Technoscience Art: The Next Step

Technoscience Art: The Next Step Editorial Following the inauguration of the Biennale of Venice at the end of June 1986, several artists and organizers approached me saying that the moment had come to define in precise terms a new art tendency that is developing in the area of art, scienceand technology and to elaborate a strategy that would make it more perceptible to the public. Today we are witnessing the birth of a new society, one not built on old models. In addition we are seeing the three major areas of high technology-the fields of computers, telecommunications and audiovisuals-advancing on,acommonfront,where previously they had been developing in large part independently of oneanother.These factors have contributedto theevolution of this new art trend and can be used to differentiate the new artworks from their forerunners. In fact, it has become clear to me that a complete renewal and strengthening of a trend in art that had existed under the names ‘kinetic art’ in the 1960s and ‘technological art’ in the 1970s has taken place and become more visible in the 1980s. At least, this has been thecase in Europe,especiallyaftersuch exhibitions asElectra (1983)and Les Zmmattriaux (1985) in Paris, a number of shows in Germany and Austria and, to some extent, the 42nd Venice Biennale. This trend can now be seen as a successful opponent of the neo-expressionist, historicizing tendency that has been coming to the fore since the end of the 1970sand which has given rise to a debate on the relationship between modernism and postmodernism and to general historical and aesthetic assessments. These European exhibitions have contributed to this debate in the following ways. The Electra exhibition focused principally on how the artistic imagination has coped with the introduction of electricityand electronics intothe pattern of lifein thetwentieth century. Additionally, however, the exhibition attempted to go beyond this theme by trying to demonstrate that a scientifically based technology can help liberate an artist’s creative powers as well as the public’s faculties of appreciation and interactive involvement. Significantly,of the artworksexhibited, the most effectiveseemed to be those in which the purely visual and the participatoryaspects of the works were effectively fused. The Les Zmrnuttriuux exhibition tried to explain the complex relationship which exists between human beings and many scientific phenomena, in part as a function of the difficulties presently encountered in the distribution of information. Information and its support,code, referent, senderand receiver werecloselyexamined in relation to the linguistic entitymcit and fivewords in which this root occurs: mattriau, matrice, mattriel, mati?re and maternitt. These words were associated with five different aspects of information and were used through fivecorresponding channels asa backbone for the exhibition. However, a postmodernist bias dominated the exhibition as did a method of display in which no categorical distinctions were made between artistic and scientificimages. Thus, two types of ambiguity were present: first, postmodernism was shown as a continuation of modernism while at the sametime asa break with the ideas of Descartes and thephilosophers of the Enlightenment with regard to progress, scientifictruth and experimentation; second, a melding of scientificinvention and artistic creation was deliberately practised. The recent German and Austrian exhibitions, particularly the 1984Kunst und Technologiein Bonn and ars electronica. which has been mounted five times in Linz since 1979, have focused on the consequences of the technological revolution in both creative and sociological areas. The latter exhibition has tried to cover the whole art/technology spectrum in architecture, the visual arts, the performing arts and music. The 1986Venice Biennale had as its general title “Art and Science”. Thisin itself can be taken as an indication of the importance presently accorded to the theme underlying the new trend, orrather to the renewed interest, since 1980, in this permanent feature of contemporary art. However, the Venice Biennale, in order to remain true to its own reputation and to that of Venice, had to emphasize traditional values and themes; in the final version of the principal exhibition, such sections as art and alchemy and the Wunderkammer overshadowed such sections as technology and information processing or those devoted to chromatic order systems and avant-garde colour. Nevertheless, the main thrust of this exhibition wasto...