Page 35 - Studio International - June 1971

of drug-users and the increasing body of developmental research in close communication exactly what he was after in the cinematic
Western initiates into the various Eastern with a technical counterpart. These artists works, and once he had established his
meditative practices appear to represent an found themselves coping rather frequently with criteria he strove mostly to refine and perfect
inevitable and potentially corrective a command chain of bureaucratic procedure. the quality of the images much as he would in
metamorphosis. Artists who wish to explore the Possibly for just the reason that neither the making lithographs.
means and consequences of artist nor the Museum was a paying client of the A second general category of work done
perception-expansion need specialized various corporations, the art projects were not under Art and Technology includes those
information; and, reciprocally, scientists gain given especially high priority, and thus often artists, like Robert Whitman, Newton Harrison,
insight from artists in this enterprise. Both moved forward at an exasperatingly slow pace. Rockne Krebs and Boyd Mefferd, who sought
parties might maintain that anything less than In short, a definite cumbersomeness attended to exploit the kinds of techniques ordinarily
directly 'manipulating' human sensory response the several ambitious industrial collaborations. regarded as typifying advanced technology. The
to advance new aesthetic terms constitutes But even given these natural adversities, approach taken by such artists necessarily
merely a superficial elaboration of existing something remarkable happened. Smith, depends to a greater or lesser degree on a
aesthetic conventions. Oldenburg and Fahlström all saw the working relationship with engineering
Again, in reaction to this kind of pursuit, realization of artistic inventions of the grandiose specialists whose expertise they themselves
with its potential for subliminal coercion, there type which generally never exist beyond could not acquire without years of research and
are many artists who unequivocally eschew this sketches or models. Oldenburg's Icebag and training; it often depends as well on the
kind of activity. I have heard the area of Smith's cave sculpture especially represent equipment and laboratory facilities available
`systems' or 'information' aesthetics dismissed critical milestones in their respective careers. only in large corporations. In using media such
as a 'Fascist game'. Fahlström and Kitaj both established rapport as lasers, advanced mirror optic systems or gas
Seen against most recent efforts in the area of with the specialized craftsmen who built their plasmas, artists are venturing into areas which
technological art, which are generally identified tableaux. One would not expect these artists are without much aesthetic history. However,
with electronic light and sound media, the necessarily to make a career of collaborative in evaluating such art works, it seems to be the
results of Art and Technology are unlike endeavour, but unquestionably they and other case that the more directly and the more purely
anything we could have predicted. They far artists would utilize more often than has been the medium is handled and the less the artist
transcend the genre of work ordinarily called to possible the resources of industry were they relies on extraneous housings, the better the
mind by 'tech art'. Owing to the great variety of more readily available. result. It was our conscious intention to include
techniques and processes and materials made In the context of heavy industrial fabrication in Art and Technology artists whose past
available by the corporations contracted with us, it is worth considering the approach taken by production specifically in the domain of
the programme issued in not one aesthetic type Richard Serra at Kaiser. Serra regarded the advanced technology conformed to this
of work, but in several. availability of Kaiser's steel-producing plant as evaluative guideline, and the works
On reviewing the development of Art and an opportunity basically to experiment in huge accomplished by them with us are
Technology, three kinds of collaborative scale. In using the company's formidable scrap commensurately remarkable.
experience seem to me distinguishable. First resources and men and equipment he did not There was an important element of simple
there is the approach taken by those artists attempt primarily to come away with a luck involved in locating individual scientists
interested basically in industrial or permanent, or a transportable art work, but and engineers, within the vastness of all these
industrial-mechanical fabrication. Second is that instead to learn what he could in a few weeks' companies, who desired to enter into prolonged
relating to the use of more esoteric technological time about making sculpture comprising collaboration with an artist. Art and
media; and finally, that marked by a thousands of tons, rather than pounds, of Technology was not, after all, a situation like
participatory, informational aesthetic without material. the one structured by E.A.T., through which
primary regard for object-making. Roy Lichtenstein's film project certainly does engineers so inclined voluntarily make
A longer tradition attaches to the first not belong in the class of industrially fabricated themselves available to consult with artists. Once
category of activity than to any other manner art works, but neither was it conceived in a those fortunate connections were made, the
of endeavour undertaken through Art and spirit of philosophical commitment to the several advanced technology projects set in
Technology. Sculptors have for centuries principles of technological or industrial motion were characterized by a strong sense of
enlisted the assistance of heavy industrial co-action. He expressed even more strongly mutual commitment. The artists consistently
methods and materials to make monumental than the foregoing artists an attitude of real demonstrated qualities of pragmatism,
works. Yet we have observed a significantly doubt and hesitation about his very association efficiency and singleness of purpose toward the
greater sense of anxiety and discernibly more with the Art and Technology programme. end of realizing their projects. We sensed in
recalcitrance on the part of those artists engaged Lichtenstein, like many other artists in Art and these exchanges very little communicative
in industrial execution than has been conveyed Technology, has repeatedly worked in a difficulty on the practical, one-to-one level of
by the artists using advanced scientific media. collaborative manner in his various printmaking exchange.
Oldenburg, Kitaj, Fählström and Tony Smith and multiple sculpture series. The making of a There are by now several American artists
all experienced some amount of frustration, and lithograph, for example, is an operation who can be considered fairly experienced in the
expressed occasional scepticism, during the requiring an intensive co-operation between at field of collaboration with engineers. Robert
course of their projects. The special difficulty least two people. Lichtenstein's engagement in Whitman stands out in this connection; so does
for artists depending upon industrial execution the cinematic project undertaken with us was Robert Rauschenberg, though he has of course
relies on the fact that they have usually in the not, it seems to me, very different in essence continued to work 'traditionally' as well.
past worked alone and thus carefully controlled from his manner of working to produce prints Experience in dealing closely with technical
every stage and every nuance of their works' and multiples. It is true that he (or indeed any personnel in making art probably does give an
making; thus the intervention of middlemen, other artist) has never before utilized cinematic artist a certain advantage in expediting the
not only handling the components but making technique in precisely the way he did in this progress of a given undertaking. But,
technical decisions, is difficult to accept. The endeavour; and certainly the technical interestingly enough, those artists inexperienced
artist under these circumstances is difficulties and expense inherent in his Art and at collaboration with scientists, such as
automatically placed at a greater remove from Technology film project were far greater than Harrison, Jesse Reichek and Jackson MacLow,
the process of execution than would follow if are ordinarily entailed by printmaking methods. worked equally effectively.
his aesthetic end required a process of Nevertheless, Lichtenstein determined early It should be noted that use of
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