Page 41 - Studio International - July August 1971

types of materials, but an attempt to find poetry, Another artist, Serban Epure (b. 1940),
with which we also implicitly witness an from Bucharest, has studied since 1969 the
investigation into the structure of language. For problem of the aesthetic message and the
what does the rediscovery of poetry mean if cybernetic character of the relationship
not, as G. C. Argan clearly tells us, to catch between man and a work of art. At the same
language at its birth, at the moment of time he has composed an aesthetic structure
germination ? Certainly he would not for a (S Tape) capable of suggesting a cybernetic
moment aspire to colour East River, but he does interaction brought about by handling it.
aspire to an ideal village, utopian, constructivist The tapes can be imagined as small machines
and very ancient, where at least once, a large, for inventing art forms, but which invent more
red, transparent triangle would float in the sky, the greater the interest of the person working
conceived in correct relation to an undulating with them. This interest increases in turn with
universe covered with yellow cornfields. the exploration of the tape. The S tapes are
It is not by chance that a group of young multiplied by the handling of plane forms,
artists in Timisoara (the first town in Europe to mixed forms (spatial and plane) and finally
have electric street lighting) have formulated a spatial forms (symmetrical and asymmetrical).
6 7

theoretical programme, the first postulate of Everybody is free to choose whichever form or 4 George Apostu
Composition 197o
which is : 'We do not confound ourselves with group of forms he thinks beautiful. This
Wood
the process of creation'; that is to say, their selection depends on the sensitivity of each 65 x 65 x 52 cm.
activity is not founded on emotion. The group person. From among the variations offered by 5 Ovidiu Maitec
Ei was constituted in 1966 and its members are an S tape, some are seen as aesthetic, some are Cube 1968
Wood
Stefan Bertalan, Constantin Flondor-Strainu, at first rejected by the individual sensitivity
18 x 25 x 11 cm.
Ion Gaita, Elisei Rusu, Doru Tulcan, artists, but may later accord with it. Although the
6 Pavel Ilie
and Lucian Codreanu, mathematician of the Stapes function according to certain Multiple 197o
Centre of Calculus in Timisoara. Their mathematical rules, the construction of a form Twigs
researches are based on a small number of springs only from the involvement of human 7 Vladimir Setran
Relief 1970
elements or signs (circles, squares) which at sensitivity, which here plays the role of an Painted metal
different stages of spatial organization interact aleatory parameter, unpredictable and 100 x 100 cm.
and become superior signs or super-signs. indeterminate within a continuous operation.
They consider that, by using borrowed methods The S-tape is a construction of pliable
of work and materials made available by material which acquires different forms once it is
modern technology, they can transmit handled. The number of forms in which a tape
aesthetic information. The aesthetic measure can be folded is determined by the formula
(M) can even be found, by means of the V = 2 x 3n where: V = the number of
variants; 3 = the number of limit positions
Birkhoff formula : M = 0 — in which 0 stands
that any one of the elements composing the
for order and C complexity. (It follows that the tape can acquire in space; n = the total number
aesthetic measure increases if order tends to a of elements of which a tape consists. Thus, a
relative maximum and complexity to a relative tape of twenty elements gives 320 = about
minimum.) 3,00o million variants. q
29