Information Technology Reference
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doyen of destruction in art Gustav Metzger, a guest lecturer on the
Ealing course, to make the destruction of their instruments a key
part of his rock band The Who's act. While at Ipswich School of
Art in the mid-'
s Ascott taught Brian Eno, who, having become
famous as a rock star with Roxy Music and through collaboration
with David Bowie, has continually produced innovative and experi-
mental music, in which Ascott's cybernetic legacy can be detected.
Ascott has continued to explore the possibilities of Cybernetics,
telecommunications and interactive media, and in particular what
he describes as 'telematics' and 'technoetics', the latter concerning
'the practice and theory of emerging from the convergence of art,
technology and consciousness research'. He has been largely ignored
by the British art establishment. The Tate Gallery, whose collections
encompass both modern and British art, does not own any of his
work. He has, however, achieved international recognition for his
interactive work, and his teaching.
Other important British contributions to the field of Cybernetics
and art were made by the Filipino-born but London-based artist
David Medalla, the polymath Edward Ihnatowicz and the cyberneti-
cian and theatre director Gordon Pask. In the
60
s Medalla built
a number of cybernetic art pieces, involving mud, bubbles or sand.
In
1960
he founded what he called the Exploding Galaxy which
he described as 'a kinetic confluence of transmedia explorers', and
which aimed to encourage participation and interaction between
people and with nature. Medalla continues to produce artworks
of various sorts, some of which involve cybernetic ideas. Ihnatowicz,
a wartime refugee from Poland, built a number of extraordinary
cybernetic sculptures, including SAM (
Sound Activated Mobile
) and
Senster
, commissioned by Phillips. Pask, who originally studied
medicine at Cambridge, became interested in the work of Wiener
and others in the
1967
he founded System Research, a non-
profit research organization, with his colleague Robin McKinnon-
Wood, which carried out research on skill acquisition, styles and
1950
s. In
1953
