Page 57 - Studio International - November 1970

pronounces Seek the first piece of computer statistical record of who is supposed to have visitor is invited to play with Antin. Antin has
art by calling it a paradigm for the idea of visited the exhibition. Clearly Haacke is out constructed a 'conversation room' in which
making art— as though the arrangement and to demonstrate the inherent political contra- the visitor is offered a tape-recorded word, or
re-arrangement of 2-inch blocks partook in dictions in the art predicament, as he did at two or three words, around which he is
some way of the artist's process). the Museum of Modern Art, and his statistical invited to build a story, preferably a true one.
Not far from the scurrying gerbils and the activities are not ironic in the least. Like Then, he can listen to the previous stories
baffled grappler stands John Goodyear who others playing in this field, and like the whole with his own added, in a collage of themati-
introduces quite another attitude. His reseach American school of sociologists who have long cally-linked exercises in language and human
is relatively 'personalized', being independent since departed from the intelligent humanism inquiry. I don't exactly understand how this
of computers, but tied to Burnham's idea by (yes, let's use that word) of Europeans such as becomes software, despite the tape recorder
the fact of his collecting facts. Goodyear Max Weber or Adorno, Haacke unconsciously device. It clearly remains in the hands of the
makes what he calls a text of the Thermal makes several dangerous assumptions. The artist, who might be said to be using the great
Experience Zone. In good scientific orderly first is that 'they' can be classified. That is, well of language, as shared by individuals, to
sequences he takes sweat samples, measures museumgoers. Or, as publishers, Hollywood draw up the essentials for his own work. It
them and graphs them, attempting, as he and TV magnates call them, 'the public'. The uses individual experience as a resource, as
claims, to make people aware of neglected second is that people submit to questionnaires the story-teller has always done. It sets up a
senses. This exaggerated reprise of the old (even by machines) and answer candidly. controlled situation of language and com-
synesthesia cult, and the rapturous discoveries Advertising agencies live on this hideous munication, as writers naturally do, and par-
of new orders and new senses in the first assumption. Finally, that such superficially takes of the software orientation only insofar
decade of the century, is tempered by the acquired information can be the basis of as it appears to be 'information' gathering.
light irony that masquerades as scientific responsible judgments. I have always felt, and Finally, Antin's work is the antithesis of most
method and the contemporary appeal of the still feel, that statistics in the social sciences are of softwarehouse rhetoric.
absurd (always with us, but in so many differ- menacing, and tend toward unconscious I think the same can be said for John Giorno's
ent versions that it is still piqueing. Good- totalitarian thinking. Neither the admittedly Poetry Systems which is a poetic idea that
year's humour provides a rare moment in a alluring machine querying visitors nor the quite escapes easy McLuhanizing. Passengers
basically bloody earnest show.) printout statistics proves who, exactly, was on the software trip can carry their transistors
Statistical play, being a clear output of com- there. The moment we begin to think who with them, tuning in on a host of poets read-
puter psychology, figures high in the modes `they' are statistically, we have ceded to ing their verses and messages, much as 'they'
presented here by those who have more or less totalitarianism. (Burnham by the way tends out there carry the ballgames in the World
been classified as 'artists'. The accumulation to think that way too. He is omniscient and Series with them.
of information for its own sake is a national seems to know exactly how everyone has an The poetic gestures in the show include a
vice which needs appropriate correctives in art experience, or how everyone doesn't have really nice idea of Douglas Huebler, one of the
the form of art or philosophy with bracing one, or how 'they' close out or open up to usual brace of 'conceptualists' participating,
doses of humour. Whether or not Hans cybernetic implications. And yet, there is who invites anyone to participate in the
Haacke's contribution contains any of those never a way of knowing who precisely will be transposition of 'information' by writing
elements is, as Burnham concedes, a moot moved by what, which is why art survives.) down an authentic secret in exchange for
point. On the other side of the information-gathering which he will get a photocopy of someone
Haacke, wiring into the mother computer, process is the poet David Antin whose con- else's authentic secret—shades of the old
has set up a video questionnaire which tribution is one of the few genuinely oriented surrealist party games, but still effective
records both facts (Where were you born? toward art—Antin is obviously an artist to the because the word secret has its secret ways.
Male or Female? Native Tongue? etc.) and bone. Not that he sets out to achieve art. His Briefly, here are some other categories of soft-
opinions (Are you against the war in Viet- experiment, The Conversationalist, is presen- ware : Philosophic investigation, as performed
nam ?) ; processes them and gives a running ted more in the spirit of a game which the by Agnes Denes who uses a computer to