Page 61 - Studio International - April 1968

The photogra pages 184 o most recent work. wrong way to approach a situation that requires flexibility, not
eight-panel wall of coloured reflecting Responding in slogans. Rauschenberg's statement is not free of traces of the idea of
relation sounds made by the spectators. lights come and play over
an arrangement of chairs behind the wall. the synthesis of art and science, in terms of the Gesamtkunstwerk; that
is to say, Wagner as updated by the Bauhaus. If any new programmes
are to become operative in art school or university art depart­
ments, however, it is engineering rather than science that is useful,
a point that Kluver has often stressed.
It is a fact that, among other things, ours is a period of expansion
and overlapping of media, including the use of unfamiliar hardware.
It is historically well enough grounded (the documentation of the
recent past is now becoming available) and sufficiently widespread
for projects concerning engineering's possible role in the curri­
culum to be urgent. Without doubt, a spatially and temporally
expansive art exists, to parts of which technology can contribute. At
the School ofVisual Arts, three pilot groups of Environmental Studies
are being instituted in the Foundation Course as one response to this
artists do not feel bound by traditional limits of painting and sculp­ widened definition of art. Speaking from an art school's point of
ture. These areas, not excluding drawing, have something of the view I regard EA T's proposed artist-engineer relation as provisional.
oppression of unrevised classification systems. Such influences have Artists consult engineers on specific problems as they arise in the
predisposed artists to take advantage of the high level of avail­ course of their work. This has the disadvantage that the resources of,
ability both of information and hardware that has been piling up say, electrical engineering, in-so-far as they are embodied in one
since at least the end of World War II. For example, the present member of the profession, are drawn on only very lightly. The
boom of underground movies has been made possible by the fact engineer's function is short-term problem-solving for artists. Inci­
that hand cameras and portable recording equipment are readily dentally, communication between them, as well as the time-lag
available for the first time. Thus, when Kluver set his subject for while the problem is being studied, put the artist in an executive
r
the Association meeting he hit on a topic that touched on many T i p becaus di f om
current interests. the wor o the
The title was 'Collaborative Projects between Art and Engineering artists at present involved in the relationship with technology.
Students: a new [sic] Addition to the Curriculum,' but, as I work in Last year, at the School of Visual Arts, Herbert Gesner started a
an Art School, my concern is with only half of his subject, the rela­ kinetics course which he once called 'demonstrations of groovy
tion of technology to art students. The problem of technology's role phenomena for students to select from'. His irony will be understood
in a unified curriculum, as opposed to the common curriculum by if the emphasis is on the act of selection. Owing to technology, Gesner
aggregation, is important. The Vice-President of EAT, Robert points out, 'the artist is dealing with obsolence. Nothing runs for­
Rauschenberg, has been quoted as saying, 'if you don't accept ever.' In addition, technology has enlarged the possibilities of
technology you better go to another place because no place here is collaboration. There are anonymous groups (that means, the artists
safe'. Such pseudo-historical imperatives seem to me exactly the are known, but not which bits in a set up they are responsible for)

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