Kunst kontra Technik? Wechselwirkungen zwischen Kunst, Naturwissenschaft und Technik by Herbert W. Franke (review)

168 Books The last chapter is extracted from History oJlndian Glass, by M. G. Dikshit (Bombay. 1969).From this book. actually one of considerable size, I gather that glasswas not very well known or much used in India, except for beads and bangles of various sorts. No. 8, entitled Glass and the Elizabethan Period, was not received by Leonardo. No. 9 is most useful, for it contains not only an analytical index but a Glass Index, a Register of Glassmakers and Glassmaking Families and a lengthy bibliography that serves to recall books and articles that might be forgotten. Readings in Glass History, obviously the product of much study and research, demonstrates how much is yet to be learned about the history of glass, but it also offers specialists new approaches and suggestive ideas in this complicated field of investigation. Kunst kontra Technik? Wechselwirkungen zwischen Kunst, Naturwissenschaftund Technik.(in German) Herbert W. Franke. FischerTaschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1978. 138pp., illus. Paper. DM 7.80. Reviewed by Cerhard Charles Rump* From the title of this book one expectsa thorough and profound analysis of the complicated relations between art, science and technology. What one gets is a eulogy of computer art and rational aesthetics. Franke starts with a remake of C. P.Snow’s ‘twocultures’. He seesthe same situation still existing today and contrasts it with the past, where, as he says, there was no difference between art, scienceand technology (p. 14).This is, of course, nonsensical. Albrecht Diirer and Leonardo da Vinci, Franke’s persons of reference, were very well aware of the then existing boundaries between their ‘artistic’ and their ‘scientific’ and ‘technological’ activities. In the past there were even boundaries-very strong ones-between the different fields of art: some were ‘liberal’-that is. ‘free‘and worthy to be taken up as a pastime by noblemen-others were ‘illiberal’-that is. ‘applied’ and of a decidedly lower rank. The different way of thinking in terms of art and in terms of technology is clearly discernible in Leonardo da Vinci (and Diirer), no matter how strongly one domain is influenced by the other. The boundaries were there, but a number of people in the past were capable of mastering at least two different modes of thinking, a fact that is not too astonishing, as most people today are capable of doing this. Most of those who adhere to a religious faith follow at least two modes of thinking: the irrational ‘belief and their rational ‘common sense’ that helps them through everyday life [cf. Rodney Needham, Belie/: Languuge and E.\-pc,rienc~,(Oxford Univ. Press. 1972)l. Following his wrong distinction, Franke goes on to say that a number of present-day artists, mainly computer artists, have taken up the struggle against the artistic irrationalism that takes art to have nothing whatsoever to do with science and technology, and he traces the development of computer art from 1965 onwards, from the pioneering work of Frieder Nake, George Nees and A. Michael Noll to phenomena likegenerative photography (the work of Albrecht Zipfel and others) and to utopian schemes as ‘art within the framework of medical therapy’. Franke projects a utopian scheme where patients in hospitals are given a small computer with a big screen and some relevant software to produce an endless flow of ever changing images to help them in their convalescence. To me it seems that a scheme like that would further the cause neither of art nor of medical science,as it has already become quite clear to many that what is needed in hospitals in this respect is not machines and gadgetry but human warmth and compassion. There are some fundamental assumptions of Franke that govern the book. One I have already discussed above, some others are: only a cybernetic theoretical approach to art (informational aesthetics) is valid [cf. H. W. Franke, A Cybernetic Approach to Aesthetics. Leonurdo 10, 203 ( 1977)]. ‘Ubierstrasse 135, D-5300 Bonn-Bad Godesberg, Fed. Rep. Germany. The blendingof scienceand art ispossibleonly in computer art or at leastwith the helpofcomputers,although thesecond way does not pay attention to ‘machine intelligence’, the specific capabilities and possibilitiesof the digital computer. Art has only one chance of...