detached from history: jasia reichardt and cybernetic serendipity

5/25/2018 Detached from HiStory: Jasia Reichardt and Cybernetic Serendipity

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FranciszkaThemerson exhibition posterfo r Cybernetic Serendipity 1968 HymanKreitman Research Cen tre, TAP 1334 artw ork as aReichardt; photographTte, London,2008. provided ythe ICA and Tte Archive)



Mara FernndezDetached from HiStory:

Jasia Reichardt andCybernetic Serendipity Feature

1.See Harald Szeemann. When Attitudes ecomeForm:Live in YourHead; Works, Concepts,Processes. Situations,Information (Bern: KunsthalleBern, 1969); and Kynaston McShine,Information(New York: Museum ofMode rn An , 1970). Seealso Irene Calderoni, Creating Shows: SomeNotes on Exhibition Aesthetics atthe Endof theSixties, inCuratingSubjects,e d. PaulO Neill(London:O pen Editions/Occasional Table, 2007);and SusanL Jenkins, Information, Communi-cation, Documentation:AnIntroductionto theChronologyof Group Exhibitions and Bibliogra-phies, inReconsidering the Objectof A rt 1965-1975, ed . Ann Goldstein and Anne Ron'mer(Los Angeles/Cambridge. M A: Museum ofContemporary Art, Los Angeles/MIT Press,I99S).2.Jenkins. 272.3. For^ecurato r and critic Eva Diaz,the 1999exhibition Loboratorium. curated byHans U lrichObrist and Barbara Vanderlinden, exemplifiessuch an approach. Diaz. Future: Experiment andthe Tests ofTomorrow. inCuratJngSubjects, 9S.4. See,for example,CuratingSubjects,asw ell asCautionary Tales:CriticalCurating. ed. Steven Randand Heather Kouris (New York: Apexart, 2007);The Edgeof Everything:Reflections on CuratorioiPractice, ed. Catherine Thomas (Alberta, Canada:Banff Centre, 2002); and Reconsidering theObjectof An 1965-1975.5.More than modernartmuseums, in the 1980sand early 1990s exhibitions inspecialized confer-ences such as SIGGRAPH and ISEA (InternationalSymposiumforElectronic Art), and the festivalArs Electrnica inAustria were influentialforthe developmentof computer art. Thisis not toobscure significant ex hibitions such as E/ectra:MA M Mused artmodernede la ville dePans, 10dcembre i 983-5 fvrier 1984: i tlecvicit etl lec-tronique dansl artauXXe sicle:Electricity andElectronicsin heA nof the XXth Century, trans.Erika Abra m s, Anne Barrault, Marie-Dominique

In 1965 Jasia Reichardt, then assistant directorofthe In stituteforContemporaryArt (ICA)inLondon, embarkedononeof die most Technologically ambitiousart exhibitionsofits time. Cybernetic Serendipity:The Computerand theArts,onviewatthe ICA from August2 toOctober 20. 1968, explored th e roleofcomputersinthe arts, broadly con ceivedtoinclude music, poetry, theater, film, dance, grap h-ics,robots, installations, and environments. Atthe time,theword computer

designated a varietyofdevices, from IBM mainframes toindi-vidually improvised analogue machines. By liukLngthecom-putertocreative p ractices,the exhibition challengedthe separa-tionofartandcreativity from scienceandtechnology. Becausecomputers could produce work indiversemedia, the exhibition also imphcitly ques-tioned distinctions between presumablydiscrete creative realms.

Recently,arthistorians, artists,andcura-tors have given considerable attentionto artexhibitionsofthe

late 1960sand[970s. decades during which exceptional ciu ators adoptedthedual rolesoforganizersandcritics and conceiveddie exhibition itselfa samedi-um with whichtodevelop new ideas about art. Exhibitions such asWhenAltitudes ecome FormrWorks-Concepts-Processes-Situatiom, organizedbyHarald Szeemannin 1969fortheKunsthaile Bern,andInformation, curated by Kynaston McShinefortheMuseum ofModern Artin1970, werenotlimitedto providing contextsinwhichtoteachart butbecame vehiclesforredefining artistic and in stitutionalpracticesandeventocircumventartinstitutions .' Other initiatives such astheproposalfor the exhibition ArtbyTelephone, organized by Jan van der Markfor theMuseum ofContemporary ArtinChicagoin1969, have been laudedfortheirengagement with technologies and procedures dien new totheartworld.^

The recent scholarly interestinthese historical exliibitionsis notaccidental.for duringthe last decade, increasing involvementofartistswith digitalandgenetic technologiesandtactical media practices has again presented challengesto traditional ideas about art.theinstitutionofthe m useum,andthe separationof art from other realmsofknowledge and practice. Giventheretrospectionprompted by these contemporary concerns, current criticism focusesonshowsthat transgress disciplinary borders andendow the museum space withthepotentialtomake new meanings.'Yet scholars writing about curatorial workconsistently exclude Cybernetic Serendipity.''

The omission of Cybernetic Serendipity from the canon ofmod ern-art exhihi-donsis notentirely surp rising , because from 1970tothe mid-1990s co mputerart developed independently from modern artmuseums and was largely ignoredby arthistorians.^ More p uzzhngisthe scarcityofinformation onReichardtwithinthefieldofdigital art. Her show, organizedat atimeinwliichthe useof computersin artinstitutions was rareandthe involvementofwomeninsci-entific subjects even more so, wasnosmall achievement. Ho wdidReichardtengageinsuchaventure? How wasthe exhibition conceived, how wasitreceived, and what diditachieve?

I posit thatfarfrom being perceived solely as entertainmen t, as someoftheexhibition's critics have argued,theshow's dieoretical premises unsettled neatnotionsofhum an uniquenessbyallowing machinestoinvade purportedly

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Dupret, et al. (Paris: Les Amis du Muse d artmoderne de la ville de Paris. 1983); and lesImmatdoijx (Paris: Ce ntre Geo rges Po mpidou,1985). On the separation of cybernetic art frommodern art, see Charlie Gere,Digital Culture(London: Reaktion, 2002), 108-9; Sylvie Lacerte. 9 Evenings and Experiments in Art and Tech-nology: A Gap to Fill in Art History's RecentChro nicles (2005 ), available online at v/ww,fonda t ionlanglois .org/html /e /page .php?NumPag e-1 71 6; and Paul Brown , Initiation andthe Acad emy {1998). available online acw w w . pa u l - b r ow n . c om/ WO RD S / I S E A 98 . H T M .6. See N. Katherine Ha/les, How We BecamePosthuinan: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics Literaturean d Infomatics (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress. 1999),7. Two exhibitions of computer an opened inGermany in 1965, GenerativeComputergrapk:GeorgNes. Studien-Galerie des StudiumGenerale, Stuttgart, February 5-19, andComputergrafik:FriederNoke, Georg Nees, GalerieWendelin Niedlich, Stuttgart, November 5-26.Computer-Generoted Pictures: A. MichaelNo//,Blajutesz showe d at the H oward W ise GalleF7 inNew York April 6-24, 1965. For other importantexhibitions of technological art see: 9 EveningsReconsidered, ed. Catherine Morris (Cambridge,MA: MIT List Visual Arts Center, 2006); PontusHultn, TheMachine as Seen at c/ie End of theMechanical Age (New York: Museum of ModernArt, 1969); Experiments in Art and Technology,Some More Beginnings: AnExhibition of SubmittedWorksInvolving TechnicalMo ter(o/s an dProcessesOrganized by Staff and Members of Experiments inAn and Technologyi nCollaboration wit } theBrooklynMuseum ond the Museum of Modern An . NewYork(New York; Experiments in Art and Technology,1968); and Maurice Tuchman,A R eport on the Artan dTechnology Program of theLosAngeles CountyMuseum of Art 1967-1971 (N ew York; Viking,1971),8. See No rber t W iener, Cybernetics,or Controland Communication intiieAnin>ala nd t/ie Alocfiine(N ew York; J. Wiley, 1948); and the m ore acces si-ble TheHuman Use of Human Beings,* Cyberneticsond Society (Boston; Houghton Mifflin, (950), esp,15-27,

exclusive human domains. In contrast to criticism that has portrayed the exhibi-tion as politically reactionary, I suggest that it was com patible w ith aspects ofprogressive posthu man ism. In her imp ortant 1999 study HowWe BecamePosthumaKatherine Hayles identifies two kind.s of posth um anism , on e that emphasizes v irtualization and disembodiment, and another that recognizes the inseparability oconsciousness from the specificities of e mbo dimen t.^ In her analysis, the fiistremains attached to hberal humanism in its adherence to notions of unified subjectivity and conscious agency as the bases for human identity, wiiile the secondunderstands subjectivity as emergent and contingent, and rather than perceivingtechnology as a threat to human control recognizes the historically long partnership between hum an and m achine, I suggest tbat Reichardt's work, and especiallyCybernetic Serendipity, manifests affinities with this second kind of posthumanism,reflecting a commitment to the unification of science and art that was consistentwith h er b ackgroun d as an art critic as well as with tbe p hilosophical objectivesof her family.

The xhibitionAlthough it was neither Lhe first exliibition to display co mp uter art nor the firstto promote the unification of science and art. Cybernetic Serendipity stands as oneof the foundational events in the development of electronic and digital art.Thresmall shows of computer graphics in Stuttgart, Germany, and one at tbe HowardWise Gallery in NewYorkpreceded it,'' Cybernetic Serendipity was unique in itsfocus on cybernetics, the theoretical backbone of the art-and-technology move-men t of the 1960s. Cybernetics, defined by Norbert W iener as tbe science ofcommunication and control between animals (humans included) and machinesand between machines and machines, created a framework for studying com-mun ication and control in systems organic and artificial. AccordingtoWiener,the interaction ofamachine with the external world involved tbe introductionof data (input) to elicit the machine's effect on the outside world (output).Feedback was the act of controlling a machine on the basis ofitsperformance.Elements of the machine itself,winch he called sensory me mb ers, evaluatedthe machine's performance. Tbe notions of control, comm unication, input, feedback, and output as used in cybernetics were fundamental to the development ocomputer and other technological art, Reichardt's press release for the exhibitionexplained:

cybernetic device responds to stimulus from outside and in turn affectstbe external environment, like a thermostat wliich responds to the coldnessofa room by switching on the heating and thereby altering tbe temperatureThis process is called feedback.

Exhibits in the show are eiLher prod uced with a cybernetic device(computer) or are cybernetic devices themselves. They react to something itlie environment, either hum an or machine, and in response produce eithersound, light or movement.Unlike the other exhibitions focused on technology. Cybernetic Sereniiipity was

experimental not only in the metaphorical sense that it explored new ideas,methods, and materials, but also because it was explicitly designed as an experi-

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Installation view Cybernetic Serend/pityInst i tute for Conten^porary Art London1968 Hyman Kreitman Research Centre, TGA955/18/2/2 (photographer unknown; photo-graph Tte, London, 2008. provided by tine ICAand Tte Archive}

9. asiaReichardt. Ar t and Usefulness, StudioJune 1960,290-91,10.C ybernetic Serendipity:The Computer and theArts ed.Jasia Reichardt (Lon don: StudioInternationa l, 1968), 5. This publication , a specialissue of tudioInternationai.was released in con-junction with the exhibition but was not a cata-logue of the works in the show,11.Jasia Reichardt, Cyberne tics, Ar t, and Ideas,in Cybernetics,An. andIdeas ed.Jasia Reichardt(Greenwich, CT: N ew York Graphic Society,1971), 14.

ment that would test its own premises. At the beginning of the 1960s, Reichardthad asserted chat artistic production depended less on miracles than on firmprinciples and that consequently the effectiveness of art could be scientificallyassessed. ^ Aspects of th is reasonin g were evident in Cybernetic Serendipity even if, incontrast to a laboratory experiment, no attempts were made to record the results.

As stated in its accompanying publication, the principal objective of theshow was to explore and demonstrate in an international arena the relationshipsbetween techn ology and creativity; to present an area of activity wh ich mani-^fests artists' involvement with science, and the scientists' involvement with thearts;also, to show the links between the ran dom systems em ployed by artists,compqsers, and poets, and those involved with the making and use of cyberneticdevices. 'The experimental character of the exh ibition in a figurative sense wasevident in Reichardt's candid assessment that it dealt with possib ihties ratherthan achievements because computers had yet to revolutionize music, art,and poetry in the same way that they revolutionized science. Simultaneously, inher o pin ion . Cybernetic Serendipity was a dem onstratio n of con tem porary ideas ,acts and objects, linking cybernetics and the creative process. I suggest that

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12.The number of participants is unclear InCybernetics, Art, ond Ideos, i I, Reichardt mentions32S but accounts for 130. In the show's accompa -nying publication, she credits 118, which mayexclude artistic collaborators:Cybemetic Serendipity.6-7 . In an additional essay, she mentions 130: Getting Rid of P re-Concep tions, Studio Inier-ncdonai.N ovemb er 1968, 76. The number 325 inCybernetics. A rt,and Ideasappears to be a misprint.13.Reichardt, Cybernetics, Art, andIdeas. 11 .14. Ibid., 17.15.This was the first comprehensive exhibitionof concrete poetry in London and the secondin England.The First ntemaHonal Exhibition ofConcrete and KJnetic Poetrywas organized inCambridge by Mike Weaver in 1964.16.The following information draws on my inter-view with Jasia Reichardt, London, December 8,2007. 1 am grateful to Jasia Reichardt for her gen-erous assistance and kindness.17.Computersand utomation (Nevrtonviile. MA:Berkeley Enterprises. 1953-73). This journal wascontinued briefly by Computerson utomation andBeopie andthen,until 1988, Computers ond ifeop/e.18.An impressive list of individual a rtists, scien-tists, and institutions is included in both the earlyproposals and the acknowledgements sectionof the publication released with the show. Thepublished list includes collabora tors at the Smith-sonian Institution, Carnegie Mellon University,Stuttgaa un iversity. Harvard University, Univer-sity of Manchester, Institute of ContemporaryScience, London, University of Toronto, BeilTelephone Laboratories. IBM in New York,London, and Tokyo, Illinois University at UrbanaChampaign, Columbia University, MIT, andPrinceton University.19.A se^vomeci anism, servo, or slave system isan automatic device that uses error-sensing o rnegative feedback to c orrect the performance ofa larger mechanism. Cybernetic devices involvea variety of systems (hierarchical, distributed,complex, and others), which include peripheralsensory and central motor units.20. One proposal included the composer He itorVilla-Lobos (Brazil) and the writer WilliamBurroughs (U nited States) as examples of artistswho used random processes. This work was notincluded in the exhibition. Mozart presumablymade the list thanks to his compositionMusikalisches Wrfelspiel(Musical Dice Game), bymeans of which a sixteen-bar minuet could begenerated. Cage later collaborated with LejarenHiiier on the large multimedia work HPSCHD( 1969), which is based on the Mozart wor k.2 i. ICA papers related toCyberneticSerendipity.Hyman Kreitman Research Centre, Tte Britain,ref. no, TGA 9 55 /7 /2 /7 . A harmonograph is apendulum driven graphic plotting device first builtin the mid-nineteenth century. The resultingimages are typlcall/ sequences of the harmoniccurves know n as Lissajoux curves.22 .See. for example. Roy Ascott, BehaviouristArt and the Cybernetic Vision. inTekmaticEmbrace:Visionary Theories of An.Technology an dConsciousness, ed,Edward A . Shanken (Berkeley:University of California Press, 2003), 109-56;Simon Penny, From A to D and Back Again: TheEmerging Aesthetics of Interactive Art. Leonardo

Reichardt and her collaborators attempted empirically to substantiate thesepropositions by establishing specific controls in the exhibition design.

Cybernetic Serendipity occup ied a gallery of6 500square feet in the new quar-ters of the ICA at Pall Mall and in cluded the work of ab out 130 participants.'^Neither the wall texts nor the accompanying publication specified the dlsciph-nary affihation of each contributor, m aking it difficult for a viewer to determ inewhether an artist, engineer, mathematician, musician, or architect created theobject or the environment. This intentional confounding of boundaries leftthe responsibility for evaluating an d classifying the work entirely to the viewer,encouraging the interrogation of stereotypes of the engineer and the artist.Reichardt elucidated: It is assumed that the electronic engineers represent aclever hut an uncreative branch ofsociety,whereas artists are exceptionally cre-ative but it is unlikely that they should possess any technological skills. It is alsowidely assumed that to the engineer, scientist, and mathematician, art is magic,and to the composer, painter, and poet, technology is a mystery.. ,,Today thesecategorical assumptions about our various talents, functions, and possibihtiesare less accurate th an ever. '^ The unlabeled objects provided a controlled situa-tion in the gallery for the viewer to reevaluate these preconceptions. Because theconclusions would be known only to the participant, the exliibition engagedscientific methodology without attempting to replicate it.The exliibition spacewas,then, neither a laboratory nor a traditional art gallery

In Reichardt's opinion, no rules define the proper realm of art or technolo-gy; she found n o reason works of art could not be based on misu nderstan dingsand partially digested information. '+These attitudes im plied that the transit ofideas from one field to another could result in transformations of the originalnotions or beget entirely new conceptsjust as cybernetics, originally developeto optimize the operation of antiaircraft guns d uring W orld War II. was reconfigured to non utllitarian pu rposes such as the generation of drawing, musical composition, and poetry By displaying the results of such reinterpretations, the exhibition called attention to tlie instability and permeability of disciplinary boundaries

Reichardt credits the German philosop her Max Bense for giving h er Lheidea of organizing an exhibition of compu ter-based art. In 1965 Bense visitedan exhibition of concrete poetry she had organized at the ICA, Between PoetrydudPainting. ^ Impressed by the show, he recommended that she look into computerart. 'Reichardt first saw co mp uter graphics in an American m agazine entitledComputersandAutomation, wh ich since 1963 had spon sored an annual com petiti on computer art.'''The work intrigued her, and she used the magazine to familiarizeherself with the field and identify relevant institutions and individuals. Afteradditional prehminary research and securing the collaboration of numerousinstitutions and individuals, she proposed the exhibition to the ICA.'^

From the beginning. Reichardt envisioned Cybernetic Serendipity as an interna-tional event including a wide range of media: graphics, music, computer texts,films, robots, servomechanisms, chance games, and cybernetic devises.'' Pro-posed participants included the cybemetician Gordon Pask (England);the artistsNicholas Schffer (France,b.Hungary ), Edward Ihnatowicz (England, b. Poland).Takis (Greece), Bruce Lacey (United King dom ), JeanTinguely (Switzerland), andEugenio Carmi (Italy); and the com posers John Cage (U nited States), KarlheinzStockhausen (Germ any), Iannis Xenakis (France, b. Rom ania), and Wolfgang



Installation view Cybernetic SerendipityInst i tute for Contemporary Art London1968 (photographer unknown, photographprovided by jasia Reichardt).At the lower left is Edward Ihnatowicz's interac-tive sculpture Sound ctivated Mobile SAM). 1968;on the right is Rowland Emett,TheHoneywellEmett Forget-me-not PeriphenjI Pachyderm)Computer, 1966.

Electronic lmanac4, no. 4 (A pril 1996): n.p., avail-able online at http://leoalmanac.org/journal/Vol_4/lea _v4_nO 4.txt: Simon Penny, Th eVirtualizatfon of Art Practice: Body Knowledgeand the Engineering Worldview, Art journal56,no. 3 (Fall 1997): 30-3 8: Ma rk Hansen, NewPhilosophyfo rNewMedia(Cambridge, MA: MITPress, 2004); and Brian Massumi,Parobles for iheVinual: Movement. Affect.Sensotion (Durham, NC:Duke University Press, 2002).

ozartShe conceived the exhibition as an interactive event in which thepublic's participation would be required. Proposals specified that visitors wereexpected to operate various cybernetic devices and to produce their ow n graph-ics alone or w ith the help of an assistant using various ha rmonog raphs thatwould be available within the exhibition.'' Some of the works necessitated spe-cific behavioral input from the participant in order to function. For instance,Ihnatowicz'sSow clmleMobile SAM)was an interactive electrohydraulic sculp-ture consisting ofafour-petaled, fiower-shape d, fiberglass head moun ted on acustom-mad e, flexible aluminum skeleton. In response to sounds em itted by thevisitors, a microphon e motmted on each petal activated hydraulic pistons, caus-ing the hody of the mobile to lean in the direction of the sound. LikeSAM,someof the computer-based works dem anded bodily activity from the participantafocus on behavior has since received dedicated theoretical attention in the elabo-ration of aesthetic frameworks by media practitioners and scho lars.

According to Reichardt, the organization ofCyberneiicSerenilipity took placeunder economic hmitations wliich in today's professional museum world would

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2 3 . Author interview with Reichardt,24 Ibid2 5 . Reichardt, Cybernetic Serendipity, 5-7.2 6 .Reichardt, Cybernetics,An and Ideas. I I.According to Michael Kustow, who was appointedexecutive directo r of the ICA in the spring pre-ceding the show, there w ere forty-five thousandvisitors. See Terry Colema n, Wild in the Mali;Terry Cole man on the ICA's Financial Crisis, TheGuardian December 5 . 1968.2 7. The text of this release is available on linea t www.medienkunstne tz .de /exhibi t ions/se rendipi ty/ .

make such a complex exhibition improbable. She recalls that at the time sheproposed the show, the ICA had five employees and a m anagement comm itteethat judged the proposals.Thecommittee, consisting of a musicologist, a pub -lisher, a poet, and an architect, welcomed h er initiative: They were happy thasomeone wanted to do something as adventurous and no one mentionedmoney. She sough t support from relevant individuals in London, including sci-entists, arts benefactors, and businesspeople. In her recollection, with exceptionof the Arts Council, there w ere no offers of financial assistance, thou gh therewere offers ofhelpand much encouragement.^'In 1968 Reichardt received a fellowship from the US State DepartmentCouncil on Leaders and Specialists to travel to the United States for research. Inthe two-month duration of her visit she met vrith relevant artists and scientists,and obtained material for the exhibition. In Reichardt's opinion. CyberneticSerendipity was possihie only hecause there was enormous enthusiasm for thesubject: Artists brought their work from Am erica; no one paid them . No oneexpected money from an experiment. ^* In her account, the exhibition resultedprimarily from a spirit of collaboration among advisers, donors, and partici-pants.In addition to num erous academic researchers and artists, IBM, Boeing.General Motors, Westinghouse, and ellTelephone Labs contributed material tothe exhibition.^'To install the show Reichardt relied on Mark Dowson, a free-lance electronics and system-design consultant who had long collaboratedwith Pask and his organization. Systems Research Ltd.. as technological adviser.Peter Schmidt, a painter and a performer in electronic music, was m usic adviser.The painter and designer FranciszkaTliemerson was responsible for the exhibi-tion's design.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Reichardt organized a biweekly lectureseries in which specialists discussed the impact of computers in diverse realmsof knowledge and practice, including painting, literature, music, comm unica-tion, psychology, and genetics. Every day a film made with the aid of computersor addressing the relevance of computer technology to the humanities, the arts.and communications was screened in the ICA exhibition hall. In Reichardt'sestimation, nearly sixty thousand people saw Cybernetic Serendipity.^^The show'ssuccess was aided by ICA-sponsored publicity and programming, which target-ed various pubhcs. The organization's attempt to attract a diverse constituencyis evident in press releases of the exhibition. The one signed by Reichardt out-lined the central notions of the exhibition, summarizing the history of the term cyb ernetics from its Greek origins to the present, explaining the notio n offeedback and its significance to the displays, and defining serendipity as thefaculty of making happy chan ce discoveries, after Horace Walpole's coinageof the term in 1754,Toconclude, the text explained that in the context of theshow, serendipity referred to the happy discoveries made through tiie use ofcybernetics in various media.^An unsigned press release distributed by the ICappealed to families seeking to entertain young children. The contrast in thetone of the two docum ents could not have beengreater Theanonymous pressrelease was less concerned with the intellectual aspects of the exhibition thanwith its potential as entertainment. Because, like the anonymous author, manycritics emphasized the popular-amusement character of the show, the text isworth quoting at length:12 F.ALL 2O0



28. ICA. London, publicity for the exhibition yberneticSerendipity. Hyman Kreitman ResearchCentre, Tte Britain, ref, no. TGA 95 5/ 7/ 8/ 2.29. The ICA's distribution o f the anonymouspress release suggests that the portraya l of theexhibition as entertainment concurred w ith achange in the institution's orientation toward agreater reliance on commercial associations andfunding diversification of programming and publicoutreach.30. Letter from P. L. Clarke , of St. Smithin'sHouse, Waibrook, London, December 21 , 1970,to Juliet Brightmore. ICA papers related toCybernetic Serendipity Hyman Kreitman ResearchCentre, Tte Britain, ref. no. TGA 95 5/ 7/ 8/ 4.Instead of the agreed fee of 15,000, the Smith-sonian agreed to pay 10,000 in comp ensationfor the canceiiation. On the ICA's financial trou-bles,see Coleman.31 .Letter to Reichardt from Martha Morris,registrar at the Corcoran G allery of A rt, May 28,1971.ICA papers reiated to yberneticSerendipily.Hyman Kreitman Research C entre. Tte Britain,ref , no, TGA 9 55 /7/2 /8.

Cybernetic Serendipity is far from child 's play from an adult po int of view.Needless to say, the kids ado re it. From their ecstatic reaction to the auto-mated ht-up-com puters, free-ranging robots, painting maciiines, sounddomes, a complete electronic recording studio and a glorious Einmet parodyof the transistorised world, tomorrow is already with us. One can foreseethe day when computers will replace railway trains and airliners as the cultsymbols of the un der-twelves and ii will become as vital to know the differ-ence between a Honeyw ell Mark IV and an IBM 8oo as it is to d istinguishbetween a Boeing andaViscount Meanwhile take the family to the ICAwh ere they can p ush, pu ll, whistle, blow and yell at a gallery full of tamewonders which look as if they've come straight out ofaScience Museumof the year

Wh ile Reichardt's release appealed to those interested in the intellectual sub-stance of the exhibition, the unsigned press release addressed fun -seeking fami-lies and novelty lovers.Theanonymous author portrayed the show as a dry runfor the future that offered the opp ortun ity for children to famiharize them -selves with emerging technologies and for parents to accept the irreversiblechanges that those technologies would bring. According to the unnamed autlaor,far from intimidating visitors, the works in the exhibition would habituate thefamily to the future through play, and the unsigned release inserted CyberneticSerendipity into a preconc eived course for th e future of Britain. Wh ile some ofthe works in the exhibition supported these projections (the antliropomorphicrobots might indeed encourage young children and their parents to approachthe IBM mainframes), this interpretation does not account for the inclusion ofmus ic, texts, or w orks in traditional m edia. The two ICA releases coincided onlyin their emphasis on pleasure, presented by Reichardt as the intellectual gratifica-tion associated with making happy discoveries and by the anon ym ous authoras lighthearted family amusement.^

Aiter its run at the ICA, yberneticSerendipity traveled to the SmithsonianInstitution in Washington, DC An agreement between the ICA and the Smith-sonian specified that after the initial show at the Sm ithsonian, the exh ibitionwould be sent to about ten museums and galleries in the United States over aperiod of two years. Each institution would pay a fee between S,ooo and$6,000, in addition to transportation, insurance, and packing. The ICA expectedto earn about 56^,000 from the tour. But in transit from England the exhibitionsuffered such a significant am ount of damage tliat the Smithsonian's ad ministra-tion decided to cancel the show, resulting in a considerable financial loss to theICA from the cancellation of the ex hibition and the projected tour, a loss whichcontrib uted to ongo ing financial troubles at the ICA.

The Corcoran G allery in Washington agreed to take the ex liibition and torepair some of the works with no fee to the ICA. But when the show was trans-ferred from the Smithsonian to the new location, two additional pieces, NamJune Paik'sRobotK-456 and Jolin Baker's Suspended Drmving Machine, were irreparablydam aged.'' The Corcoran later offered to arrange for the show to travel, but dueto these two catastrophic experiences, the ICA only allowed the exhibition toshow at the Palace of Arts and Sciences (formerly the Palace of FineArts and laterto become the Exploratorium) in San Francisco from mid-September to October



1969.'^ T h e exhib ition in San Francisco was so successful, in the op inion of FranOppenheimer, the founder and director of the Exploratorium, that he requestedpermission to extend the show for three additional months. A s of December1 9 7 0 the exhibition was still on view.^' However, once its run in San Franciscowas over. Cybernetic Serendipity once again met wi th mishap: as c orre spo ndenc eheld in the ICA archives indicates, as late as Octob er 1971, the c onten ts ofCybernetic Serendipity remained packed on the docks of S an Francisco due to thedocker's strike that summer. The delay and resultant inability to return the artistsworks in a timely fashion caused considerable embarrassment to the ICA.''*

In 1971 two add itional pub lications related to Cybemelic Serendipity w ere releasedReichardt's Th e Computer in .Art an overview of com puter-generated work, especiallygraphics, andCybernetics Art and ideas, a collection ofessayson philosopliical andtechnical issues by various authors, including Jonathan Swift, John R. Pierce,Bense, and participants in yberneticSerendipity such as Pask, Xenakis, and MichaelNoll. These publications became foundational to the study of digital art bothbecause they examined relevant aesthetic and technical issues of computer artand because they included illustrations of early works.

3 2 . Clarke to Brightmore. December 21,197 0.3 3 . Ibid.3 4 . Roy Allen to Phillipe Scott. Decem ber 20,1 9 7 0 ; Scott to Allen. Octob er 1 9 7 1 . Maughan S.Mason, and K. Aleleben from Hamburg alsowrote letters of inquiry on October 27, 1971,and Octo ber 16, 1 9 7 1 respectively. ICA papersrelated to the Exhibition ybemeticSerendipity.Hyman Kreitman Research Centre. Tte Britain,ref . TGA 955/7/2/8,3 5 . For example, l^ax Bense. The Project ofCenerative Aesthetics , in Cyernet/cs, Art, andIdeas. 57-6 0. has affinities with current w orkin generative and artificial life. See MitchellWhitelaw,Metacrection: An a n d Anif'cialLife(Cambridge. MA: MIT Press. 2004); and PeterWeibel. The Intelligent Image; Neurocinem aor Quan tum Cinema? in FutureCinema: T h eCinematic Imaginary after Film,ed . Jeffrey Shaw andPeter Weibel (Cambridge. t^A; MIT Press, 2004),594-601.3 6 . See, for exam ple, Michaell^cNay Art andthe Two Nations, TheGuardian. Saturday. August31,196 8, 5; Amy Raphael. An, Jewish Chronicle.Oc tobe r 18. 1968. For a n extensive discussionof other reviews of yberneticSerendipity seeRainer Usselmann, The Dilemma of Media Ar t: ybernetic Serendipityat the ICA London,Leonardo36. no. 5 (2003): 389-96,3 7 . Jonathan Benthall, Artists and TechniciansT i m e s L i t e r a ry S u p p l e m e n t O c t o b e r 3 1 1 9 6 8 .284-85. Further citations in this paragraph arefrom the same pages.

e eptionThe enormous popularity of yberneticSerendipitys London run did not imply thathe British art world understood it. Although reviewers in the popular press weroverwhelmingly enthusiastic about the innovative and fun quahties of the exhi-bition, the opinions of art critics ranged from cautious evaluation to blatantincomp rehension. Most critics agreed that the works presented in the exhibitionwere not art, but they expressed contradictory views as to why They com plainedabout the works' divergence from existing aesthetic forms in the same breath asthey decried their lack of formal innovation. Others simply found technologicalcomplexity inappropriate for art. Some explicitly avoided discussing the show.'*This ambivalence suggests a fundamental discomfort with the principal premiseof the show: the connection of technology with creativity.

In an essay pubhshed in theTimesLiterary Supplement while Cybernetic Serendipitywas on view, Jonathan Benthall discussed the potential of th e art-and-teclmologymovement but evaded the evaluation of specific exhibitions and individualworks. Recogn izing that the movement emerge d in an artistic context inwhic h traditional artistic values were being challenged, he feared that experi-mentation in art could lead to mere novelty hunting , which can be accusedat its worst of aiming at tlie jaded palate of a puhhc that has lost tlie ability totell good art from bad . He believed that in order to survive, art shoxild opera tewithin a ciiltturally accepted gen re: Wh en the public loses know ledge of aparticular genre, or when {as in tiie case of some of the arts today) a wholespectrum of genres collapses, the artist is left in a difficult position. For techno -logical art to develop, he proposed greater economic support for the arts ingeneral and the creation of a common theoretical framework for artists and technicians. Wh ile Bentiiall suppo rted the unification of science and art, he believedthat technological art should cultivate established aesthetic no rms. He did notseem to consider the possibiUty that technology could propel the developmentof new aesthetics. Despite his reservations, four years later Benthall published a



John Ravilious Drawing Mach ine 1967approx. 8 ft. high (244 cm) (artwork JohnRavilious; photograph provided b/JasiaReich ard)

38. Jonathan Ben thall. Sciencean d echnology in rt7od o/(Ne w Y ork: Praegen 1972).39 ,Alexander Weatherson. SerendipitousSoftware: An Exhibition of Cybernetic A rt O pensThis M onth at theI.C.A.. nondArtists August1968. 12-17. Further citations in this paragraphare from p. 17.

book entitled Scienceand Technology in Art Todoyin w hi ch several wo rk s from CyberneticSerendipity were illustrated.^*

Alexander Weatherson. writing for ^rt and^tists , commended the ICA andthe curator for their bravery in attenuating the boundaries between art and sci-ence and bemoaned the oversimplification of art that resulted from democratiza-tion. His principal dissatisfaction with the exhibition was the artists ' focus onperformativity rather than on the creation of original artistic forms. It is as if nogreat effort had been made to find a unique form for the object. In tliis there isno suggestion of a double take, a Venus de Milo com ing to shake han ds for instance,but a weary rehance o n the already exploited, he wrote.^^ In his op inio n, theartists did not bother to supersede the formal ideas of their predecessors but

I art journal



John Billingsley Albert 1967 metal and elec-tronics, approx.23 in. high {75 cm) (artwork John Bilngsley; photograph provided by asiaReichardt)

40 .Ironically, in the publication associated withthe show. Noll reported a study in which only 28percent of participants were able correctly toidentify the computer-generated picture while 59percent preferred the computer-generatedimages. Because in this study the identity o f th eartist was irrelevant for the public's enjoyment ofthe wo rk, Noll's results supported Reichardt'spremises forCybernetic Serendipity A. MichaelNoll, A Subjective Com parison of PietMondrian's 'Comp osition with Lines' 1917, inCyberneticSerendipity 74 .41 . Guy Brett. The Computers Take to Ar t,Times. London. August 2. 1968. 7.

took pleasure in making their prestigious constructions run and jum p up anddown. He found Noll's computer-graphic variations of ietMondrian's paint-ings particularly offensive, and their failure only succeeded in showing the alchemy and force of Mon drian's comp ositions. He concluded: The compu tmay be able not so mu ch to enlarge our concepts of art as to widen immeasur-ably our knowledge of w hat is notart. The issue seemed to he that the marksof human creativity integral to formal innovation were lacking in mechanicaldevices and computer-generated art.'i

Tlie renowned art critic Gny Brett admired the exhibition's attempt to transgress disciplinary boundaries but regretted what he understood as its focus onentertainment. In his view, the art section of the exhibition was the least successful because it favored tech nical complex ity before art. Unlike a computer, awork of art does not need to be physically complex, he opined. Art can createrelationships in a very elementary form. But technical complexity has been oneof the criteria behind selection of works for the ICA exhibition. . . .To put mechanisms, the technique first, is surely to treat technology apart from both scienceandart. * Like Benthall, Brett further suggested that the curator's predilection



42. Papers related to yberneticSerendipity.Hyman Kreitman Research Centre, Tte Britain,ref. no. TGA 955/7/2/7. Such dismissive views ofthe latest technologically based art persist in theart wo rld. It is not accidental that most of thecanonical works of digital art of the last twentyyears have seldom been exhibited in art museumsand that references to the field have been deletedfrom the history of modern and contemporaryart. See the recent survey by H al Foster. RosalindKrauss, Yve-Alain B ois, and Benjamin H D.Buchloh,ArtSince 1900: ModemismAntimodernism.PosTmodernism (New York;Thames and H udson , 2005), as well as the specialissue, on obsolescence, of the associated journal.October 100 (Spring 2002).43 . Bruno Latour, Mo rality and Technology; TheEnd of the Means, Theory Culture andSociety 19,no. 5/ 6 (2002); 247, 252, available online atwww.bruno-latounfr/articles/article/OSO-en.html. See also Martin Heidegger, TheQue stion concerning Technology. inThe Questionconcerning Technology and Otber ssoys, trans.William Lovirt (New York; Harper Perennial,1982), 3-3 5.44 .Letter, Penrose to Snowdon, September 4,1968; letter, Morland to Blake, Oc tob er 1, 1968;letter, Morland to Sir Duncan Oppenheimer,Octo ber 1, 1968; letter, Morland to Snowdon,October 3, 1968; letter, Penrose to Snowdon,Oc tobe r 17, 1968; all in ICA papers related toCyfaernetic Serendipity, Hyman Kreitman ResearchCentre, Tte Britain, file no. 9557/2/4.45 .The responses paralleled the reception of9 Evenings in the United Sate s; see Lacerte and9 EveningsReconsidered.

for complex mechanisms (computers) detracted from art; yet he also commentedon the anachronistic forms of some oftheworks: Many works have an old-fashioned anthropomorphic-snrreahst rohot faschiation, and in others a 'respon-sive'device (it may be a mechanism which starts tiie work or varies it whenyou approach or speak) has heen added as an afterthought to a conventionalmechanical system. In these instances, the problem was not the work's teclinicalcomplexity but its formal and teclmological anachronism. In sinnmary. for Brett,the works in Cybernetic Sercndipily were too technical to be good art and too old-fashioned (the anthropom orphic robots) to represent contemporary science. Thisconclusion suggests that even if he supported interdisciplinarity, he was pr o-foundly ambivalent about die proper role of technology in either science or art.

Brett was not alone in tliis mixed evaluation. Many other critics judged themusic, texts, machines, and robots ofCyberneticSerendipity fi t for a fun fair or a sci-ence museum and not for an art gallery, or found the achievements ofartistsinthe field of science naive and un sophisticated, and similarly jndged teclmologi-cally assisted art. com paring for instance, com puter graphics to children's draw-ings. Technological art fell between the realms of art and technologyandwas judged insufficient as each.'^^The focus ofCybemeticSerendipity on the linksbetween technology and creativity was especially irritating to art lovers, as thisassociation threatened one of the strongest pillars of humanism. In popularhumanist narratives, creativity is an attribute ofgenius, the highest distinction ofthe human. Where in art,techneas craft or skill is highly valued, technologies areoften regarded as tools, instrumen ts or m eans to ends with implicit acceptanceof human mastery over the means. In response to such understandings of tech-nology, the philosopher B runo Latour advances the argument that widiout tech-nology the properly human would not exist. For him, the imagination is inti-mately entwined with technologies, for these bom bard hum an beings with aceaseless offer of previously unheard -of positionsen gagem ents, suggestions,allowances, interdictions, habits, positions, alienations, p rescriptions, calcula-tions,memories. +^ Instead of stressing mastery over technology, Latour calls forthe recognition ofacommon history of hum ans, tools, and machines. In sucha history, creativity and the arts, as Reichardt posited, would be inextricablyenmeshed with technology

Local businesspeople responded to Cybernetic Serendipity with no more enthusi-asm than the art critics. On September 4 , 1968, the ICA's hono rary director. SirRoland Penrose, wrote to the earl of Snowdon, a supp orter of the exliibition, toinform him that he planned to organize a cocktail party at the ICA followed by atour of tlie gallery w ith the inten tion of attracting the support of industrialists,especially those connected to electronics. Former ICA director Dorothy Morlandtook over the arrangements for the party. In a letter to John Blake, DeputyHead, Industrial Division, Council of Industrial Design, dated Octo ber i, 1968,Morland rep orte d, The replies so far are rather disappointing- 20 acceptancesand 60 refusalsbut there is time to improve. Theparty was held on theevening of Monday, October 14.Despite Morland's distribu tion of extra invita-tions to selected guests to encourage them to include additional people, theevent had dismal attendance.*''^ Most critics had judged the work according tocriteria appropriate to traditional visual media; businesspeople, perhaps influ-enced by the critics, demonstrated indifference to the exhibition.*''

I art ournal



46 .Usselmann. 393. For other scholarly per-spectives on CyberneticSerendipity see BrentMacGregon Cybe rnetic Serendipity Revisited.inCreativity andCognition:Proceedingsof theFourth Conference on Creativity andCognition, ed .Ernest Edmonds, Linda Can d/, Terence Kavanagh.and Tom Hewett (New York: Association forComputing Machiner/, 2002). I 1-13. availableonline at design.osu.edu/carlson/hisCory/PDFs/cyberserendipity.pdf. See also MitchellVJHie\aw. 1968/1998; Rethinking a Systems AestheticN T Newsletter3 3,May 1998. available online athttp://diss.anat.org.au/mwhitelaw.html.47 .Usselmann, 294 and 395; and Brian W inston .MediaTechnology andSociety aHistory:From theTelegraphto theInternet(New York; Routledge,1998).48 .Donna Haraway, ' A Manifesto for Cyborgs;Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the1980s, Socialist Review80 ( 1985); 65-1 07.49. Ibid,.72,50. Author interview w ith Reichardt.

While art historians have interpreted the negative responses of critics totechnological art in the U nited States in light oftheongoing VietnamWar fewallusions to political events appear in tlie British responses toCyberneticSerendipity.a recent analysis, the scholar Rainer Usselmann argues that Cybernetic Serendlpity'smain flaw was its lack of c cality and historicity. In this context, historicityfor Usselmann means the recognition of the military ancestry of computertechnologies as well as the connection hetween the industrial companies thatsupported the show and the ongoing war efforts. He suggests that the silencearound these issues indicated the ICA's support for the Labor Prime MinisterHarold Wilson's Utopian technological vision for the future of Britain and theagenda of the National Computing Centre (NCC) to increase computer usage inthe United Kin gdom. In his words , Cybernelic Serendipity offered a ligh theartedview of the modern world without raising too many (ifany objections or stir-ring fears. Rather than focus on the technocratic or plainly vacuous elements inWilson's vision, the exhibition merged science and technology with great entertainment and a dash of art., .. Perhaps for the first time it could be considered be 'cool' to be involved with computers, *^ Drawing from the work of the medischolar Brian Winston, Usselmann associates social apathy w ith the technologicarts because, in liis view, unlike traditional m edia such as painting an d sculpturthese arts are hnked to commercial imperatives.*'

To be sure. Cybernetic Serendipity made no overt political critique. But the exhbition's inclusion of military and commercial technologies for creative endsleads to more than Usselmann's unambiguous conclusion that It supported reactionary pohtics. In her 1985 Manifesto for Cyborgs, Donna Haraway argued fothe pohtical necessity of eradicating the leaky distinction amon g hum ans , ani-mals, and m achines. ''-^ In her assessment, wh ile from one perspective a cyborgfuture could result in perman ent warfare and a final imp osition ofagrid ofcontrol on the planet, from anotlier perspective it mig ht result in a world inwh ich people would accept partial identities, contradictions, and their jointkinship with animals and machines. Haraway further stresses the importan ce obeing able to take in both perspectives at once as, in her opinion, single visionproduces worse illusions than double visions of many-headed m onsters. *'Cybcmelic Serendipity omitted mention of animals, yet. as in Haraway's second pro-jection for a cyborg future, the machines displayed in tlie exhibition certainlypartook in hu ma n creativity, pleasure, andplay.Thisfocus in turn suggested analternative to the stability and w holeness o f the hu man ist subject,

Reichardt says that she did no t read the reviews. In her o pinio n, reviews arimpo rtant on ly as part of history. There was a shiver dow n my spine every timI went in [the e xh ibition ], so I knew it was good . She was already plannin g henext show, entitled Fluorescent Chrysanthemum (new Japanese art, music, and films)at the ICA, Lon don , for 1968-69. Like Haraway, Reichardt advocated for p lea-sure in the confusion of boundaries.Thisattitude would be reiterated in otherprojects in Reichardt's career.

IS FALL



The Curator

Jasia Reic hard t in 968 (photographerunknown,photograph provided byjasiaReichardt)

5 1 . Her lecture titles inciude Sometimes Ar t IsUseful in Science, Ar t as a Record of Subjects ofScientific Incerest, The Aesthetic in Science,Op tical Illusions, Electronics and Cybe rnetics.and Unfair to Robots.5 2. Jasia Reich ardt, Robots; Foct, Fiction, an dredi ion (New York: Viking 1978), 7.5 3. Deborah Hay, quote in Frances Dyson, And then it was now, available online atwww. fondation-langlois.org/e/dyson/ .5 4. The Themersons' influence in European van-guard m ovements was documented in the exhibi-t i on Breai



Front cover of asia Reichar dt Robots: Factfiction and Prediction 1978 published byThames and Hudson, London (photograph provid-ed by Thames and Hudson, Ltd, London).The cover illustration by Peter T/bus is based on aphotograph of Eric, a 1928 robot inspired by KarelCapek splayR-UR,

5 5 , The Tfiemefsons and ihe Gaberbocchus Press AnExperiment in Publishing ed, Jan Kubasiewicz andMon ica S t rauss (Ne w Yo rk : M jS Books andGraphics 1993). 20,

of significant mod ernist autho rs, amo ng them Alfred Jarry, Pol Dives, RaymondQueneau, Guillaume Apolhnaire, and Kurt Schwltters, in addition to works byBritish lumin aries such as Bertrand Russell and books of their ow n. In 19 7 thThemersons transformed the basement of the Gaberbocchus offices into a centefor ajt and science, wbich they named the Gaberbocchus Common Room, Theirobjective w as to provide artists, poets, musicians, scientists, writers, and theaterpeople w ith a convivial space to meet and exchange \ iews on subjects relatedto the philosophy of science and the philosoph y ofart. The invitation to theCommon Room, written in August of 1957, explained:

We don't identify science with gadgetry, nor art with a kind of romanticirresponsibility. ewo uld ratlier prefer to see both sides as investigatorsand explorers of the universe, whether the part of the universe that is beingexplored is the nebula in Andromeda or a molecule, or the constellation of



FrancJszkaThemerson logo forGaberbocchus Press 1948 artworkJasiaReichardc; photograph provided by asiaReichardt)

q A B E R B O C C H U S [ ^ ^PRESS _PR S TS

56 ,The invitation is on file at the ThemersonArchive, since 1998 under the care of asiaReichardt and Nicholas Wadley, For an introduc-tion to the archive, see www .vam,ac,uk/vastatic/wid/exhibits/gaberbocchus-press/archive.html. After two years of activity, in I9S9the Gaberbocchus Common Room closed forthe summer and never reopened.57, Stefan Themerson,The Urge to Oeate Visions Amsterdam: Gaberbocchus-De Harmonie,1983), 29

individual experiences ofanartist or a poet, , , . It seems that the artificialbarrier dividing science from the arts is becoming obsolete, and it may beworthwhile to try to ignore it Thisis an attitude to which we feel an urge tocontribute, not so much because we want to fulfill a particular programmeas because it promises to be interes ting, fruitful and a pleasure.^^

like Cybernetic Serendipity ten years later, the invitation identified commonali ties inthe creative experience ofartistsand scientists and called attention to the plea-sure of unexpected discoveries. It was at the Com mon Room that Reichardt, thenin her early twenties, first learned about cybernetics.TheThem ersons' philoso-phy would have a lasting infiuence on Reichardt's work.

For Stefan Th emerson , cosm opolitanism w as an attitude that could be culti-vated by individuals anywhere on the planet, and not the domain ofasingleclass or culture.^^ This pos ture also was evident in Reichardt's activities as anorganizer and editor.Asassistant director of the ICA, her duties included pro-gramming events and editing the monthly ICABulletin, review of tliis magazinebetween 1964 and 1970 reveals a diversity of prog ram min g rare for the p erio d:ICA events included not only contemporary Eiiropean and American art, but alsoart, poetry, architecture, and music from the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, and LatinAmerica. fascination with boundaries and with what is excluded from demar-cated territories is consistent w ith her interdisplinary approach toart.When askedabout her inclusive approach, Reichardt simply responds that it came naturally toher, What has always interested me is what happens on the borderUnes, sbeexplains. If art is a country, what happens at the edges, towards literature,

21 ar t journal



Front cover of asiaReichardt tay Orbit1969 exhibition catalogue published ythe maga-zine Studio ntemctioncl photograph provided byJasia Reichardt). The illustration is from a printby Jean-lgnace Gerard aka Grand ville), ca, 1844.

A Studio International publication

58 .Author interview w ith Reichardt.59 .Reichardt,The Computert Art London;Studio Vista, 1971), 7.

towards theater, towards poetry, is whal interests me. ^^ In her introduction toTheComputerinArt Reichardt wrote:

Since the early i9fos . . . there have been two international movem entswhich in this context constitute an exception. An exception in the sense thathere are no m asterpieces to be associated w ith them, nevertheless, thesetwo movements have a unique significance both socially andartistically.Thfirst of these is Concrete Poetry and the second, ComputerArt.Thesahentpoints are tliat both these movem ents are international, that they are mo ti-vated by the use ofmedia,technique and method, rather than an ideology,and those participating in them come from a variety of professions, disci-phnes and walks of life,'''

swith the exhibitions that Reichardt organized at the ICA on each of these twmovem ents, this statement declared a comm itment to internationalism as well a

21 lAL L



60 .PlayOrbit exh. cat, (London: StudioInternational. 1969}. Further citations are frompages 7 and 8 of the catalogue. The exhib itiontook place at the Royal National Eisteddfod ofWales, Flint. August 4-9 . 1969, and at che ICANovem ber 28 , 19 69-February 15, 1970,61 ,A Gallup poll designed by Reichardt in con-nection with the exhibition to investigate the playpreferences of one hundred children and onehundred adults was cancelled after six weeksbecause the adults failed to understand the sur-vey s purpose. Similarly, of twelve thousandcopies of a questionnaire on the subject of playdistribute d in the Apri l 1969 issue of the ICA sevent sheet, only one recipient replied. SeePlayOrbitcatalogue.

a conviction thai the minor, what is in between or excluded from established artpractices, can be both unique and socially significant.Thepassage also makesdear her predilection for varied media, methods, and techniques over formallyconsistent groupings.

Similar inclinations were evident in her exhibition Play Orbit, which openedat the Royal National E isteddfod ofWales in August 1969 and later traveled to th eICA in London.'^ Intended to narrow the gap between works of art and thoseothe r tilings wiiicli fill ou r enviroinnent, the exhib ition displayed toys, gamesand playables designed by visual artists and designers. Initially, one h und redartists were invited to submit works and to provide a definition oftheterm toySubsequently, an open invitation was extended to any artist wisliing to partici-pate.The only stipulations were that the work should not exceed six feet in anydimension and that fragile materials should heavoided Theformat precluded ahom ogene ous aestheticReichardt described it as the most democratic exhibi-tion ever held in this cou ntry Professional artists and art students par ticipated .

In the catalogue to the exhibition, Reichardt classified and illustrated multi-ple kinds of toys,historical and current, and integrated in a single volume amultidisciplinary collection of theoretical essays on the concept of play. Theauthors included Blaise Pascal, Charles Baudelaire, johan Huizlnga. Roger Callois,Claude Lvi Strauss, Lewis Carroll, and Lewis Mnmford.

Albeit play is usually associated w ith ch ildren , Reichardt specified no agehmit for the toys in Play Orbit, and the catalogue explained that rather than enter-taining children the purpose of the exercise was to prod the imagination ofadults. This inclusi\ity implicitly cast play as an underdeveloped realm of adultexperience, even if such a suggestion was enigm atic to the audience. '

Both Cybernetic Serendipity and Play Orbit encouraged visitors to interact withnonhuman entities (objects and macliines) and interrogated the boundariesbetween pleasure and play swith later cu rren ts o f po sthu manism. CyberneticSerendipity and others of Reichardt's pro jects offered impor tan t avenues for think-ing aboutxh interrelatedness of humans and machines. For theorists such asHayles, Latour, and Haraway, the survival of ou r planet depe nds o n affirmingthese interconnections and recognizing a shared history.

The exclusion ofCyberneticSerendipity from the history of modern art as wellas the paucity of information in the literature of digital art about its curatordemonstrates that although computer art and the recognition of computers andwomen in art have come far, to achieve the cyborgian consciousness ofacom-mon history there is yet a long way to go. Jasia Reichardt should figure in thehistory of art as a prescient curator wh o endeavored to create in the m useum acom mo n groun d for science, art, technology, creativity, pleasure, and playMaria Fernndez is associate professor of art history at Cornell University. H er research interests includethe history and theory of digital art. postcolonial studies, Latin American art and architecture, and theintersections of these fields. She has published essays in multiple journals, including Anjournai. ThirdTextnparadoxa. Fuse and Mute. Wit h Faith Wilding and Michelle W right she edited the anthologyDomainErrors: yberfeministPractices, published by Autonomedia in 2002.

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detached from history: jasia reichardt and cybernetic serendipity

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