Beyond Vision by John Darius (review)

CURRENT LITERATURE I. Book Reviews Book ReviewPanel: RudolfArnheim,Eua Belik,John Bowlt, John w: Cooper, ElmerDuncan, Robert S. Lansdon, Alan Lee, Rimma Lerman,Jay TurnerLuke,John Mallinckrodt, David Pariser, Clifford Pickover, RosalindaSartorti, David Topper, Stephen Wilson. SYNTHESIS: VISUAL ARTS IN THE ELECTRONIC CULTURE Manfred Esenbeis and Heide Hagenbolling, eds. UNESCO, Paris, France, 1989. 318 pp., illus. ISBN: 3-921997-18-6. Reviewed Uy Stephen Wilson, Art Department , San Francisco StateUniversity, 1600 Holloway, San Francisco, CA 94132, U.S.A. This book documents the proceedings of an international UNESCOsponsored conference focusing on the relationship of the new electronic technologies to art, art institutions and culture. The conference was held in December 1987 at the Bonn School ofArt and Design Offenbach/ Main in Germany and was seen as a follow-up to a 1978 conference on aesthetics and technology. The book consists of papers by the participants and a limited number of illustrations of participants' artworks. All papers are presented in both German and a second language (usually English but sometimes French). The participants came primarily from Europe and consisted of academicians , art institution administrators and artists. The book is organized into five sections: 'The Artist and the Machine", "Examples of the Seminar Participants' Artistic Work and Projects ", "Electronic Creativity", 'The Electronic Academy", and 'The Electronic Museum". 'The Artist and the Machine" section attempts to analyze the impact of the new technologies on culture. The authors include Rene Berger, Abraham Moles, JaroslavJirasek and Jiirgen Claus. The participants address issues such as changing notions of time and space and the concern that values may be neglected in technological work. The "Electronic Creativity" section presents an uneven collection of papers, including several by artists. Most of the latter were disappointing because they focused on technical descriptions of the artists' activities but did not provide much insight about the impact of the new technologies on thinking about art. "The Electronic Academy" section considers the impact of technology on traditional art education with many of the presenters calling for attention to the new media. Roy Ascott in his now-classic article, "Art and Education in the Telematic Culture", goes even further in asserting that new cultural patterns brought on by technology require a more radical restructuring of education beyond merely including video and other such tools in the curriculum. "The Electronic Museum" section looks at the impact of technology on museums in a world where electronic presentation has become so important and telecommunications potentially make available widening cultural resources. Like many proceedings of conferences , the book ranges widely in quality. Some of the papers are remarkable documents about the present state of the arts, while others are rehashings ofworn-out cliches. The international aspect of the conference illustrates some of the convergence of artistic thought stimulated by the spread of technology; however, perspectives from non-European and Third World artists are notably lacking. The illustrations in the book are perhaps its most disappointing aspect. Many of them are redundant group portraits of participants in seminars . Even the samples of artists' work do not overcome the difficulties of documenting work in areas that so fundamentally challenge the conceptual bases of traditional art. The illustrations are not nearly as exciting and provocative as the ideas expressed in the papers. It is reassuring that UNESCO is concerned about the impact of technology on culture. Furthermore, it is fitting that international perspectives are being brought to bear on this phenomenon . The book ends with a list of recommendations to UNESCO to follow up with more studies and initiatives to support art that deals with technology in non-superficial ways. BEYOND VISION byJohn Darius. Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K., 1984.224 pp., illus. Trade, $29.95. ISBN: 0-19-853245-8. Reviewed Uy Robert S. Lansdon, 3830 Annapolis Court, SouthSan Francisco, CA 94080, U.S.A. This volume chronologically documents the technological evolution of scientific visualization, both (photo)graphic and figurative. Darius has collected 100 historic scientific photographs and has adjoined essays. The photos have been selected for their uniqueness and their aesthetic value, often first as photographic evidence for the discovery of a previously unknown (perhaps hypothesized) phenomenon or ofvisualization at a new scale or resolution. Spectrograms demonstrating ultraviolet...