Kinetic, Process, and Digital Art

In “‘Life-like: Historicizing Process and Responsiveness in Digital Art,” Maria Fernandez seeks to “discern commonalities while acknowledging differences among diverse works” of art, specifically “kinetic, conceptual, and/or electronic art” (559). She explains that these approaches, driven by computer technology in recent decades, are concerned with art that is no longer “conceived as static autonomous entities but as evolving processes that unfold in relation to both the user and the environment.” (558). She gives many examples of art such as “CYSP I” by Nicholas Schoffer, which “exemplified the cybernetic principles of input, output, and feedback” by moving as a reaction to “variations in color, light, and sound intensity in its environment” (562). She also brings up the writings of Roy Ascott, in which he promotes “an art in which process was more important than results, an art characterized by formal ambiguity and instability as well as by the active participation of artist and spectator in the act of creation” (562).
Such writings are understandable as reactions to earlier, idealistic beliefs regarding Modernist art. These earlier philosophies held the idea of “art as object, as well as of the artist’s mastery and control of materials engrained in traditional conceptions of artistic practice” (558). However, while these later artists try to merge art with the surrounding world, they would be mistaken to suggest that earlier art was not affected by “both the user and the environment” or both the “artist and the spectator in the act of creation.” Art has never occurred in a vacuum where it was safe from social, economic, technological and other environmental forces. As discussed in an earlier section of the class, even Richard Serra’s “Tilted Arc,” which could be understood as a High Modernist piece, was more, and is still more, than just a large piece of metal in a public plaza. Kinetic, conceptual, and electronic artists merely make those themes the explicit subjects of their projects by making “process” a visible part of the finished product or viewer’s experience. In a way, pieces like Hans Haacke’s “Condensation Cube” which displays the “condensation cycle, stressing the relation of the object with its environment” (565) might weaken their effect by being so apparently specific. Like Serra’s wall, the story of “Condensation Cube” involves more than just water evaporating and condensing in a box, but also economic forces, the gallery system, and audience reaction among other factors.

Fernandez, Maria. “Life-like”: Historicizing Process and Responsiveness in Digital Art. 557-581. elearning.