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    2K views308 pages

    Art and Electronic Media

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    paz
    media art theory

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 308
    ART oe ae As accessibility and understanding of electronic media grows, its use by artists has become both widespread and increasingly instrumental in the latest developments in contemporary art. Art and technology scholar Edward A. Shanken gives a lucid, engaging evaluation of the subject, contextualizing it in a broader art-historical and political framework. A comprehensive, timely international survey that addresses the relationship between art and electronic technology, this volume explores the presence and meanings of mechanics, light. graphics, robots, virtual reality and the Web in the art and visual culture of the last hundred years. The volume also considers the reaction, development and future of artistic practice in the face of new technology. ars} MNase /ANKEN SH <= Q < = ao Llu > a a Lu E I Lu ART AND ELECTRONIC MEDIA dada AO ee SHANKEN page 10 S U RVEY pS AGN 1-84 wo RKS [Teo MOTION, DURATION, ILLUMINATION [Eye Boo} CODED FORM AND ELECTRONIC Lane) PIONS -Te(-W i} CHARGED ENVIRONMENTS page 96 NETWORKS, SURVEILLANCE, oem TU UV em 1 R740) BODIES, SURROGATES, EMERGENT SYSTEMS page 140 pot M VEO) SPURS Vee PFT CL) EXHIBITIONS, INSTITUTIONS, COMMUNITIES, COLLABORATIONS Pye] b/d DOCU M ENTS fT ab) MOTION, DURATION, ILLUMINATION [T+ ab) CODED FORM AND ELECTRONIC PRODUCTION page 202 CHARGED ENVIRONMENTS page 213 NETWORKS, SURVEILLANCE, Ute eI Cm te 72 BODIES, SURROGATES, EMERGENT SYSTEMS page 247 pst V TOM UETO Noe Bt Ve AN PT a1 > CET) a SU OLe oe COMMUNITIES, COLLABORATIONS Eye PA ON SaaSM M1181) sya 12) AUTHORS’ BIOGRAPHIES page 290 Perse V na ET CPAr4 INDEX page 296 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS page 304 WORKS page 54 CHARGED ENVIRONMENTS page 96 MOTION. DURATION, ILLUMINATION CODED FORM AND ELECTRONIC PRODUCTION page 78 NETWORKS, SURVEILLANCE, SoMa eA CULTURE JAMMING page 120 COMMUNITIES, COLLABORATIONS, EXHIBITIONS. INSTITUTIONS, page 182 . ! DOCUMENTS pase 190 MOTION, DURATION, ILLUMINATION | page 193 NETWORKS, SURVEILLANCE, CULTURE JAMMING page 228 BODIES, SURROGATES, EMERGENT SYSTEMS page 247 EXHIBITIONS, INSTITUTIONS, COMMUNITIES, COLLABORATIONS ‘Artists have always used the most advanced materials and techniques to create their work. When their visions required ‘media and methods that did not exist. they invented what was needed to realize their dreams. Sometimes. as with oil paint in the 1400s and with photography five centuries tater. a new technology became so widely adopted that it gained ‘acceptance as a conventional artistic medium. In our own time, electronic technologies have become so pervasive that it is hard to imagine contemporary music produced without electric instruments or to imagine an author writing or an architect designing without the aid of a computer. Yet, with few exceptions, electronic art has remained under- recognized in mainstream art discourses. This is true despite the deeply entwined histories of technology and art, and. the impressive accomplishments of contemporary artists whose practices have both embraced and contributed to the development of emerging technologies. That lack of recognition has begun to change. This book aspires to demonstrate the formidable albeit short history of artistic uses of electronic media. ahistory that parallels the growing pervasiveness of technology in all facets of life. Over two hundred artists and institutions from ‘more than thirty countries are represented. Seven thematic streams organize nearly a century of extraordinarily diverse ‘material, de-emphasizing technological apparatus and foregrounding continuities across periods, genres and media, ‘The centrality of artists as theorists. critics and historians is reflected inthe focus on artists’ writings in the Documents. section. The goal is to enable the rich genealogy of art and electronic media in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to bbe understood and seen - literally and figuratively ~ as central to the histories of art and visual culture. The serious artist is the only person able to encounter technology with impunity, just because he is an expert aware of the changes in sense perception. washing machines and refrigerators, came to market in the 1910s. The market for radios exploded in the 1920s together with the growth of commercial broadcasting. Technologies that were developed during the lean years of the Second World War precipitated another outpour of electronic consumer goods during the prosperity of peacetime. Television became wildly successful in the 1950s, while the 1960s and 1970s brought hi-fi stereo sound-systems, video cameras, remote controls, cable television and satellite telecasts. In the 1980s and 1990s, the advent of personal computing, public access to the Internet and the multimedia capabilities of the World Wide Web, along with broadband Internet and cellular mobile phones, sparked the E-commerce boom and fuelled globalization, flooding world markets with an unprecedented deluge of consumer electronics. This nutshell history only begins to scratch the surface of the wondrous and ingenious devices that have inspired artists to expand the ability to see the present and to envision and create the future. Indeed, artists use, re-purpose and invent electronic media in ways that delight the senses, baffle the mind and offer profound insights into the implications — both positive and negative — of techno culture. Although electricity has become so ubiquitous as to be mundane, artists continue to discover its poetic significance, ifnot magic. In doing so, they simultaneously humanize and mythologize electronic media, transforming it through artistic alchemy to stretch the imagination, expand consciousness and inspire others to new levels of creativity and invention Motion, Duration, Illumination Traditional visual artis static: it captures or represents a moment in time. Moreover, it typically depends on a light source for illumination. Electronic media facilitate the liberation of at from conventional stasis and provide a means for it to consist of light itself. Since the early twentieth century, artists have used neon, fluorescent, laser and other forms of electric light as bona fide artistic media, often in ways that incorporate motion and time. Paralleling the intrinsic temporality of music and cinema, artists increasingly have set art in motion in such a way that the work can only properly be perceived as a . durational experience. Indeed, eer ae the traditions of experimental Vd Ce a} a § music and film, along with the sean use of sound and moving Q images, have become Mie = ae contemporary art practices, particularly those involving electronic media. Since the paleolithic cave paintings of deer hunts at Lascaux (c. 15,000 BC), artists have used static media to suggest and represent the vitality of entities in motion, Drawing on the physiological phenomenon known as persistence of vision, eighteenth and nineteenth century inventions such as zoetropes and kinetoscopes animated a sequence of drawings, enabling the viewer to perceive motion smoothly unfolding over time. Photographer Eadweard Muybridge, who experimented with such stroboscopic devices, accomplished the reverse in the 1870s through high-speed chronophotography. His stop-action techniques — like those of contemporaries, Etienne Jules Marey and Thomas Eakins ~ captured motion as a sequence of still images, metaphorically freezing time and enabling perception of micro-temporal instants beyond the capacity of the naked eye. The Cinematographe, an integrated recording and projection device invented by Louis Lumiere in the mid-1890s, enabled the registration and playback of moving images for large audiences, laying the foundations for cinema. inthe 9305, Harald ‘Dec! vith ahighsintensty electronic dgerton synchronized 2 camera's shutter sh unit, which enabled 1s in Milk Drop Coronet Sigifcanly faster shutters (0938). These technological developments, occurting in a broad range of ats, sient and commercial contexts hhave widely influenced atin the twentieth and twenty fest centuries, including cubist and futurist painting and sculpure, Kinetic art, performance, video and mare contemporary time based media [Metaphors fom chronophotography and cinema were employed by philosophers Henri Bergson and Henry James to theorize vitality and duration with respect to human perception and consciousness. In particular, Bergson’s Matter and Memory (1896) and Creative Evlution (1907) have been singularly influential philosaphicl texts among artists, specially many associated with Cubism and Futurism. Given dramatic increases inthe speed of production, transportation and the general lx of dal lif, ‘questions pertaining to the nature and perception oftime, space, motion and light form a nexus at which the inquires ‘fart, science and philosophy have become increasingly interwound. Rapid advances in computing, telecommunications, nanotechnology and genomie science hint at further conceptual shits at this comple interdisciplinary crossroads Alongside the visual exploration af motion and time, artists have studied the way light alls on objects creating shadows, a5 well as the way light illuminates artworks in the particular settings where they ae installed, The chiaroscuro technique flight and dark shading that reached maturty during the Renaissance emulates three-dimensionaliy on a two dimensional plane by mimicking how light falls on solid ‘object. In The Conversion oft. Paul on the Way to Damascus (060), Caravageio depicts the instant ofthe saint's epishany upon falling rom bis horse as ifiluminated by a sudden burst, farm of ‘ofdivine light, His technique, a high-cont chiaroscuro known as tenebroso, achieves effets that beat an uncanny resemblance to Edgerton’ highspeed ash photography, Berrini designed the Festasy oft. Theresa (0647-52) so that gided branze rays would shimmer in natural light that shines through a small window above the altar inthe CCornaro Chapelin Rome, Actuallight thus becomes an integral part of the work, functioning a8 a protagonistin A combination of technological and scien ‘opments inthe nineteenth tury resulted in new understandings oflight and visual peception, provoking signicant changes in art. Amidst the popularization of photography, many atss shite focus from rendering likenesses of abjects andthe effects oflight on them to capturing and giving visual form ta the sensate experience of how light affects the human eye. Impressionist painting, for example, as bound upin contemporary views onthe physiology and phenomenology of perception that emphasized the mediation of vision through the eyes and brain, suggesting an element of subjectivity. Combined with the faddish sucess of stereo photography in the 18708 and 180s, the popular understanding ofvision shifted from a simple v1 correspondence between an objet and its perception by the viewer toa conception of vision as the result flight reflecting offan objec, entering each ofthe viewers eyes from slightly diferent angles and being processed by their brains into a single, ompositeimage that offered a sense of depth. In this way, Impressionism, and later, Poitilism, demanded that viewers play an active rlein the perception fart, a prevailing ethos of contemporary interactive at. Similarly contemporary artists including Olafur Eliasson, Rober Irn, Ulf Langheinrch and james Turell have created work that examines the perceptual limits ofthe human visual Despite this preoccupation wit ight and motion, itwas ‘not until around 1920 that artists made works that moved or that sources oflight, Such kinetic artworks extended the frame of ar by breaking with two forms of stasis: spatial and temporal. Art no longer stood stilin space or time. Freed of fameand pedestal, animated by electricity itcould move about in the space ofthe viewer or the environment, modulate between various states or take ona new identity that required four dimensions to envision and experience Artists who seized upon electic ight as an artiste medium similarly liberated art rom is dependency on external ight sources and made tthe source fits own illumination ‘Whereas cubist and futurist art theories sought to draw the viewer into an aesthetic experience that implied movernent and time, around 1920 Thomas Wied, Marcel Duchamp, Naum Gabo and Lasel6 Moholy Nagy began using electronic clements to make motion and duration explicit and essential characterises oftheir work Suiling on an enduring fascination with synaesthesia and ligh-organs, notably those of precursor Louls-Bertrand Castel inthe eighteenth century, the fist public demonstration of Wilre’s Clavilxin 1922 was performed using a keyboard that contoled sx pojectorsané an array offletors, enabling te artist to modulate the movement, hue and intensity of light onthe screen, Wired later created and sod individual Lumia cabinets, the visual equivalent of player-ianos, that displayed predetermined arrangements ofcoloured light that he composed, such as Aspiration, comprised of 397 variations witha total duration of 2 hours, 14 minutes and 9 seconds These devices anticipated te kinetic paintings of Abraham Paatnik and Frank Malinain the 1955, light shows at rock concerts beginning in the 1960s and visualization software that transforms MP3 fies into urdulating patterns on PCs inthe Gabo's Kinetic Construction (0920) produced 3 vietual volume only when activated, thereby making mation a necessary feature ofthe art ‘object and further emphasizing temporality. Indeed, the term Kinetic was rstused in connection with visual at by Gabo and his brother Anton Pevsner in thelt Realitic Manifesto ating fom the same year (Documents, 93)-Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase (192) and Bicycle Wheel (1913) Anticipated subsequent research onthe perception of actual motion inthe 1208. Powered by an electric motor, his Rotary less Pats (Precio Optic (1920) incorporated a series of five painted glass plates mounted on a motorized shat Spinning 2 high speeds, treated the appearance of. concentric circles ona single plane when viewed a a distance of one mete, The work thus required motion and time to produce this perceptual eect inthe viewer. Electric motors in Moholy-Nagy’s Light Space Modulator (1323-30; Work, 55) set the shiny steel sculpture in motion while electrical ilumination inthe gallery reflected light offt and into its surroundings. ‘The Ligh Prop, a italsois known, not only pushes the temporal dimensions of at but expands its spatial dimensions into the entie environment, including the viewer, who becomes a surface onto which igh is elected, In The New Vision (1928), Mohol-Nagy advocated pushing art beyond static forme and introducing kinetic elements in which the ionshins ae vitval ones, i, resulting mainly ‘rom the actual movement of the contous, rings, rods, and other objects. othe three dimensions ofvalume, a fourth movement ~(inather words, times added). With respect to ight, he noted that “ight ~astime-spatial energy and its jection is an oustanding zd in propeling kinetic sculpture andin attaining vitual volume.’ He continued Eversinge the introduction of the means of producing high powered, intense antficio ight, i hasbeen ane ofthe elemental {factors inart creation, though it has not yet been elevated tots legate place... The reflectors and neon tubes of advertisements the linking etter of store fons, the rotaing colored elec bulbs, the brood strip ofthe let news bulletin are elements ofa ew field of expresion, which wil probably not hove to wait much longer forits creative artis Vladimir Tatlin’ design forthe Monument tothe Third Intemational 1979-1920) proposed a. 4oo metre spiral structure comprised ofthree levels revohing at different speeds: cube-shaped conference centre turning atthe ate of ‘one revelation a year a pyramid for administrative offices revalving once a month; and an information centre cylinder completing one revolution per day. This duratonal aspect of Kinetic arthas been taken to an extremein the work of Tatsuo Miyajima, whose Clock for 300 Thousand Years (1987; Works, 72) will continuously count offa seeming ety. Theidea of putting arin motion began to spread inthe eatly 19305, when Alexander Calder’s mobiles were st ehibited in Pare and New York. By the 1950s and 19608 its throughout North and South America and Eastern and Western Europe began experimenting with duration, ight and ‘motion. 1955 bore two important exhibitions: Man, Machine, ard Motion’ curated by artist Richard Hamilton atthe Institut of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London and Le Mouvement, curated by KG. Pontus Hultén atthe Galerie Denise Renéin Pars and including work by highly diverse group of ars from around the wold, such as Duchamp, Calder, Victor Vasarely, Agar, Pl Buy Jesus Rafael Soto, Jean Tinguely, Gyorgy Kepes and Robert Bret. The later exibition ‘was also the occasion forthe publication by Vasarely and v Hulten ofthe Yellow Monifsto, which played an important role in popularizing the term, Kinetic Ar, to ‘Le Mouvement’ exemplifies the considerable global exchange between artists, curators and institutions engaged in the cteation and presentation of works that examined the istic frontiers of motion, uation and light inthe 19405, 19505 and 19605. Originally fom Hungary Mohoy-Nagy, Bauhaus master rom 1923-28, emigrated from Germany to Chicago tod the New Bauhaus in 1937. Kepes also Hungarian, assisted Moholy in Berlin and London between 1930-37 and joined the New Bauhaus as head ofthe Light and sor of Visual Color Department. In 1946, Kepes became P Design at MIT and ina founded the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, subsequently directed by German artist and ZERO co-founder Otto Piene from 974-93. Working in Czechoslovakia, Zdenek Pesinek made perhaps the frst work cofartemploying neon in 1936 and Gyula Kosice began working yi with neon in Argentina in 1948. n who had begun working with ight and motion in 1949, cahibited a ‘inechromatic artwork atthe First International Biennial in Sao Paulo in v9. The growing acceptance of electric light as an attic ‘medium can be observed through an exploration ofecent art history. From Neo-Constuctvism and New Tendency to Ate Povera, Postminimalism and Conceptual An, atsts have used the vernacular of neon to wield thee ing brilliance of the Las Vegas strip, asin Kepes’ commissions for Radio Shack (0950) and KLM (2959; Works, 8), Fontana'scelling installation at the Ninth Milan Tiennale in 1959 (Works 8, Joseph Kosuths Five Words in Blue Neon (1965), Bruce Nauman’s The Tue Aatist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (1967) and Mario Me's Gap’ igloo (1969: Works, 6). (On the symbolic significance of neon as an artistic medium, Merz wrote Ligh is nevertheless technological energy nthe ‘mokig, fist be controlled by electric igh, itis essed up, where sf is uncon le and noked, Upht isa comprehensible representation ofthe human mind, whereos flame ‘sincomprehensible ond hence dif to eprezen. So the use neon represents the possibly of mental contro. Artists have energized public spaces with ight and sound as in PULSA's Boston Gardens Demonstration (1968; Works, 100), and also employed lasers to connect vast urban areas, asin Rockne Krebs Walker Night Passage (971: Works, 68) in downtown Minneapolis and Horst Baumann's Lover imenta 6 in Kassel. More recently ronment (3577) for De lighthas been used as an artistic medium tilluminatea metaphorical passage between the earth and the heavens, asin Jaume Plens's Blake in Gaesheod (1996) a the BALTIC Cente for Contemporary sin England andin julian Laverdiere and Paul Myoda's memorial tthe vitins of September, 200, atthe former it ofthe World Trade Cente, Tibut in Light (2002) Exploring the perceptual eelationship between light and sound by eliminating the forme, Yolande of Girls (or Pharolgy) (2005), translates the rotating field f illumination that emanates from lighthouselooms into a3-D sound installation inwhich the viewer triggers and experiences only the sonic spectre oflight revolves around.a central ai, chan sits audible apparition in tesponse to Developments in science and engineering deeply influenced the cork of artists exploring the potential of motion andligh. The interdisciplinary scence of eybernetics, which conceived ofboth animals and machines as ystems of. interconnected feedback loops, became a model for kinetic art ‘that was responsive to its environment. Nicola Schéffer's CYSP! (2955; Works, 2) was developed in collaboration with Dutch electrons corporation Philips. An electronic bain sensors, controls and motors enabled the work to interact with its environment by physically responding to sound and ‘movement. The viewer thus became an activ participator in the experience ofthe work, Schafer later incorporated these concep into monumental architectural structures, ineluding the Spotiodynamic Twerin Liege (196%), filty.two-metre tower that incorporated sity four revolving mirors, seventy projectors, 120 coloured spotlights, five haléhour music cording, along with a varity of sensors that enabled the computercontalled struct 10 respond tits environment These early interactive wos were important precursors toa broad range of contemporary practices involving robotics, responsive environments and intligent architecture Artists have used kinetics and ight to explore parallels between a rani technology and natural energetic phenomena and to consider the relationship between creation and destruction, Greek artist Takis fist exhibited his un electrified kinetic ‘Signals series atthe Hanover Gallery in London in 958 (Works, 63). He employed electromagnetism in his Telesculptures'of1959 and added blinking lights to his ‘Signals Mukiples' of 1966. Filipino artist David Medslla, who created his first bi-kinetie sculptures in 1963, opened the Signals Gallery in London in 1984 and edited the Signals Newsbulletn From 1964-8, both of which were inspired by Takis and dedicated ta kinetic and ligt art, ln 1959, German: bom artist Gustay Metager published Auto-Destmctive At, the frst of several related manifestos, including proposals for integrating art with science and technology and using cybernetics and computes to create slf-destructng cvc monuments that would exist from a few minutes to twenty years. In 1960, German-born at historian Peter Sel, then chief curator at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, invited Swiss anistJean Tinguely to construct Homage to New York, 3 mechanical work af art that sel destructed in the museum's sculpture garden on 17 March, 1960. Dr Bil Kluver, 2 aser researcher at Bell Labs in nearby Murray Hil, New Jersey, cellaborated with Tinguely on the technical aspects ofthe work, and American artist Robert Rauschenberg added 2 component that hteraly threw money from the sculpture Several important exhibitions tok place in the eatly and smid-19608, exposing popular audiences in Europe and the US toelectronic art employing motion and light "Bewogen Beweging’ (Moving Movement), was argenized by Hultén, ‘Tinguelyand Romanian/Swiss alist Daniel Spoer atthe Stedeli Museum in Amsterdam in 1961. The show's Stockholm incarnation, ‘Rére! | Konsten’ (tn Motion at the Moderna Musee, where Hulten was directo, included several additonal works by American artists selected by Klovey, 2 fellow Swede. Azo in 1961, the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Zagreb organized the frst of seven New Tendencies ethibitons, including kinetic andlight works by Otto Plene and Heinz Mack of ERO, the italian Gruppe N and Julio Le Pare representing the Groupe de Recherche da Visuel (GRAV) American atist Dan Flavin had his fist solo exhibition of exclusively Fluorescent workin 1984 atthe Green alley in New York. In 965, the Jewish Museum in New York organized the exhibition "Tivo Kinetic Sculptors: Nicolas Scher and Jean Tinguely. The Stedlic Van Abbe-Museum in Eindhoven, Netherlands organized the fist major international exhibition flight art ‘Kunst Licht Kunst’ (A ight A) in 1986, with 2 catalogue essay by Fench at historian Frank Popper, whose comprehensive book, Origins and Development of Kinlc At ‘was publishedin French in 1967 and translated into English in 1968. Kinetic Art and light at not only became identified as, ‘movements, but motion and light transcended stylistic categories and were employed by artists round the world Sharing an affinity with Wild's Claviluxand eighteenth and nineteenth century experiments with ight organs, the desire to combine sound and image to create the experience of symaesthesia reached a culminating pointin the mid96os, when it became popular fare at rock concerts. Scotish artist, Mark Boyle produced his rst public Liquid Light shows in 984 (Works, 142) In 1967, he and joan Hills formed the Sensual Laboratory and began collaborating with The Sof Machine, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix n 965, Metzger began producing his Liquid Crystal Light Projections, which were used. aslightshows for rock bands Cream and The Who in London Light shows in connection with concerts and Happenings were also taking place in the US, including the Trips Festival in San Francisco in 1966 (produced by Stewart Brand and featuring the Grateful Dead), Andy Warhol's hich toured withthe Velvet Underground in 1966-7, and the Joding Plastic inevitable ‘indexpanding, communal multimedia environments created by USCO. These psychedelic experiments lsd the foundstion for early video performances and laserlight shows inthe 19708 and 1980s and were ceincarnated in the rise of is {the video equivalent of DJs, or disk jockeys in ave-cultue in 1980s. n this lineage, she American Museum of Natural History teamed with MTV ta produce SoncVision (2003), which joins popular music and digital animation in an immersive multimedia spectacle for domed theatres. Of rg6os events, 's evenings: theatre & engineering generated the mast excitement about the use af electronic media in art and has eteted the most enduring infuence. ‘Spearheaded by Kliver and Rauschenberg in Octaber, 1966, this legendary seves of technalogiealy enhanced performances in New York City included work by ten ates, composers and choreographers associated with a variety of uaus, Bell Labs engineers assisted the artists in realizing theie performances avant-garde practices ranging from Pop to ‘9 evenings was the maiden voyage ofthe organization Experiments in Art and Technology (EAT), which played 1968 was a watershed year fr electronic an involving ‘mation, ight and time, especialy wih respect to publications and exhibitions. ack Burcham published his seminal Beyand (Modem Sculpture: The Efects of Science and Technology on the Sculpture of Our Time, which incladed chapters on automata, ‘ineticism, light and robotics. Artis scientist Frank Malina launched intermational publication of Leonardo, which remains the premier peer-reviewed journal for scholarship on the creative intersections of art and science, Hutén curated "The Machine: As Seen a the End ofthe Mechanical Age’ at The Museum of Modern Artin New York, which include ten artist engineer collaborations, suchas Jean Dupuy's Hear Beats [ATLAt the Brooklyn Museum of rt, LAT. organized ‘Some Mare Beginnings’ an ‘Dust, part ofa competition overseen by ethibiton of over one hundred ofthe collaborative projects from the competition that could not be included in The ‘Machine! The Nelson Gallery in Kansas City organized Magic. ™ ‘Theater’ an exhibition that supported collaborations between artists and ngineersJasia Reichardt curated "Cybernetic Serendipity, an internationally influential exhibition a the ICA in London, and the exhibition subsequent traveled tothe Corcoran Glleryin Washington, DC and the Exploratorum in ‘San Francisco. On the fagade ofthe NAMA department store in Zagreb, Vladimir Bonaéié installed his computerized light installation, DIN21, and the Galley of Contemporary Artin sgreb published the ist issue ofthe journal Bt iterational By the 19705, motion, light and time had become increasingly mainstream elements of atistic expression. Artists, drawing on a ange ofsjlistcinfuences, have continued to explore ther potential asthe means and subject, oftheir work One ofthe most interesting developments over the ast four decades hasbeen the use of electronic media by artists totransform or translate between various forms of energy — what Robert Millay referred tain 1969 as transductiveart (Documents, p 203). Dupuy's Heart Beat Dus (1968) translates one's pulse into kinetic energy that vibrates a membrane, causing fine ed dust to dance. In Gary Hil’s video Soundings (1979; Works, 70), 8 loudspeaker is subjected tothe effects offre, cath, si and water, revealing transformations ofits sonic and visual presence in elation toa spoken tet Inthe tration of physicist Ernst Chladns late eighteenth century experiments in visualizing harmanic vibrations and physician Hans Jenny's studies of wave phenomena or ‘mati’ rom the 19605, Carsten Nicolas ‘Mil (2000) reveals how various frequencies of sound energy alter patterns of disturbances they caused ina vat of milk. Silay in Prtrude/Flow (2001) by Sachiko Kodama and Minako Takeno, sounds inthe exhibition space, including those ofthe audience, iteratively transform three dimensional patterns in black magnetic Rui, which appears to be choreographed tots sonic environment, Light has been the primary force in several intriguing transductive works. By focusing ultra high-intensity lightin & vacuum chamber, Shawn Brsey and Laura Knott's Photon Voie (0986; Works, 71) made graphite particles levitate and form kinetic sculptures, altered by a dancer, whose movement brake ‘he ight. In Paul DeMaris’ Edison Effet (1980-93; Works, 73).alaserbeam shone through a fishbowl and onto an Edison colnder, a nineteenth century recording device, The beam of ight relayed the sound encoded in the cylinder to a computer, which translated the information fim analogue to dial then repraduced the analogue sound, intertupted sporadicallyby the ish, thi occasionally crossed the beam. Exploring the entropic effects oflight, Mary Lucir’s Dawn ‘Bur (1975) pushed the physical limits of video equipment Videotapes of seven successive sunvises, each played on 2 separate monitor revealed how the sun's intensity slowly overshelmed the recording apparatus, causing a progressively expanding burn overtime in the series of tapes. Jochen Gers video performance Prometheus 1975) echoed the myth ofthe “Titan who stole ie from Zeus and gave tohumarkind. Gere used a handheld miror to reflect sunlight into the camera's lens, slowly overloading the camera's sensor and causing its demise, Using electronic media in innovative ways that invoke the luminous, kinetic and temporal dimensions of at, artists explore the potential ofthese qualtes to expand aesthetic experience and to enhance human perception Coded Form and Electronic Production Animpartant precursor ta digital computing debuted in France in \Bo1~ the Jacquard Loom, invented by joseph-Marie Jacquard. Itemployed wooden slats, encoded wth instructions like computer punch-cards, te automate weaving of complex pattems. Although workers ted agsinsttheloom's Introduction, which threatened to replace humans with ‘machines, the mechanical production of goods through encoded information offered great financial opportunities for industry an resulted in lower cost items, which benefited consumers as wel Reflecting on this technological histon, artist Eve Andrée Laramée’s installation, Permatonal Unfolding (1998), ineluded an antique jacquard loom, woven textiles and other petiod and non-perodic elements to demonstrate parallels between this early programmable machine and digtal computers, both afwhich operate on binary code. NNottobe outdone by the French, British Industriaiss supported by Prince Albert organized the Gres Exhibition of 185) m London atthe Crystal Palace, an architectural and technalogical marvel designed by joseph Paxton. Symbalizing, the superior economic and technological strength of Great Britain, the displays intended to demonstrate oa rapidly growing urban middle lass that mechanically manufectured goods met or exceeded the quality ofhandmade products, ata fraction ofthe price. For mary vistors, these mass produced items were satisfactory and affordable; indeed, the exhibition was a great financial success, However, some accounts ofthe merchandise suggest that nat only was the quality mediocre but the designs lacked taste, One such detractr, Wiliam ‘Morris, sought to retain the virues of handerafting established by medieval guilds butt update them with contemporary design principles. Although Morris was an exceptionally talented designer and.a major force in the Arts and Crafts ‘maverent, is products were outside the financial reach ‘ofthe masses In contrast, Bauhaus designers in the 1920 following the spirit of architect Walter Gropius's maxim (Art and technology: new unity, attempted to join the highest contemporary aesthetic values with industrial production in order to create stylish goods that ‘were affordable toa wider public. The tension between handcrafted fiery and machine produced objects that are finely designed persists with respec to electronic ar. The long and diverse history of the mechanical production and reproduction of artworks includes using technological media, such asthe camera obscura and photography to render convincing likenesses, various printing methods from ‘wood-bioks to rapid-protolyping machines to output two- and threesdimensional multiples, anda range of algorithmic techniques to generate form from mathematical formulae, genetic algorithms and other coded relationships. These approaches to image production have affected the working processes of artists and transformed the end result and impact oftheir wark on visual culture Images were relatively scarce in private homes prior tothe invention ofthe printing press. The advent of photography and the mediur's popularity inthe late nineteenth century provided the masses with convincing likenesses ofloved ones, erotic destinations and other subjects that wee far more affordable than portraits or scenes drawn or painted by hand. Images became dally fodder for mass audiences after the development ofthe rotary pres round 850 and improvements inthe halftone processin the 1890s, which ‘enabled the cheap and rapid repraducion of photographs and drawings in newspapers, The Neoding of daly life with objects and images is, therefor, aclativly recent occurrence in hich technologies of preduction and reproduction have played a major role In The Work (0936), Waker Benjamin argued that technologically sin the Age of Mechanical Reproduction reproduced images lacked the ‘aura of an individually handcrafted original. At the same time, he recognized the potential of technological repreduction to enable the democratization of imagery 2 condition that he hoped would offer a means of resisting Fascism and premoting democratic values” In the wake ofthe individualistic bravura of Abstract Expressionism, by the late 19506 artists began to critically examine the distinctive, gestural signature that implied 2 symbolic connection between the hand af the artist and the surface of canvas Taking the Ideological cluster of gesture, authenticity and originality s his fl, in the mid 960s artist Roy Lichtenstein cariatured the abstract expessionisic brush-stroke ina cartoon style with a background comprised ‘of Ben-Day dots ~ a printing technique used by newspapers te reproduce cartoons, Paradoxically, he initially mocked this ‘eviscerated but iconic signifier in a series of unique paitings, only later reproducing them as sergraphs. Pushing this lineage futher, Roman Verostko made the fist obotic bush strokes in 1g, using custom sofware and sumi brush ‘mounted on a plotter to achieve remarkable gestural spontaneity fiom a series of algorithms Using closed-loop video to reflect on Benjamin's critique lof mechanical reproduction, in Richard Kresche's video performance Tains (1377) two identical wins in separate rooms read The Work of Ar. was.a moniter dsplaying lve video ofthe other anda slightly ‘Adjacent to each performer modified quotation from the ext, The reproduced art.vark (person) becomes toan ever increasing degree the reproduction cofan art. work (person) that is designed to be reproduced. Parallel assaults on originality and reproduction were mounted byatists such as Shertie Levine, whose re photographed images of Walker Evans’ photographs for the US Works Progress Administration (WA), towhich she signed her hibited in New Yorkin 1981. By the early 1980s art erties proclaimed that the ideal name, spurred much debate when & of originality associated with avant-garde artwas a myth LUpping the ant, in 2001 artist Michael Mandliberg created the twin Websites, AfenallerEvans.com and After Sherebevne com (2001), offering fee downloads of high resolution digital les ofthe twenty five Evans images that Levine rephotographed, Each site contains the same image files, distinguished only by their tiles, which correspond tothe images’ Website address or Uniform Resource Locator (URU) ‘After downloading the desired image and printing and framing itaccording to instructions ‘onthe Website, one may sign downloadable cericste of authenticity that declares it tobe an authentic work ofart by Mandiberg.Athoughit may nothave the cache ofan ‘original’ work by Evans or Levine, nether does it carry the price-tg. While Levine's work and the artwotld discourses sutrounding it intended tring the eath knell of oxiginlity, with few exceptions, the critics who chanted ths characteristic mantra of post-mader art and theory fled to address how concutrent developments in offered equally potent critiques of eriginalty authenticity, institutions and cultural electronic art, such as Kiesche' hegemony. As Margot Lovejay has pointed out, ‘Electronic ‘media challenge older [modernist] modes of representation New media have created postmodern conditions and have changed the way at itselfis viewed Indeed, artist utilizing electronic tals to produce form by duplication, or by using algorithmic and other generative approaches, have challenged conventional notions of ovginality creativity and atitsel. Suc ists recognized and ‘exploited the potentials of electronic signal processing, ‘computer graphics and electronic photocopying inthe 1950s and 19608 and high-resolution digital photography, printing, video and rapid-prototyping since the 1980s, Important parallals and advances took place in music. Following the introduction ofthe electronic musical Instruments, such asthe theremin andthe ondes Martenot Inthe 1ga0s, Pierre Schaeffer's Cing nudes de Bruits (1948) expanded the sonic palette and compositional strategies of ‘music by employing multiple turntables, tape loops, four channel mixer and an echo chamber. Theterm electronic rusic'was coined atthe Cologne radio station Northwest German Broadcssting (NWOR) in the eal 19505, where composers including Karlheinz Stockhausen synthesized ‘music using purely electronic means. In 1936, Lejaren Hiler and Leonard Issacson wrote the Hlige Suits, so-named forthe computer that was used to algorithmically generate the composition for string quartet. Louis and Bebe Barton relied cuclusivly on custormbult electronic circuits to compose the score forthe fs Forbidden Pane! (1956), spreading electronic ‘music to broad, popular audiences. Electronic sythesizers and sequences made their debut in the late 19505, vastly expanding the possiblities of music composition and performance, There was, moreover, significant cross Fertliztion between electronic musie and art, exemplified by the callborations 3 Bll Labs in the 1960s. These early ‘experiments demonstrated the flenbility of electronic technologies to produce hybrid forms of multimedia, Electron techniques fr producing and reproducing sounds and images have afected the ways artists elect on teaditiona aesthetic concems and have expanded the creation and distribution ofan, including is manifestations as code, a5, san image ona monitor and as an object. Itemains to be seen ubether or not the potential of digital production and Aistibution technologies wil esultin a the democratization and appreciation of fine art suggested by Benjamin, Attempss by atts to sell inexpensive limited licenses for works of software art via the Internet have net been commercially successful, What constitutes the work is enigmatic: digital files might be simultaneously the orginal and the copy, a work ‘of artand the code that generates it. Just as photography was not recognized asa bona fide artistic medium unt the mide ‘wenteth century, so the acceptance of digal forms of production and reproduction may not occur immediately. ‘Avthe same time, Apple's Tunes Music Store has succeeded in seling digital music files for under a dolar each, and brisk cottage industries have grown up around the praduction and sale of mobile phone ringtones and of avatars, fashion and accessories for Sims and Second Life enthusiasts, As digital devices increasingly saturate the cultual landscape and as technologies advance, perhaps there willbe greater interest in software art. Indeed, paralleling the economic and social shifts from industrial production to service industries, meaning and value have become less embedded in goods and more Aispersedin the flow and exchange of signs. Similarly, in experimental art since the 1960s, partculaly that involing electronic media, the conventional aesthetic privileging of precious objects has been increasingly supplanted by amore ‘ephemeral aesthetics of information Given thelong tradition of artists’ use of technologies to mechanically eproduce works ofa, from wood-cut to offset Drintng it's not surprising that atsts eagerly embraced lectrastatie photocopying techniques (ve. xerography) when the fist commercial machine, the Haliod Xerox 914, 2s released in 1980. eary 351962, Ray Johnson, who founded the New York School of Correspondence Ar in 1968, used photocopiers as a tol for propagating images. Photocopiers were used as wellby artists associated with Flasus and Conceptual Art, One ofthe rst artists o exploit the formal potential of photocopying machines was Italian futurist Sune ‘Munari whose Machine Art Manifest’ of 1938 anticipated his series ‘Kerogafie Original begun in 1964. Munari's work concentrated onthe atit's gestural act of moving objects over the glass during the copying cycle, collaborating or performing, vith the machinein order to capture motion and time on a two imensional surface. Taking @ more conceptual approach, German artist Timm Ulichs’ Die Photokopie der Photakopie der Photokopie (1967) pushed the limits of these new machines ‘while questioning conventional notions of the original versus ‘the cap. Ulrichs photocopied an encyclopedia entry about photocopying, then copied the copy through ninety-nine suecessive generations, revealing the intrinsic qualities ofthe process, Was the original image degraded? Or was the whole process an original work of ata parallel conversation ‘metadiscourse on electronic reproduction that embodied both ‘description and a demonstration ofit? In any case, such work could not have been conceived or produced without electronic ‘media, which were both the inspiration and means forthe creation of nnovative forms of expression For artist Sonia Sheridan, photocopiers made it possible to _generate copious amounts of visual information, the process of which became her primary goal As an artist in residence at 5M Corporation in 1959 and again in 1976, she was given cate blanche to explore the creative possibilities ofthe company's Colorin-Color photocopying machine (Works, 86}. Compared te colour phatacopiers made available tothe public decades later at printing shops, the original 3M machinebad adjustable focus and depth of fel, a5 wellas variable voltage to regulate the electrostatic process by which the toner was fused onto the surface ofthe copy. With contol over the quantity and quality of pigment applied ta the surface, she created thick and velvety textures and richly saturated colours. Although innumerable has prints coulé be made of any given image, eae cor aura ofan original and in Sheridan's cas ‘monotypes. Indeed, because the process took only say seconds, Sheridan used the capacity ofthe machine to rapidly igenerateimages in order to fee her creativity from the temporal burden of érawing or painting by hand, She chose to assemble variations of elements directly onthe glass platen, \which enabled the production of hundreds ofimages and ‘variations in the time itwould have taken to complete one traditionally crafted work Drawing on this experience, Sheridan developed her concept of generative art and founded the Generative Ans programme at the School ofthe Ar Institute of Chicago in 1970. Some ofthe experiments she and her students undertook involved the use of early facsimile machines, which carried information encoded inaudible signal. They would record the fx tones and then manipulate these sonic codes in order toslter the coresponding images and vice-versa -Apartcularly precocious student, John Ounn, developed the EASEL computer-graphics system, which Sheridan used to advance her generative at practic in the gos. Some ofthe earliest electronically generated images include Ben Laposty’s'Qscillon’ high-speed photographs of abstract patterns the American artist mathematician fist produced on an oscilloscope in 1950 by usinga range of manually contrlled, analogue devices. Inthe early 19505, German anist/theoris Franke independently created tlectranic images using osciloscopes as well In 953-4, ify of Laposky's Oscillons were the subject ofthe exhibition Electronic Abstractions’, another term Laposty used fr his work which opened a the Sanford Museum in Cherokee, lowa and travelled to thiteen other venues across the US. In 135, the exhibition “Experimentale Asthetk, atthe Museum of Applied Artin Vienna, displayed Oscillons and other eaely electronically generated images. Although Laposky and Franke did not employ digital computers in these early works, heir use of algorithmic signals to programme and control imagery ‘onan oscilloscope's cathode ray tube -an electronic screen similar t0aTV monitor was animportant precursor to computer at. Much of the early development of computer graphics was undertaken by engineers and mathematicians. 11961, clectrical engineer Ivan Sutherland began doctoral esearch at MIT onthe fis interactive computer gr the process of creating the Sketchpad system, Sutherland aso developed objectoriented programming, which revolutionized not oniy the field ofcomputer graphics but the discipline of computer science in general. Bel Laboratories inthe suburbs ‘of New York City was a hotbed of eomputer graphics and electronic music development inte early 19605, driven by staffres archers, often in collaboration with ars." Stttgort, ity. hen called the Technische nany was the European centre of cutting-edge tthe University of Stuttgart Hochschule, Ph. students Frieder Nake (Probability Theory 1967; Works, 80) and Georg Nees (Philosophy, 1963) were eeply influenced by philosopher Max Bense, a co-founder with Abraham Moles ofinformation aesthetic, Bense eveloped an influential theory of generative aesthetics that the galvanizing force behind the socalled Stuttgart or ense school of computer art and he coined the term ‘artificial ar torefer to this new il ‘The frst exhibitions of computer art took place in 1963 ‘Generative Computergrafi’, consisting of work by Nees at the Studiengaleriein Stuttgart (February 5-10) Computer Generated Pictures’ featuring work by Noll and Bela Julesz sat Howard Wise Gallery, New York (April 6-24}: and “Computergrafik, including work by Nake and Nees atthe Galerie Wendelin Nielich in Stuttgart (November 5-26)" German art students antagonized Nees's work, just as art cities dismissed the work shown in New York as ‘old and soulless’ and having about s much appeal asthe “notch patterns found on IBM cards,” Nonetheless, one work at Howard Wise Gallery, Nol's Gaussian Quadratic (1963), won the fist computer art competition, sponsored bythe journal Computers and Automation, in 1965, and Nake won in 1966 for his work employing random number generators 13/9/%5 Nt 5 Distributions of Elementary Sign (1985) Although eatly computer graphics may have failed to enchant some art audiences, the philosophical aesthetic and ee Saale Se ee ke ‘mathematical underpinning ofthis work ften were highly complet and shared much in common with other tendencies in conternpoary art. Nake considered the computera “Universal Peture Generator’ capable of producing all possible variations ofa given combination of elements Fellow ‘German artist, Manfed Mor, employed the mathematics of combinatorics programmed ona computer t derive and plot varitions ona cubein his ‘Cubic Limit sels (1972-76) {similarly systematic approach art-making characterizes conceptual artist Sol LeWit's manual produced Incomplete Open Cubes (1974), wherein variations ona cube ae translated inta a variety ofrmeia and scales, exemplivingthe deployment of asingl ida to become, in LeWit's words, "2 machine that makes thea Such an algorithmic approach oimage production was a catalyst fo Casey Reas's (Sofware ‘Statues (2004) and jn F- Simon e's Ever cn (1997). ‘Thelatter consists ofa personalized java applet, avaiable for purchase from Amazon.com for $20, that explores all1.8x 10! possible permutations of black and white squares in a32 32 ‘rid, task that wil take hundreds oftilins ofyears to ‘complete at arate of 100 icons per second on a typical desktop ‘computer fram that ea, ‘Aalst also used computers in order to create images that could not have been imagined or produced using traditional ‘media, Working in France, Hungarian artis Vera Molnar one ofthe founders of GRAY, envisioned computers as aay ‘produce combinations of forms never seen before, either in nature orin museums, to create unimaginable images" Even before she had access to computers, Molnar created @ ‘machine imaginaire'~ essentially a set of programmed behaviours ~ and followed ther, ina machineJike manner, in order to generate randomness inher at." In 1979, polymath Benoit Mandelbrot, working a the IBM Research Laboratory, produced a complex computer generated image that could not have been imagined from its simple constituent parts. Known as the Mandelbrot Set, ths algorithmic visualization spurred a aa Cae galas) enalaa ‘tremendous intrest in facal geometry and complesity theory and inspired a wide range of artistic exploration. In Scott Draves's Electric Sheep (2001), for example, when a computer goes to sleep, an open-source, peer-to-peer, screen-saver connectsit with other silcon somnambulist via the Internet, sharing the work of generating fractal animations known as. ‘sheep’, Tiled in homage to Pili K. Dick's novel, o Andes Dream of Electe Shep?, users design their own digital livestock and vote on their favorites, thus enabling the most popular electric sheep tole longer and reproduce —an afc form of evolution resulting in what the artist describes a5 2 collective “android dream In addition ta these algorithmic abstractions, computers have been employed to generate likenesses or emulate traditional works of rt. n the mic-1960s, Noll developed algorithms that produced images very similar in appearance to the work of DeStil artist Piet Mondrian and Op anist Bridget Riley and Nake did the same withthe work of Paul Klee Working together at Ohia State University, Chases Csuri and ames Schaffer produced Sine Wove Man (1367) by coding selected coordinates roma line drawing ofa portrait and subjecting them to mathematical modifications known as is work won the Computers and Fourier transforms. T annual competition in 1967 and was included in the exhibition ‘Cybernetic Serendipity (1968). Kenneth Knowlton and Leon Harmon's “Studies in Perception’ series, begun in 966, includes images ofa reclining female nude (Works, 8) 2 gargoyle, a telephone and seagulsin fight, generated from photographs that were digitize. This series which shares similares with ancient mosaic techniques, also has inspired mare recent work, including Andy Deck’s Ghphit (2001), an interactive, Web-based telematic artwark that allows participants around the wrld to collaborate inthe endless process of creating and ecreating images. Inthe lineage of eal twentieth century experimental animators inelading Viking Eggeling, Hane Richter, 3) slows down Alfed Hitchcock's 109-minute masterpiece toa creeping pace that lasts twenty: four hours. Michael joaquin Grey's Rereentry (2005), imensionalizes, syncopates and interweaves two videos displayed side by each comprised of hundreds of miniature videos ofthe othe, a process the ats cefers to as celular einer, Inthe 19908, advances in computeraided 3D design software (CAD-30) and rapid prototyping technology (RP) have provided atists with tals to digitally encode and produce three dimensional objects. RP an be thought of as, three-cimensional printing. ltnough cutent the process is neither as rapid nor as affordable as making a photocopy or ted tent as art schools printing outa page of computer ger increasingly tain students to use CAD and as RP becomes cheaper and faster, one can anticipate grester artistic experimentation with this medium. Some ofthe frst works of ato us this technology were Gametes by Michae! Joaquin Grey and Randolph Huff and Forbidden Fis by Masaki Fchinger and Len lye the advent of computers led to development of new methods for animation and flmmaki beginning in the 1960s. Athough produced without a computer james Whitney's Yontra (1950-7; Wodks, 80, embodies acomplex symmetry that anticipates digital animation In 938, hisbrother john Whitney Sr. cobbled together salvaged military components to create an analogue computer that produced the animations in Catalog (1961). As an artistinstesidence at 10M from 1 9, Whitney Sr. gained access to digital computers, which he used to produce films such as Peemutatons (1968). Csuri and Knowlton were also deeply engaged in developing computer animation, Csuri's Hummingbird (1966; Works, 80}, incorporated morphing techniques similar to those used today, while Knowlton collaborated with atts including Stan VanDerBeek and Ulan Schwarte ding award winning work at Bel Labs inthe 19605 and1970s, More recently artists have joined computers and fim or video in myciad ways. Douglas Gordon's 24-Hour Psycho Fujhata, both produced in 1990 using stereolithography Since the ealy 19908, atsts have expanded the potential of this medium, Robert Lazzarii's ‘Skil series (2003) and -AD and RP to evolve s. The 3-D RP models were Payphone (20025 Works, 95} us distortions of recogrizable bj then used as templates to fabricate the final artworks, which could not have been executed otherwise. Michael Rees has used the CAD environment to develop infinite variations of virtual -D forms, much as Sheridan used photocopiers ‘apidly explore variations of2-D designs. The CAD environment, moreover, enables the creation of works can beoutputas stllimages, animations and 3-0 objects and tobe produced a varius scales, rom the minuscule to the monument the case of Rees's Puto 2 2 x (2005; Werks, 93), which is nearly ive metres {sateen fet tll (Charged Environments ‘Arthas aivays been implicitly interactive, in the sense thatit demands acts of perception and cognition on the pat ofthe viewer 8y emphasizing the durational aspect of perception and thereby making explicit the process of encountering works ofa, artists began to challenge and alter traditional conceptions regarding the relationship between viewer and artwork In rt as Experience (1934), philosopher John Dewey stressed the viewer's olen the production of meaning inant. Sila, Marcel Duchamp stated in 1957 that, "The creative acts not performed by the ats alone; the spectator brings the workin contact with the extemal word, and thus adds his contribution to the creative act™ As atist increasingly created kinetic works that reconfigured themselves or could be modified in response tothe viewer's behaviour traditional distinctions between viewing subject and art objec, and between artist, artwork and audience, began to erode. No longer could the artist be considered the enigmatic reato ofcoded messages to be decoded by clever viewers. Semiotican Umberto Eco's theorization ofthe “open ark’ in 1962 parallels the explorations ofartste working with Imeractve media and audience participation, whe inereasingly came to think of themselves as offering audiences open-ended possibilities forthe production of unpredictable mesnings Roy Ascott drew astrking parallel between participatory art and quantum physics, citing physicist JA, Wheelers contention that, To describe what has happened one has to cross out that old word “observer and putinits place “pattcipator In some strange sense the universe is2 participatory universe. Electronic media have made possible an extraordinary range of interactive potentials for observers to became active participators who navigate charged environments along a varity of possible trajectories, ‘This mid-century aesthetic shift took place internationally and involved artists associated with kinetic art, new tendency, Pop Art, Happenings, performance and other genres. In addition 1 participating in‘9 evenings’ and co-founding EAT, pop artist Robert Rauschenberg collaborated with Billy Xaver on several artworks, including Soundings (1967), an Imeractive electronic environment that responds to sound by activating splits that become increasingly luminous as the audience grows louder (se pages 2-3). Carolee Schneemann, ‘one ofthe pioneers of performance art and experimental cinema, created an interactive electronic environment for het ‘multimedia performance, Snows, which premiered in 1967 (Works, 98) Engineered by EAT, the seats ofthe theatre were wired so that the audience's response triggered various light and sound effects. The work of anather artist known primarily for feminist performance inthe 1960, Barbara Smith's Field Piece (1968-71) was activated by the movement of viewers amidst so tinted translucent resin columns, each three metres tal, which generated changing paterns oflight ane sound inthe immersive environment, German atst Wolf Vostel, co-founder of Fusus and a primary progenitor of Happenings in Europe, proposed using television as an artistic medium as early 2s 1958. He joined electronic media with happenings i his 1963 installation, Television Decllage, in New York and in his renowned spectacle, Electronic D-olfage Hppening Room (Homage to Dire, tthe Venice Biennale in 1968, Hans Haacke, associated with ZERO in Germany before he came to the US in 1965, created Photo-Elecrc Viewer Programmed Coordinate Sytem (1968), which he described as a responsive, realtime system that merges withthe ‘environment ina relationship thats better understood as “system” ofinterdependent processes. In Cybemetc Sculpture (1968), a collaboration between kinetic artist Wen Ying Tei and engineer Frank. Turner, therate ofthe straboscopic lighting responds to sound, gving the viewer the sense that the trembling ofthe rods translates his/her voice Some ofthe earliest electronic environments emerged from ‘or overlapped with music, sound art and architecture. Perhaps. the most spectacular ofthese was the Potme Eectroique, created by architect Le Corbusier in collaboration with polymath lanis Xenakis and composer Edgard Varese for the Philips Pavilion at the 1958 Word Fir in Brussels. This gesamtkunstverk, or total work ofa, integrated architecture, light, lm and sound." For Expo 67 in Montreal, the Czech pavilion featured the Kinautomat, a form of interactive cinema invented by Raduz Cincera Tald from two opposing points of view that were projected side by side, at certain moments of. dramatic tension the audience was invited to decide in which direction the narrative path would unfld. The Pepsi Pavilion, engineered by EAT. forthe 1970 World Fir in Osaka, incorporated a mirtored dome celing, fog machines, electronic music, 2 programmable fourcolour krypton laser that generated patterns in response to sound, anda complex sound system at enabled one to regulate the movement of live sound throughout the space. The same year, Russian collective Ovizhenige (‘Movement’), drawing on ract in Constructivism and performance, created ther Kinetic rtfcal Environment for an industrial exibition ia Moscow. Building ‘on prior experiments with cybertheatr’ theorized by founding interactive installation member Lev Nusberg, this mass filled 660 square metres (over 7000 square fet} with ‘multimedia elements including light, sound and film that could be triggered by various sensors The 1970 exhibition, ‘Sofware — Information Technology Its New Meaning fr At also incorporated architectural and sonic elements in electronic environments. Curated by att historian Jack Burnham forthe Jewish Museum, it included ‘SEEK’, created by Nicholas Negroponte and the MIT Architecture Machine Group (1969-70; Works, 185) and Ted Soler Audio Window Installation (1965-70; Works 102). The former, 3 computercontralle rbotic environment, could, at leastin theory reconfigure itslfin response tothe behaviour ofthe gerbils that inhabited i, In Victoria's installation, solar panels powered ten radios, which were connected to contact speakers placed on the windows of the building, turning the Jewish Museum into gant, faintly sudible sound syste and information outlet, Because the cs no louder than a whisper and could be heard only byplacing one's ear vey close to or against a window the audience was drawn to atively interact with the architectural body ofthe museum ‘The radio waves transmitting content to Victorias installation are a form of electromagnetic radiation that, lie television, satelite and microwave transmissions, were «driving fore for artist Tom Sherman's Foraday Cage (972) and Catherine Richard's Curiosity Cobine forthe End ofthe Milenrium (1995; Works, 2). These habitats, ike the original described by Bish physicist Michael Faraday in » 1836, shield their inhabitants from the invisible assault of slectromagnetic radiation, a growing concern given the proliferation of wireless devices, Conversely, the work of oyce Hinterdng (Works, 13} and of Radioqualia has employed VLF (Very Low Frequency) receivers to capture and sony cosmic nergy allowing usta hear sounds generated billions ofyears again distant galacies, Such work builds onthe idess of American composer Joh Cage, who emphasized the importance of focused listening tothe ambient sounds of ore's environment, Indeed, itis hard to overestimate Cage's contribution to electronic art Not only did he employ electronics for camnposition andin performance, buthis aesthetic theories advocated their use to suppor aleatory (chance) methods, indeterminacy and ‘mutability ado emphasize the unique sonic features of found objects and environments. Inthe tradition of italian futurist Luigi Russola's 1913 manifesto ‘Art of Noises’, Cage ‘wrote in 1937 tha, the use ‘of nize to make music wll continue and increase until we reach a music produced through the aid of electrical instrament which will make available for musical purposes any andall sounds that ean be heard» In 939, Cage composed his first workto use electronic ‘media, moginor Landscape No (Werks, 99), one of five imaginary landscapes! composed between 1939-52 In this piece, dampened piano and cymbal were performed along with ‘multiple phonographs that played Radio Corporation of Ameria (RCA) pure electronic testtones. Imaginary Landscape No.4 (9st) was scored for twelve radios, each controlled by two performers. Changes in tuning frequency, amplitude and tone ofeach radio throughout he composition were determined by chance, drawing on the tration of Oada artists, who had been inspite by Stéphane Mallarmeé's 1897 oem Un coup de des jamais abi le hazard (A throw ofthe dice will never abolish chance). To establish values for variable parameters, Cage consulted the | Ching, an ancient Chinese system of knowledge, wherein prophecy is accessed by casting coins oryarrow-stalks. The piece created an unpredictable pastoral of sounds, culled from the ethereal environment of the aw and produced on the most commen of consumer electronic devices. Drawing on Dada traditions of ‘employing found objects as artistic media, Cage's use of radios conflates electronic devices designed to reproduce sound with scoustie devices designed to produce music Similarly the use of sound carried by a given radio Frequency as sonic content conflates remotely ransmitted sound, static (between Stations), and the immediacy of ive music performance Growing out fis enigmatic 433" (1952), piano composition thathad na notes bu invoked the ambient sounds ofth by Cecil Coker for EA's '9 evenings’ used as sound sources, only those sounds which content, Cage's Variations Vi (1966), engineered arein the airatthe moment of performance, picked up via the communication bands, telephone lines, microphones.” The performers revealed these ambient sounds by processing therm witha variety ofhousehold appliances and frequency generators" Cage's publications and his lectures atthe New School, New Yor, influenced numerous visual artists, whose work impacted the histry of electronic arty experimenting, vith audience participation and interactivity, thus challenging traditional boundaries between artist, atwork and audience. ‘These include Allan Kaprow, who staged his first happening in 956; George Brecht and Yoko One, members of Fluxus, whose ceventscores ofthe late 19fos anticipated conceptual art: and Nam june Pak, a pioneer of video, robotics and other cronic media. Pais eal electronic environments include his landmark 1963 exhibition, Exposition of Music Electronic Television at the Galerie Parnassin Wuppertal, Germany Inspired by Cage's technique of composing for ‘prepared plana’ (modified by inserting objets, suchas nuts, bolts or pices of rubber, lodged! slterits sound), Pall’ exhibition consisted of four prepared tween and entwined around the strings in order to pianos, twelve prepared TV sets, mechanical sound objects and record and tape installations. Expanding Cage's vision, Paik intended for his audience to interact with the prepared of which altered TY broadcasts and revealed the internal electronic properties of pianos and televisions, the at cathode-ay tubes, In one of these, Potipoton TV (1963-6), an integrated microphone responded to sounds inthe environment, altering the television's output. When portable video-recorders became available to consumers in 1965, Paik vias one ofthe statist t acquire one. In addition this collaborations with engineer Shuya Abe, with whom he created ‘one ofthe fist video synthesizers, Pak also used closed loop video systems, in which a video image is fed directly toa ‘monitor without an intervening broadcast network, t0 create selfcontained electronic environments. ln TV Buddha (1374), an ironic aggregetion af spirituality, cybernetics and pop culture a statue of Buddha gazes at his own video image on a television, which eturns its gazein an endless, mantic Cybernetics, information theory andthe circularity of feedback inherent in closed: loop video were at the theoretical and formal core of many imparant early interactive electronic environments in the 19608 and 19708. In Espanded Cinema {1970}, Gane Youngblood documented the challenges posed by eatyinteractive vdeo installations tothe uni-dectionaliy cof commercial mea, providing a conter for two-way creative exchanges, Art istrian Inke Ames has described such ve use of broadcast media in situatianist terms, a5 form of détournement, in which the (mis}=ppropriation and repurposing of conventions praduce shifts in socal consciousness.” Along these lines, in works lite rs (1968) and Contact: A Cybemetic Sculpture (3965; Works, 103} by Levine, and Wipe el (965; Works, 100) by Gillette and Schneider, video cameras captured various images of viewers, which were fed back, often with time delays or ather distortions, onto 2 bank of monitors. As Levine noted, leis turns the viewer into Information... Contacts a system that synthesizes man with his technology..the people are the software's Schneider amplified this view of interactive video installation, stating that, ‘The most important funetion..was to integrate the audience into the information” Gillette described how Wipe Cycle was related to satelite communications: you're 35 much 4 plece of information as tomorrow morning's headlines ~ 353 Viewer you take 2 satelite relationship tothe information. And the satelite which s you is incorporated into the thing which s being sent backto the satellite!" The 1969 exhibition, TV as Creative Medium’, atthe Howard Wise Galleryin New York, presented 2 variety of electronic environments, including Wipe (jel, Palk’sPoticipation TV and performances by Paik and CChatlotte Moorman of TV Bea for Living Sculpture (see page 4) ‘At the time, these installations offered the public an unprecedented opportunity to see itslfas the content of television, to become integrated into the electranie ‘environment of mass median other words, to establish a unity between subject and objec, viewer and viewed. Bruce Nauman, who was sceptical af participatory at, approached closed-loop video italy rom a different angle, with ano less jarring effect. His Live Taped Video Condor (1970 ‘Works, 105) prescient suggested a more haunting and increasingly ubiquitous aspect ofthis technalogy: surveillance. Inthis instalation, one walks down a dlaustrophebieally narrow corridor towards two stacked video monitors, the bottom ofwhich displays one's video image (captured in real time from the rear) growing progressively smaller As Dare Zbikowski has noted, the feling of alienation induced by walking away from yourselfis heightened by your being ‘enclosed ina narrow corridor. Here, rational orientation and ‘emotional insecurity lash with each other. Aperson thus ‘monitored suddenly slips into the ole of someone monitoring their... own activities’ Silay, Peter Webel’ Observation of the Observation: Uncenainty (973; Works, 106), incorporates juntapositions of thre video cameras and monitors such that viewers cannot see themselves from the frant-the angle ‘rom which one typically sees oneself, This perceptual prison restricts selfobservaton tothe oblique angles from which one 's typically seen only by others. Peter Campus’ Interface (1972; Works, 104) used closed loop video to turn things on theirhead, metaphorically Setin darkroom, a vides records from behind apiece of transparent glass while the image it records projected on the front- Two images are produced: the viewer's reflection onthe las and the other unreverse, created by the projector. Depending on where the observer stands in the piece the images can appear to look at each othe, be separate or coverap, invoking feelings of uncertainty and playfulness. Dan Gaham’s Present Continuous Past() (1974: Works, 196) joins sed-oop video and mirors with electronic delays in order to create an endless regression in space and time, Reflecting ‘on Jeremy Bertham’s eighteenth century theories of prison design, Stein's Al Vision (1976) isan electronic panopticen. rmeras, set atthe ends ofa crossbar, Two opposing vide ‘ace a mirtored sphere in the midele, The whole assembly slowly rotates around the centre axis, Since each camera ‘surveys half ofthe environment refeced in the sphere, the whole space becomes observable simultaneously fom changing perspectives on two video monitors Building onthe sort of aesthetic experiences, both interactive and self-contained, enabled by closed circuit video and other media, atsts have used emerging and evolving technologies to explorea wide range of electronic environments. Daniel Roz’ Wooden Miror (999) incorporates (of 830 wooden slats. Each of physiel pinelsis set ona ‘motorized pivot that theoretically enables 255 greyevels tobe generated, A video camera hidden inthe centre captures motion in font ofthe screen, whichis then ‘elected!’ bythe ‘wooden piel, Silty Kelly Heaton’s Reflection Lop (The Pool (2001) incorporates a 400 pine screen ofeprogrammed components culled from Furby alls, which, when activated via video camera, mirror the motion of viewers in their midst Electricityhas been used by artists as a medium in and of itselftocreatehighly charged experiences 2s well as more subtle meditations on the electrical foundations of Me. In collaboration with Barry Schwartz the Arterial Group created the ste speci multimedia performance, Eektostatic Interference (2001; Works, 109), at the Brisbane Powerhouse “Turbine Mall in Australia, The piece porated Schwarta's renowned elecro:pyotechnies, using highwolage current as a medium to creatlightnng ike effects wherein bolts of lectricity jumped nervous, snapping and cracking fom one trode to another. This spectace famed Arterial Group's sociological analysis ofthe electrical power industy andits workforce, with special attention to health and environmental issues, Privately commissioned and permanently instaled Jn New Zealand, EricOn's Eletrum (1998), created in collaboration with engineer Greg Leyh, consists ofa 130,000 watt Tesla Coil the largest ofits kind inthe word atthe time. Born in Croatia, Nikola Tesla, the Serbian inventor and Edison fival, sought to develop a means forthe wireless transmission of electricity. Applying Tesla’s theories, Elecrum produces phenomenal effects as arcing tongues of electricity leap between the coils, producing loud sonic zaps, and generating, an energetic eld powerful enough t illuminate fluorescent lights held by members of the audience. Quietly exploring the conceptual relationship between electricity networking and communication, in Vitor Grippo's Analogia | (1970-7) hundreds of potatoes are wired toa voltmeter that displays the amount of current generated by this unlikely battery oftubers, suggesting that ll living things are interconnected and animated by immaterial energy. Networks, Surveillance, Culture Jamming ‘The growing interest in creating interactive contests for esthetic encounters dovetailed withthe increasing predominance of electronic telecommunications, particularly radio and television, as arbiters of contemporary cultural and values This, ofcourse, made such media an important locus of rtcal artistic exploration The theoretical roots of artists use oftelecommunications for bi-rectional exchanges may betraced to German dramaturge Bertolt Srecht's manifesto, “The Radio as an Apparatus of Communication’ (19325 Documents, 228), which has offered ongoing inspiration to artists working witha wide range of interactive media.” AS artist Peter DAgosting has noted, recht sought to change radio rom its sole function as a distribution medium toa ‘chil of communication [wit] two-way send)receive capability.» Beecht’s essay proposed that media should let the isener speak aswell as hear. bring him into ‘eltionship instead of slain him, On ths principe the radio should step out ofthe supply business and orgoize ts isteners as, supplies. ust ilow the prime objective of tuning the uence not only into pupils but int teaches Its the radio's formal task o give these educatiogal operations on interesting ‘ur, to ensure tho these interests interest peopl, Such on attempt by the rai opt ts instruction nto an aise form would link up with the effosof modern atts to pve art an ingtuctive character Indeed, many artistic experiments with television, video and other mass media have been motivated by a Brechtian desire to wrest the power of representation from the contro} ‘oF corporate media and make it avalabe tothe public. Inthe ridg70s, Douglas Davis nated that, "Brecht... pointed out thatthe decision to manufacture radio sets as receivers only was political decision, not an economic one. The same's. true oftelevsion itis a conscious (and subconscious)

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