Page 23 - Studio International - September 1970

May I say I am not concerned with its `validity'— News and notes Technology
finding such discussion rather dry and dull. Such
a problem is best left to psycho-physiological
experiment. However, there are many properties of and art r 7
structure and chance that mathematics can
describe, generate, and sometimes measure, and
they have an application that is both exciting and `Fire and Foam' is the title of a demonstration to
practical. When these properties occur in a picture/ be held at S. Angelo Lodigiano in the province of
Milan, from 18 to 20 September, in protest against
sculpture/environment they may only be varied by
the pollution of the river Lambro. Participants
a machine if they have some measure. Quite apart
from the 'aesthetic' aspect, measurement is have been invited to work in one or the other
medium. A 'Fire and Foam' manifesto has been
necessary for a control process to be established. To
those interested in creation-by-machine, mathe- written by Bruno Munari.
matics is indispensible as a means of defining
An Art Workshop was set up in the painting
quantitatively the control variables.
studios of Canterbury College of Art from July 28
We do not at present know what `measurables'
appeal to a particular sociocultural scene, but we to August 15 in an attempt to 'break down the
barrier of incomprehension which always seems to
may eventually find out. Meanwhile the search for
measurables—inherent in the object viewed, or the exist between the public and the progressive
environment sensed—will continue. This might be artist'. Visitors were given the opportunity to see
called a 'phenomenology'3 of the visual. Indeed, I works of art by important living artists and to talk
would like to see that troublesome phrase 'aesthetic to artists and critics about their work and ideas.
measure' dropped. Over fifty artists and lecturers were involved. The
Michael Thompson workshop was established by the Canterbury Arts
Herts. Council with finances donated by Messrs Ricemans
of Canterbury.
1 F. Nake 'On Generative Aesthetics—Two picture
generating programs', Conference papers, Computer David Thompson has been appointed the
Graphics 70, Brunel University, to be published. new Director of the ICA, and took up office on
2 J. Benthall 'Computer Graphics symposium at Brunel September 1. Mr Thompson was art critic for The
University' St. Int. June 1970 pp 247-8. Times from 1956 until 1963. Since then, as well as
3 A. Hill, DATA (Faber) 1968 p 264. Writing on continuing to write art criticism, he has had an
structure and topology ... 'My own view is that these active career in film-making, theatre and opera
topics will take their places in a much needed general production. He has participated in a number of
phenomenology of structure' important committees concerned with the propa-
gation of the visual arts and film-making in
Britain, including the British Council Fine Art
Joseph Kosuth Committee and the BFI Production Board Com-
Come on, Joseph. No one with any mature sense mittee.
took your art-critical, art-historical, art-philosophi-
cal generalizations seriously when you got them The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London,
published last fall—no matter how excited they got is organizing a course of about twenty two lectures ART FOR THE TRANSIT LOUNGE ?
over their 'controversial' nature. But your wild- on Ecology, to be delivered on Wednesday evenings The Continuum group—Dante Leonelli, Bob
eyed response to Claura's published letter (perhaps at 8 p.m., starting on October 7 and running Janz and Michael McKinnon—exhibited at
we should leave the private letters out of this, since through, with a break for Christmas, till the end of
March. The inaugural lecture will be given by the Hayward Gallery in June and July. There
I understand you wrote some real stink-bombs is a lot to be said for their stylishness and
yourself) made you seem to take these verbal 'roles' Dr N. W. Pirie, and the concluding lecture by the
seriously for yourself. That made me a bit sad, for distinguished American ecologist Professor Barry professionalism. Their electronics is of a high
Commoner. The course will begin by establishing
I've seen better essays in these genres from technical standard. They have worked out a
eighteen-year-old art-students who would never the basic principles of ecology and will go on to practical symbiosis between themselves and
have thought of publishing them, let alone defend- cover the gradual impact on the natural environ-
ment of man's technology and social system. Two several industrial firms, rather than engage as
ing them like a citadel. Now the June 1970 public
presentation of your paranoia over the reception model ecosystems, of very different kinds, will be some do in rhetoric about art and industry.
discussed by the Director of the Musée Océano- They have managed to integrate their
of these articles (and by extension, yourself?) has
achieved a real bath of verbal filth. Charles Harri- graphique, Monaco, and by an expert on the individual talents into a coherent group show.
ecology of the human skin. A number of ecological
son was right: mud sticks. In your case, it seems so Some of the ideas are really imaginative.
subjects, from the most theoretical to the most
stuck on you that it never even gets to Bochner ; if McKinnon's Liquidises (see illustration) use
his 'genius' is so small and so un-influential, why is pragmatic, will then be covered by experts: for
instance, food, population, sewage, industrial pol- two coloured oils and two coloured waters,
he so worth fighting? Ditto Claura and Ashton. I
lution, drugs and chemicals, radioactivity, etc. encased in an acrylic envelope divided into
had expected better of you—especially since I
thought you were in a position to know better (and Mary Douglas the social anthropologist will con- two layers. The slow rotation of the disks
sider the idea of pollution in different cultures, and
I don't mean 'in New York'). generates constantly-changing currents and
If you're going to whitewash your own reputation Raymond Williams will lecture on man's ideas of bubbles. They have the neat ingenuity of a
as artist and human being in the near or far future nature. The need for urgent social and political good toy and it was hard to drag oneself away
in my mind's eye, you'll have to work harder at action will be stressed towards the end of the
doing good art and keeping your mouth and/or course, when Donald Gould of the New Statesman till one had figured out how they worked.
typewriter shut when it comes to this sort of inept will discuss the politics of ecology as a world issue, The most striking piece in the show was the
and dirty politics. They are a bore, and you seem and Professor Steven Rose will discuss the social Image inflection screen by Janz and McKinnon.
to be fast becoming one—at least in public print. and ecological implications of chemical and This consists of irregular shapes of white
biological warfare. The lectures organizer is
Barbara Reise plastic protruding from a disk 72 in. in
London, NW3 Jonathan Benthall.
diameter (there were two 'screens' side by side
[I would like to correct the impression Miss Reise `Propositions for unrealized projects' is the in the exhibition). The disk rotates slowly in a
may unwittingly have created in taking me out of title of an exhibition that opens at the Howard six-minute cycle and onto the surfaces an
Wise Gallery in New York on September 19.
context. I meant to suggest that what critics write image is projected. The effect of the rotation
tends to stick to one's experience of art, and to Among the contributors will be Buckminster (I quote from the catalogue) 'is to scoop up
imply that there are attendant responsibilities. I do Fuller, Oldenburg, Christo, Len Lye, Marcel
Breuer and Otto Piene. The show will consist of parts of the image, stretch and distort it, while
not believe that Miss Reise has grounds for using
me to support her attack upon Joseph Kosuth. Nor, models and drawings for 'fantastic and/or un- some fragments of the image remain static.'
I am sure, does she.— Charles Harrison] realized projects'. The images used were colour photos of