it is difficult
to imagine conceiving of phenomena in terms that are not mediated by
the principles of feedback and systems.
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