Cybernetic Serendipidity: The Computer and the Arts (1968)

Cybernetic Serendipity was an exhibition of cybernetic art curated by Jasia Reichardt and shown at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, from 2 August to 20 October 1968. Later it moved to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., running there from 16 July to 31 August 1969; and finally to the recently founded Exploratorium in San Francisco, where it ran from 1 November to 18 December 1969.

The show featured a comprehensive assortment of pioneer techno-artists including Edward Ihnatowicz, Liliane Lijn, Gustav Metzger, Nam June Paik, Nicolas Schöffer, and Jean Tinguely, and as represented by a number of their more noteworthy pieces including Paik’s Robot K-456 (1964), Schöffer’s CYSP-1 (1956); and Tinguely’s Méta-Matic (1961). It also included works by engineers, mathematicians, composers and poets. Reichardt also went on to serve as the editor of a book, Cybernetics, Art and Ideas (1971), extending this study of the relationship between cybernetics and arts.

Special Issue of Studio International
Edited by Jasia Reichardt
Publisher Studio International, London, 1968
1st edition July 1968
2nd edition (revised) September 1968
Book edition, Praeger, New York, 1969
Reprint of book edition, Studio International Foundation, London, 2018
101 pages

Reprint (2018)
Wikipedia

PDF (2nd ed., b&w, 8 MB, updated to OCR on 2015-12-17)
PDF (2018 repr. of 1969 ed., color, 253 MB, added on 2018-10-26, via)
Flipbook (2018 repr. of 1969 ed., added on 2018-10-26)

Margot Lovejoy: Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age (2004)

Digital Currents explores the growing impact of digital technologies on aesthetic experience and examines the major changes taking place in the role of the artist as social communicator. Just as the rise of photographic techniques in the mid 1800s shattered traditional views about representation, so too have contemporary electronic tools catalyzed new perspectives on art, affecting the way artists see, think, and work, and the ways in which their productions are distributed and communicated.

Margot Lovejoy recounts the early histories of electronic media for art making – video, computer, the internet – in the new edition of this richly illustrated book. She provides a context for the works of major artists in each media, describes their projects, and discusses the issues and theoretical implications of each to create a foundation for understanding this developing field.

Digital Currents fills a major gap in our understanding of the relationship between art and technology, and the exciting new cultural conditions we are experiencing.

Publisher Routledge, 2004
ISBN 0415307805, 9780415307802
342 pages

Keywords and phrases
Bill Viola, Walter Benjamin, Nam June Paik, postmodern, Laurie Anderson, Christa Sommerer, Jenny Holzer, Miroslaw Rogala, virtual reality, Roy Ascott, Joan Jonas, Andy Warhol, Bruce Nauman, Eduardo Kac, Chris Burden, Electronic Arts, John Cage, Vito Acconci, Dara Birnbaum, Kit Galloway

author
publisher
google books

PDF (updated on 2012-8-14)

Timothy Murray: Digital Baroque: New Media Art and Cinematic Folds (2008)

“Digital Baroque analyzes the philosophical paradigms that inform contemporary screen arts. Examining a wide range of art forms, Murray reflects on the rhetorical, emotive, and social forces inherent in the screen arts’ dialogue with early modern concepts. Among the works discussed are digitally oriented films by Peter Greenaway, Jean-Luc Godard, and Chris Marker; video installations by Thierry Kuntzel, Keith Piper, and Renate Ferro; and interactive media works by Toni Dove, David Rokeby, and Jill Scott. Sophisticated readings reveal the electronic psychosocial webs and digital representations that link text, film, and computer.

Murray puts forth a Deleuzian psychophilosophical approach—one that argues that understanding new media art requires a fundamental conceptual shift from linear visual projection to nonlinear temporal folds intrinsic to the digital form.”

Publisher University of Minnesota Press, 2008
ISBN 0816634017, 9780816634019
320 pages

Key terms: Prospero’s Books, Bill Viola, King Lear, Gilles Deleuze, CD-ROM, Chris Marker, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean Laplanche, Louis Marin, Peter Greenaway, Leibniz, Keith Piper, Miroslaw Rogala, Psychoanalysis, Mary Ann Doane, Mona Hatoum, Kuntzel’s, electronic arts, Okinawa, scansion

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PDF (updated on 2020-11-12)