Art and Technology: A Time-Line Review 18,000 BC to the Present by Bonnie Wilder (review)

Current Literature Edited by Elizabeth Crumley I. Book Reviews Book Review Panel: Rudolf Arnheim, Vladimir Bonacie. John E. Bowlt, Donald Brook, Robert Dikon. Elmer Duncan, James A. Coldman, Vie Gray, Yusuf A. Crillo, Peter Lloyd Jones, Dick Land, Sharon Lebell. Leo Narodny, Sean ODriscoll, Sheila Pinkel, Harry Rand, Lord Eric Roll. Allan Shields. Vladimir Tamari. David Topper, Leon Tsao, M. Tsao, Steve Wilson, Xiaoping Lin. Art and Technology: A Time-Line Review 18.000 BC to the Present. Bonnie Wilder. BCC Publications. Houston. Texas. 1983. 89 pp. Paper. ISBN 82-91133. Reviewed by Bettyann Kevles, 575 La Loma Road, Pasadena, CA. 91105, U.S.A. Bonnie Wilder’s Arr ond Technology falls somewhere between a work-book (there are blank pages for the reader t o jot down notes) and a schematicreference list. Except for a few introductory paragraphs. the author’s only analytical contribution to the historical interpretation of thc development of scientific theory. technological innovation and the visual arts is the format itself-the separation of the visual arts into eight categories. Beginning with Printmaking. Wilder moves on to Drawing and Painting. Glass. Fibers. Ceramics. Sculpture. Electronic Art. concluding with Photography. Wilder lists technological breakthroughs within each category as they occurred chronologically. Moreover, the eight categories themrclves arc ordered as Wilder believes them t o have appeared o n the cultural scene. This is an order with which some readers will dissent. Within each category the time-lines have three columns-dates. technology. and applications . I t is this last section that troubled me. and this is part ofthc problem 1found with her order of categories a s well. The applications she selects are not necessarily artistic, and this has repercussions on her whole scheme. For instance. she places Elcctronic Art before Photography and justifies this placement by describing the experiments of Thales of Miletus with amber a s technology.Then. in the column labeled ‘Application’. she states that the “modern term of ‘electricity’ was derived from this early work”. Thus the development of modern science is given antique roots. but there is no mention of any artistic application until a much later date. In the traditional media of sculpture and printmaking her categories more clearly distinguish artistic application from scientific theory. A convenient relereiicc work for an historian ofart,this book Icavc~iiodoubtastotheclose connection between technological innovation and changes in artistic methodology. It is not as convincing in establishing a connection between scientific theory and artistic concepts. A C‘ognitive Theory of Metaphor. Earl R. MacCormnc. M.I.T. Press. Cambridge, MA, 1985.248pp.Tradc.%22.S0.ISBN:026213212 5. Reviewed by Peter Lloyd Jones. Kingston Polytechnic. School of Three-Dimensional Design, Knights Park. Kingston-upon-Thames. Surrey KTI 245, U.K. Oiic of the special delights of I.ronarr/o has always been the book section. An international journal of art and science can rightly cast its net wide.and the trawl invariably brings u p a n extraordinarily mixed catch-from massive denixns of the deep. t o fishes that d o indeed swim far from the land (and which may sometimes be protected by unconscionable amounts of blubber), to intellectual shrimps. tiny but sometimes no less tasty for that. Earl MacCormac’s book is about how it is that we can understand sentences like the one I have .just written-for this second sentence is unlike my first sentence in an important way. At first reading-or even after prolonged inspection. to someone not well acquainted with this particular style of English discourse -it seems mere nonsense. After all. learned journals do not go fishing(only people can do that).so the sentence isa puzzle until we realise that it is not meunt t o he taken literally but is in fact a metaphoi-ical statement. We are able to connect these unrelated referents in a new way and see that. from a certain point of view. a .journal I S like : I fisherman. Both parties go in more nr less blind. searching for edible (i.e. readable) items and to ii greater or lesser extent have to cat (I.c. print) what comes in. The mechanisms which tinderly the interpretation of metaphor are...