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YASMIN-list > Cybernetics Serendipity Redux |
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Cybernetics Serendipity Redux
September 2008 discussion On YASMIN, led by Ranulph Glanville.
40 years ago, Jasia Reichart's exhibition "Cybernetic Serendipity" showed that cybernetics, computing and art had arrived.
40 years later, while computers and art remain, cybernetics has nearly vanished, although there is a reviving interest in art.
In celebrating Cybernetic Serendipity we have the chance to re-open the
debate, to reconsider the relationship particularly between cybernetics
and art, and to do so taking into account the way that cybernetics has
developed during its period of near invisibility.
So what is new in cybernetics, and how can that inform art: and, what is new in art, and how can that inform cybernetics.
This is a chance to reopen the connection, to explore again, and to
move beyond some of the current models taken from cognitive science,
computing, AI and AL, and complexity, to the (much more radical) field
of their origin, cybernetics.
List of Discussants
Albert Mueller: albert.mueller ( @ ) univie.ac.at
Andreas Giannakoulopoulos: andreas ( @ ) utopia.gr
Andrew Brouse: abrouse ( @ ) gmail.com
Enrique Rivera: or.enrique ( @ ) gmail.com
Ian Clothier: I.Clothier ( @ ) witt.ac.nz
Jasia Reichart: jreichardt ( @ ) btopenworld.com
Julien Knebusch: jknebusch ( @ ) gmail.com
Mitchell Whitelaw: mitchell.whitelaw ( @ ) canberra.edu.au
Paul Brown: paul ( @ ) paul-brown.com
Paul Pangaro: pan ( @ ) pangaro.com
Ranulph Glanville: ranulph ( @ ) glanville.co.uk,
ranulph ( @ ) mac.com
Roger Malina: rmalina ( @ ) alum.mit.edu
Stephen Jones: sjones ( @ ) culture.com.au
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Dear contributor to this discussion
Here is my stone to the chat.
I would like first to comment the nature of the 1968 proposal:
"40 years ago, Jasia Reichart's , in the exhibition "Cybernetic
Serendipity" wanted to show that the interactive confluence of
cybernetics, computing and art had arrived."
I would like to say that she was 14 years late to announce such
arrival. Some of you know that the history of art and cybernetics has
started very early in the XX century, and I would only talk about a
famous french "cybernetic" artist starting cybernetic art in the
fifties. Most of us know his name, but few of us know how he is
important in the history of interactive/cybernetic art;
One of the first artist to talk in public about cybernetics and art was
Nicolas Schöffer in 1954, in his conference in La Sorbonne in Paris.
After a tribute to N.Wiener, of course, he mentionned that he wanted to
build scuptures in relation with cybernetics, with sensors and
electronic brains.
http://www.olats.org/schoffer/
---------------------------------
The year after, in 1955, he gathered enough sponsors to build a 50 m
high interactive sculpture in Paris, named "Tour Spatiodynamique
Cybernétique". This sculpture, erected in June 1955 and sponsored by
Philips, was creating sounds in real time, activated by differents
sensors, managed by an "electronic brain". 60 000 visitors have
seen/heard this sculpture during summer 1954 and about 30 magazines and
newpapers have related and commented the event in french, but also in
english and german. (I have all the copies). The comments are really
interesting: most of the critics talk about new perspectives in art,
new era of creation, some of them speak only about robotics and art,
some don't understand...a positive of negative view about this
sculpture was on all Parisian lips in the summer 1955. I have tried
without succes to build a birthday event in France in 2005 http://www.artsens.org/cinquanteans.html
---------------------------------
The year after, in 1956, he designed an autonomous cybernetic
sculpture, on batteries, moving alone, sensing colors, sound and
distance, composing it's path and internal movements in accordance with
the data acquired, in real time, of course. This sculpture was named
CYSP 1 ( CYbernetic SPatiodynamic 1)
The french chorographer Maurice Béjart was the first to compose a
ballet with this sculpture, in the first Festival d'avant garde in
Marseille, 1956. The sculpture has travelled all over the world in the
fifties and sixties.
You can see this treasure in Paris in his atelier. His wife Eléonore de
Lavandeyra-Schöffer organises incredibely interesting visits on demand.
---------------------------------
When we look at art press articles of the fifties and sixties, Schöffer
was the leader of cybernetic art. He was so famous that the city of
Liege in Belgium asked him to build a monumental cybernetic artwork for
the new Palais des Congrès, plus a 52 m cybernetic tower.
Schoffer decided to built a permanent 82 meters long, 13 meters high
screen for cybernetic light show, plus the tower. The city of Liege has
decided few years ago to restore these monuments for 2012 ( classified
Patrimony of belgium in the eighties)
http://www.olats.org/schoffer/monuhist.htm
---------------------------------
In 1963, he started the monumental project of a 300 m high cybernetic
tower, driven by computers and activated by indoor and outdoor sensors
( like the level of sound in the french parliament, the trains, the
temperature of the Seine river etc...). La Tour Lumière Cybernétique.
The project failed in the oil crisis of 1973 after ten years of intense
work, but 3D VR architects from french university are working on the VR
interactive model and some contacts have been made to build it in Dubaï
or other rich and architecture-friendly country.
---------------------------------
In 1968, 14 years after his public desire to build cybernetic artworks,
when Jasia was organizing this exhibition, Schoffer was building
cybernetic projects everywhere in the world (sculptures, installation,
architectures, urbanisms, shows, machines, etc..). in 1968, he was
building a monumental permanent cybernetic installation in Rennes (
france), a sculpture crossing 2 floors of the House of Culture,
shamelessly dissasembled in secret in the eighties. The sounds of the
"cafateria" was sensed by different microphones on the place , and were
moving mirrors reflecting light shows in all the place . The disabled
components of the installation are hidden in the cellar of the
building...but we hope to make it working again in the future.
He has writen a dozen books on his works and theories about cybernetic art/urbanism/architecture/music/shows etc.
He died in 1992, at the age of 80. http://www.olats.org/schoffer
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My second comment is about the second sentence:
40 years later, while computers and art remain, cybernetics has nearly vanished, although there is a reviving interest in art.
Works with interactive systems have never stopped to progress. All
hundred thousand interactive artworks created using sensors and real
time technologies since the fifties ARE cybernetic works. Of course,
the name of cybernetic art is almost dead, replaced by "interactive",
or "real time", but the concepts emmitted since the pionners like
Schöffer have always been the same. Only the technologies, the tools,
(interfaces, calculation, interconnections( presence of the web) have
changed.
-----------------
I hope that this words will launch the debate on yasmin with passion.
Jean-Noël Montagné
http://www.craslab.org
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in french:
Nicolas Schöffer parlait d'utiliser des capteurs et des systèmes temps
réel dans ses sculptures dès 1954 dans une de ses conférences à Paris à
la Sorbonne, et met la théorie en pratique en 1955, avec la première
oeuvre multimédia au monde dotée d'un système de captation, d'un
système de traitement d'informations temps réel, et d'une actuation
temps réel ( génération sonore multiphonique temps réel à partir
d'enregistrements de Pierre Henry, divers capteurs et traitement
analogique).
Cette sculpture de 50 m de haut, réalisée avec des scientifiques et des
ingénieurs, vue par des dizaines de milliers de personnes, a été suivie
en 1956, du même Schöffer, par une sculpture robotisée, autonome grâce
à ses batteries, également animée par une batterie de capteurs, cerveau
électroniques et actuateurs, destinée à la scène et à la déambulation
urbaine. Cette sculpture réagissait à son environnement et se déplacait
en conséquence. Le premier spectacle de danse avec cette sculpture a eu
lieu en 1956, avec la troupe de Maurice Béjart ( qui a dansé en
personne avec la sculpture).
Je ne passe pas non plus sur les travaux de Schoffer sur le mixage et
la déformation temps réel de videos et de sons, fin années 50, en expo,
et surtout en prime time à la seule chaine de télé française de
l'époque, avec de l'électronique analogique, construite par des
ingénieurs sous ses indications. Un exemplaire existe encore à Belfort,
l'autre a été "perdu" par le musée du cinéma/Langlois à paris... Avec
ce synthé video, ancètre des logiciels de VJ, il donne un spectacle de
VJaying de 20 minutes à 20H, en direct sur la chaine noir et blanc,
tellement bizarre pour la France de l'époque, que des milliers de
personnes se plaindront des effets ( maux de tetes, vertiges etc,
qu'ils croyaient ressentir) et iront même apporter leur tv à réparer le
lendemain....c'était l'apogée de ses travaux sur la video temps réel,
et c'était en 1961.
La Belgique possède un ensemble majeur de Schöffer, à Liège, une
tour cybernétique de 52 mètres de haut, agissant sur couleurs et
miroirs après traitements temps réel des signaux des capteurs. La tour
réagissait aux passage des piétons sur les ponts de la Meuse à
proximité, aux passages des péniches, et Schöffer avait même placés des
capteurs à l'héliport tout proche, afin d'ajouter encore un paramètre
aux autres captations temps réel en espace public.
Enfin, toujours à Liège et par Schoffer un mur lumière de 80 mètres de
long sur 13 mètres de haut, sonorisé, activé par un système programmé
et un système interactif, qui donnait une représentation graphique et
audio simultanée digne des meilleurs travaux de la scène de ces
nouveaux musiciens-performeurs-demo-3D. C'était autre chose que du
1024x748, c'était en espace public, et cet ensemble commandé vers 1959
fût inauguré en 1961, et n'a plus été entretenu dans les années 70...
L'ensemble est aujourd'hui classé monument historique, et une
restauration aura lieu pour 2012 si les pouvoirs publics restent en
place et tiennent leur promesses, après trente années de demandes de
diverses associations et personalités, et trente années de
promesses...En Belgique comme ailleurs, ca fait des années que les
pouvoirs publics montrent une incompréhension de l'importance
historique de l'oeuvre de Schöffer (qui avait donc cinquante ans
d'avance), il est temps que les générations actuelles qui utilisent les
mêmes pratiques et esthétiques, même si le matériel a changé,
reconnaissent ses précurseurs et inventeurs.
Quelques liens:
http://www.olats.org/schoffer/
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Schöffer
La tour cybernétique de 1955:
http://www.artsens.org/cinquanteans.html
Jean-Noël Montagné
|
Jean Noel
I think you are very correct in pointing out the seminal and pioneering
role of Nicolas Schoffer, ( his archives are hosted on the
Leonardo/OLATS web site Pioneers and Pathbreakers project)
His performance in Marseille also gives his work a mediterranean context , in 1956 !!
Since YASMIN seeks to be grounded in the Mediterranean context, I would
be very interested in YASMINER comments on the roles of artists and
cyberneticians in other mediterranean countries.
I would particularly like to point out the work of Vladimir Bonacic, shown in Zagreb in 1968:
http://aminima.net/wp/?p=859&language=en
see also
April 2008, Vol. 41, No. 2, Pages 175-183
Posted Online March 27, 2008.
(doi:10.1162/leon.2008.41.2.175)
Vladimir Bonačić: Computer-Generated Works Made within Zagreb's New Tendencies Network (1961–1973)
Darko Fritz
Darko Fritz (artist, curator, researcher), Jacob van Lennepstraat 349 /
2, 1053 JL Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Ul. Giunio 11, 20260 Korčula,
Croatia. E-mail: darko@darkofritz.net.
PDF (10,479.421 KB) PDF Plus (308.743 KB)
ABSTRACT
Scientist Vladimir Bonačić began his artistic career in 1968 under the
auspices of the international New Tendencies movement (NT). From 1968
to 1971 Bonačić created a series of “dynamic objects”—interactive
computer-generated light installations, five of which were set up in
public spaces. The author shows the context of Bonačić's work within
the Zagreb cultural environment dominated by the New Tendencies
movement and network (1961–1973). The paper shows his theoretical and
practical criticism of the use of randomness in computer-generated art
and describes his working methods as combining the algebra of Galois
fields and an anti-commercial approach with custom-made hardware. It
seems that Bonačić's work fulfills and develops Matko Meštrović's
proposition that “in order to enrich that which is human, art must
start to penetrate the extra-poetic and the extra-human.”
Roger Malina |
I find the claim that
all artworks that employ ‘sensors and real time technologies’ are
‘cybernetic’ rather extreme. To my mind cybernetics represents a
world-view. It presupposes that the relations between things, whether
internal or external, biological or inorganic, are of a certain ilk and
governed by certain rules. It is, in short, a philosophical proposition
arising at an historical juncture and within a particular social
context.
Without wishing to go into an analysis of the historical and social
dependencies of cybernetics (surely a potentially fruitful but also
laborious undertaking) I think I am on safe ground if I argue that
there are many artists, contemporary and historical, who work(ed) with
sensors and real-time systems, who would argue that a cybernetic
interpretation of their works cannot allow a full or, in many cases,
meaningful apprehension of their art. It could be argued that to define
interactive and generative artworks (which I would understand many
real-time and sensor based artworks to most likely to be) as belonging
to a particular ilk or area of artistic practice would be to ignore the
rich diversity of creative practices and intentions found amongst
artists engaging these technologies and thus rather reductive. I can
think of numerous examples of such artworks that are as philosophically
and ideologically alien to one another as many conventional artworks
are. Given that cybernetics is a world-view predicated on a
philosophical position and dependent on an ideological framework (as
everything of human invention is) I cannot see how it could ever be
employed as a catch-all foundation for interpreting artistic practices
emerging from such diverse social and cultural contexts, regardless of
technical means.
Conversely, to limit cybernetics to such a narrow definition only
serves to ensure that as a functioning set of principles it will remain
largely of historical interest. In this sense Jean-Noël Montagné seems
to not be serving his own arguments well. If cybernetics is to be seen
to have contemporary and lasting value as an analytical tool and
narrative platform it needs to be proposed in a manner that is not
fixed and dogmatic but open to interpretation and adaption. Like all
ideas, it will flourish if it evolves and adapts to different
approaches and applications.
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
From: jnm <jnm@craslab.org>
Reply-To: YASMIN-messages <yasmin@estia.media.uoa.gr>
Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:43:13 +0300
To: YASMIN-messages <yasmin@estia.media.uoa.gr>
Subject: [YASMIN-msg] Birthday event of art and cybernetics in 1954, not 1968.
Works with interactive systems have never stopped to progress. All
hundred thousand interactive artworks created using sensors and real
time technologies since the fifties ARE cybernetic works. Of course,
the name of cybernetic art is almost dead, replaced by "interactive",
or "real time", but the concepts emmitted since the pionners like
Schöffer have always been the same. Only the technologies, the tools,
(interfaces, calculation, interconnections( presence of the web) have
changed.
Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201
|
Ranulph
I openened a FACEBOOK for Cybernetics Redux also
http://www.new.facebook.com/event.php?eid=71923825014
Roger |
Good start of discussion! Thanks to all.
Here is my comment.
The role of individual artists in bringing cybernetics in art is very
important. Say, Gordon Pask started experimenting with Musicolor
machine in early 50s (Ranulph will correct me if I am wrong that it was
early cybernetic art).
But what is special about Cybernetic Serendipity and its hictorical
meaning that is institutional attempt to legitimize new art in its
totality from music to animations, from performance to poetry.
This institutional context is very important. And of course it is
broader than just CS`69. 9 evenings happend in US 3 years before, Bense
group in Germany made some seriouse steps...
But CS became a key historical event and it is interesting how it succeded in legitimizing new art.
Next question brings us to aesthetic dimensions of early cybernetic
art. Was cybernetics a part of the modernist avanguard revival in art?
I am personaly more and more about to give "yes" answer. Would be
interesting to discuss this topic.
BTW do we have CS participant artists on the list? Charles Csuri,
Manfred Mohr... Would be great to have their historical perspective...
Dmitry Galkin
Lancaster Univ. honorary research fellow
Tomsk State Univ. professor |
greetings from Stephen Jones
I'm in Australia (about as far from the Mediterranean as you can get. I
trained in Systems Theory in the early 1970s and I've been using it
ever since, mostly in video art but also electronic engineering and in
consciousness studies. These days I'm mostly involved with uncovering
the history of electronic art in Australia.
Regarding precedence [Montagné and others]
it’s really rather irrelevant, given that:
1. the natural world got it sorted out several billion years ago with
the beginnings of biochemistry, followed by the very long time-base
cybernetics of random mutation and its consequent selection for or
against by the current conditions of the environment,
2. the development of language (whenever that really was) and the
feedback structures by which conversation ensues (of course well
delineated by Gordon Pask). Experience and its consequent knowledge
follows naturally through the feedback of “this action worked but that
action got me into serious trouble”,
3. the flour millers of (when: the 13th century?) who controlled their
grinding speed by a ball governor; and did the aqueducts have taps or
valves?
4. the scientific method: as in its testing of an hypothesis by
experiment with the subsequent modification of the hypothesis (Francis
Bacon: Novum Organum)
5. the appropriation of the ball governor into controlling steam engines by Watt.
6. Ampere comes somewhere in here
7. the use of the telegraph in regulating the trains in Victorian
England and all the precursors to that, eg the French military and the
heliograph.
8. Clerk Maxwell’s detailing of the maths in his “On Governors”
9. analogue computing engines, Norbert Wiener, and the Whitney Brothers who began making art with these things
10. If we came across Ashby’s Homeostat [published 1952] now, we’d think it was a great piece.
11. likewise Grey Walter’s tortoise, [published 1953]
There’s probably a bunch of others that belong here, but you’ll be getting my drift.
If an artwork or anything else is going to be cybernetic, then:
1. It has to generate something that something else outside of its boundary is set up to recognise.
2. That external thing has to actually execute the act of recognition.
3. It then has to generate a response in a form [“language”] that the first (originating) entity is set up to recognise, and
4. Modulate its behaviour in some way that may, or may not, set the
process spinning, ie establish the loop, or get the conversation going
(Pask again).
Thus:
Artworks that are activated by a sensor’s indication that someone has
entered the room are not, strictly, cybernetic even though they
respond.
If they then modulate their behaviour in some way that prompts the viewer to respond further then the loop starts.
The circular flow of “information” (Mackay information as distinct from Shannon information) is essential.
[Shannon information is difference
[Bateson information is the difference that makes a difference
[Mackay information is difference that not only makes a difference but
is of some significance to the difference detecting agency (okay that
is a pretty diffuse distinction)
So the upshot at this point is that, to me, we are talking about two areas:
one would be what Burnham did a fine job of discussing with his systems
aesthetics and is covered via Schoffer and Cybernetic Serendipity etc.
Thus my version of the cybernetics of an artwork, set out above
and
the other is what I call “systems in the production of artworks” and is
a discussion of the collaborative process itself (where that
collaboration is recognised as not being simply between the artist and
the tech but involves the culture and its institutions and the
cybernetic consequences of putting an artwork into the public space
(which is not dissimilar to the effects of publishing a book). |
This message marks the official start of the Cybernetic Serendipity Redux (CSR) on line discussion.
Although there is a list of named discussants, everyone is invited to
take part. The discussants are merely those who, in advance, have
committed to maintaining a presence.
I thought it would be interesting to begin our discussions by returning
to Jasia Reichart, the originator of Cybernetic Serendipity. As I said
in the announcement, this exhibition can be said to mark the arrival of
the intersection of cybernetics, art and computation. As Jean Noel
points out, this does not make it the occasion of the first cybernetic
art. As Stephen (Jones) points out, we could take that back as far as
we like. The point is not to squabble about precedence, but to look
forward. To that end, I asked Jasia to write what may be thought of as
a call for art works for a new Cybernetic Serendipity: a CSR.
The original exhibition had no such call, so Jasia has constructed one,
and an extension for now. I think it gives us a really interesting
place to begin from, and hope you will agree by joining in discussion.
Here's her note (the original was in colour and I'll see if I can get
it to you):
CYBERNETIC SERENDIPITY REDUX
Ranulph Glanville sent me the following question:
How would one set about making a new Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition today, forty years after the first one?
In 1968, Cybernetic Serendipity aimed to show works of art engendered
by technology: systems that were random and/or depended on feedback.
The exhibition was divided into three sections:
1. Computer-generated graphics, computer-animated films,
computer-composed and –played music, and computer poems and texts.
2. Cybernetic devices as works of art, cybernetic environments, remote-control robots and painting machines.
3. Machines demonstrating the uses of computers and an environment dealing with the history of cybernetics.
The exhibition made two main points:
1. that new media alter the character and the shape of art, music, and literature
2. that new media bring with them new artists, musicians and writers, and that they also happen to be scientists and engineers.
Today's Cybernetic Serendipity would have to tackle a new area of art
that poses even more questions and presents perhaps even more
possibilities than the exhibition of 1968. Today one would look for
organic computing systems, invisible computing systems, and genetic
algorithms that can create art. One would look for independent,
autonomous devices, as capricious, competitive and ambitious as human
beings, whose behaviour could not be anticipated by us and whose works
of art we may not even recognize. It is not an easy project and it
isn't too early to start.
The discussion will be moderated by three of us: Paul Brown, Paul
Pangaro, and me. There will be times in the 4 weeks that we run when
one or two of us will be offline, but there will always be one of us to
effect moderation.
Before I close this opening message, I should like to thank Roger and Julien, and the team at Yasmin, for making this possible.
Let the (positive?) feedback begin!
Ranulph |
Ranulph
Jasia incites us to re imagine cybernetics serendipity in 2008 with her statement:
"Today one would look for organic computing systems, invisible computing systems, and genetic algorithms that can create art. "
This opens up several areas of questioning:
i) interface of computers to organic systems
ii) the whole area of artificial life
iii) the area of complexity theory
one area of interest relevant to complexity theory is Stuart Kauffman's latest book " Re inventing the sacred"
He makes some interesting points about the way that complex systems are
fundamentally unpredictable, even if all the the mechanisms rely on
physics, biology and chemistry that can be explained in closed form.
he specifically discusses the way that evolution has taken place on earth, and the development of social systems as examples.
These take us quite far from the "classic" definition of cybernetics,
and challenges the fundamental idea of prediction as a characteristic
of scientific explanation = but as argued by Jasia = the issue of
randomness and stochasticity is fundamental to cybernetics
roger |
Dimitry
You ask: " Was cybernetics a part of the modernist avanguard revival in
art? I am personaly more and more about to give "yes" answer."
My answer i think is , no.
I dont think most of the artists in Cybernetics Serendipity can be
usefully be contextualised in the context of modernism or its revival.
There is a different history to be written that acknowledges other
influences and motivations, that links many other technological art
movements, exploring both generative/autonomous art works and
human/machine issues.
A number of us have been developing some of these histories as part of
the Re:Fresh conference in Banff, Re:Place in Berlin and the
forthcoming Re:Live conference to be held in Melbourne in november
2009. This would be a good conference to present papers about the
history linking cybernetics and art:
http://www.mediaarthistory.org/
Artists like the Whitneys and Frieder Nake to name two of the artists
in Cybernetics draw on other sources that connect a long history of
experimental art and film making. Frank Popper in his book "From
Technological Art to Virtual Art" dvelops some of these, as does Oliver
Grau i "Virtual Art" both in the Leonardo Book Series .
roger
|
Ranulph,
Roger's posting suggests a broad framing of potential discussion which
is supported by this passage from introduction to Norbert Wiener's "The
Human Use of Human Beings":
We have seen in this chapter the fundamental unity of a complex of
ideas which until recently had not been sufficiently associated with
one another, namely, the contingent view of physics that Gibbs
introduced as a modification of the traditional, Newtonian conventions,
the Augustinian attitude toward order and conduct which is demanded by
this view, and the theory of the message among men, machines and in
society, as a sequence of events in time which, though itself has a
certain contingency, strives to hold back nature's tendency toward
disorder by adjusting its parts to various purposive ends."
The phrase "adjusting its parts to various purposive ends" must be
terribly seductive to your garden variety creationist, but for those
secularists among us it inspires questions regarding the emergence of
consciousness against a background of entropy. Arguably, rethinking
cynbernetics is a humanistic project that encompasses the concerns of a
philosophy of science, the social, the moral and the all too human.
With this I add the trans or post human.
The original exhibition included cybernetic environments and remote
control robots. So it seems natural to invoke Kevin Warwick's research
with monkey and rodent neurons in a dish serving as the Wienerian
"steersmen" of remote controlled wheeled robots. As noted in some
reports the neurons spontaneously (serendipitously?) formed
connections. Communication and feedback and the inevitable moral
objections, concerns and fears are intrinsic to the enterprise.
Gregory P. Garvey, Professor
Department of Computer Science and Interactive Digital Design
CLA 1-316 Mail Drop: CL-AC1
Quinnipiac University
275 Mount Carmel Avenue
Hamden, CT 06518
email: greg.garvey@quinnipiac.edu
tel: 203-582-8389
________________________________________
From: rmalina [rmalina@prontomail.com]
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2008 8:28 AM
To: YASMIN-messages
Subject: Re: [YASMIN-msg] Cybernetics Serendipity Redux
Ranulph
Jasia incites us to re imagine cybernetics serendipity in 2008 with her statement:
"Today one would look for organic computing systems, invisible computing systems, and genetic algorithms that can create art. "
This opens up several areas of questioning:
i) interface of computers to organic systems
ii) the whole area of artificial life
iii) the area of complexity theory
one area of interest relevant to complexity theory is Stuart Kauffman's latest book " Re inventing the sacred"
He makes some interesting points about the way that complex systems are
fundamentally unpredictable, even if all the the mechanisms rely on
physics, biology and chemistry that can be explained in closed form.
he specifically discusses the way that evolution has taken place on earth, and the development of social systems as examples.
These take us quite far from the "classic" definition of cybernetics,
and challenges the fundamental idea of prediction as a characteristic
of scientific explanation = but as argued by Jasia = the issue of
randomness and stochasticity is fundamental to cybernetics
roger
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Dear all,
As new subscriber to Yasmin, I was asked to introduce myself to the
list and describe my activities. My name is Martijn Stellingwerff, I’m
researcher and teacher at the Faculty of Architecture, TU Delft, the
Netherlands. My continuing search focuses on creative processes, design
methods and media that break open cyclical thinking. In my PhD research
I looked at ‘virtual context’ and introduced a method of virtual walks
and talks between invited architects and, me, the participating
observer. (O, and I like many Mediteranian countries! :-)
The idea of a Cybernetics Serendipity Redux sounds very attractive to
me, not just to visit the actual exhibition, but also for the answers
it could give about new insights from the past 40 years. Therefore I
like this discussion very much!
I’m exited about Jasia Reichart’s extension of the exhibition call:
“Today's Cybernetic Serendipity would have to tackle a new area of art
that poses even more questions and presents perhaps even more
possibilities than the exhibition of 1968. Today one would look for
organic computing systems, invisible computing systems, and genetic
algorithms that can create art. One would look for independent,
autonomous devices, as capricious, competitive and ambitious as human
beings, whose behaviour could not be anticipated by us and whose works
of art we may not even recognize. It is not an easy project and it
isn't too early to start.”
However, I have many questions regarding the fundamental new understandings of CS. Here are three initial questions:
1. If you take away the bells and whistles, would there be really new
cybernetic mechanisms behind nowadays participating works of art?
2. Would the contemporary visitor see the exhibition from 1968 as ‘old
stuff’ and too transparent in its concepts (because we are nowadays
constantly overwhelmed with new interactive surprises)?
3. If the works of art of autonomous devices might become unrecognizable, what’s than left for the observer’s serendipity?
And my final question, for now, is kind of a superposition of the
previous three questions: Was the work of the 1968 artists educative to
the visitor, while nowadays artists would try more to really let their
work become autonomous and impalpable? Or is the only difference in 40
years that it all becomes more complex?
Kind regards,
Martijn Stellingwerff
Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture
Form & Modeling Studies / CAMlab
|
YASMINERS
there is a parrallel discussion on CYBERNETICS SERENDIPITY REDUX going on the New Media Curating List
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=new-media-curating
The question was raised about the fact that most of the artists showing
in cybernetics serendipity in 1968 were men, as indeed is the group of
discussants named to lead this discussion on YASMIN
here are some excerpts
Well, yes, one can be light-hearted in response, but the fact remains that
the only woman formally involved in the discussion is the same one who
curated the original event... I for one would like to have believed that her
involvement in the mid-60's may have led to greater input by women into the
field a full two generations later. Sadly it appears not.
Cheers
Vicki
On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 4:43 AM, Paul Brown <paul@paul-brown.com> wrote:
Regarding Cybernetic Serendipity at least one woman exhibited there.
Margaret Masterman (with Robin McKinnon-Wood) of the Cambridge Language
Research Unit showed their "Computerised Haiku".
http://www.in-vacua.com/haiku.html
http://www.chart.ac.uk/chart2004/papers/clements.html
-there's more - Google "Computerised Haiku"
I was under the impression that Vera Molnar also was there but looking
through her Bio see that she only began doing computer-based work in 1968 -
so possibly was too late to be included?
The gender issue has been an ongoing part of the computational arts debate
since it's earliest days. Brenda Laurel has been a commentator:
http://www.tauzero.com/Brenda_Laurel/
Best
Paul
I have had opportunities to discuss Cybernetic Serendipity with Jasia
in the past -- in 1968 the landscape of 'technological art' certainly
was different and there was a gender imbalance. The Feedback exhibition
co-curated by Jemima Rellie, Charlie Gere, and me for the Laboral Art
center last year tried to set up a larger historical narrative of teh
histories of new media art, including both works from Cybernetic
Serendipity (though not in working condition) and the 60s (Vera Molnar)
and connecting them to contemporary work by female and male artists:
http://www.laboralcentrodearte.org/feedback/index_001.html
Christiane |
I think that the Modernists living in CyberSpace today would be the
Transhumanist Extropians, who anticipate the Techno-Rapture
(02036 C.E. -- the latest predicted date I remember -- extrapolated from
Moore's Law.) The Techno-Rapture pre-supposes that technology is
intrinsically sound, unlimited and a positive social force. This is a
Modernist-Futurist outlook. (As opposed to Postmodernism, which
supposes that Technology is intrinsically flawed and limited to
producing nothing but Dystopia.) Artists are quick to jump on the
latter bandwagon -- to do battle with the Military-Industrial Complex.
If one examines the history of Technology over the span of ten- or
twenty-thousand years, one might be tempted to form a different
opinion. -Stewart
http://www.longnow.org
http://emsh.calarts.edu/~mathart/Clock_Cam.html
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Stewart+Dickson
http://www.isl.uiuc.edu/~sdickson
rmalina wrote:
> Dimitry
>
> You ask: " Was cybernetics a part of the modernist avanguard
revival in art? I am personaly more and more about to give "yes"
answer."
>
> My answer i think is , no.
>
> I dont think most of the artists in Cybernetics Serendipity can be
usefully be contextualised in the context of modernism or its revival.
There is a different history to be written that acknowledges other
influences and motivations, that links many other technological art
movements, exploring both generative/autonomous art works and
human/machine issues.
>
> A number of us have been developing some of these histories as
part of the Re:Fresh conference in Banff, Re:Place in Berlin and the
forthcoming Re:Live conference to be held in Melbourne in november
2009. This would be a good conference to present papers about the
history linking cybernetics and art:
>
> http://www.mediaarthistory.org/
>
> Artists like the Whitneys and Frieder Nake to name two of the
artists in Cybernetics draw on other sources that connect a long
history of experimental art and film making. Frank Popper in his book
"From Technological Art to Virtual Art" dvelops some of these, as does
Oliver Grau i "Virtual Art" both in the Leonardo Book Series .
>
> roger
>
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> To unsubscribe: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin/unsubs.php?lid=1
>
> |
I recently re-read David Rosenboom's "Biofeedback and the Arts: Results
of Early Experiments" (1975)
http://music.calarts.edu/~david/writings/books.html
What struck me is that this was a *vision* of cybernetics at the level
of analog computers.
The 1960's were a time of optimistic futurism.
It occurs to me that only now has the technology matured sufficiently to
seriously consider implementing some of the dreams which were written of
in the 1960's. See Bruce Sterling's "Dead Media Project" for more
examples. http://www.deadmedia.org/notes
-Stewart http://us.imdb.com/Name?Stewart+Dickson
http://www.isl.uiuc.edu/~sdickson
Visualization Research Programmer, Integrated Systems Laboratory
4355 Beckman Institute, 405 N Mathews Ave., Urbana, IL 61801 USA
+1(217)333-3923
http://emsh.calarts.edu/~mathart/MathArt_siteMap.html
m.c.stellingwerff wrote:
> ...
> 2. Would the contemporary visitor see the exhibition from 1968 as
‘old stuff’ and too transparent in its concepts (because we are
nowadays constantly overwhelmed with new interactive surprises)
... |
Roger,
thanks for your comment on non-modernist nature of early computer art
and CS. I wouldnt agree simply because there are alot of direct links
to Modernism in cybernetic art from Bill Kluver and John Cage to the
most important aesthetic issues we just started to discuss. I mean 1st
of all nature of randomness and chaos in art wich was a milestone
avanguard experiments. Cybernetics itself seems to be a modernist
project in many senses...
And if Oliver Grau or Frank Popper dont make point on Modernism in art
and technology with careful observation, Steve Dixon and Margot Lovejoy
do, not to mention Lev Manovich.
So I wouldnt insit that Modernism is the only source of cybernetic
aesthetics. Not at all. But its influence and proportion of it would be
interesting to examine.
And conference information is very useful. Thanks alot! |
Reichart via Malina: interface of computers to organic systems
Stellingwerff: would there be really new cybernetic mechanisms behind nowadays participating works of art?
It seems to me that interactivity is what we are looking for, in some
sense we are intending to re-invent the wheel by bringing technological
machines into the realm of that already very well established class of
biological machines known as organisms. In a sense Wiener (via Garvey)
is wrong: nature does not tend towards disorder but is self-organising
by using energy to maintain itself so that it doesn’t break the rules,
and it has no knowable purpose other than to sustain itself. So
defining some terms so that we do understand what cybernetics is (I
hope you will forgive the lecture):
In interaction the focus is on the quality of the relations between
entities. However, without an understanding of how interaction develops
at the most fundamental levels of biology we may fail to develop a
useful understanding of what is required when it comes to that goal:
which is to develop a comfortable and conversational means of
communicating with machines/artworks as they become intelligent and
adaptive, and approach the degree of organisation of an organism. In
this, the analysis of interaction among organisms applies in deeply
similar ways to the analysis of interaction in HCI, Artificial Life and
Art.
Apart from self-reproduction there is one thing that characterises a
living organism and that is its capacity to interact with, and through
that interaction, adapt to its environment. Interaction, when seen at
its most basic level, is fundamental to life. So, here I want to
establish the structural relations among organismic processes that
underlie interaction and which must be understood if we are going to
produce satisfying interactive artworks.
1. Organisms
An organism is any thing which metabolises energy to maintain its
integrity (its organisation) within an environment, to gather and
process information about its environment, and to permit its
reproduction. I refer to the single-celled organism as the lowest level
of organisation that is worth considering here. Everything that is in
some sense other to (ie, not) the organism is its environment.
An organism's capacity to adapt to changes in its environment is
essential to its maintenance and its reproduction. Thus its adaptive
capacity is tested by its capacity to use the resources in its DNA and
its stored experience to handle day-to-day changes. But to “know”, in
any sense, about those changes it must be able to sense its environment
and effect internal changes that accommodate those sensed changes. It
will also effect changes to its environment through excreting the waste
products of its metabolism and otherwise secreting chemical and
behavioural signals. Structurally, these processes are fundamental to
interaction.
The capacity to adapt both requires and supports autonomy, so that an
organism can behave independently of other organisms, survive on its
own and enact its own decisions. An organism's autonomy requires
internal feedback relations in which aspects of the internal system can
emphasise the regulation of their local environment in intentional
ways. When this spreads outside the organism's boundaries you get
social environments in which organisms communicate, sense and have
intentionality and from this comes interaction.
2. Environment
An environment is the container in which an organism operates. There
will generally be a number of organisms of varying types operating in
an environment. An environment carries other contents such as food and
metabolic products, or the cultural productions of organisms living in
it. Thus an environment is all other organisms and the physical,
social, and cultural context that constitute the experiential space of
an organism for any interval. Only the most sterile of environments are
entirely passive or neutral; therefore interaction, and its corollary:
adaptability, are necessary for any entity that has to survive in an
environment. To any organism its environment is “active” when other
organisms interact with it by competing with it for resources, or
generating outputs into the environment which may or may not be useful
to it. This is what happens within biological ecosystems. Thus for an
adaptive organism, an active environment causes changes in the organism.
3. Behaviours
At an abstract level there are two modes of action that organisms and
adaptive devices exhibit. The first mode is uni-directional, where the
action is either from the entity onto its environment or from the
environment onto the entity - we might think of this as using something
in the environment for some purpose particular to the organism, or of
being used by the environment for some purpose particular to it. From
the point of view of the organism this might be described as inputting
or ingesting something and outputting or excreting something. The
second mode is bi-directional, in which the action is from the entity
onto its environment and back from the environment onto the entity as a
continuous [Markov] chain of process. From the point of view of the
entity, the outputting begets an inputting. In this case we would
normally think of the environment as responding to the entity's output,
or that there is an interaction between what are really two entities in
an environment.
The difference between these two modes is that in the uni-directional
the environment doesn't actively respond. It is the bi-directional mode
of reciprocal actions which is usually defined as interaction, and it
is the nature of this reciprocal action that I consider here.
Nevertheless there are conditions when the environment doesn't respond
which are also interactions.
Distinct from the directional modes of action, there are two types of
actions possible between the environment and an organism residing in
that environment. These are:
1. Outputs: anything produced by an organism into its environment, such
as biochemical by-products of “metabolic” processes excreted as waste,
or chemicals and behaviours that function as signals actively secreted
for purposes of probing the environment for useful information or for
the development of communications with another entity. Effectively,
molecular processes are a very low-level layer of behavioural processes.
2. Inputs: organisms of any autonomy will need food and energy
resources which they will intake upon recognition. If they have any
sensory input then they will input information of some sort from, and
thereby about, their environment. This may be information about food,
other organisms in the environment or any other environmental content
that the organism has the wherewithal to sense. Again these inputs may
be entirely behavioural as well as molecular.
Thus the most basic form of behaviour is a uni-directional process
which is either an outputting or an inputting where there is no
immediate link between the two. It is when the output becomes an input
for some other entity that bi-directional processes become possible.
Now as outputting (eg, waste excretion) and inputting (eg, feeding) are
both necessary functions for any system that is organised they are also
necessary to maintain the organisation of the entity when that is in
even a little-way-from-equilibrium condition (which it must be by
virtue of being organised). So it is obvious that an entity is going to
naturally be in an interacting mode at all times. Should it cease to be
so then it joins the ranks of the non-living. Interaction is what we
do. It is the means by which we are in the world.
4. Information and Sensing
Ultimately, for the purposes of any autonomous organism it is the
processing of information that is the primary motive in sensing the
organism's context and in the organism's engaging in communication.
Information can be defined in several ways
- as difference relations (or syntactical information, Shannon, 1949)
- as significance (or meaning, Mackay, 1969), or
- as the difference that is significant (Bateson, 1973).
For my purposes here, information is what is carried in those
physically embodied difference relations recognised by an organism or
any organised, adaptive device within the context of some environment.
In other words I refer to information that is experienced. This concept
of information is derived from Bateson where, in the environment of the
"organism", it is news of a difference (Shannon information) and within
the "living" system it is the difference which makes a difference
(Bateson, 1973). I suggest meaning has its basis in the biological
significance of an item of information.
The primary action by which an organism develops any experience of,
information about or knowledge regarding its environment is through a
sensory process and the primary way of having any effect on the
environment is through the output of some kind of (by)product. These
are basic steps in interaction between the organism and its
environment. When other organisms in the environment respond to that
output as though it were a signal then communication starts. Sensing,
communication and the appearance of intentionality are basic abstract
processes which all organisms engage when they have any relations
whatsoever to their environs, and they are the basic mechanisms of
Interaction. I define sensing and communications as follows:
- Sensing amounts to an organism's capacity to observe difference
relations in its context and to carry out such transforms of those
differences as to make them available as usable information about that
context.
- Communication begins with putting a probe into the context in order
to elicit a sensible response from that context. When sensible to
another entity, which may or may not respond, a communication between
organisms can occur.
Intentionality may then be said to appear when the sensory or
communicative act is produced in the "direction" of an object in the
environment for the specific purpose of eliciting information from or
about that object. Intentional communication brings with it a common
focus of attention, and can be thought of as effective when it
establishes a useful transfer of meaning between organisms. In the
process, supposing the initial outputting was more than simply
artefactual, the intentionality that was initially an enaction of
search, transforms into the intentionality that is the enaction of
communication and here lie the acts that generate an interaction.
5. Communication /Interaction
Now there are two kinds of model interactions to consider here. [and here lies the paydirt.]
1. is the conversation model in which two entities engage in the
constructive exchange of signals through reciprocal loops of feedback,
and
2. is an adaptive model by which an organism or a device is enabled to
adapt to its environment so that its interaction with that environment
is appropriate to its needs under varying environmental conditions.
That conversation consists in a constructive sequence of signals simply
means that at each turn of the exchange there is some addition of
meaning-value. A “signal” is any output from an entity which is a
function of the behaviour of that entity in the world. The signal has
to be expressed into the environment and if any interaction is going to
occur it has to remain there long enough for it to have some effect on
the environment. If the signal has some sort of significance to another
entity in the environment then it may be perceived and interpreted as
some kind of meaningful expression being made by the initiating entity.
If this receiving entity then responds with a signal expressed in a
similar sensory form then presumably the initiating entity will
recognise it and may then construct a further response that refers not
only to the returned response but also to the initial expression. If
neither of these - the possession of significance and the “sensible”
response - happens then the interaction cannot be considered a
conversation. But if they do, then the conversation begins, this is the
cybernetic, and in Pask’s framework some other “thing” appears which is
the coupling, or third “fact”, that which we call the conversation.
Interestingly it will be, if only momentarily, autopoietic: a
self-sustaining, self-constructing structural coupling.
6. Interface
Peter Weibel reminds us that:
“The world
interpreted as observer relative and as interface … changes as our
interfaces do. The boundaries of the world are the boundaries of our
interface. We do not interact with the world - only with the interface
to the world.” (Weibel, 1996)
An interface is the medium of the communication. It is, from one view,
that part of the environment which forms the channel that carries
information between the current state-indicating surfaces of the
entities engaged in the interaction. From another view the channel is
the combination of the actors, the environment and the coding of
meaning engendered by the actors in the process. In the former view we
speak of a channel for Shannon information, in the latter we speak of
MacKay information or meaning.
The interface channel is activated between two surfaces, which may be
the faces of the people involved in a conversation or the control
surfaces of pieces of equipment that one might be using. It is the
medium by which one's intentions towards another are presented, or the
means by which one controls a piece of equipment. The finite
limitations of a channel act as a filter placing constraints (perhaps
in signal-to-noise ratio, perhaps in range of signification) on the
information flow through it. So an interface is
- that which operates between us and the object of our intentions,
- the medium by which we convey those intentions,
and most importantly it is
- the means by which we gain feedback from the object of our intentions
so that we can continue to operate successfully with it.
From our point of view, the function of the interface is to immerse the
organism, interacting with some object to which the interface belongs,
into a context defined by the object's functions, thus giving the
object presence for its user. This also applies particularly in the
discussion of artworks. An “object” here simply means some “object of
perception” because people also carry interfaces, as the very word
itself implies.
It is through this kind of construction that we will get to the
Intentional Artwork and it is that which would, to me, be the most
interesting new Cybernetic Serendipity.
cheers and apologies for taking up so much of your time
Stephen Jones |
Having missed the start of this discussion, I find it a bit hard to enter the discussion with an intent to progress.
One point of pure factual data may be that Manfred Mohr and Vera Molnar
as two of the most important artists in algorithmic art ("computer
art") were definitely not represented at Cybernetic Serendipity. By the
time of the show, they began to use computers.
One interesting aspect of the 1968 exhibition for me was the meeting of
those two paths of using advanced technology in order to create works
that might contribute to the world of art: cybernetic sculptures and
pseudo-random drawings.
Both, of course, depended on algorithms. The sculptures were flashy,
and funny, and exciting in their behaviors. They pointed to
interactivity and performativity as paradigms of digital art and media.
The drawings were humble, and shy, and sort of boring. They pointed at
computability as paradigm of digital art and media.
The show, perhaps without being consciously aware of it, became a
manifestation of the event character of what later was called digital
media. The excitement generated by the interactive sculptures sensing
something in their environments that they then reacted to with
movements, was balanced by the mental movements of those artists who
used their brains to prescribe algorithms that were later called
"classes".
The sculptures were single pieces, expensive and fragile: insofar
traditional art but in the form of modern technology. The drawings were
single pieces as well, old-fashioned in their appearance as framed
paper on the wall but early first pieces of a new principle: the
master-work disappeared into the class of instances.
Frieder Nake
--
Frieder Nake
Informatik, University of Bremen, Germany
T +49-421-218 3525 |
Dear Yasminers
if possible can you reply to this post for the cybernetics discussion,
of if you post include the same header as this email so that all our
discussion is in the same thread ? ( or post by coming to the web site
and posting directly in the hot topic)
I am reposting simons's response for convenience
some 400 people have already viewed the discussion so far in addition to the 500 getting the posts directly
it would be great if we could have more comment and inputs from people around the mediterranean
region !!
roger
s.biggs
At: 03.09.2008 11:10
Subject: Re: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] Fwd: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] Fwd: [OlatsNewsEnglish] Cybernetics Serendipity Redux
I think Roger has touched on two of the key issues why events like
Cybernetic Serendipity, 9 Evenings and Software marked the high-water
mark of certain artistic practices and social agendas rather than a
beginning.
The gender issue was important, as has already been discussed. Since
1968 the world has changed, in large part due to shifts in gender
politics.
Issues around colonial/post-colonial politics were equally important,
both within states and between them. This is still an active
determinant in our world and is a complex issue (I am completing a
paper that cites Ortiz’s work, which remains relevant today).
However, in a sense (and acutely aware I am not seen to be downplaying
what remain major social issues), these were not the key factors. They
can be regarded as part of the change rather than prescient or causal.
1968 was a turning point. It was the year that people began to move
away from optimistic expectations for the future to a far darker view
of where we were going. Paris 1968 was inspired by despair and fear,
not hope and renewal. The Vietnam war hung over everything like a
sickening stench. You could smell the moral decay effusing from the
elites of Washington, London, Paris and Moscow. They were without
vision, trapped in their cold-war manoeuvres, no longer certain why
they were at each other’s throats.
Another Yasmin member mentioned that people turned against technology
as they began to see it as a negative force. I don’t think it was as
simple or as shallow as that. People were aware of and responding to
something more fundamental. My impression, having grown to adulthood
during the decade that began in 68, was that people’s perception of
themselves, of people in general, shifted profoundly. There began to be
a general view that people were not very nice, that we were violent,
corrupt, selfish and abusive to our environment and to one another. The
politicians of the day didn’t help as they generally set a poor example
(they continue to set a bad example). I have always understood that
this change in world-view marked the shift from the Modern to that
which followed it (what has often been called post-modernism), even if
post-modern themes were evident a decade or more before. We should
remember that the term post-modern did not enter common parlance until
a decade after 1968, with Lyotard’s Post-Modern Condition (1979).
Artists both led the development of and reflected this zeitgeist. The
art of the decade or so after 68 was markedly different to that of the
period prior. It was darker, existentially pregnant with a sense of
absence. I am thinking minimalism and early performance/video
practices, such as Lucinda Childs and Vito Acconci, as well as artists
as diverse as Andre and Beuys. I am thinking of Pasolini and
Antonioni’s landscapes, Kubrick’s journey from 2001 to A Clockwork
Orange. It was an art that presented the human condition as
fundamentally flawed, that proposed we could not trust our own
instincts nor the social constraints that tamed them. It was bleak,
with people caught between a rock and a hard place. However, much of
the art of that time was beautiful in its elegance, simplicity and
simmering fear.
For artists who developed in the shadow of these opposing world-views
(I am one of that generation) it was confusing, to say the least. At
one extreme there was the positivist, humanist (Roger is right to cite
cybernetics as essentially a humanist paradigm) and perhaps naive
outlook of those artists associated with the art and technology
movement. At the other there was the doom-laden nihilist moaning’s of
those artists who thought we were at the ‘end of time’. Most artists
worked somewhere along this spectrum, but this was the spectrum they
had to work with. Some emerging artists sought to broker a compromise
between the two positions, others chose a side – many chose to ignore
the debate altogether and pursue highly personal agendas instead. To
some degree all these positions came to fruition in the 1980’s, which
was such a pluralist decade.
I am still digesting the 90’s...
A discussion of Cybernetic Serendipity might benefit from engaging the
social context within which the show was mounted and the developments
that came after. Art is meaningless, decoration for our museums,
without an understanding of the context within which it was made and a
reasonable knowledge of the history around it. It would be good to hear
some of the personal reminiscences of those involved with events such
as Cybernetic Serendipity, especially as concerns how they perceived
the social developments of the time and how these impacted on their art
and ideas. This is the history that has not been told but one many of
us share, if only as a legacy.
Somebody also mentioned that in the States (and elsewhere) Cybernetic
Serendipity was not as high profile as it seemed in the UK, citing
other events (and Burnham) as key. It would be good to hear from those
who were involved in these other initiatives too, partly to place
Cybernetic Serendipity within its context and to gain a better
understanding of how similar dynamics were encountered and managed in
different contexts.
2008 is the fortieth anniversary of lot’s of things.
Regards
Simon
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
From: roger malina <rmalina@ALUM.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: roger malina <rmalina@ALUM.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2008 10:25:17 -0700
To: <NEW-MEDIA-CURATING@JISCMAIL.AC.UK>
Subject: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] Fwd: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] Fwd: [OlatsNewsEnglish] Cybernetics Serendipity Redux
if cybernetics serendipity were re imagined today= hopefully the gender
balance
in exhibiting artists in 2008 would be improved compared to 1968= yet
cybernetics
i bet is a very male field today as it was in 1968
a parallel discussion would be relevant about the national origin of the
artists concerned !!
roger malina
Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201
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I am re posting this one also so it appears under the main cybernetics serendipity redux thread
frieder= i am trying to write a response to your
inflammatory statement:
""The sculptures were flashy, and funny, and exciting in their
behaviors. They pointed to interactivity and performativity as
paradigms of digital art and media. The drawings were humble, and shy,
and sort of boring. ""
roger
apologies for reposting= YASMIN will be moving
to a new system later this fall !!
At: 03.09.2008 11:40
Subject: CSR: a lot of thoughts, a lot of themes
Dear fellow participants,
It is interesting to see the themes that are emerging. They are not
what I had imagined, which, of course, is the advantage of discussion
and conversation! I'm going to pick out some themes that I see. ('m
sorry not to have done so earlier: my scheduling was not good.)
I think the most important theme for me is that of embodiment. Jasia's
initial statement is, to me, mainly concerned with (changes in)
embodiment. Embodiment, in the sense of the medium and material, is
central to art, and one way of talking about art as a progress is
through consideration of changes in medium and material. In contrast,
cybernetics is an abstraction and is essentially interested in form,
structure and process behind material. That's the generality that
Wiener, Rosenblueth and Bigelow, and the Macy Group (amongst others)
were seeking: they saw that there were mechanisms, patterns and
understandings that could be held in common between systems embodied in
different media and material: social, biological, physical, etc.
Cybernetics is, thus, one of those strange subjects that is also a
meta-subject (like maths and design). It is a subject that is used to
throw light on other subjects, but it is also a subject in its own
right. Recent developments have even used cybernetics to throw light on
the subject, cybernetics. So I see a really important difference here,
between the interest in the medium and material of embodiment, and the
abstraction; between the intentions in art and cybernetics.
This difference points to the second theme I see, which concerns what
cybernetics is. Questions of analogue and digital (to me it's an
accident which came first, and they represent a trade off: more
control, go digital; more variety, go analogue), for instance, or
Martijn's question concerning the same old cybernetics. It might be
that the development comes from changes in embodiment (art is a driver
for new forms of cybernetic devices); but it may also be that there are
new understandings in and of cybernetics. Perhaps we can examine this a
little later.
There is then the theme of connection and priority. There have been
several posts that indicate CS was not the beginning, and to my
knowledge it certainly wasn't. I think of it as a totemic point that
announced the arrival, meaning that it proclaimed: LOOK AT THIS FIELD.
To add to the precursors already mentioned, there is a wonderful
exhibition curated by Margit Rosen and Darko Fritz at ZKM in Karlsruhe
(I saw it on Monday) that presents masses of work around Bit and New
Tendencies (see�http://www02.zkm.de/bit/index.php?lang=en). I hope that resources related to this and other points will be posted on the ning site (http://cyberdesign.ning.com/).
Others are concerned with positioning cybernetic art. Perhaps the
question of how cybernetics fits with other subjects that are currently
much more successful, such as cognitive science and complexity studies
also belong here. I often think that people in those fields are still
messing around at the edges of what cybernetics did and does. For
instance, emergent behaviour in complex systems is an instance of the
old systems (and gestaltist psychology) motto "the whole is greater
than the sum of its parts".
I'm not sure it if helps to try to thematise, but I hope so. There is much promise, in my view, in all there themes.
Ranulph |
Raquel Paricio <info@evolvable.net>
to roger malina <RMALINA@alum.mit.edu>
date Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 11:58 PM
subject Cybernetics Serendipity Redux
hide details 11:58 PM (9 hours ago)
Reply
Roger, I have problems to send this message for the topic “Cybernetics Serendipity Redux”. Can you ad it for me, tks.
Raquel
Dear friends,
Answering at the question:
“what is new in cybernetics, and how can that inform art: and,
what is new in art, and how can that inform cybernetics.”? I would like
to show you my experience with our latest “Cybernetic piece” that
answers the main points pointed above by Jasia and Sthephen Jones.
Firts of all I’m going to introduce (even if I’m Yasminer since the
beginning of the project) myself.
I’m an artist and researcher on installations (physical
sculptures-robots-) that use bioinspired principles in the core of his
behaviours. I’m working with Juan Manuel Moreno Aróstegui, Engineer, at
Technical University of Catalunya (Spain). He has the main creator of
the “POEtic-tissue” an electronic tissue with bioinspired capabilities.
Inspired on this technology we are both creating spaces of perception
that adapt, evolve, learn...from the environment. Until now, I think,
similar behaviours has been created in software, but not in real
sculptures as we are doing.
After 4 years of research and production, we have created our first
installation or “system” called “POEtic-cubes”. I shortly can say that
this installation is composed by 9 autonomous robots able to
self-organize and to develop depending on the stimuli coming from the
environment. Every robot has some of the properties of a cell: they
divide, take the same DNA as the mother cell, and create an organism
that can change and evolve depending of its interaction with the
environment (in this case the people who interact with them). Shortly I
point out, that the installation shows the behaviours of the
Phylogenesy, Ontogenesy, Epigenesy, Emergency. All in order to create
an space that permits to the user expand his perception.
Currently it is being exhibited in La Laboral (Gijon, Spain) inside of the “Banquete” Exhibition.
This experiment, has created a lot of questions, as Sthephen Jones
pointed out previously about “collaboration systems”. We are just
starting to analyze things that are not strictly speaking of the piece,
but definily are part of them. In fact, there are a lot of things that
leads us to think that it is rather a laboratory product than a
exhibition as it is usually conceived.
We think that this is positive, since it sets new alternatives to
create-investigate-exhibit, but actually there is a lack of spaces
adapted to these needs.
You can find more information about the Project:
http://www.evolvable.net
http://leoalmanac.org/journal/Vol_15/lea_v15_n05_06/RParicioMArostegui.asp
R. Paricio & J.Manuel Moreno Arostegui. “A Cooperative Robotic
Platform for Adaptive and Immersive Artistic Installations”. Journal
title: Computers & Graphics. ELSEVIER. 2007.
doi:10.1016/j.cag.2007.08.002 |
I am convinced by Stephen's recent post. I
think that it has become more and more apparent that one of the central
concerns of cybernetics is interaction. I don't find it necessary to
use the sorts of arguments Stephen uses, in the sense that they are
very “received knowledge” based. I think you can argue without having
to make nearly so many assumptions, but that is another discussion.
Going back to really early cybernetic art, we have the legendary
MusiColour of Gordon Pask. This dates from the early 1950s. It is
clearly an interactive machine at a time when interaction was scarcely
on the menu. It was interactive in the sense that so much so called
interactive work is responsive and reactive rather than interactive.
For me, this is a key problem: that interaction as a term and concept
has been downgraded, or, rather, not very good work has been inflated
and upgraded by being called interactive.
I like to think of interaction as a shared behaviour in which at least
two participants behave together, with an outcome that surprises both:
interaction involves novelty, that which is of neither participant,
rather than choosing from a (possibly very large) set of pre-determined
options, where the response of one partner is determined by the other
partner. I fear that many so-called interactive systems are merely
responsive.
Where these systems behave together (interact) is what I call the
interface. I see most current interfaces as command interfaces: they
are designed for the issuing of commands (instructions) that anticipate
specified reactions, not for the openness of interaction, which
requires a space to be in rather than a surface to be on.
I am astonished at the difficulty we have with interfaces, at least in
our “normal” computers. They haven’t changed since PARC. So one
important contribution of artists is to build and explore different
interfaces that are both more involving and more truly sensory.
However, I still find that little that I come across is genuinely
interactive, in my sense. Of course, my sense of interaction is
necessarily collaborative—though perhaps not in quite the sense others
have meant?
What I am surprised about in our discussion is the lack of artists,
though I am very pleased to see Raquel joining in and even addressing
(quite by serendipity) some of these points.
Ranulph |
Of course, the discussion moves in different directions and is difficult to focus. But that's okay.
1. The question to start this discussion, is: "So what is new in
cybernetics, and how can that inform art: and, what is new in art, and
how can that inform cybernetics." Probably tough to answer. But to
speculate about the pair could be nice.
When people began writing algoritms and turning them into programs that
were then used to generate objects of color ond paper, and those
objects were meant as aesthetic objects, therefore brought to a
gallery, and put up on a wall - what they started was a revolution
whose impact we see today. There is virtually no image process anymore
that would not depend on algorithmic components.
Peter Weibel has called this the "Algorithmic Revolution", and an
exhibition at ZKM celebrated it (from late 2004 till early 2007). The
current "bit international. [Nove] Tendencije. Computers in Visual
Research Zagreb 1961-1973" exhibition at ZKM extends this. Parts of art
history are going to be re-written.
In all modesty, this started in 1965, had a first climax in 1968, went
into incubation for quite a while, and surfaced again with great power
and no resistance anymore in the mid 1990s.
So there is something new in art. In which way does it, or could it, inform cybernetics, I don't really know.
What is new? Painting from a distance, with the brain. Not being
interested in the individual piece so much, but in the abstract class
it belongs to. The representative (the individual object) of course
attracts all our attention. But it is now definitely, practically, in a
machinic way, caught in the dialectics of its class. Up to now this was
through interpretation, i.e. mentally.
2. There was also some remark about what started in 1968, wasn't there
much before? Yes, of course there was, and Ranulph has mentioned music.
Music as one of the time-based modes of art, and that mode that had
always relied on instruments of a highly technical nature, was, of
course, much more advanced in making all sorts of use of electronic
equipment. This state of affairs prevails till today. It should be
taken for granted. The context of this discussion would ask: what is
the particular relation between music and cybernetics (which may be
different from the relation between music and computers).
Taking "art" as restricted to the visual arts (drawing, Painting,
sculpture), 1968 was remarkable in so far as there were those two
European shows (London = event component of digital media, and Zagreb =
research component of digital media). And there were the famous shows
in New York and California. So the use of computers for artistic
purposes had reached mature enough a state that some well-known museums
and well-known curators dared putting up shows (with moderate success).
It is interesting that these shows were mainly oriented towards the
visual arts. And not music. But London included many strings. And
interactivity was well-represented in Europe (not so much, to my
knowledge, in the US). Interactivity appeared in London in the
cybernetic sculptures, in Zagreb in kinetc and op art components.
The decade of the 1960s culminated in the 1968 shows (as far as the use
of computers was concerned). Visual research had been done during the
1950s already (Ben F. Laposky in the US, Herbert W. Franke in Germany).
This was restricted (!?) to analog equipment.
The analog/digital theme was briefly touched by Ranulph. The digital
computer won. But, of course, its input and output is largely analog
because it pertains to our senses. The great difference is the
flexibility, the variability, the scalability of the stored program.
These creatures build systems and families and hierarchies and
structures.
I stop here. Because long statements are not good in a discussion.
Frieder Nake
--
Frieder Nake
Informatik, University of Bremen, Germany
T +49-421-218 3525 |
mf252
At: 06.09.2008 19:39
Subject: Introduction, new member
Hello all,
I am Mar�a Fern�ndez, a new subscriber to JASMIN. I teach at Cornell
University in the Department of the History of Art and Visual Studies.
My research entails various aspects of the history and theory of
digital art and the history of Latin American art and architecture. I
joined the list because the list of themes is relevant to my interests
especially this month's discussion on Cybernetic Serendipity. It would
be difficult to find a more knowledgeable group of discussants on
cybernetics.
Recently, I wrote a short essay on CS focusing primarily on Reichardt's
work. Even tough the exhibition is recognized in the histories of
digital and electronic art I believe that neither the exhibition nor
the curator have been sufficiently acknowledged in the histories of
20th-century art. The piece will be published in the forthcoming issue
of Art Journal. It was welcoming to find references to gender in the
messages that I received from the list. Opening such a discussion in
relation to cybernetics should be a significant contribution to future
art histories and criticism.
Mar�a
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For those who are interested, Guilherme
Kujawski Ramos has posted a scan of the Cybernetic Serendipity
"catalogue": actually an issue of Studio International. It's here:
http://www.cibercultura.org.br/videos/cybernetic%20serendipity.pdf
There are other resources such as this posted/pointed to on the ning site, http://cyberdesign.ning.com/
Ranulph |
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