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From:  ranulph
At: 07.09.2008 13:10
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

I notice that there are many people reading and not nearly so many sending messages in this thread.

I wonder if some of the readers believe that the discussion is only open to the nominated discussants. THE DISCUSSION IS OPEN TO EVERYONE: just sign on with Yasmin. The discussants are people, most of whom volunteered themselves, who chose to commit to the discussion.

I hope I can say I have been very impressed by the intensity and depth of many of the posts so far. Thank you.

Ranulph
From:  Jane
At: 07.09.2008 19:09
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

dear all

My name Yu-Chuan Tseng from Taiwan.
Since English is not my native language, if I make any mistake in
wording. Please forgive me.

I really enjoy reading all the discussion. The topic about the CS is
part of my PhD dissertation.
I have been an artist, using real time system & random variable to
create a interactive experience since 2003.
It is a difficult job to do programing for me, so, I work with a
friend whose background is engineering.
However, I always thinking about ' what is the Aesthetic Element of
digital art nowadays.
Especially, when art critic criticized my practice is technical nature
and not beautiful at all.
I don't think that the Aesthetic Element of digital art is simply the
environment, interactive experience, immersing or images.
After reading the artiicles and books about 60s art & technology
event( EAT, CS, Software exhibiton...etc)and theory ( Max Bense, Jack
Burnham....), I would like to make assumption that the Aesthetic
Element of digital art is in Cybernetics.
It includes
[software,code]
[ramdom,algorithm]
[Program] "logic program of constructing thinking", "program of the
viewer's participation" ,"program of computer's logic processing" and
"program of artificial and natural environment.

Thanks to Ranulph's encouragement

Yu-Chuan



On Sun, Sep 7, 2008 at 6:17 PM, ranulph <ranulph@glanville.co.uk> wrote:
>
> I notice that there are many people reading and not nearly so many sending messages in this thread.
>
> I wonder if some of the readers believe that the discussion is only open to the nominated discussants. THE DISCUSSION IS OPEN TO EVERYONE: just sign on with Yasmin. The discussants are people, most of whom volunteered themselves, who chose to commit to the discussion.
>
> I hope I can say I have been very impressed by the intensity and depth of many of the posts so far. Thank you.
>
> Ranulph
> --------------------
> To become a member & Yasmin list archive: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin/
> To join Yasmin-map: http://haystack.cerado.com/yasmin
> To post: yasmin@estia.media.uoa.gr
> To unsubscribe: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin/unsubs.php?lid=1
>
From:  Annick Bureaud
At: 07.09.2008 21:50
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

Dear Yasminers

I have been following this discussion, a bit from afar as it
is the "new working year" in my corner of the world and I
am quite busy. My 2 cents.

One thing : I am a great adminer of CS (the exhibition).

Reading the discussion, I can see that no one has yet put on
the table performing arts and technology. There is a whole
world of creation today in theater and even more in dance,
with sensors of various kinds attached (or not) to the body
of the dancers, creating a feedback loop and all kind of
interactions between the flesh body of the dancers, the
computer systems, sound systems, image system, stage design
systems, light systems, robotics, the bodies of the audience.
It seems to me that this direction is adressing cybernetics
in a new way, including the different levels of
consciousness and organisation that Wiener was addressing.
This trend is exploring a rich mesh of relations between
different systems. It is blossoming, it is experimenting,
some are good, some are ...bad, but the experimentation is
very vivid. It includes artists from all over the world (and
a lot of women).

What do you think about this ? How do you consider it in
regards to CS ?

Best
Annick
--

------------------------
Annick Bureaud (abureaud@gmail.com)
tel/fax : 33/(0)1 43 20 92 23
mobile/cell : 33/(0)6 86 77 65 76
Leonardo/Olats : http://www.olats.org
-------------------------
From:  ranulph
At: 07.09.2008 22:45
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

The Contemporary Cybernetic Exhibition

One thing that might have changed considerably over the years since the original Cybernetic Serendipity Exhibition, is the nature of what an exhibition might be and how it might be positioned.

It seems to me that, for instance, the ning site at http://cyberdesign.ning.com/ might be thought of in part as a repository, but also as an exhibition—of Cybernetic Serendipity and its artefacts, and of some, recently work inspired by these sources.

I am interested in whether the past 40 years, in which early cybernetic principles have been applied in the realisation, for instance, of the internet, lead to new possibilities for exhibitions and what they might be. Of course, we know of some: online catalogues and virtual galleries, for instance, but there may be much more to come.

What would the exhibit aspect of a new Cybernetic Serendipity look like, and how should we try to establish such a thing?

Ranulph
From:  m.c.stellingwerff
At: 09.09.2008 00:07
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

Reflecting on Ranulph's enquiry how the exhibition aspect of a new Cybernetic Serendipity would look like, I think several aspects are relevant:
1. Ubiquity – also: local / global ideas
2. Collaboration - Collaboration in the design and creation of the art-machines, Collaboration in the inspirations and observations for the art-machines (we as subject), Collaboration in the observations from the works of art / behaviours by the art-machines.
3. Surprises 4 all – art is a mirror, an attractor / distracter, a culture container: the evocative power of a big ubiquitous, collaborative work of art could lead to mass serendipity, so that we all get new views and ideas.
4. Physical manifestations – the revival of physical aspects from computation: robots, manufacturing, mass customization, crowds (like in a flash mob), fablabs, fab@home etc. (this relates to the theme of embodiment and is (indeed) not necessarily related to the difference between analogue and digital)
5. from Yu-Chuan: the Aesthetic Element of digital art nowadays. It includes
[software,code] [ramdom,algorithm] [Program]

Side idea:
What if we ask the cybernetics theorists here at Yasmin to tell what their ideal contemporary cybernetics piece of art would look like, and if we ask the artists here at Yasmin to tell what cybernetic principles they strive for in their art? (if you are both, you can do both, if you are neither of the two, you can also do both) … I will also try to answer this question myself in a few days time …

Kind regards, Martijn Stellingwerff

From:  avi
At: 09.09.2008 14:48
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

Hi all,
A new text <a href="http://sipl.technion.ac.il/~avi/texts/tsc.pdf">Time - space compression in cyberspace art</a>

Best,

Avi.
From:  rmalina
At: 09.09.2008 21:47
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

Jasia

Let me first say what a pleasure it is to be in conversation with you 40 years after you organised Cybernetics Serendipity. Congratulations for "crystalising" the times in 1968

Your questions about machines producing artefacts for their own cultural use, I think raises an interesting question about artmaking within human culture.

Many human languages have never been decyphered, so that we cannot even decrypt the symbolic production of our own species 3000 years ago. And within the last 500 years within western civilisation there has been an ongoing evolution of cultural production both in terms of forms and contents.

We now look back at certain production and call it "folklore or folk art" rather than "art", yet as Frieder Nake noted the computer graphics of 1968 now look to us like " folk art".

I like to tell the story of the 1882 Institute of Art and Technology in 1882 in Manchester, UK when the new technology of the time was... linoleum..

So I think the answer to your question is yes ! we should include art works created by machines for their own use in the new cybernetics serendipity= can anyone give examples of symbolic production created by machines today which is consumed and interpreted by other machines ?

There are ethologists , such as Dominique Lestel, who are very interested today in cultural/symbolic production by other species on the earth, "animal culture". Maybe the new cybernetics serendipity could include work by animals that have co evolved with us.

These are all questions that the SETI research community has been heavily involved in !!

Roger Malina
(let me apologise for, the problem in the YASMIN email system that sends multipler copies of each email to some recipients=lets hope this is not a bug but a feature of machine art)


Hello Yasminers

I've read many interesting messages, and will try in due course to reply to some of them individually, but meanwhile....

I'd like to draw your attention to a book by M.J. Rosenberg, The Cybernetics of Art - Reason and the rainbow, 1983. In one of the chapters he discusses the possibility of finding out what one would have to do to construct a machine that could act as an author.

Let's say that such a machine existed and produced something that would be incomprehensible to us, and yet it claimed that it was a work of art. What should we do? Adjust our criteria as to what a work of art is? After all, we have to do this quite frequently with art produced by humans. But is the machine telling us the truth? We could then also ask another similar machine to have a good look at the works produced by machine no.1, and tell us if it's art or not. Of course, the two machines could have greater loyalty to each other than to us, and the second machine could also lie when confirming that the products of the first one are art.

And, why shouldn't machines have a joke at our expense! Perhaps, they already do. Everything has consequences for better or worse, and the creation of learning machines changes our world in more ways than we dare realize.

Jasia Reichardt
From:  richardb
At: 09.09.2008 22:17
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

I have followed this thread for some time and feel quite humbled by the knowledge and expertise of its contributors.

One of the problems with this thread is that it is linear, there are many possible branches that could be followed: analogue vs/&/or digital; society, culture and cybernetics then and now; interactive or responsive; art as a political/social force etc etc..

This medium is not ideal for expanding, exploring, cross linking these themes – there is no fabric only a thread. And this leads me to my observation relating cybernetics from the then to the now.

We are very much situated in the networked information age, unlike then, where cybernetic ideas were either concepts related to broader systems (socio/geo/economic etc) or focussed towards machines and human/environmental interaction, all sharing the common theme of feedback.

Perhaps we are actually far more cybernetic in the now – being meshed to the machine - hooked into the networked information world – creating and sharing knowledge and information collaboratively, participating in blogs, web2, open source, creative commons, nins...

Spore, a new game from the makers of the Sims, perhaps represents an extreme creative example of where we (or many others) are at in the now, participating in user created content, massive online worlds and high degrees of creative and social interaction. It is not the Cybernetics I remember, which was very focussed on self-regulatory systems, but it does represent the type of interaction I think Ranulph might be looking for – two or more people producing surprise through interacting with some form of machine/technology.

My personal interest however lies in the creative properties of alternative paradigms to the digital, works that use non Von Neumann (VN) computing, hyper processing, where the materials or physics carry out complex emergent and surprising activities. See http://www.vimeo.com/user448111 for two examples - Static Machine and Electrochemical Synthesiser.

There may be complex cybernetic processes of feedback occurring in these works, but they do not demonstrate the types of conversational interaction Ranulph mentions. Also in my mind, they are not works of art, rather experiments that produce surprise and an insight into real-world of complexity vs those that can be created through computer simulation.

I end with two hopefully provocative threads to unravel – i) that "Social Interactive Cybernetics in the Now" may be more likely to be found in the interactive worlds and experiences that are currently being created in the online gaming communities and ii) Analogue and alternative paradigms to Von Neumann digital computing offer a richer and more emergent potential for "Future Cybernetics" than conventional programming and VN computing.

For example, see the work of Jonathan Mills - "The Evolution of an Unconventional Supercomputer". http://uncomp.uwe.ac.uk/jonathan.html

--
Artist/Experimentalist

MSc Computers and Cybernetics, MA Fine Art.

http://www.mimetics.com
artsinformatica.blogspot.com

From:  s.biggs
At: 09.09.2008 22:58
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

>>On 9/9/08 19:53, "rmalina" <rmalina@prontomail.com> wrote:

>>So I think the answer to your question is yes ! we should include art works created by machines for their own use in the new cybernetics serendipity= can anyone >>give examples of symbolic production created by machines today which is consumed and interpreted by other machines ?


Interesting point. I have just finished an essay (about post-textual hermeneutics) that addresses this same question (in part).

To quote (myself):

In contemporary science we see graphic representation in ascendance over written text as the complexity of the data-sets involved increase beyond the capacity of the written word to contain them and our ability to interpret such information through text is tested to the limit. It is now often left to computers to interpret our complex data-sets for us, employing codes that are rarely, if ever, read by a human being. Knowledge is now created and disseminated via diverse media and codifying systems, invisible to us as often as they are visible. Rendering these invisible landscapes and networks in a manner by which we can apprehend them has become one of the functions of the contemporary artist, designer and informatician.

end quote.

http://hosted.simonbiggs.easynet.co.uk/texts/trans.htm

The implication here is that the production of meaning (and thus value) has been automated and so has its consumption. This is not an unusual situation. It is common-place. We just do not see it because it is done by (stupid) machines. The stock-market would be one example. SETI would be another. Surveillance is possibly the most pervasive (and sinister) example.

Regards

Simon


Professor Simon Biggs
edinburgh college of art
s.biggs@eca.ac.uk
www.eca.ac.uk

simon@littlepig.org.uk
www.littlepig.org.uk
AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk

Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201


From:  mosher
At: 10.09.2008 00:44
Subject: Self-Introduction to List

Hello YASMINistas,

I've just joined the list. I teach both traditional art fundamentals (academic drawing, Bauhaus 2D design) and digital media skills in the midwestern US industrial "rustbelt", making use of past careers as a San Francisco Mission District community muralist and Silicon Valley onscreen interface/icon designer.

I further try to combine--or mine--them in artworks, "community art machines" including '90s muralized kiosks that you can see in my part of ylem.org gallery.

Son of a power systems electrical engineer (MIT '29) who told Norbert Weiner jokes, and '80s grad student of SF State's Steve Wilson and Bryan Rogers, I recognize, interrogate and skeptically question the (limited?) role we assign the machine. And probably fetishize it; archaic symbols for pentodes and diodes emerge in paintings...

And I am especially interested in your work in the Mediterranean. Next year, collaborations could be considered.

Thanks,

--Mike M.

Michael R. Mosher
Assoc. Professor, Art/Communication & Digital Media
Saginaw Valley State University
University Center, MI 48710

* * *
From:  legart
At: 10.09.2008 10:18
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

My name's Mike Leggett and am new to the list - I'm currently completing a PhD in Sydney concerned with hypervideo - but during the time of the CS was making films and photography, so will contribute some brief personal responses to the show and some contextual information that hasn't surfaced through the previous contributions.
CS was an early, maybe the first, exhibition at the new Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) premises in central London. The ICA represented 'progressive' (somewhat retrospective) visual art practice, its founders having organised the Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936. The show that followed (?) ‘When Attitudes Become Form’, was another landmark show, though more attuned to the developing contemporary visual arts scene. More on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Contemporary_Arts
But the new ICA space nonetheless initially addressed a demand for ‘alternative practice’ spaces outside the academies, such as had been initiated by the Arts Lab (1966) and the New London Arts Lab / Institute for Research in Art & Technology (IRAT) opening in 1969.
As a then recent graduate, my art and professional filmmaking practice used electromechanical technology of course, so the addition of the computer presented no great conceptual leaps. As filmmakers we were familiar with the Whitney brothers’ film work with analogue machines, and we had for many years practised the logic brainteasers in job adverts on the Tube for trainee computer operators! But working applications of the computer in the field was what the show promised and delivered – to an extent. It was like walking into the Science Museum rather than an art exhibit (being before the days of professional exhibition designers), with a ‘show-and-tell’, work in progress approach.
This was suitably refreshing for me – the style of address amplified process and system rather than expression or figuration, though such areas were not unfamiliar at the time through the work of contemporary painters and sculptors (some associated with the ICA). But the Art in the show would have been of no interest to the traditional art collector or connoisseur, who might have been taken by the elegant framed plotter drawings, but not the objects, in particular the sensor-based ones, on the floor – clunky, mechanical and given to fantastic abstraction. (Has someone checked the Press reviews? I expect they were of the gee-wizz variety.)
The show intrigued me and I bought a copy of the Studio International special issue – a definite mark of approval - to keep the ideas and the technology in view!
From:  s.biggs
At: 10.09.2008 11:26
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

Hi Mike

One detail. I was talking to somebody else who saw the CS show and they commented on how the Studio International ‘catalogue’ wasn’t so much a catalogue as a post-event edition of a regular magazine (I also have a copy and it is sort of somewhere between a magazine and a catalogue). They also remembered many of the works in the publication were not in the show itself. As they put it, the show consisted mostly of information sheets tacked on the wall and very few actual objects or artworks. Is this your memory – or is your recollection different to this?

On an aside, my partner dug out a video of the Nine Evenings event and we were looking at it last night. Not a lot of work to be seen, but a little (a Robert Breer ‘float’ with Deborah Hay draped across it, Cunningham being pushed around in a box by somebody who may or may not have been Rauschenberg, Lucinda Childs’ dancers posing on stage, etc). Mostly there were scenes of what appeared to be crowds of very confused people, craning to see what was going on, trying to work out what was part of the show and what was incidental. Reminded me of many a performance art evening of the late 70’s and early 80’s.

My partner thought it would be great if something like Nine Evenings was to happen again – especially if it was as improvised as the original seemed to be. Perhaps having attended one too many of those performance art evenings I wasn’t so open to this idea.

Was CS at all like this? I have the impression it was a lot more focused and ‘controlled’.

Best

Simon


On 10/9/08 08:58, "legart" <legart@ozemail.com.au> wrote:


My name's Mike Leggett and am new to the list - I'm currently completing a PhD in Sydney concerned with hypervideo - but during the time of the CS was making films and photography, so will contribute some brief personal responses to the show and some contextual information that hasn't surfaced through the previous contributions.
CS was an early, maybe the first, exhibition at the new Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) premises in central London. The ICA represented 'progressive' (somewhat retrospective) visual art practice, its founders having organised the Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936. The show that followed (?) ╢When Attitudes Become Formâ•˙, was another landmark show, though more attuned to the developing contemporary visual arts scene. More on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Contemporary_Arts
But the new ICA space nonetheless initially addressed a demand for ╢alternative practiceâ•˙ spaces outside the academies, such as had been initiated by the Arts Lab (1966) and the New London Arts Lab / Institute for Research in Art & Technology (IRAT) opening in 1969.
As a then recent graduate, my art and professional filmmaking practice used electromechanical technology of course, so the addition of the computer presented no great conceptual leaps. As filmmakers we were familiar with the Whitney brothersâ•˙ film work with analogue machines, and we had for many years practised the logic brainteasers in job adverts on the Tube for trainee computer operators! But working applications of the computer in the field was what the show promised and delivered â•„ to an extent. It was like walking into the Science Museum rather than an art exhibit (being before the days of professional exhibition designers), with a ╢show-and-tellâ•˙, work in progress approach.
This was suitably refreshing for me â•„ the style of address amplified process and system rather than expression or figuration, though such areas were not unfamiliar at the time through the work of contemporary painters and sculptors (some associated with the ICA). But the Art in the show would have been of no interest to the traditional art collector or connoisseur, who might have been taken by the elegant framed plotter drawings, but not the objects, in particular the sensor-based ones, on the floor â•„ clunky, mechanical and given to fantastic abstraction. (Has someone checked the Press reviews? I expect they were of the gee-wizz variety.)
The show intrigued me and I bought a copy of the Studio International special issue â•„ a definite mark of approval - to keep the ideas and the technology in view!

--------------------
To become a member & Yasmin list archive: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin/
To join Yasmin-map: http://haystack.cerado.com/yasmin
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Professor Simon Biggs
edinburgh college of art
s.biggs@eca.ac.uk
www.eca.ac.uk

simon@littlepig.org.uk
www.littlepig.org.uk
AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk

Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201


From:  pryan
At: 10.09.2008 16:43
Subject: Serendipity and the Sacred

Greetings

I'm new to this group. Briefly. After 4 1/2 years of monastic experience and a BA in literature I worked directly with Marshall McLuhan (1967-68)at Fordham University. Played a role in generating the video movement in NYC. (Google: 'Radical Software', see 'Cybernetic Guerilla Warfare' issue #3). Learned cybernetics by engaging Gregory Bateson in a conversation about the difference between a logic of classes and a logic of relationships. Published 'Cybernetics of the Sacred' in 1974 and 'Video Mind, Earth Mind' in 1992. Presently,I'm Associate Professer in Media Studies at New School. Extensive work as a video artist. (In general, much of video art work has been built on thinking in circuits. See Slavko Kucunko's Video Installation book). My papers and tapes now being archived by the Smithsonian Institute. http://www.earthscore.org.

Rmolina cited complexity theorist Stuart Kaufman's new book on "Reinventing the Sacred'. Bateson's last book 'Angel's Fear' is along the same lines. I would be interested in that theme being part of any cybernetic redux. Can cybernetic art help negotiate a new coupling between science and religion that takes responsibility for our ecolgical systems?
From:  rmalina
At: 10.09.2008 22:20
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

Yasminers

Ken Knowlton , who was in cybernetics serendipity, sends us this message which he oked for me to repost
roger


to rmalina

show details 4:55 PM (4 hours ago)


Reply


Roger Malina:

I'm concentrating, in remaining years (just possibly decades), on making things, and writing.
I don't ignore your request but just can't find the time. There are a few things that someone in the project
might like to read, and maybe even use somehow:

(1) regarding those earlier years, and two published papers:
"On the Frustrations of Collaborating with Artists" http://www.kenknowlton.com/pages/05collab.htm
"Portrait of the Artist as a Young Scientist" http://www.kenknowlton.com/pages/04portrait.htm

(2) More recently, my artwork from the past 20 years on http://www.KnowltonMosaics.com

Best Regards,
Ken Knowlton
From:  rmalina
At: 10.09.2008 22:54
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

Yasminers

Michael Noll, who also was in cybernetics serendipity sends us this remark
roger

Roger --

Cybernetics is concerned with feedback and control systems. In terms of art,
I suggested its use in which computer-generated imagery would be presented
to people and changed according to their emotional response in a feedback
environment [A. Michael Noll, "The Digital Computer as a Creative Medium,"
IEEE Spectrum, October 1967]. The paper is available at my web site:
http://noll.uscannenberg.org/

But such a "cybernetic" artistic experience did not occur.

I am not sure precisely what Jasia meant by "cybernetic serendipity." My
guess is that she was using a nebulous term to define a new area of art
involving computers and technology broadly -- a very wise definition by
her.


Michael



-- Dr. A. Michael Noll
Professor Emeritus of Communication

Annenberg School for Communication
University of Southern California
Loa Angeles, CA 90089-0281

Home page: http://noll.uscannenberg.org
From:  ranulph
At: 10.09.2008 23:23
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

In response to Simon, re CS in London, 1968.

I visited CS at the ICA. If I'm honest, I was disappointed. I'd expected something much more futuristic looking (this was, I guess, a style notion). And many things weren't working: I guess we still have that lesson to learn. As Frieder suggested, the graphics were less dramatic than the interactive objects. Pask's Colloquy wasn't working, but was clearly both interactive (in the true sense) and time based. There were strange moves, too: Herbert Brun, a composer, showed some drawings that looked like spirographs. I wondered what had happened to his music. I was disappointed at the music, but sound is so difficult in an exhibition. I understood the importance of the show, that there was something very new, but somehow the newness passed me by. To be honest about this, I probably wasn't up to seeing the novelty in it.

There was a small experimental publication that I found recently (don't know where it is, just now). Jasia told me the exhibition was done without a budget and the Studio International special issue was the best she could do as a sort of catalogue. But it is not a 1 to 1 with the exhibition. Her book, Cybernetics, Art and Ideas also came out of the show.

The sort of running around you talk of (Nine Evenings) we used to do in a place called the Electric Garden, in Covent Garden. I had a group that mixed sound and did live onstage electronic music, and we would sample the evening and mix it down to a piece that dancers would improvise to at the end. All this was analogue, before synthesisers. These sorts of events were called happenings. It seems to me that performance art is really just happenings with a po face. We were doing this in the mid 1960s.

An interesting event that might be recreated was the series of concerts Rauschenberg, Johns etc put on at the Carnegie Hall to celebrate John Cage's 50th (?) birthday.

Well, a little reminiscence. Hopefully enough.

Ranulph
From:  ranulph
At: 10.09.2008 23:40
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

I thought I’d wait and write another portmanteau response. But the messages are very demanding (I’m sometimes glad to say): ad now I fear I’ve waited too long! Nor do I want to write at silly length: as Frieder says, long messages don’t help discussion. I think I’ll write in segments.
I note some interesting themes again and would like to bring some of them together. Let me start with a possibly questionable insight.
It seems to me that art is today might be considered more a way of thinking and acting than an outcome of such thinking and acting. I note Richard Brown’s comment about creating experiments, rather than artworks (but we showed some of them in an art gallery in Pask Present—http://www.paskpresent.com). I think of my friends ArtStation claiming that the only decent thinking being done nowadays was by artists (the overstatement was, I hope, for polemical purposes). Perhaps what artists bring is their approach, the way of working: a certain imaginative curiosity that asks “I wonder what would happen if...” an then sets about having a go. This could be seen as a reflection of the preoccupation cybernetics has with process: Charles François remarked that cybernetics is the dynamic counterpart of systems theory.
So maybe what we might be seeing is two ways of thinking coming together? Perhaps that’s what we need to develop the current cybernetic exhibition? For me, the interesting possibility, which Martijn mentions, is of ubiquitous and collaborative exhibitions, plus distance. I wonder about the exhibition that is designed for and in the internet (rather than presented on it). What does this remoteness mean, and what happens to matters of representation. What happens when an exhibition only exists on the internet as when an art work only exists in code? Each is temporarily realised, rather as in a performance, at the particular moment by the particular realisation involved. (Naturally, I look for surprise and delight, as always.)
Maybe this is the source of the aesthetic that Yu-chuan mentions, tying it into cybernetics as she suggests? I have to be careful here: cybernetics is not computing and cyberneticians do not (have to) do coding. Computers are cybernetic machines (or environments for cybernetic actions), and programming is a cybernetic activity. But this is not the equality so many seem to think it is. It might be helpful to separate and distinguish the two fields!
This theme of alienation, which I relate to working at a distance, seems to me critical. Frieder raises it (and I’m so glad that he’s taking part in this debate. It’s wonderful to have one of the original artists, and I hope there will be more). I enjoy the way he talks about the role of algorithms, of code. Connecting again to Yu-chuan, should the art perhaps be thought of as being in the code. I know that we don’t look at code, but, if I may make a personal analogy, I regard the papers I write as an art activity. Just as one can try for beautiful code, I try for very tightly and exquisitely written cybernetics. Most people don’t worry about that, but I do. I see how my concern in how I write papers as being like how artistic coders write code of beauty.
I have some other comments, but I’m going to send them in a separate message.

Ranulph
From:  jreichardt
At: 11.09.2008 13:57
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux


Dear Simon
 
A couple of points. The special issue of Studio International was published for the opening, so it wasn't post event. I think that the only work which is in the Studio and was not in exhibition was the project of Gustav Metzger. There were also two issues of the ICA magazine that related to the exhibition, and of course there were lectures.
 
One day, collecting all the available material most of which is in Kawasaki, it would be possible to make a chart with all the objects in place.
 
If anyone were to be interested in such an exercise, one day when I have time, I'd be happy to help.
 
with best wishes
Jasia
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 9:46 AM
Subject: Re: [YASMIN-msg] Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

Hi Mike

One detail. I was talking to somebody else who saw the CS show and they commented on how the Studio International ‘catalogue’ wasn’t so much a catalogue as a post-event edition of a regular magazine (I also have a copy and it is sort of somewhere between a magazine and a catalogue). They also remembered many of the works in the publication were not in the show itself. As they put it, the show consisted mostly of information sheets tacked on the wall and very few actual objects or artworks. Is this your memory – or is your recollection different to this?

On an aside, my partner dug out a video of the Nine Evenings event and we were looking at it last night. Not a lot of work to be seen, but a little (a Robert Breer ‘float’ with Deborah Hay draped across it, Cunningham being pushed around in a box by somebody who may or may not have been Rauschenberg, Lucinda Childs’ dancers posing on stage, etc). Mostly there were scenes of what appeared to be crowds of very confused people, craning to see what was going on, trying to work out what was part of the show and what was incidental. Reminded me of many a performance art evening of the late 70’s and early 80’s.

My partner thought it would be great if something like Nine Evenings was to happen again – especially if it was as improvised as the original seemed to be. Perhaps having attended one too many of those performance art evenings I wasn’t so open to this idea.

Was CS at all like this? I have the impression it was a lot more focused and ‘controlled’.

Best

Simon


On 10/9/08 08:58, "legart" <legart@ozemail.com.au> wrote:


My name's Mike Leggett and am new to the list - I'm currently completing a PhD in Sydney concerned with hypervideo - but during the time of the CS was making films and photography, so will contribute some brief personal responses to the show and some contextual information that hasn't surfaced through the previous contributions.
CS was an early, maybe the first, exhibition at the new Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) premises in central London. The ICA represented 'progressive' (somewhat retrospective) visual art practice, its founders having organised the Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936. The show that followed (?) ╢When Attitudes Become Formâ•˙, was another landmark show, though more attuned to the developing contemporary visual arts scene. More on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Contemporary_Arts
But the new ICA space nonetheless initially addressed a demand for ╢alternative practiceâ•˙ spaces outside the academies, such as had been initiated by the Arts Lab (1966) and the New London Arts Lab / Institute for Research in Art & Technology (IRAT) opening in 1969.
As a then recent graduate, my art and professional filmmaking practice used electromechanical technology of course, so the addition of the computer presented no great conceptual leaps. As filmmakers we were familiar with the Whitney brothersâ•˙ film work with analogue machines, and we had for many years practised the logic brainteasers in job adverts on the Tube for trainee computer operators! But working applications of the computer in the field was what the show promised and delivered â•„ to an extent. It was like walking into the Science Museum rather than an art exhibit (being before the days of professional exhibition designers), with a ╢show-and-tellâ•˙, work in progress approach.
This was suitably refreshing for me â•„ the style of address amplified process and system rather than expression or figuration, though such areas were not unfamiliar at the time through the work of contemporary painters and sculptors (some associated with the ICA). But the Art in the show would have been of no interest to the traditional art collector or connoisseur, who might have been taken by the elegant framed plotter drawings, but not the objects, in particular the sensor-based ones, on the floor â•„ clunky, mechanical and given to fantastic abstraction. (Has someone checked the Press reviews? I expect they were of the gee-wizz variety.)
The show intrigued me and I bought a copy of the Studio International special issue â•„ a definite mark of approval - to keep the ideas and the technology in view!

--------------------
To become a member & Yasmin list archive: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin/
To join Yasmin-map: http://haystack.cerado.com/yasmin
To post: yasmin@estia.media.uoa.gr
To unsubscribe: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin/unsubs.php?lid=1



Professor Simon Biggs
edinburgh college of art
s.biggs@eca.ac.uk
www.eca.ac.uk

simon@littlepig.org.uk
www.littlepig.org.uk
AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk

Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201


From:  Stephen Jones
At: 11.09.2008 15:47
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

Regarding the timing of the catalogue. Jasia indicates, and the following might tend to support this, that the Studio International catalogue was released for the opening of the exhibition. So for the bibliographers among us: There are three versions of the CS catalogue as far as I can tell. In 1968 two versions with card wrappers can be found
1: the Studio International “special issue” which may have been really just the regular issue of SI and has the ICA logo and the price 25s on the front cover and a set of very interesting ads in the back pages (pp.102-104) and inside back cover.
2: another version of the Studio International special issue which lacks the ICA logo and price and also lacks the ads in the back (the pages are blank and unnumbered)
Both of these have a grey paper insert bound in that solicits membership of the ICA and subscriptions to Studio International.
3: In 1969 a third version was published by Praeger in the US to accompany the tour of CS to the US (where did it actually go?). This version has a hard-cover binding with a dust wrapper and most usefully it has an index as page 101.

cheers

Stephen JOnes
From:  mosher
At: 11.09.2008 16:44
Subject: Cybernetics Serendipity '08?

YASMINisters,

Evidently this show decades ago, and its problematic Studio
International documentation, is of central importance and remains worthy
of discussion and analysis.

But what is the state of cybernetics and art/the arts today?

I'd like to see some lists offered here of the top five contemporary
practitioners of whom we should all be aware, and their key works.
Artists, feel free to include yourselves in your list if you think
you're doing important work.

This should illuminate differing definitions of what's "cybernetic"
too.

Thanks,

--Mike M.

Michael R. Mosher
Assoc. Professor, Art/Communication & Digital Media
Saginaw Valley State University
7400 Bay Road
University Center, MI 48710



>>> "JASIA REICHARDT" <jreichardt@btopenworld.com> 09/11/08 7:17 am >>>

Re: [YASMIN-msg] Cybernetics Serendipity ReduxDear Simon

A couple of points. The special issue of Studio International was
published for the opening, so it wasn't post event. I think that the
only work which is in the Studio and was not in exhibition was the
project of Gustav Metzger. There were also two issues of the ICA
magazine that related to the exhibition, and of course there were
lectures.

One day, collecting all the available material most of which is in
Kawasaki, it would be possible to make a chart with all the objects in
place.

If anyone were to be interested in such an exercise, one day when I
have time, I'd be happy to help.

with best wishes
Jasia


----- Original Message -----
From: Simon Biggs
To: YASMIN-messages
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 9:46 AM
Subject: Re: [YASMIN-msg] Cybernetics Serendipity Redux


Hi Mike

One detail. I was talking to somebody else who saw the CS show and
they commented on how the Studio International ‘catalogue’ wasn’t
so much a catalogue as a post-event edition of a regular magazine (I
also have a copy and it is sort of somewhere between a magazine and a
catalogue). They also remembered many of the works in the publication
were not in the show itself. As they put it, the show consisted mostly
of information sheets tacked on the wall and very few actual objects or
artworks. Is this your memory – or is your recollection different to
this?

On an aside, my partner dug out a video of the Nine Evenings event
and we were looking at it last night. Not a lot of work to be seen, but
a little (a Robert Breer ‘float’ with Deborah Hay draped across it,
Cunningham being pushed around in a box by somebody who may or may not
have been Rauschenberg, Lucinda Childs’ dancers posing on stage, etc).
Mostly there were scenes of what appeared to be crowds of very confused
people, craning to see what was going on, trying to work out what was
part of the show and what was incidental. Reminded me of many a
performance art evening of the late 70’s and early 80’s.

My partner thought it would be great if something like Nine Evenings
was to happen again – especially if it was as improvised as the
original seemed to be. Perhaps having attended one too many of those
performance art evenings I wasn’t so open to this idea.

Was CS at all like this? I have the impression it was a lot more
focused and ‘controlled’.

Best

Simon


On 10/9/08 08:58, "legart" <legart@ozemail.com.au> wrote:



My name's Mike Leggett and am new to the list - I'm currently
completing a PhD in Sydney concerned with hypervideo - but during the
time of the CS was making films and photography, so will contribute some
brief personal responses to the show and some contextual information
that hasn't surfaced through the previous contributions.
CS was an early, maybe the first, exhibition at the new Institute
of Contemporary Arts (ICA) premises in central London. The ICA
represented 'progressive' (somewhat retrospective) visual art practice,
its founders having organised the Surrealist Exhibition in London in
1936. The show that followed (?) â●?When Attitudes Become Formâ●?,
was another landmark show, though more attuned to the developing
contemporary visual arts scene. More on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Contemporary_Arts
But the new ICA space nonetheless initially addressed a demand for
â●?alternative practiceâ●? spaces outside the academies, such as
had been initiated by the Arts Lab (1966) and the New London Arts Lab /
Institute for Research in Art & Technology (IRAT) opening in 1969.
As a then recent graduate, my art and professional filmmaking
practice used electromechanical technology of course, so the addition of
the computer presented no great conceptual leaps. As filmmakers we were
familiar with the Whitney brothersâ●? film work with analogue
machines, and we had for many years practised the logic brainteasers in
job adverts on the Tube for trainee computer operators! But working
applications of the computer in the field was what the show promised and
delivered â●„ to an extent. It was like walking into the Science
Museum rather than an art exhibit (being before the days of professional
exhibition designers), with a â●?show-and-tellâ●?, work in progress
approach.
This was suitably refreshing for me â●„ the style of address
amplified process and system rather than expression or figuration,
though such areas were not unfamiliar at the time through the work of
contemporary painters and sculptors (some associated with the ICA). But
the Art in the show would have been of no interest to the traditional
art collector or connoisseur, who might have been taken by the elegant
framed plotter drawings, but not the objects, in particular the
sensor-based ones, on the floor â●„ clunky, mechanical and given to
fantastic abstraction. (Has someone checked the Press reviews? I expect
they were of the gee-wizz variety.)
The show intrigued me and I bought a copy of the Studio
International special issue â●„ a definite mark of approval - to keep
the ideas and the technology in view!

--------------------
To become a member & Yasmin list archive:
http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin/
To join Yasmin-map: http://haystack.cerado.com/yasmin
To post: yasmin@estia.media.uoa.gr
To unsubscribe: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin/unsubs.php?lid=1




Professor Simon Biggs
edinburgh college of art
s.biggs@eca.ac.uk
http://www.eca.ac.uk

simon@littlepig.org.uk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk
AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk


Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland,
number SC009201
From:  Stephen Jones
At: 11.09.2008 17:47
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

Supposing that we are, at least in some way, proposing a new version of Cybernetic Serendipity I thought I would introduce several artworks that I think bear consideration for inclusion on the basis of their approximation of some of the cybernetic principles I outlined in a previous post.

Mari Velonaki – Fish-Bird

http://www.csr.acfr.usyd.edu.au/projects/Fish-Bird/index.htm

To the audience Fish-Bird appears as a pair of wheel-chairs (disarming your notions of the autonomous creature) quietly rolling about in the gallery space, among a mess of short thermal-paper printouts all over the floor. Go quietly into their space and sooner or later (not that much later) one of the wheel chairs will tootle up to you like a shy animal coming to sniff you out. If you sit quietly it will hang around for a little while and then wander off, if you’re active and noisy it’ll get out of your way. Stay a little longer and observe their behaviour, they move towards each other and one or other will print out a text.

They know where each other is, they move towards each other as if in communication or they break off into separate areas of the space. The overall installation is monitored for audience presence and wheel-chair location by laser-scanners on the periphery of the space and video cameras in the ceiling. Behaviours are encoded in a finite state machine and the resolving of a set of conditions – the day of the week, the time you spend with them, etc – governs their interaction with each other and with you. The feedback loop is closed through the laser and camera data being processed by an installation controller system which in turn stage-manages the wheel-chairs. All this is not at all obvious to the audience and the two robots seem to be interacting with each other and with the audience in a gently sentient manner.

The work consists in a set of pre-programmed behaviours executed as conditions determine, but so does our activity once we have learned the behaviours of our culture and of course the range of conditions that we resolve is vast. The communication link is private and the whole thing is directed from an hierarchical centre.

If a truly autonomous cybernetic version were to be developed it might have to make its communications overt and clearly recognisable to the other, so each would have to carry their own proprioceptive, sensing and behavioural systems and ideally develop, over some growth period, sets of appropriate behaviours. It is these behaviours that become the signals, overtly sensible events, and each creature would need to be able to “see” that the other’s behaviour is analogous to something it can do. That is, the signal triggers an internal, pre-established sequence. Communication here becomes a kind of dance.


Stelarc’s Prosthetic Head

http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/prosthetichead/index.html

The Prosthetic Head is a large video projection of a 3D model of Stelarc’s head. It responds verbally to questions or comments typed into a keyboard on a plinth set in the gallery space in front of the projected avatar. The Head’s responses are selected from a set of installed phrases based on the knowledge that Stelarc gives it. It also has a range of gestural responses: smiles, head movements, eye movements and gaze, and can seem to become quite involved in the conversation. It uses an embedded conversational agent software (a la Eliza) to generate its responses from its internal knowledge and your questions.

It appears to be generating feedback to your enquiries, but since it selects from a pre-specified set of sentences, this is actually an illusion since, as yet, it has no capacity to generate novel statements. The feedback is what you provide based on its selections and your interpretation not so much of what it said but of why it might have said it. It functions as a product of our projections – and this brings up an important question: to what extent do we all do that when we are relating to each other?

However the Prosthetic Head is structurally open enough to make a wonderful test bed for experimenting with most of the technical (computer-based) ways of learning, recognising and generating speech. It is also potentially valuable as a vehicle for developing vision especially in face and gesture recognition. The evidence so far is that all of these processes do not seem to be possible through top-down AI/programming but are more the kinds of things that neural networks are useful for. So if one was to develop new artworks from this approach it would be useful to include a great deal of the work coming out of neural nets research and especially neural and self-constructing hardware systems, for example some of the work from Phil Husbands’ group at Sussex University.

I am prompted by these thoughts to ask how would we develop a machine that could speak spontaneously and respond generatively to verbal stimulus? First it has to have an engine for generating sounds (like phonemes), then it has to have an engine for linking sequences of sounds into ‘somethings’ analogous to words, each sequence then being required to connect to some kind of state of knowledge of itself or its world, or more usefully to be the ‘mental’ representation of that state of knowledge. This is self-constructing hardware and is the plasticity of neuro-physiological brains. This then confers a meaning on the sequence. But more importantly the sound generating engine has to be controlled by the listening engine so that the machine has a means of modulating its sound/phoneme generation so that the sounds its ‘teachers’ hear start to be recognisable/interpretable. As the machine learns to babble in more and more coherent ways its feedback reception and production reward it more and more so that the pleasure of communication, of getting what it wants motivates the process. This is Deleuze and Guatarri’s desiring machine.

In some ways the work introduced in an earlier post by García and Aróstegui takes the most sophisticated approach I’ve seen so far. They talk about their use of an evolvable hardware paradigm in a robotic installation called POEtic Cubes. They propose “autonomous elements (robots) [implemented in hardware] that are able to adapt or evolve their behavior depending on the specific actions performed by the user. In this way the cooperation between these elements constitutes an artificial organism that is changing continuously.” Their robotic cubes incorporate all the necessary sensors and actuators to make them autonomous. They implement an adaptive technique in which “The behavior of every component is influenced by the actions [of] the remaining ones”, augmented with evolvable parameter sets by which the adaptations exhibited by the objects (cubes) are allowed to tend towards some sort of self-regulative process. Behaviours of the audience directly influence the behaviours of the robot cubes and in contrast to Velonaki’s Fish-Bird the POEtic Cubes are fully autonomous.

see < http://leoalmanac.org/journal/vol_15/lea_v15_n05-06/RParicioMArostegui.asp >

Other works that are important here are Char Davies’ Osmose and Ephemere [see http://www.immersence.com/] and Ken Rinaldo’s Autopoieses [see http://www.kenrinaldo.com/].

With Osmose for example one is deeply immersed and fortunately the latency issue that plagued VR is reduced enough for one’s actions/motions to feedback computer responses in imagery and sound that are engaging enough for the whole experience to be quite magical. One builds up a conversation not with the machine but with the space it presents and that space is open (though bounded) and ready to be explored.

Rinaldo’s Autopoieses robotic sculptures “interact with the public and modify their behaviors based on both the presences of the participants in the exhibition and the communication between each separate sculpture”. The sculptures “talk with each other through a hardwired network and audible telephone tones, which are a musical language for the group” [Rinaldo].

Jasia brings up the notion of a machine that makes its own output for itself and does not intend in any way to communicate with an audience (or at least I think that was what she was suggesting). I have great trouble with this notion because it does not allow of any feedback-loop and so cannot be self-modifying, or if it does notice what it is doing it is doing it in a “private language” in Wittgenstein’s sense of the term and is thus not communicating and in effect not making art. Velonaki’s wheel-chairs are making outputs that are artworks and though they are only ostensibly for communication between them as “love poems” and other ‘thoughts’ they do happen to be also human readable and quite entertaining in their own way. García and Aróstegui’s cubes also communicate with each other as well as with an audience, but here the communication seems more to be that between cells of a single swarm-like organism and perhaps only incidentally with an audience although the audience is said to be able to learn how to ‘drive’ the cubes. The important thing here also is that they become self-organising through their intra-swarm communications mechanisms.

Again I’ve said far too much but I hope some of what I’ve talked about points to useful characteristics of artworks that could be included in CS-II

cheers

Stephen Jones
From:  pato
At: 11.09.2008 18:16
Subject: dna live // lichtblick kino // 12.09 // berlin


dna live goes live cinema
i will be performing my dna live project at the lichtblick kino
 
fr 12/09  22hs
kastanienallee 77
p-berg - berlin
 
+info
 
patricio
 
 
 
 
From:  ranulph
At: 12.09.2008 00:58
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

I am delighted to see the beginning of a discussion of what artworks might go in CS, if it were now. I hope this will also spill over into how such an exhibition might be, today. And no doubt we'll have some clues on developments in cybernetics.

I am wondering what art/artists I might add: but my main focus has been on developments in general understanding, not in the particular.

Thank you very much! Keep it coming!

Ranulph
From:  Jane
At: 12.09.2008 10:38
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

dear all
There is a article by Simon Ford talked about the project "FiveScreens with Computer "of Gustav Metzger.http://www.metamute.org/en/Technological-Kindergarten
Yu-Chuan
On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 7:17 PM, JASIA REICHARDT<jreichardt@btopenworld.com> wrote:> Dear Simon>> A couple of points. The special issue of Studio International was published> for the opening, so it wasn't post event. I think that the only work which> is in the Studio and was not in exhibition was the project of Gustav> Metzger. There were also two issues of the ICA magazine that related to the> exhibition, and of course there were lectures.>> One day, collecting all the available material most of which is in Kawasaki,> it would be possible to make a chart with all the objects in place.>> If anyone were to be interested in such an exercise, one day when I have> time, I'd be happy to help.>> with best wishes> Jasia>>>> ----- Original Message -----> From: Simon Biggs> To: YASMIN-messages> Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 9:46 AM> Subject: Re: [YASMIN-msg] Cybernetics Serendipity Redux> Hi Mike>> One detail. I was talking to somebody else who saw the CS show and they> commented on how the Studio International 'catalogue' wasn't so much a> catalogue as a post-event edition of a regular magazine (I also have a copy> and it is sort of somewhere between a magazine and a catalogue). They also> remembered many of the works in the publication were not in the show itself.> As they put it, the show consisted mostly of information sheets tacked on> the wall and very few actual objects or artworks. Is this your memory – or> is your recollection different to this?>> On an aside, my partner dug out a video of the Nine Evenings event and we> were looking at it last night. Not a lot of work to be seen, but a little (a> Robert Breer 'float' with Deborah Hay draped across it, Cunningham being> pushed around in a box by somebody who may or may not have been> Rauschenberg, Lucinda Childs' dancers posing on stage, etc). Mostly there> were scenes of what appeared to be crowds of very confused people, craning> to see what was going on, trying to work out what was part of the show and> what was incidental. Reminded me of many a performance art evening of the> late 70's and early 80's.>> My partner thought it would be great if something like Nine Evenings was to> happen again – especially if it was as improvised as the original seemed to> be. Perhaps having attended one too many of those performance art evenings I> wasn't so open to this idea.>> Was CS at all like this? I have the impression it was a lot more focused and> 'controlled'.>> Best>> Simon>>> On 10/9/08 08:58, "legart" <legart@ozemail.com.au> wrote:>>> My name's Mike Leggett and am new to the list - I'm currently completing a> PhD in Sydney concerned with hypervideo - but during the time of the CS was> making films and photography, so will contribute some brief personal> responses to the show and some contextual information that hasn't surfaced> through the previous contributions.> CS was an early, maybe the first, exhibition at the new Institute of> Contemporary Arts (ICA) premises in central London. The ICA represented> 'progressive' (somewhat retrospective) visual art practice, its founders> having organised the Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936. The show that> followed (?) ╢When Attitudes Become Formâ•˙, was another landmark show,> though more attuned to the developing contemporary visual arts scene. More> on:> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Contemporary_Arts> But the new ICA space nonetheless initially addressed a demand for> ╢alternative practiceâ•˙ spaces outside the academies, such as had been> initiated by the Arts Lab (1966) and the New London Arts Lab / Institute for> Research in Art & Technology (IRAT) opening in 1969.> As a then recent graduate, my art and professional filmmaking practice used> electromechanical technology of course, so the addition of the computer> presented no great conceptual leaps. As filmmakers we were familiar with the> Whitney brothersâ•˙ film work with analogue machines, and we had for many> years practised the logic brainteasers in job adverts on the Tube for> trainee computer operators! But working applications of the computer in the> field was what the show promised and delivered â•„ to an extent. It was like> walking into the Science Museum rather than an art exhibit (being before the> days of professional exhibition designers), with a ╢show-and-tellâ•˙, work> in progress approach.> This was suitably refreshing for me â•„ the style of address amplified> process and system rather than expression or figuration, though such areas> were not unfamiliar at the time through the work of contemporary painters> and sculptors (some associated with the ICA). But the Art in the show would> have been of no interest to the traditional art collector or connoisseur,> who might have been taken by the elegant framed plotter drawings, but not> the objects, in particular the sensor-based ones, on the floor â•„ clunky,> mechanical and given to fantastic abstraction. (Has someone checked the> Press reviews? I expect they were of the gee-wizz variety.)> The show intrigued me and I bought a copy of the Studio International> special issue â•„ a definite mark of approval - to keep the ideas and the> technology in view!>> --------------------> To become a member & Yasmin list archive: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin/> To join Yasmin-map: http://haystack.cerado.com/yasmin> To post: yasmin@estia.media.uoa.gr> To unsubscribe: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin/unsubs.php?lid=1>>>> Professor Simon Biggs> edinburgh college of art> s.biggs@eca.ac.uk> http://www.eca.ac.uk>> simon@littlepig.org.uk> http://www.littlepig.org.uk> AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk>> Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number> SC009201>>>
From:  richardb
At: 12.09.2008 15:32
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

In response to the artwork examples given by Stephen Jones, I would like to propose that a "new media type", the "metaverse" and other on-line user programmable 3D(/nD) virtual spaces are potent locations for "cybernetic art in the now".

One example is CARP - Cybernetic Art Research Project, set in Second Life.

Quote from http://www.gallery-diabolus.com/CARP/carp-06.pdf

"The word: „Cyberspace“ is known now as an artword, its born from the word „Cyber“ (a shortform from the english word „Cybernetic“ that again comes from the greek word „Kybernetike“; „The art of navigate“ and the word „Space“. On the world famous Macy-Conferences in the years 1946 till 1953 Cybernetik was something of high interest. Wellknown and famous scientists as Alan Turing, John von Neumann and Heinz von Foerster started here from scratch the modern computertechnics and the programm-architecture, today the basics for the Cyberspace. The real Cyberspace was opened by Secondlife. So you speak of web 3-D or so called Metaverses. The Metaverses are Internet-based virtual time-space-infrastructures. The miracle that we are experiencing today: the Cyberspace, the dematerialized virtual time-space, the worldwide webbed society. where we „surf around„ with lightspeed. An artist that is NOT using this virtual universe as a challenge and a goal doesnt deserve the name „Avantgarde“

This e-book dedicated to the pioneer of the Cybernetic Art
Nicolas Schöffer.
He was one of the most important artists of the second half of twentieth century. Father of Cybernetic Art, thus of so-called „interactivity“, he wanted to bring a prospective and non-backward-looking vision of Art, which could help mankind to develop itself with a good hold on true creative and liberating possibilities of our times."

See also their ning : http://diabolus.ning.com/

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Artist/Experimentalist

MSc Computers and Cybernetics, MA Fine Art.

http://www.mimetics.com
artsinformatica.blogspot.com

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