Book

MONOSKOP
Art, culture and technology in Central and Eastern Europe

Content structure idea

we are working with four sections, roughly ordered by time:

I. historical perspectives. pioneering work between art and technologies. there are several blocks for various disciplines: early computer art, early electronic music, early robotic art, etc. for each block we want to select artist and or artwork with a radical approach, being an inspiration for coming generations. (mostly 1960s)

II. intermedia art collectives. here we want to look into collaborative strategies, having collectives consisting of sculptors, technicians, painters, filmmakers, etc. this section will contain short monographies of the collectives from warsaw, zagreb, moscow, bratislava, arad (moreless 1960s-70s).

III. media cultures. here we jump into 1990s, when technologies got much more accessible (economically cheaper and politically neutral), thus allowing the culturalisation of the field of media arts: first (independent) media labs, boom of media art education, 'laptop' art (a/v projects), open source projects, media activism. it would be very hard to select particular initiatives for interviews on one hand, and to cover the field in essay style on the other. so we are thinking about 'oral histories' approach. for each block we want to ask 10-15 people from (geografically and institutionally) different organisations and with different perspective (artists, programmers, managers, cultural politicians, public) to come up with 'oral histories', 'personal memories' from their activities, in sort of anecdote style.

IV. chronologies. we want to ask individuals (theoreticians, artists, curators, organisers) from each country (yes, the question remains what countries should be included and which not) to propose up to ten major events and phenomena from the media art history of their country. these may include exhibitions, conferences, workshops, publications, journals, video-journals, foundations of art departments, technological inventions, art servers, which they consider important. in this way we want to build up the chronology of media art in CEE.

Contents

I. Historical perspectives

Format: selected essays / interviews.
Editor: Lenka Dolanova

Cybernetics and computing

• Overview of developments in cybernetics and computing in CEE from 1960s to 1980s.
• Articles:
  • From the book “Societ Computing” by Boris Malinovsky (online at sovietcomputing.com)
  • From the book “Setun Conspiracy”
  • Or from http://computer.org/annals

(?) Experimental networks

• Keywords: hypertext, internet, university networks, company networks

Computer art

• Keywords: computer film, interactive installations

Television / video / radio / film

• Keywords: first TV broadcasts, first art pieces on radio, video art, popularisation of video technology, TV is a Russian invention, experimental film, Laterna magika at Expo 58, Josef Svoboda (Diacran, Polyecran, Polyvision), Jaroslav Frič (Polyvision, Kinoautomat, Spherorama, Vertical Cinemascope), Video Salon (Radek Pilař).

Electronic and electroacoustic music

• Keywords: electroacoustic music studios, music synhesizer.
• Consult with Milan Adamčiak (via Michal Murin)
• Articles:
  • Article about Arsenyi Avramov (Murzin and Artemiev were his students) – ask Andrei Smirnov.
  • Interview with Eugene Murzin, inventor of music synthesizer (ANS)
  • Interview with Edward Artemiev (online at www.electroshock.ru)

(?) Synaesthesia – image and sound interferences and audiovisual studies

• Keywords: colour piano by Zdeněk Pěšánek, Alois Pinos.
• Article: select one from www.doctorhugo.org/synaesthesia or from www.leonardo.info/isast/spec.projects/synesthesiabib.html (any non-western things there?)

Robotic art

• Consult with Peter Beyls (he did PhD on Ihnatowicz and attended New Tendencies)
• Articles:
  • Edward Ihnatowicz: Portrait of the Artist as an Engineer (1988). synopsis from unpublished book about “how an artist become involved in high technology”. (online)
  • or: Edward Ihnatowicz: Towards a Thinking Machine (1975, online)