Page 16 - Studio International - February 1968

The Ascott galaxy human sensibilities perpetually under bar­ a sociological cross-referencing, instead of
rage from the higher efficiency of scientific the outmoded principles of 'righteous
technologies. Of course, the modern move­ forms' invested in what amounts to little
ment up until now has served its purpose of more than eclecticisms of styles. One of the
appeasing the communal angst heroically. delights in the vision of visual art incor­
Its main attributes consisting of inventive­ porating cybernetic awareness is that it is
ness in this crisis and bizarre ingenuity equally relevant when applied to the work
within stifling predetermined structures. As of Ellsworth Kelly or Cezanne, as well as of
long as civilized evolution remained simply Roy Ascott.
mechanical, a question of measureable What then does Roy Ascott have in mind
geometry, weighed matter, cause and effect when he advocates a cybernetic vision in
seen as determinable action through space art? I can do no better than to quote from
as time and distance, the visual art devices his recently published paper 'Behaviourist
Eddie Wolfram of perspective, image, tone and colour Art and-the Cybernetic Vision'.
weighed as metaphorical to space, could all 'By this term we do not mean "the Art of
connive and strike adequate enough poses Cybernetics" nor do we refer to an art con­
to survive in the matrix of human conscious­ cerned to illustrate Cybernetics, nor yet an
I do not know of any other artist/teacher ness with some meaning. But with the art embodying cybernetic machines or
who projects such a high incident of inte­ emergence of the electric age, of instant robot art-although any one of these things
gration between his teaching ideas and the interconnection between impulse, message might be involved at some point, and again,
art-hardware that he makes, than Roy Ascott. and response, the old determinist game is they might not.
When you make contact with the objects on finally up. Here in our new world of tele­ 'We are referring to the spirit of Cyber­
the terms in which they operate, it auto­ video fact and computer facilitation, in this netics which may inform art and in turn be
matically implies subscribing to his con­ cybernate situation where light is impulse, enriched by it. We contrast the Cyber­
cepts about the future of art activity from the image activator and SPACE activated, netic Vision in Art to the Deterministic
now on. This real interdependence of his all simultaneously, simple metaphysical and Vision of the past which has already been
work as an artist and his work as a teacher, plastic aesthetic about visual phenomena outlined. We say of Cybernetics that, before
alone, makes him a worthwhile subject for becomes inadequate and verges on obso­ it is a method or an applied science, it is a
discussion; at a time when the majority of lescence. Roy Ascott is one of the first to field of knowledge which shapes our
artists who do teach, even with the highest grasp the new significance and the first philosophy, influences our behaviour and
degree of integrity accepted, do so only as artist to apply himself positively to the new extends our thoughts. There is reason to
a means to an end. Art learning as a kind of realities. suppose that a unity of art, science and
apprenticeship towards a particular deter­ To go along with Roy Ascott's work and his human values is possible; there is no doubt
minist professionalism, involving the mani­ art advocacy does not imply discarding the that it i� desirable (Bronowski). More speci­
pulation of traditionally agreed plastic vestiges and attributes of the rest of the fically we propose that an essentially
means, is still the acceptable standard; modern movement. Rather, to understand cybernetic vision could unify and feed such
even with the most enlightened art educa­ Ascott is to become aware of a new and a culture. The grounds for supposing that
tion courses. And although this in itself is more fruitful way of assimilating the art of Art has anticipated this integral situation
not necessarily bad, in Ascott's terms it our time. It is to glimpse the proposition of and is prepared for it can be found in the
really is just not far-sighted enough. an open-ended aesthetic situation involving emphatically behavioural tendency which it
The question that Ascott insists we must
initially ask, before continuing to make art in
the annals of a defined tradition, or in hand­ ..
ing out art education in appropriation, is the
very earnest one, of how and what in the Roy Ascott
Left
middle of the twentieth century, we con­ Parameter 2 1967
ceive the function of art activity to be. How, polymer stained wood
today, can the artist operate in a pertinent 84 X 58 in.
relationship to society? And in what kind of Private collection
frame of reference therefore is the hardware
that he makes most satisfactorily desig­ Right
nated? These are the questions and they Process notes
are by no means new. They were last
seriously posed at the Bauhaus and are
probably as old as modern art itself. How­
ever, what is radically new is the situation in
which they are being asked today.
The first sign of strain between art and
social structure, all too painfully obvious in
our own time, probably has its roots in the
age of reason; the advent of the machine
age simply pushed the malady into the
open. Without the significance of inte­
grated active function, involved in the pro­
gressive furtherance of civilizing develop­
ment in its time, modern art is only evidence
of this tumour; or at best it can be read as
an art of compensation for repressed
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