Systems art

Jack Burnham, "System Esthetics", Artforum, 1968, PDF.

Jack Burnham, Beyond Modern Sculpture, 1968, Log.

Software catalogue, 1970, Log, PDF.

Jack Burnham, The Structure of Art, 1971/73, Log.

Artists, Theorists

• Mel Bochner
• Jack Burnham
• CAYC
• Hans Haacke
• Piotr Kowalski
• Les Levine

Exhibitions

• New Alchemy: Elements, Systems, Forces / Nouvelle Alchimie: Elements, Systemes, Forces, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 27 Sep-26 Oct 1969; Musée d’Art Contemporain, Montreal, 5 Nov-14 Dec 1969.
• Software - Information Technology: Its New Meaning for Art, curated by Jack Burnham, Jewish Museum, New York, Sep-Nov 1970; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Dec 1970-Feb 1971.
• Arte de sistemas, Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires, Jul 1971. [1]
• Open Systems Rethinking Art c.1970, curated by Donna de Salvo, Tate Modern, London, Jun-Sep 2005. Review: Coupe.
• Systems Art, Whitechapel Gallery, London, Oct-Nov 2007; symposium, 26-27 Oct 2007.
• Arte de sistemas: el CAYC y el proyecto de un nuevo arte regional 1969-1977, curated by María José Herrera and Mariana Marchesi, Fundación OSDE, Buenos Aires, 2013.

Writings

• Jack Burnham, "Sculpture, Systems and Catastrophy", Prologue (Winter 1966).
• Hans Haacke, "Untitled Statement (1967)", in Walter Grasskamp, Molly Nesbit and Jon Bird, Hans Haacke, Phaidon Press, 2004, pp 102-103. Explains the difference between a "system" and a "sculpture"; previously unpublished.
• Jack Burnham, "Systems Esthetics", Artforum 7:1 (Sep 1968), pp 30-35, HTML; repr. in Burnham, Great Western Salt Works, 1974; repr. in Systems, ed. Shanken, 2015.
• Jack Burnham, Beyond Modern Sculpture: The Effects of Science and Technology on the Sculpture of This Century, New York: George Braziller, 1968, 416 pp.
• Jack Burnham, "Systems and Art", Arts in Society 6(2): "Confrontation Between Art and Technology", University of Wisconsin, Summer/Fall 1969, pp 194-204.
• Jack Burnham, "Real Time Systems", Artforum 8:1 (Sep 1969), pp 49-55; repr. in Burnham, Great Western Salt Works, 1974.
• Jack Burnham, "The Aesthetics of Intelligent Systems", in On the Future of Art, ed. Edward F. Fry, New York: Viking Press, 1970, pp 95-122, PDF, IA. Presented in 1969 as a talk within the lectures series The Future of Art at the Solomon Guggenheim Museum in New York.
• Jack Burnham, The Structure of Art, New York: G. Braziller, 1971; rev.ed., 1973, 195 pp.
  • Kunst und Strukturalismus: die neue Methode der Kunst-Interpretation, trans. Wilhelm Höck, Cologne: DuMont Schauberg, 1973. (German)
• Douglas Davis, "Environmental Space and Time: The 'Living' Work of Art", in Davis, Art and the Future, New York and Washington: Praeger, 1973, pp 92-95. [2]
• Jack Burnham, "Art and Technology: The Panacea That Failed", in The Myths of Information, ed. Kathleen Woodward, Coda Press, 1980.

Catalogues

• Software - Information Technology: Its New Meaning for Art, New York: Jewish Museum, 1970, 71 pp.
• Open Systems: Rethinking Art c. 1970, ed. Donna De Salvo, Tate Publishing, 2005, 192 pp. Review: Halsall (2005, 2006).

Art history and theory

• Marga Bijvoet, "Art as a Set of Relations", ch. 3 in Bijvoet, Art As Inquiry: Toward New Collaborations Between Art, Science, and Technology, Peter Lang, 1997.
  • "Die Kunst der Bezugsgruppe", ch. 3 in Bijvoet, Kunst-Forschung, n.d. (German)
• Marga Bijvoet, "Hans Haacke: Systems Artist", ch. 4 in Bijvoet, Art As Inquiry: Toward New Collaborations Between Art, Science, and Technology, Peter Lang, 1997.
  • "Hans Haacke: System-Künstler", ch. 4 in Bijvoet, Kunst-Forschung, n.d. (German)
• Mitchell Whitelaw, "1968/1998: Rethinking A Systems Aesthetic", ANAT News 33 (May 1998).
• Simon Penny, "Systems Aesthetics + Cyborg Art: The Legacy of Jack Burnham", Sculpture 18:1 (Jan/Feb 1999). [3]
• Michael Corris, "Systems Upgrade (Conceptual Art and the Recoding of Information, Knowledge and Technology)", Mute 1:22 (10 Dec 2001).
• Edward A. Shanken, "Art in the Information Age: Technology and Conceptual Art", Leonardo 35:4 (2002), pp 433-438.
• Edward A. Shanken, "Cybernetics and Art: Cultural Convergence in the 1960s", in From Energy to Information, eds. Bruce Clarke and Linda Dalrymple Henderson, Stanford University Press, 2002, pp 155-177.
• Matthew Rampley, "Systems Aesthetics: Burnham and Others", Vector b 12 (2005).
• Luke Skrebowski, "All Systems Go: Recovering Jack Burnham's 'System Aesthetics'", Tate Papers (Spring 2006).
• Charlie Gere, Art, Time, and Technology, Berg, 2006. Esp. chapters 6-7.
• Edward A. Shanken, "Historicizing Art and Technology: Forging a Method, Firing a Canon", in Media Art Histories, ed. Oliver Grau, MIT Press, 2007, pp 43-70.
• Art & Language, "Not Quite The Belaqua Pose – A talk in three voices", 2007. Presented at Systems Art: Symposium, London, Oct 2007.
• Robert Linsley, "From Social Frames to Knowledge Planes: Luhmann Contra the Neo Avant-Garde", 2007. Presented at Systems Art: Symposium, London, Oct 2007.
• Francis Halsall, "Systems Aesthetics and the System as Medium", 2007. Presented at Systems Art: Symposium, London, Oct 2007; based on the author's 2008 book..
• Francis Halsall, Systems of Art: Art, History and Systems Theory, forew. Kitty Zijlmans, Peter Lang, 2008.
• Luke Skrebowski, "All Systems Go: Recovering Hans Haacke's Systems Art", Grey Room 30 (Winter 2008), pp 54-83.
• Caroline Jones, "Systems Symptoms: Jack Burnham’s 'Systems Esthetics'", Artforum (Sep 2012). [4]
• Caroline A. Jones, "Hans Haacke 1967", in Hans Haacke 1967, Cambridge, MA: MIT List Visual Arts Center, 2011, pp 6-28.
• Edward Shanken, "Reprogramming Systems Aesthetics: A Strategic Historiography", in Relive: Media Art Histories, eds. Sean Cubitt and Paul Thomas, MIT Press, 2013, pp 83-96. [5]
• Edward A. Shanken (ed.), Systems, London: Whitechapel Gallery, 2015, 240 pp. [6]
• Jason A. Hoelscher, Art as Information Ecology: Artworks, Artworlds, and Complex Systems Aesthetics, Duke University Press, 2021, 288 pp. [7]
• Johanna Gosse, Timothy Stott (eds.), Nervous Systems: Art, Systems, and Politics since the 1960s, Duke University Press, 2022, 304 pp. [8]

Resources

• Schip's Systems Art Area

See also

• Systems theory
• Conceptual art