European Mobile Lab for Interactive Artists - media.uoa.gr/emobilart
Moderation and Discussions Schedules
View and Join the YASMIN-Map
YASMIN homepageJasmine: The mediterrenean flower
Subscribe | Login [Please subscribe or login] yasmin@estia.media.uoa.gr 
Messages   Policy   How to...   Contact
                
first prev 1 2 3 4
Messages Become a member, if you want to post
Message text
From:  ranulph
At: 01.10.2008 05:06
Subject: Re: Cybernetics Serendipity Redux

We come to the end of the Cybernetic Serendipity Redux discussion on Yasmin. Many thanks to all who have made this possible: the people in Greece who construct and maintain the site, the administrators for Yasmin and Leonardo, my co-moderators, all who contributed by writing and by reading, the people over at the ning site, and, of course, Roger Malina for being willing to take this on, for guidance and continual support. Thank you.

I have promised to produce a summary. It will not be long, it will be incomplete, and each reader will, no doubt, think it inadequate. In true second order cybernetic manner (see later), I accept it as mine, and I write it from my perspective and to present my understanding: nothing more, nothing less.

The purpose of this discussion was firstly to celebrate early cybernetic art, especially as it was presented by Jasia Reichart in the Cybernetic Serendipity Exhibition. Jasia, herself, helped us start by recapitulating and extending the original exhibition to bring it into the world of what might be today’s cybernetics, as she saw it. (Others from the original exhibition also joined in.) There was debate about the origins of cybernetic art (I had never intended to imply that Cybernetic Serendipity was the beginning: it merely marked the arrival). For every first artist, there will be one before: if Nicholas Schöffer originated cybernetic art, Gordon Pask preceded him with Musicolour. And so on. The point is that cybernetic art has a long tradition. It may be that how long is most of all a matter of how we think of art, of what an art object is. Two important aspects of this phase were the clarification of what might constitute a cybernetic art work (is it, for instance, sensors and real time technologies, or is it a matter of boundaries, and all that that entails) and the question of the relation between cybernetic and avant garde art.

Jasia suggested that a new cybernetic art would involve organic computing systems and genetic algorithms creating art. It seemed from the discussion that artists were thinking more in terms of avatars and populations in various virtual worlds, including second life. Cybernetician participants pointed out that cyber-this and cyber-that (e.g. cyberspace) rarely have any meaningful connection with cybernetics, and to talk of them is to derail the discussion. Not everyone agreed. There was a similar discussion of the meaning of (cybernetic) art works, while some would deny any such meaning.

Others continued to search for properties of cybernetic art: collaboration, interaction, digital aesthetics and so on, or to wonder if code, for instance, might itself be art, and whether there are helpful alternative computing paradigms. The point was made that artists and scientists both have long trainings, and that it’s not easy for one to be the other, just as it’s often difficult for the one to stand scrutiny by the other. Jasia asked how we could construct a machine could act as an author. Eventually, a small list of contemporary cybernetic art works was produced. Surprisingly, to me, there was little interest in discussing what a cybernetic exhibition might be today: would it be, for instance, single gallery based, or gallery based at all. It was noted that the debate was centred on the visual, whereas many technological developments are first made in music, which is also a performative and collaborative art.

A couple of contributors wondered what had happened to cybernetics, if there had been any recent developments. Most, however, were happy to talk of cybernetics as it had been at the time of Cybernetic Serendipity, making cybernetics itself a museum piece. But much changed as cybernetics developed a self-reflexive approach to observing systems, called second order cybernetics. I introduced the people (including Gordon Pask) and the arguments behind this development and interpreted some of its findings to concerns that might interest artists. There was a small response, but it seemed that those on the list were happy to live with the cybernetics of 1968. Or perhaps it was just difficult to react to the newer insights.

I felt that there was a lot of interesting history in the debate, and that the older cybernetic art is quite well. It may be the job of art to deal with embodiments as it is the job of cybernetics to abstract from them: the interest in new materials as media for cybernetic art was interesting. The question of whether the cyber prefix connects to cybernetics was left open. I was surprised at the lack of interest in the cybernetic exhibition. although perhaps the discussion of avatars and second life was a discussion of the cybernetic exhibition, in disguise. As for second order cybernetics, I hope that my second interpretation holds: it would be most interesting to see artists playing in a world informed by those ideas and that thinking.

Ranulph
first prev 1 2 3 4
Current time: 03.10.2008 23:33
There are 2 guests and 0 Yasminers currently online.
Lists: 1
Threads: 2148
Messages: 3718
Yasminers: 1471