UCS880-GM

WHAT: I’m curating an exhibition of works to sit on my desk at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry through December 20, 2010. The total available desk space is approximately 3 square feet. The desk is a Grey Mist Finish Bretford Model No. UCS880-GM, Mobile Multimedia Instructor Desk (specs here).

WHY: The STUDIO is regularly visited by students, visiting artists, scholars, engineers, scientists, technologists, curators, etc. My desk surface has high visibility and attracts attention. Currently on the surface is a bike helmet, a coffee mug, and paper.

DEADLINE: I’m here through December 20, so soon and ongoing. Send a jpeg image of your submission, plus the dimensions to gentleridevan<<<AT>>>gmail.com. If it fits, I’ll have you ship your work to the STUDIO.

The Art and Technology exhibition began as a “brave experiment.” The show, on view at LACMA from May 16 to August 29, 1971, was almost a by-product, and not the initial goal, of the project developed by the museum’s staff beginning in 1967, when senior curator of modern art Maurice Tuchman posed these questions: What if artists had access to the materials, expertise, and manufacturing processes of the day’s most advanced technologies? What if they were free to experiment with these materials and processes, and what if they could collaborate with the engineers and corporations who had developed them? –Kathy Talley-Jones on the Art & Technology program at LACMA

Based on my previous entry, I’m assembling a chronological list of artist-in-residence, or placement programs that invited artists to develop their work in partnership with labs, tech industries, or science agencies. Unlike permanent staff or consultants, in these instances artists were granted temporary access to a non-art field or were paired with a non-art professional, with varying goals– from bridging the two cultures of art and science to inspiring innovation through cross-disciplinary inquiry (or simply to illustrate and popularize science or technology, as in the case of NASA Art Program). This is a work-in-progress, and I welcome your shout outs.

Chronology of Artists in labs, tech industries, or science agencies (in progress)

1962

• NASA Art Program: The NASA Art Program was established in 1962 by the United States to commission artists, including Norman Rockwell and Robert Rauschenberg, for the purpose of recording history of space exploration through the eyes of artists. Using artist of different mediums and genres serves the purpose of educating different audiences about NASA and space exploration. The collection now includes 2,500 works by more than 350 artists. (Wikipedia)

1964

• Bell Laboratories: Bell Laboratories started an informal artist in residence program that evolved into the greatest art in technology programs in the country. It started with the beginnings of computer graphics, such as Ken Knowlton and Leon Harmon’s Computer-generated “Nude” that processed a canned photograph by Max Mathews into a series of gray levels represented by mathematical and electronic symbols. Because of the incredible freedom at Bell Labs at the time, researchers were able to invite artists to collaborate and work with this new computerized imaging. Jerry Spivack, a pioneer in interactive graphics says, “We were in the privileged position back in the ’60s of being considered a national resource and an untouched monopoly. We had a freedom that few places had.” In 1963 Knowlton developed the Beflix (Bell Flicks) animation system, which was used to produce dozens of animated films with artists like Stan VanDerBeek and Lillian Schwartz. From www.bostoncyberarts.com

1966

• Artist Placement Group (APG): Founded in London by John Latham and Barbara Steveni, the APG “pioneered the concept of art in the social context. From the outset their notion of ‘placement’ acknowledged the marginalised position of the artist and sought to improve the situation. By enabling artists to engage actively in non-art environments, the APG shifted the function of art towards ‘decision-making’.” From www.tate.org.uk

• Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.): “Founded in 1966 [in New York] by Billy Klüver, Fred Waldhauer, Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Whitman, E.A.T. was a non-profit group active primarily from the 1960s to the 1980s. Its aim: to mobilize the arts, industry and science around projects that involved participants from each field. E.A.T. promoted interdisciplinary collaborations through a program pairing artists and engineers.” From www.fondation-langlois.org

1967

James Turrell & Robert Irwin were in residence with Garrett Corporation as part of LACMA's Art & Technology program

• Art and Technology: “In 1966, Maurice Tuchman, curator of modern art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in Los Angeles, California, introduced the Art and Technology (A&T) program. The mandate of this project, which was peripheral to the museum’s activities, was to promote an exchange between artists and the corporate world. Tuchman selected California companies capable of supporting art projects, either by contributing financially to the museum or by providing technical expertise, and in 1967 the museum’s corporate partnership proposal was officially launched to 250 companies.” From www.fondation-langlois.org

• IBM: John Whitney becomes IBM’s first artist-in-residence.

1974

• Arts/INDUSTRY – John Michael Kohler Arts Center
The John Michael Kohler Arts Center is notable for its arts/industry program, the primary component of which is a residency program at Kohler Company. Artists have the opportunity to spend two to six months creating works of art utilizing industrial materials and equipment. (Wikipedia)

1985

• ANAT: Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) supports artists and creative practitioners engaging with science and technology, within Australia and beyond, including immersive residencies.

1992

Interval Research Corporation: Founded in 1992 by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft Corp., and David Liddle, a computer industry veteran with deep roots in research, Interval was a research setting “seeking to define the issues, map out the concepts and create the technology that will be important in the future.”  Intervals “think tank” included filmmakers, designers, musicians, cognitive psychologists, artists, computer scientists, journalists, entrepreneurs, engineers and software developers. The company also collaborates with other research groups and university laboratories, including the Royal College of Art, the MIT Media Lab, the Santa Fe Institute and Stanford University and many others.

1993

• XEROX PARC Artist-in-residence program: Established by Xerox PARC leader John Seely Brown and run by Rich Gold, a former Mattel toy designer, the PAIR program paired new media artists with Xerox engineers.

2005

• Factory Direct: New Haven: Factory Direct: New Haven was organized by Denise Markonish and paired 10 artists with manufacturing companies for 3 to 12 weeks, and exhibited the results at Artspace in New Haven, CT.

2007

• Artists in Labs (AIL): Artists in Labs is a Swiss partnership between the Zurich University of the Arts, the Institute of Cultural Studies (ICS) and the Bundesamt für Kultur BAK. The AIL programme aims to promote knowledge transfer between artists and scientists, reflecting on the implications of technological developments towards the society, encourage Swiss artists to acquire technical and scientific expertise and to mediate art and science into the public domain.

(Post updated September, 24 2010, thanks to information generously provided by Julie Martin, E.A.T.)

Click image to watch video. Variations V, 1965. "Engineers devised technical systems so that the movement of the dancers affected the sound. Performing at the table with the tape recorders and electronic sound modulation systems are John Cage, David Tudor, and Gordon Mumma, with the dancers in the background. The images are by Stan VanDerBeek and Nam June Paik, from a performance in Hamburg, Germany, for television filming." – Julie Martin

One of the things that has struck me most since being at CMU is that the creative use (or mis/use) of scientific principals is genuinely valued here. I have encountered a large number of art students who also hold college degrees in scientific disciplines– mostly in Applied or Formal Sciences– I have yet to meet a physicist/artist (physicartist?), but I’m sure there’s one around. I’ve attended a Rossum’s meeting (a working group for robotic artists and engineers), and a dorkbot meet-up (people who like to do strange things with electricity) which appeared to attract a cross-section of creatives and technologists. And during my first week working in the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, The Moon Arts group (lead by space art pioneer and CMU Professor Lowry Burgess) met here regularly to propose a series of interactive art projects to accompany CMU’s Google Lunar X Prize entry into space. When I asked how the Moon Arts group convinced Field Robotics to take a conceptual art payload to the moon, I was told it was the other way around: the artists were invited by Field Robotics.

I also mentioned in an earlier post how fascinated I was with the collaboration between STUDIO fellow Axel Straschnoy and The Robotics Institute on a project Axel initiated titled “The New Artist.” I’m hard pressed to think of another university that would encourage their robotics staff to direct their time toward an artist’s project.

All this leads me to wonder what value is placed on the artist in high technology-focused environments? Do artists enhance the visibility and marketing potential of the research projects? Is the artist’s process of divergent thinking seen as conducive to innovation? Or does interdisciplinary participation yield greater productivity and better outcomes?

I’ve begun to look at earlier examples of artist-in-residence programs at technology-centered agencies, industries, or corporations to try to understand scientists’ motives for working with artists.

Cutting-edge artists aren’t supposed to work for the military-industrial complex, right? … Wrong.

Since the sixties, artists like John Whitney Sr., Stan VanDerBeek, and Robert Rauschenberg have collaborated with engineers from the likes of IBM, Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, and Kohler. In fact, some of these companies have even sponsored artist-in residence programs.– from “Big Business Artist-in-residence Programs” by Elliot Feldmen

Help me build my list of well-known artists who have participated in industry-sponsored residency programs:

John Whitney, Sr. & IBM
Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) & Bell Labs (Per Julie Martin, “E.A.T. never had a residency program with Bell Labs, although many Bell Labs engineers worked with artists on their own time.”)
Stan VanDerBeek & Bell Labs
Laurie Anderson & NASA
Natalie Jerimejenko & Xerox PARC Labs
Robert Wilson & VOOM HD Labs

Artists who worked within the technology industry:

Lillian Schwartz: consultant at the AT&T Bell Laboratories, IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Laboratory and at Lucent Technologies Bell Labs Innovations.
James Tenney: worked with Max Mathews and others at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in the early 1960s to develop programs for computer sound-generation and composition.

Artists commissioned to work with emerging technologies:

Andy Warhol & Amiga

Kevin Kelly also offers this outstanding list of current organizations that offer opportunities for artists to collaborate with scientists, technologists, or professionals in business or industry.

John Whitney's set-up for filming computer animation from a monitor screen, during an artist residency at IBM Labs, 1980s

I’ve written about the late Ant Farm member Doug Michels in a previous post, and his idea for a dolphin/human space colony which he called “Bluestar.” Whenever Doug used to update me with illustrations and brochures for his interspecies space station, I wondered if he was joking. I realize now that he was taking what was being revealed about dolphin intelligence (a neocortex more highly convoluted than our own), and thinking long term about its social implications. In Doug’s longsighted speculative future, dolphins would inhabit a watery sphere inside of a ring inhabited by humans, and interspecies communication via sonar would be fluid, so-to-speak.

Doug Michels explaining Bluestar on Japanese TV (Click to watch Tom Weinberg talk about Doug's "Visionary Architecture for the Future")

A 1967 publication The Mind of the Dolphin by  C. Lilly (a countercultural scientist) had inspired not just Doug, but the artist Stan VanDerBeek. This article by Jürgen Claus about VanDerBeek is published in MIT’s LEONARDO, Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 229–232, 2003, and begins:

“In 1982 at the second Sky Art Conference in Linz, Austria, Stan VanDerBeek opened his lecture with this surprising statement: “I dedicate my lecture to the intelligence of the extraterrestrial whales.” Since the publication of John C. Lilly’s The Mind of the Dolphin in 1967, we had become accustomed to the idea of sharing an intelligent brother- and-sisterhood with the dolphins and the whales; but what did Stan mean by his dedication to “extraterrestrial whales”? One year before his sudden death in 1984, this realistic visionary already considered everything part of an interconnected space, one super- and extraterrestrial network.”

Movie-drome, Stony Point, NY, 1963–1965

VanDerBeek is primarily remembered for his MovieDrome, an immersive dome cinema created in Stony Point, New York. According to Jürgen Claus, “From 1957 on, VanDerBeek produced film sequences for the Movie-Drome, which he started building in 1963. His intention went far beyond the building itself and moved into the surrounding biosphere, the cosmos, the brain and, yes, even extraterrestrial intelligence.”

VanDerBeek’s interest in a universal visual language culminated in one of his last unrealized projects, Culture: Inter-com– an attempt to create a comprehensive picture language (read his proposal and manifesto). Another resource for all things Stan is the UMBC site, Where Is Stan VanDerBeek?

“What if we could extract nutritional value from non-human foods using a combination of synthetic biology and new digestive devices inspired by digestive systems of other mammals, birds, fish and insects?”– Dunne & Raby

Assuming that the UN’s estimate of world population topping 9 billion by 2050 is accurate, the largest problem to be addressed is food production. Rather than rethink agricultural production, designers Dunne & Raby speculate on ways that the human body could be modified to extract nutritional value from its existing surroundings. Their proposition includes the “use [of] synthetic biology to create “microbial stomach bacteria”, along with electronic and mechanical devices, to maximise the nutritional value of the urban environment, making-up for any shortcomings in the commercially available but increasingly limited diet.”

In a fascinating interview on the OK Do site, Dunne & Raby explain:

One of our ongoing projects looks at the future of food. The idea is that, as the planet becomes over-populated and food becomes an issue, rather than relying on governments and big industries to solve it, small groups of people – “foragers” – would get together. These teams would include hackers, guerilla gardeners, amateur horticulturalists and synthetic biologists, and they would develop devices to externalise their digestive system in order to be able to digest leaves, grass and other things that are undigestible at the moment. Alternatively, leaves and grass could be modified so that they would suit our systems.

Earlier this year I was tossing around the idea of creating a “human disco ball” with my friend Mark Allen. From the many occasions when I’ve worn sequins, I imagined that an entire room full of people/volunteers/performers in sequins with directed light had the potential to create a Busby-Berkeley-meets-Joshua-Light-Show singular psychedelic experience. But Marge Meyers at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry just informed me that someone already did something like this almost twenty years ago at Carnegie Mellon University… Click image below to watch the fantastic video.

Seth Riskin, 1992

We’re living in Pittsburgh, PA, where I’ve begun my Warhol Curatorial Fellowship at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry and Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University. The good folks at the STUDIO have set me up with a desk, a stipend, and a new iMac.

The STUDIO's mission is to support creation and exploration in the arts, especially interdisciplinary projects that bring together the arts, sciences, technology, and the humanities, and impact local and global communities.

My 17 minute ‘on foot’ commute from Wilkins Avenue is heavenly. We’re renting a wonderful three-story (plus finished basement) furnished home from two computer scientists who are living abroad. As such, we’ve got an elevator, full gym, water bed, dart board, outdoor grill, and a jacuzzi that’s sadly off limits (but perhaps could perform as an ‘encounter zone’). Just kidding, landlords. :)

My fellowship here is an outgrowth of the exhibition, 29 Chains to The Moon, that I curated for Miller Gallery in 2009. The exhibit title is a reference to Buckminster Fuller’s first book, 9 Chains to the Moon, – the title itself a metaphor for cooperation toward solving socio-economic woes. The exhibit considers how artists can contribute to rethinking the production of food, shelter, transportation and energy for a rapidly increasing global population. During my fellowship, I’ll develop a traveling version of the exhibit, and oversee a book sprint (more details on that later). The notion that overpopulation can be addressed before imminent catastrophe is gleamingly optimistic, and nods toward Fuller, and his radical ideas for improving the quality of life for all humankind via progressive design and maximization of the world’s finite resources. I’m also interested in understanding that same sort of humanistic, utopian aesthetic brandished by 20th Century World Fairs, the NASA Space Art Program, and poetic gestures like the Voyager Golden Record.

"Bernal Sphere" space colony, Gerard K. O'Neill, 1977

The first part of my fellowship will be a getting-to-know-you series of meetings with interesting people doing interdisciplinary projects on campus at Carnegie Mellon. I just met former STUDIO fellow, Axel Straschnoy, whose project here involved working with The Robotics Institute to create The New Artist or “art done by robots for robots.” It was fascinating to hear how Axel’s abstract concept (a robot creating art for another robot) was embraced by The Robotics Institute and approached as an empirical problem that could be solved using scientific inquiry. Axel is going to introduce me to the resulting robots this week.

From STUDIO for Creative Inquiry Flickr site: "The New Artist" is a project to develop art by and for robots undertaken by Ben Brown, Garth Zeglin, Geoff Gordon, Iheanyi Umez-Eronini, Marek Michalowski, Paul Scerri and Sue Ann Hong and Axel Straschnoy. It is being produced by Piritta Puhto.

As for Carlos, he’s been working at The Waffle Shop (an artist-run restaurant and TV show) and bringing home delicious wraps from their adjacent Kubideh Kitchen. He’ll be hosting a bi-monthly, yet-to-be-named TV show about music. Certainly, shades of his former KPFT Pacifica radio show, Moontower Radio, will be present.

Carlos' first go of it as a talk show host at The Waffle Shop.

Photos courtesy Aurora Picture Show, Melissa Hung, and Andrea Grover (me!)

During the ten years that I was with Aurora Picture Show, I hosted at least 300 visiting artists, and gave almost that many tours of Houston. Like an old cabbie, I have fine-tuned these trips into a scripted tour that features folk art environments, underground tunnels, celebrity grave sites, art cars, urban bayous, museums, mega churches, and art chapels. Imagine my gravelly voice coming through an old p.a. system as I humbly present to you, “Grover’s Guide to Houston, Part I.” Read this post on Glasstire.com.

Thanks to my friend Bree Edwards for suggesting I write it all down!

I’m presently participating in Jeff Howe’s international Twitter book club, better known as #1B1T (One Book One Twitter). If you missed the 1B1T NPR broadcast produced by Laura Sydell (including my one minute of fame), it can be heard here.

The tweeters have spoken, and they want to read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. At the moment, readers *should* all be on Chapters 4-6, marking our tweets #1b1t_4c (and so on for each chapter) to prevent spoilers, and wearing our official book club badge. I think membership is in the 6,000+ range now, so good governance is a must to maintain a cohesive conversation. I’m having a hard time keeping up, but like all online social groups, the best part is the offline outcomes, like the geek-out conversations I’m now having with Houston readers, Grant McManus, and Carlos Lama (a.k.a. father of my Lamas). American Gods was a good choice for comic book, fantasy or sci-fi enthusiasts, like us.

I adore projects that extend the social web beyond its known capacity, and often wonder what an artist like Andy Warhol would have done with his Twitter account? Would he have had one? Of course. Warhol tackled new technology–from the first consumer video camera to the first computer with a drawing application–the minute it was unveiled. Would he have tweeted live before an audience at Lincoln Center?

One of the 1B1T logistical problems thus far has been keeping pace with the volume of conversations on twitter. As I’ve been writing this entry, no fewer than 25 #1b1t tweets have been posted, and most are just observations or non-starters. The conversations online aren’t especially reciprocal or enduring as of now. Another issue is *some readers* clearly subscribe to the Evelyn Wood school of speed reading, and have completed the entire book. They’re already smoking a cigarette, and I’m still getting undressed.

According to R.A. Hill and R.I.M. Dunbar in the paper “Social Network Size in Humans,” the average person has capacity (in his/her neocortex) to remember 153.5 different individuals. What do I do with 6000+ instant new friends?

Even in contemporary western societies, where individuals are operating egocentric networks within a virtually infinite array of social possibilities, social network size and differentiation reflect the sociocentric networks observed in traditional societies, suggesting that the cognitive constraints on network size may apply universally to all modern humans.–R.A. Hill and R.I.M. Dunbar

Art & Boats is my ongoing series of interviews and stories about artists who build boats, sail, explore and challenge themselves on the water. For background on Art & Boats, read the first entry.

Tide and Current Taxi: The Hutchinson River with Mary Walling Blackburn, Marie Lorenz

It’s hard to believe that just 100 years ago there were still world maps with areas marked “unexplored.” I recently read that the only uncharted places left on earth were the ocean floors. With the exception of those places under water or ice, every corner of the planet can be observed via Global Positioning Systems. Sophisticated vehicles and satellite devices make adventures, like those of legendary Amazon explorer Percy Fawcett, a romantic notion of the past. Even Fawcett’s mythical lost city of “El Dorado” now shows up on Google Earth.

Artist Marie Lorenz is a modern day explorer, though the territories she traverses are not uncharted, just neglected. Lorenz accesses commercial or disused waterways around New York City in her own custom-made small wooden boats. She visits the canals, rivers and uninhabited islands that form the invisible, industrial and archeological backside of the city. Traveling with one other passenger, Lorenz encounters more freighters and barges than fellow leisure craft. Her journeys have taken her along the Harlem River, Bronx River, Gowanus Canal, Coney Island Creek, and to abandoned islands like North Brother, where the infamous Typhoid Mary was quarantined in the early 1900s. Read my interview with Marie on glasstire.com.