Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
practice. It also reflected, possibly, a more critical response to the
ideas of control and feedback that animated both cybernetic and
computer-based art. In light of both the use of Cybernetics and
information technology for military strategy and the increasing
computerization of society for the purposes of capital, the utopian
belief in their potential was hard for many to sustain.
Perhaps the main issue was that cybernetic systems and techno-
logies were part of the means by which language was used 'oper-
ationally' in Herbert Marcuse's terms, to achieve results, regardless
of truth or belief. As such they exemplified the spirit of instrum-
ental rationality that, according to Marcuse, characterized modern
scientific thought, and thereby the logic of domination which
acted against the achievement of personal and political freedom.
28
Some artists started to explore the relation between power and
such systems of domination, including language. One such was
Hans Haacke, whose work in the '
) concerned living
systems and their relationship with the environment. In his
60
s (see illus.
34
1968
topic
Beyond Modern Sculpture
Jack Burnham declared Haacke to
be an artist engaged with what he calls an 'environmental systems
philosophy'.
29
Haacke also exhibited in many of the 'New Tendency'
exhibitions in the '
s and considered himself an associate of the
German Zero group. For these reasons perhaps Haacke was one
of those commissioned by Maurice Tuchman to produce work for
the Art and Technology programme.
In the late
60
s Haacke's work took a distinctly
political turn. He began to investigate human social systems, with a
particular concern for questions of power and property. In
1960
s and early '
70
1971
a proposed retrospective exhibition of his work at the Soloman R
Guggenheim Museum in New York was cancelled because of a work
he proposed exhibiting which showed the real estate holdings of the
trustees of the museum. Haacke's new direction was part of a larger
movement, which saw artists exploring the use of language to ask
questions about the nature of art, of communication, and of power.
