Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
32 Franciszka Themerson's cover for
the 'Cybernetic Serendipity' special
issue of
Studio International
, 1968.
33 Installation shot of the 'Cybernetic
Serendipity' exhibition at the ICA,
London, 1968.
until the
s, when the Internet and the World Wide Web offered
new possibilities for digital art. This is not, of course, to suggest that
art influenced by Cybernetics or using computers ceased to be made.
On the contrary throughout the
1990
s a number of artists
continued to work on those lines. Some artists involved with video
also experimented with the possibilities of digital manipulation,
while the arrival, in the '
1970
s and '
80
s, of sophisticated equipment for such
manipulation caused a brief flurry of interest from artists normally
associated with more traditional media. But, on the whole, cyber-
netic and computer art was, rightly or wrongly, regarded as marginal
in relation to both the traditional art establishment or to avant-garde
art practice. To some extent this was a result of the more general
decline in Cybernetics' fortunes, which, in turn reflected the sense
that it was more problematic than useful as a science. An attempt
to address the issues raised by this perception resulted in the devel-
opment of 'second-order Cybernetics' and Autopoeisis in the late
1960
80
s and '
70
s, which offered comparatively little purchase for art
