Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Pask and Medalla's interest in the practical and technological
applications of Cybernetics was shared by a number of practi-
tioners from mainland Europe, where the possibilities of applying
cybernetic theories to aesthetics were also being explored. By the
end of the '
s a number of European
treatises on that subject had appeared, including Abraham Moles's
Theorie de l'information et perception esthétique
22
and Max Bense's
Programmierung des Schönen
23
while even earlier, in the mid-
50
s and beginning of the '
60
s
the Hungarian/French sculptor Nicolas Schöffer had produced the
explicitly 'cybernetic' sculpture, starting with his sound equipped
art structure built in
1950
for the Phillips Corporation, and followed
by his two dynamic responsive works
CYSP I
(illus.
1954
26
) and
CYSP II
(both
). Schöffer's work, as well as invoking the theories of
Cybernetics, also harked back to an older legacy, that of Kinetic
Art, which went back to the work of Marcel Duchamp, Naum
Gabo, Laszlo Moholy Nagy and others concerned with producing
dynamic, moving sculpture. Schöffer's sculptures went beyond these
in that they were capable of autonomous and complex movements,
apparently of their own volition. Schöffer's interest in kinetic and
1956
26 Nicolas Schoffer,
CYSP I
, 1956,
mixed media.
