Cybernetics and Art: Cultural Convergence in the 1960s

Cybernetics and Art: Cultural Convergence in the 1960s

EXCERPT:Full text available via email by request

Edward A. Shanken, Duke University

Please do not quote or cite without author's permission

Revised and excerpted from "From Cybernetics to Telematics: The Art, Pedagogy, And Theory Of Roy Ascott," in Edward A. Shanken, ed., Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness by Roy Ascott, University of California Press, 2001. This version is forthcoming Linda Dalrymple Henderson and Bruce Clarke, Eds. From Energy to Information. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2000.

Introduction

Hungarian-born artist Nicolas Schöffer created his first cybernetic sculptures CYSP 0 and CYSP I (the titles of which combined the first two letters of "cybernetic" and "spatio-dynamique") in 1956. In 1958, scientist Abraham Moles published Théorie de líInformation et Perception Esthétique, which outlined "the aesthetic conditions for channeling media." Curator Jasia Reichardtís exhibition Cybernetic Serendipity popularized the idea of joining cybernetics with art, opening at the ICA in London in 1968, and travelling to Washington, DC and San Francisco between 1969-70. Not surprisingly, much artistic research on cybernetics had transpired between Schöfferís initial experiments of the mid-1950s and Reichardtís landmark exhibition over a decade later. Art historian Jack Burnham noted that these inquiries into the aesthetic implications of cybernetics took place primarily in Europe, whereas the United States lagged behind by "five or ten years." Of the cultural attitudes and ideals that cybernetics embodied at that time in Britain, art historian David Mellor has written, A dream of technical control and of instant information conveyed at unthought-of velocities haunted Sixties culture. The wired, electronic outlines of a cybernetic society became apparent to the visual imaginationóan immediate future ... drastically modernized by the impact of computer science. It was a technologically utopian structure of feeling, positivistic, and "scientistic." The evidence of such sentiments could be observed in British painting of the 1960s, especially by a group of artists associated with Roy Ascott and the Ealing College of Art such as Bernard Cohen, R.B. Kitaj, and Steve Willats. Similarly, art historian Diane Kirkpatrick has suggested that Eduardo Paolozziís collage techniques of the early 1950s "embodied the spirit of various total systems," which may possibly have been "partially stimulated by the cross-disciplinary investigations connected with the new field of cybernetics." Cybernetics offered these and other European artists a scientific model for constructing a system of visual signs and relationships, which they attempted to achieve by utilizing diagrammatic and interactive elements to create works that functioned as information systems.

This essay begins with a general overview on the origin and meaning of cybernetics, and then proceeds to examine the convergence of cybernetics with aesthetics, paying particular attention to connections between the scientific paradigm and several distinct tendencies in post-WWII experimental art that emerged independently of it. These complementarities are crucial in explaining not only why it was even possible for art to accommodate cybernetics, but why artists utilized cybernetics in particular ways. The discussion focuses on the artistic practice, art pedagogy, and theoretical writings of British artist Roy Ascott. In 1968, Ascott rightly described himself as "the artist responsible for first introducing cybernetic theory into art education [in Britain] and for having disseminated the concept of a cybernetic vision in art through various art and scientific journals." True to his "cybernetic vision," Ascott conceived of these various aspects of his praxis as interrelated components of a larger system comprising his total behavior as an artist. The conceptual continuities that run through his work as an artist, teacher, and theorist offer unique insights into the impact of cybernetics, not only on Ascottís oeuvre, but on art in general. The intersection of cybernetics and art provides access, moreover, into a richly textured convergence of cultural ideas and beliefs in the 1960s . . .

Conclusion: The Cybernetic Sixties and Its Legacy

Cybernetics had a decisive impact on art. That impact was itself mediated by the aesthetic context that coincided with the scientific theoryís emergence in the late 1940s, and by the complementarities between cybernetics and central tendencies of twentieth-century experimental art. Given the emphasis of post-WWII art on the concepts of process, system, environment, and audience participation, cybernetics was able to gain artistic currency as a theoretical model for articulating the systematic relationships and processes among feedback loops including the artist, artwork, audience, and environment. In the absence of that common ground, it is possible that cybernetics might not have been accommodated to art, or that it would have been accommodated in a very different way.

Roy Ascottís early Change Paintings exemplify how ideas derived from aesthetics, biology, and philosophy could result in the creation of a visual analog to cybernetics, even though the artist was not yet aware of that scientific theory. More generally, this example shows how various fields and disciplines can independently produce homologous forms in response to a more or less common set of cultural exigencies. Ascottís work as an artist, teacher, and theorist also indicates how the flexibility of cybernetics allowed that theory to be applied to a wide range of social contexts. However, this programmatic quality in the application of cybernetics gives reason for pause: for given that related ideas had already been incorporated into mid-century aesthetics, artists had a wealth of ideas from which to derive and develop formal strategies, pedagogical methods and theoretical exegeses. In other words, the accomplishments that were made in visual art under the banner of cybernetics might very well have been achieved in the absence of that scientific model. Cybernetics, however, possessed the authority of science, and for better or worse, Ascott brought that seal of approval to bear on his work. Ironically, while Ascottís CAM theory adopted a rigid cybernetic language and organizational schema, his creative imagination was far from limited to the domain of scientifically provable facts and formulas, but incorporated a wide array of ideas from diverse systems of knowledge. As a result, cybernetics was transformed in his hands from science into art.

Cybernetics also offers a model for explaining how ideas that emerged in the domain of experimental art eventually spread into culture in general. Ascott theorized this transference in terms of a series of interconnected feedback loops, such that information related to the behavior of each element is shared and exchanged with the others, regulating the state of the system as a whole. Such is the case with Ascottís own theorization in 1966 of interdisciplinary collaborations over computer networks, a concept that became the central focus of his theory and practice in 1980, subsequently popularized through web-based multimedia in the 1990s.

In conclusion, Ascott drew on cybernetics to theorize a model of how art could transform culture. He was particularly insistent that cybernetics was no simple prescription for a local remedy to the crisis of modern art, but represented the potential for reordering social values and reformulating what constituted knowledge and being. In 1968 he wrote:

As feedback between persons increases and communications become more rapid and precise, so the creative process no longer culminates in the art work, but extends beyond it deep into the life of each individual. Art is then determined not by the creativity of the artist alone, but by the creative behaviour that his work induces in the spectator, and in society at large. . . . The art of our time tends towards the development of a cybernetic vision, in which feedback, dialogue and involvement in some creative interplay at deep levels of experience are paramount. . . . The cybernetic spirit, more than the method or the applied science, creates a continuum of experience and knowledge which radically reshapes our philosophy, influences our behaviour and extends our thought. Here, Ascott staked a passionate and ambitious claim for the significance of art conceived as a cybernetic system. For ultimately he believed that cybernetic art could play an important role in altering human consciousness, and thereby transform the way people think and behave on a social scale. Ascottís visionary claim is impossible to either prove or disprove. However, by the late 1990s cybernetics has become so inextricably woven into the fabric of the industrialized West that it is difficult to imagine conceiving of phenomena in terms that are not mediated by the principles of feedback and systems.

Full text available via email by request giftwrap@duke.edu
Return to Edward A. Shanken's homepage