Armin Medosch: Automation, Cybernation and the Art of New Tendencies, 1961-1973 (2012)

“My research investigates exhibitions as sites of research and appraises the possibilities and contradictions of a progressive and socially engaged media art practice. The international art movement New Tendencies (NT) (1961-1973) provides the material evidence through its exhibitions, symposia, artworks, catalogues, newsletters and artist’s statements. The basic methodological assumption behind my research is that new insights are gained by questioning the various interdependencies between NT and historical change.

NT was searching for a synthesis between socialist emancipation and artistic modernism by proposing to replace the notion of art with visual research. The project emerged in Zagreb, capital of Croatia which was then part of Yugoslavia, a Socialist nation which did not belong to the Eastern bloc and experimented with market Socialism combined with social self-management and self-government. Yugoslavia’s unique role between the hegemonic power blocs made it possible that an international, humanistic, and progressive art movement could emerge from its territory.

With every exhibition and conference NT articulated its artistic position and set itself into relation with the respective techno-economic paradigm. NT began during the height of Fordism, continued during Fordism’s moment of crisis in 1968, and ended when a new paradigm – informational capitalism – started to develop from within the old one. In this historical context, my hypothesis is that NT’s exploration of participatory art stands in direct relation to the rise of automation and cybernation in society. A further layer of inquiry is the historically changing relationship between manual and intellectual labour and how art addresses it.

By contextualising NT my research contributes a new dimension to the history of media art. Through the chosen methodology, a new understanding is gained not only of this important art movement but of the general dynamics of media art in the second half of the 20th century.” (Abstract)

Doctoral thesis
Arts and Computational Technology, Goldsmiths, University of London
369 pages

Author
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Jeff Berner (ed.): Astronauts of Inner-Space: An International Collection of Avant-Garde Activity (1966)

17 Manifestoes, Articles, Letters, 28 Poems & 1 Filmscript.

With manifestoes by Raoul Hausmann, John Arden, Jorgen Nash, Decio Pignatari, Maurice Girodias, Bruno Munari, Allen Ginsberg, Franz Mon, Marshall McLuhan, Max Bense, Diter Rot, Otto Piene, W. S. Burroughs, Dom Sylvester Houedard, Konrad Bayer, Margaret Masterman, R. Watts

Publisher Stolen Paper Review Editions, San Francisco, and The Times Publishing Co, London, 1966
66 pages
scanned by Lori Emerson

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nØ1se exhibition catalogue (2000)

Catalogue for the multi-site multimedia exhibition in Cambridge and London (January-May 2000), devised by artist, Adam Lowe, and, historian of science, Simon Schaffer, and organised around three key themes in “digitality”:

Universal Language
Pattern Recognition
Data Synæsthetics

nØ1se is not limited to electronic media, but traces the digital imagination from such myths as Noah’s Ark, through the early modern experiments of Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine and Morse’s Telegraph, up to today’s charge coupled devices (CCDs), robotics and beyond.. It highlights digitality in history, technology, art and science, drawing upon a wide range of objects and images from artists and scientists around the globe — everything from 3000BC artefacts to the latest state-of-the-art pictures of the surface of atoms.

Catalogue contributors: Tabatha Andrews, William Armstrong, Art and Language, Charles Babbage, Stephen Baker, Joe Banks, Richard Barbrook, William Bateson, Evgen Bavcar, Robin Boast, Patrick Blackett, Jerry Brotton, Soraya de Chadarevian, Adrian Cussins, Su Dalgleish, John Dee, Umberto Eco, Richard Feynman, Manuel Franquelo, Peter Galison, Joy Garnett, Merrill Garnett, Joseph Grigely, Roger Guillemin, Sebastian Guillié, Mercurius Van Helmont, Lynn Hershman, Jeff Hughes, Margaret Watts Hughes, Lisa Jardine, Bill Jones, Athanasius Kircher, Bruno Latour, Malcom Longair, Mike Lynch, Paul D Miller (aka DJ Spooky), Iwan Morus, Gracie Ngale Morton, Sven Nebel, Joseph Nechvatal, Ben Neill, Pictic Balls, Roy Porter, Marc Quinn, Jonathan Ree, Michael Rees, Giles Revell, Kathleen Rogers, Romandson, Brian Rotman, Stan Vanderbeek, Tom Van Sant, Ludwig Von Siegen, Julian Simmons, Nicola Schwartz, Lillian Schwartz, Robert Shannon, Bessie Nakamarra Sims, Paddy Japaljarri Sims, Brian Cantwell Smith, Luc Steels, Bruce Sterling, Jozue Tanaka, John Tchalenko, Dave Tovee, John Tresch, Burhan Tufail, John Tresch, Catherine Wagner, Piers Wardle, Peter Weibel, CTR Wilson, John Wilkins, John Woodward, Charles Wynn-Williams.

Edited by Alfred Birnbaum
Conceived of and designed by Adam Lowe
Published by Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge UK, 2000
ISBN: 0907074782, 978-0907074786
118 pages

exhibition website

View online (Section 1; HTML articles)
View online (Section 2; HTML articles)
View online (Section 3; HTML articles)