Page 22 - Studio International - December 1970

experience of this, are paralleled by the of human learning. Mallen writes of the game : prising is that although the central core has
poisoning of family and sexual relations. In this system, the effects of players' deci- been seen to be an ever evolving language
Despite the dullness of the script and of the sions interact so that it becomes extremely no account up to the present seems to have
character played by Richard Harris, this film difficult to predict system behaviour at any taken up the possibility of the central core
will surely keep a classical status. As a French time. As in real life, success in the game is evolving to include or assimilate one or
ce que surtout Antonioni met
critic wrote, difficult to define. A player may adopt a other or all of the support languages.2
en question, c'est l'habitabilité même du socially (i.e. good for the overall resource Nonetheless, one can see a place for writers on
monde.' (Maurice Pons, Les Temps Moderns, level in the system) beneficial policy at art when one sees the terrible job that some
December 1964). q personal cost or he may adopt a self re- visual artists make of presenting in words their
source grabbing policy for himself at great own work. It is kind to them to give relatively
social cost. little attention to their 'statements' and con-
ECOGAME
The Computer 70 exhibition at Olympia in Players were able to select one of a number of centrate on the medium that they are at home
October was not the first trade exhibition to social contexts within which they made their with.
have included an art contribution as the decisions : for instance, industrial develop- This applies to the work of Malcolm Carder,
centrepiece. The idea seems a good one, and ment, science and technology, and natural who showed a large electronic piece at the
could become a traditional medium of pat- resources. The computer system was also pro- Hayward kinetics show, and several smaller
ronage. Such occasions involve the exchange grammed to control slide projectors showing perspex and kinetic works at the ICA during
of large sums of money, so that the costs of sequences of slides to illustrate pictorially the October. Visually they are complex and ele-
financing the art contribution (whatever it state of the game. For instance, if the social gant; but the introductory folder by Carder
may be) can be absorbed. The bulk of such context chosen is the natural environment, himself for the ICA show—about yin, yang
exhibitions can be very tedious, and they then as the resource level falls from high to and mandalas—serves only to mystify, and
provide an opportunity to interest intelligent low, a sequence of pictures is shown—starting leaves one in doubt about the experience.
people who may for various reasons profess with pictures of natural abundance and beauty, Art-Language Volume 1 number 2 contains a
little care for artistic matters. Commissioning then pictures of urban development and con- most original article by Michael Thompson,
by the organizers of a trade exhibition has gestion, and finally pictures of deserts, clogged who is not a conceptual artist but a social an-
some advantages over commissioning by an cities, ruined valleys and so on. thropologist. He has also written for New Society3
individual firm, which is usually done through The overall plan is undoubtedly brilliant. about his theories on rubbish and human
its public relations budget. (How, incidentally, Unfortunately some technical problems were culture. Briefly, his argument is that there are
can Olivetti seriously present in 1970 some- experienced, mainly due to overloading of the three categories of object communicated
thing as pointlessly grandiose as their 'Concept central computer; and on the occasions when between people in our society: Transients,
and Form' exhibition, recently in Edinburgh I visited the Ecogame it was almost grinding Rubbish and Durables. Good Art comes into
and London?) to a standstill without ever actually doing so the category of durables; Bad Art into the
The organizers of Computer 70, the Business (systems men call this 'graceful degradation'). category of rubbish, but rubbish can be re-
Equipment Trade Association, invited the Another criticism is that the explanatory claimed into the durable category at any time
Computer Arts Society to contribute a project, material was more rhetorical than factual. (as, for instance, when there is a sudden craze
placing only two constraints on it. These were : Great care should have been taken with the for Victoriana or art deco). I find Thompson's
`1) it should demonstrate one unusual, but documentation of such a project—not merely application of anthropological techniques
potentially important, application of com- because it is the only surviving record of a very (derived from Rodney Needham, Mary
puting in a social context, and 2) it should do expensive event, but also because we have all Douglas and others) to the study of art most
this in a pleasant, well-designed environment'. become alerted recently to the importance of interesting, though his specific espousal of
The environment was certainly OK—a small the 'support languages' in which art is pre- conceptual art is questionable. Since I under-
air-conditioned geodesic dome. The applica- sented. stand he is currently revising his arguments
tion was called 'Ecogame'. It was designed as a At the same exhibition, the Computer Arts for a book on Rubbish Theory, I shall not take
continuous interactive game-like situation. A Society showed its familiar collection of com- up this point at the present time. q
number of players, seated at terminals con- puter graphics, with some new work by Auro JONATHAN BENTHALL
nected to a time-shared computer, made Lecci and Waldemar Cordeiro. q
decisions about the use of resources in a simple
model of a socio-economic system. Any one SUPPORT LANGUAGES
player's use of resources affected all the other Conceptual Art as a whole—if it is possible to
players in the game, so that competition and regard as a whole the motley crew that sail
collaboration were possible.' under its elusive colours—I find extremely
At the beginning of each decision interval, boring. However, I sympathize with the wish
every player received a given amount of of artists to control the presentation of their
`wealth' (indicated at his cathode-ray display work more closely. The following remarks by
terminal). A project was then presented to the Art-Language editors seem to me admirably
him, with four alternative action choices. His clear (though their subsequent conclusions do
task was then to select a project which would not) : 1 Hardware notes. Ecogame was run in the PDP 10-based
time-sharing system operated by Time Sharing Ltd.
provide enough of a return to keep him within There has been a hierarchy of languages Interface between the players and the computer was by
the game, yet where social effects did not headed by the 'direct read-out from the Tektronix T4002 Video Display Units. Input decisions
by players were made by means of joysticks controlling
deplete the overall resource level. The social object language' which has served as the the position of cross-wires in the screens. Programming
costs of a project affected the efficiency with creative core, and then various support was in the TELCOMP 3 language. A second system
(an Idiom Graphic Display) controlled the slide pro-
which the investment value of the project languages acting as explicative and elucida- jectors and displayed information about the game state
chosen by him was converted into new re- tory tools to the central creative core. The at any time.
2 Art-Language, Vol. 1 no. 1, May 1969, Introduction.
sources. initial language has been what is called 3 Michael Thompson, 'Conceptual Art: Category and
The deviser and programmer was George `visual', the support languages have taken Action', Art-Language, Vol. 1 no. 2, February 1970;
`An Anatomy of Rubbish: from junk to antique', New
Mallen, an associate of Gordon Pask, who is on what shall be called here 'conventional Society, 10 April 1969; 'The Death of Rubbish', New
researching into simulated computer models written sign' language-form. What is sur- Society, 28 May 1970.