Art influenced by cybernetics and systems theory
Systems art
is art influenced by
cybernetics
, and
systems theory
, that reflects on natural systems, social systems and social signs of the
art world
itself.
[1]
Systems art emerged as part of the first wave of the
conceptual art
movement extended in the 1960s and 1970s. Closely related and overlapping terms are
anti-form movement
,
cybernetic art
,
generative systems
,
process art
,
systems aesthetic
,
systemic art
,
systemic painting
, and
systems sculptures
.
Related fields of systems art
[
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]
Anti-form movement
[
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]
By the early 1960s,
minimalism
had emerged as an abstract movement in art (with roots in
geometric abstraction
via
Malevich
,
the Bauhaus
and
Mondrian
) which rejected the idea of relational, and subjective painting, the complexity of
abstract expressionist
surfaces, and the emotional
zeitgeist
and polemics present in the arena of
action painting
. Minimalism argued that extreme simplicity could capture all of the sublime representation needed in art. The term
Systematic art
was coined by
Lawrence Alloway
in 1966 as a description of the method artists, such as
Kenneth Noland
,
Al Held
and
Frank Stella
, were using for composing
abstract paintings
.
[2]
Associated with painters such as
Frank Stella
, minimalism in painting, as opposed to other areas, is a modernist movement. Depending on the context, minimalism might be construed as a precursor to the postmodern movement. Seen from the perspective of writers who sometimes classify it as a postmodern movement, early minimalism began and succeeded as a modernist movement to yield advanced works, but which partially abandoned this project when a few artists changed direction in favor of the anti-form movement.
In the late 1960s, the term
postminimalism
was coined by
Robert Pincus-Witten
[3]
to describe minimalist derived art which had content and contextual overtones which minimalism rejected, and was applied to the work of
Eva Hesse
,
Keith Sonnier
,
Richard Serra
and new work by former minimalists
Robert Smithson
,
Robert Morris
,
Bruce Nauman
,
Sol LeWitt
, and Barry Le Va, and others. Minimalists like
Donald Judd
,
Dan Flavin
,
Carl Andre
,
Agnes Martin
,
John McCracken
and others continued to produce their
late modernist
paintings and sculpture for the remainder of their careers.
Cybernetic art
[
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]
Audio feedback
and the use of
Tape loops
,
sound synthesis
and computer generated compositions reflected a cybernetic awareness of information, systems, and cycles. Such techniques became widespread in the 1960s in the music industry. The visual effects of electronic feedback became a focus of artistic research in the late 1960s, when video equipment first reached the consumer market.
Steina and Woody Vasulka
, for example, used "all manner and combination of audio and video signals to generate electronic feedback in their respective of corresponding media."
[4]
With related work by Edward Ihnatowicz,
Wen-Ying Tsai
and cybernetician
Gordon Pask
and the animist kinetics of Robert Breer and
Jean Tinguely
, the 1960s produced a strain of
cybernetic art
that was very much concerned with the shared circuits within and between the living and the technological. A line of cybernetic art theory also emerged during the late 1960s. Writers like Jonathan Benthall and
Gene Youngblood
drew on cybernetics and cybernetic. The most substantial contributors here were the British artist and theorist
Roy Ascott
with his essay "Behaviourist Art and the Cybernetic Vision" in the journal Cybernetica (1966?67), and the American critic and theorist
Jack Burnham
. In
Beyond Modern Sculpture
from 1968, Burnham builds cybernetic art into an extensive theory that centers on art's drive to imitate and ultimately reproduce life.
[5]
Also in 1968, curator Jasia Reichardt organized the landmark exhibition,
Cybernetic Serendipity
, at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London.
Generative systems
[
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]
Generative art is art that has been generated, composed, or constructed in an
algorithmic
manner through the use of systems defined by computer software
algorithms
, or similar mathematical or mechanical or
randomised
autonomous processes.
Sonia Landy Sheridan
established Generative Systems as a program at the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
in 1970 in response to social change brought about in part by the computer-robot communications revolution.
[6]
The program, which brought artists and scientists together, was an effort at turning the artist's passive role into an active one by promoting the investigation of contemporary scientific?technological systems and their relationship to art and life. Unlike copier art, which was a simple commercial spin-off, Generative Systems was actually involved in the development of elegant yet simple systems intended for creative use by the general population. Generative Systems artists attempted to bridge the gap between elite and novice by directing the line of communication between the two, thus bringing first generation information to greater numbers of people and bypassing the entrepreneur.
[6]
Process art
[
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]
Process art is an
artistic movement
as well as a creative sentiment and world view where the end product of
art
and
craft
, the
objet d’art
, is not the principal focus. The 'process' in process art refers to the process of the formation of art: the gathering, sorting, collating, associating, and patterning. Process art is concerned with the actual
doing
; art as a rite,
ritual
, and performance.
Process art
often entails an inherent motivation, rationale, and
intentionality
. Therefore, art is viewed as a creative journey or process, rather than as a deliverable or end product.
In the artistic discourse, the work of
Jackson Pollock
is hailed as an antecedent. Process art in its employment of
serendipity
has a marked correspondence with
Dada
. Change and transience are marked themes in the process art movement. The
Guggenheim Museum
states that Robert Morris in 1968 had a groundbreaking exhibition and essay defining the movement and the Museum Website states as "Process artists were involved in issues attendant to the body, random occurrences, improvisation, and the liberating qualities of nontraditional materials such as
wax
,
felt
, and
latex
. Using these, they created eccentric forms in erratic or irregular arrangements produced by actions such as cutting, hanging, and dropping, or organic processes such as growth,
condensation
,
freezing
, or
decomposition
".
[8]
Systemic art
[
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]
According to Chilvers (2004), "earlier in 1966 the British art critic
Lawrence Alloway
had coined the term "Systemic art", to describe a type of abstract art characterized by the use of very simple standardized forms, usually
geometric
in character, either in a single concentrated image, or repeated in a system arranged according to a clearly visible principle of organization. He considered the chevron paintings of
Kenneth Noland
as examples of Systemic art, and considered this as a branch of
Minimal art
".
[9]
John G. Harries considered a common ground in the ideas that underlie developments in 20th-century art such as
Serial art
, Systems Art,
Constructivism
and
Kinetic art
. These kind of arts often do not stem directly from observations of things visible in the external natural environment, but from the observation of depicted shapes and of the relationship between them.
[10]
Systems art, according to Harries, represents a deliberate attempt by artists to develop a more flexible frame of reference. A style in which its frame of reference is taken as a model to be emulated rather than as a cognitive systems, that only leads to the institutionalization of the imposed model. But to transfer the meaning of a picture to its location within a systemic structure does not remove the need to define the constitutive elements of the system: if they are not defined, one will not know how to build the system.
[10]
Systemic painting
[
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]
Systemic Painting, according to Auping (1989), "was the title of a highly influential exhibition at the
Guggenheim Museum
in 1966 assembled and introduction written by
Lawrence Alloway
as curator. The show contained numerous works that many critics today would consider part of the
Minimal art
".
[11]
In the catalogue Alloway noted, that ... "paintings, such as those in this exhibition are not, as has been often claimed, impersonal. The personal is not expunged by using a neat technique: anonymity is not a consequence of highly finishing a painting".
[12]
The term "systemic painting" later on has become the name for artists who employ systems make a number of aesthetic decisions before commencing
to paint.
[13]
Systems sculpture
[
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]
According to Feldman (1987), "
serial art
, serial painting, systems sculpture and
ABC art
, were art styles of the 1960s and 1970s in which simple geometric configurations are repeated with little or no variation. Sequences becomes important as in mathematics and linguistic context. These works rely on simple arrangements of basic volumes and voids, mechanically produced surfaces, and algebraic permutations of form. The impact on the viewer, however, is anything but simple".
[14]
See also
[
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]
References
[
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]
- ^
Systems art
, Dutch Art & Architecture Thesaurus, retrieved March 2008.
- ^
Chilvers, Ian and Glaves-Smith, John,
A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art
, second edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 694.
ISBN
0199239665
.
- ^
Movers and Shakers, New York
, "Leaving C&M", by Sarah Douglas,
Art+Auction
, March 2007, V.XXXNo7.
- ^
Edward A. Shanken
, "From Cybernetics to Telematics: The Art, Pedagogy, and Theory of Roy Ascott," in Roy Ascott (2003, 2007),
Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness
, University of California,
ISBN
0-520-22294-6
.
- ^
Mitchell Whitelaw (2004),
Metacreation: Art and Artificial Life
, MIT Press,
ISBN
0-262-23234-0
p.17-18.
- ^
a
b
Sonia Landy Sheridan, "Generative Systems versus Copy Art: A Clarification of Terms and Ideas", in:
Leonardo
, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Spring, 1983), pp. 103?108.
doi
:
10.2307/1574794
- ^
Maurizio Bolognini
, "De l'interaction a la democratie. Vers un art generatif post-digital" /
"From interactivity to democracy. Towards a post-digital generative art"
, in
Ethique, esthetique, communication technologique
, Edition L'Harmattan. Paris, 2011, pp. 229?239.
- ^
Source:
"Guggenheim Collection - Glossary - Process art"
. Archived from
the original
on 27 September 2007
. Retrieved
27 September
2007
.
(accessed: Thursday, 15 March 2007)
- ^
"Systemic art." The Oxford Dictionary of Art. Ed. Ian Chilvers. Oxford University Press, 2004. eNotes.com. 2006. 19 Mar 2008
systemic-art
- ^
a
b
John G. Harries, "Personal Computers and Notated Visual Art", in:
Leonardo
, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Autumn, 1981), pp. 299?301.
- ^
Michael Auping (1989),
Abstraction, Geometry, Painting: Selected Geometric Abstract Painting
, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, page 72.
- ^
Lawrence Alloway, "Systemic Painting", in:
Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology
, by Gregory Battcock (1995). p.19.
- ^
John Albert Walker (1973),
Glossary of Art, Architecture, and Design Since 1945: Terms and Labels
, p.197.
- ^
Edmund Burke Feldman (1987),
Composition (Art)
, H.N. Abrams,
ISBN
0-13-940602-6
.
Further reading
[
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]
- Vladimir Bonacic (1989), "A Transcendental Concept for Cybernetic Art in the 21st Century", in:
Leonardo
, Vol. 22, No. 1, Art and the New Biology: Biological Forms and Patterns (1989), pp. 109?111.
- Jack Burnham
(1968),
"Systems Esthetics"
, in:
Artforum
(September 1968).
- Karen Cham, Jeffrey Johnson (2007),
"Complexity Theory: A Science of Cultural Systems?"
, in:
M/C journal
, Volume 10 Issue 3 June 2007
- Francis Halsall (2007),
"Systems Aesthetics and the System as Medium"
, Systems Art Symposium Whitechapel Art Gallery, 2007.
- Pamela Lee, (2004),
Chronophobia.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
- Eddie Price (1974),
Systems Art: An Enquiry
, City of Birmingham Polytechnic, School of Art Education,
ISBN
0-905017-00-5
- Edward A. Shanken
, "
Cybernetics and Art: Cultural Convergence in the 1960s
," in Bruce Clarke and
Linda Dalrymple Henderson
, eds. From Energy to Information: Representation in Science, Technology, Art, and Literature. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002): 255?77.
- Edward A. Shanken
, "
Art in the Information Age: Technology and Conceptual Art
," in SIGGRAPH 2001 Electronic Art and Animation Catalog, (New York: ACM SIGGRAPH, 2001): 8?15; expanded and reprinted in Art Inquiry 3: 12 (2001): 7?33 and Leonardo 35:3 (August 2002): 433?38.
- Edward A. Shanken
, "
The House That Jack Built: Jack Burnham’s Concept of Software as a Metaphor for Art
," Leonardo Electronic Almanac 6:10 (November 1998). Reprinted in English and Spanish in a minima 12 (2005): 140?51.
- Edward A. Shanken
, "
Reprogramming Systems Aesthetics: A Strategic Historiography
," in Simon Penny, et al., eds., Proceedings of the Digital Arts and Culture Conference 2009, DAC: 2009.
- Edward A. Shanken
,
Systems
. Whitechapel/MIT Press, 2015.
- Luke Skrebowski (2008), "All Systems Go: Recovering Hans Haacke's Systems Art", in
Grey Room
, Winter 2008, No. 30, Pages 54?83.
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