Page 62 - Studio International - April 1968

Just as in the all-white paintings of sixteen years ago Rauschenberg enlisted
the presence of the spectator as a lively shifting factor in the picture's
surface. so with his new work. Soundings, the people in the room looking
at it form and re-form the image they see. To begin with they see themselves
reflected in dark scratched mirrors. Then, as they cough or talk or shuffle,
their reflections are fleetingly mixed: somewhere behind the mirrors are
piles of white chairs and when the microphones overhead pick up enough
sound. systems of lights are fired among the chairs. You see yourself make
your own lightning with your own thunder. You can change the
dimensions of the room by blowing your nose. Alone, you can watch the
phrase stfence closed in on me Andrew Forge

like USCO, or groups like the Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel. foundation courses, scientific principles and elementary engineering,
They exhibit collectively, not individually, and construct temporary and (2), subjects such as information theory and systems analysis
labyrinths as environmental frames for their individually-made (knowledge about knowledge) and flow mechanics, movement of
works. The College Art Association included a session on 'Tem­ gases, and electro-magnetic fields might be made available for study
porary Designs and their relation to the Permanent Arts' (the Bernini as second- and third-year electives.
catafalque paper is from here), a theme which echoed Reyner Ban­ An artist who was familiar, however sketchily, with relevant
ham's pop-culture based phrase 'Expendable Art'. techniques from his student experience, would often be able to work
I suppose everyone involved in art education must speculate at without interrupting the feedback of thinking-making-judging­
present about the usability of the categories of drawing, painting, revising by the necessity for external consultation. (Where consul­
and sculpture. They are often convenient in terms of administration tations continued to be necessary, mutual understanding would be
but they no longer exhaust the technological means available to increased by the artist's technical background.) Art can be defined
artists. There is no question of abandoning the traditional subjects, as a situation of maximum control for the artist and no consultant,
but it may be necessary now to supplement the traditional curri­ however sympathetic, can provide the same kind of precision that an
culum. This is not because in 'the Electric Age' everyone is supposed artist gives his work. And for the engineer there must be a frustration
to respond to the same new situation, but to provide sufficient diver­ in the paradox of a low level of mechanical or electric technology
sification of means to the artist; and students need to be provided being used to service art of a relatively sophisticated level.
with a representative choice of techniques. It seems that there is an inequitable relationship and hence one not
The curriculum in an art school might be framed with a view to likely to be maintained in its present form. One of the possible forms
making artists less dependent on consultation with engineers in of change, that suggested here, is an increase in the technical educa­
future. (This is not an argument against contracting the execution of tion of artists. Let me stress, however, that the courses proposed
projects to workmen, which is different in kind from consultation would be pragmatic and manipulative and situated within an art
in the genetic, conceptual phases.) This is hypothetical at the historical framework oriented to adapted technology by such artists
moment, but, perhaps, (1) a visiting engineer could contribute to the as Marcel Duchamp, Moholy-Nagy and Naum Gabo. D
186