Richard Pettibone: A Retrospective

One of the things I hate about online announcements of art exhibits is that there are often very few examples of the artist's work. I can understand that the art gallery may think that showing the art on the Internet may mean that people won't come see the exhibit in person. I think that this is just plain wrong. Firstly, if I am thousands of miles away from the gallery, I'm not going to be visiting anyway, but I still would like to see some examples of the works. Secondly, if I am considering visiting the gallery, a good online display will encourage me to get on a bus or take my car and pay for admission to the show.

I was not at all familiar with Richard Pettibone's work when I saw a mention of it in the blog for the Art Knowledge News - a good source of art exhibition announcements available either as a newsletter or as a blog - see xml link at the bottom of the left column. The exhibit listed there is at the Laguna Art Museum.

While the Laguna 'current exhibits' page has only a short description of Pettibone's method of working, the exhibit at the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College has a longer piece, and a slideshow with eleven images.

The Tang also has a slideshow for the Twice Drawn exhibit with better levels of magnification for the images.

A Critical History of Computer Graphics and Animation

Section 9: Computer Artists of the above course from Ohio State University includes references to Cybernetic Serendipity. In particular it provides a link to a speech by Jasia Reichardt in 2004 which discusses the background to the exhibition. According to the text, she must have been referring to slides which were not included on the site. Perhaps some of these are the same slides she presented in Banff.

The complete course, by the way, is still available. It has images and Quicktime movies of early computer art. I will refer to specific sections as I find artists who appeared in Cybernetic Serendipity. In the meantime, Section 9 has art from Lillian Schwartz, David Em, and some marvellous Quicktime movies from Larry Cuba.

Cybernetic Serendipity

Cybernetic Serendipity is both an exhibition held in 1968 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, in London, and a book published to accompany the exhibition [1]. This exhibition brought together many of the artists who were the first to use computers as a tool to produce art. The book is available in many libraries (a search in Google Scholar will find some, but not all, of the copies; you can also search in the WorldCat box to the left) and from booksellers. In this, and subsequent entries, I will list websites where information may be found about the exhibition and the artists who took part.

Jasia Reichardt organized the exhibition and edited the book. She recently appeared at REFRESH! The First International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology at the Banff New Media Institute and, to accompany her speech, presented slides of some of the artwork included in the 1968 exhibit. Her presentation (one of many on this page) gives some idea of the variety of the work but it seemed to me that she downplayed the significance of Cybernetic Serendipity. Perhaps that is because the people attending the conference would have already acknowledged the place that exhibit had in the history of electronic/digital/computer art.

Since the purpose of this blog (when I am thinking seriously about its purpose) is to search the web for memories and evidence, I am going to try to find other websites which present information on the artworks and artists from Cybernetic Serendipity.

The press release for the exhibition, along with a few images, can be found at Medien Kunst Netz/Media Art Net.
[Jan. 3/07 -This link is not working. A Google search should find other useful resources.]

1. Cybernetic Serendipity: the Computer and the Arts. Edited by Jasia Reichardt. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1969, p. [3]. The 1968 edition was published in London by Studio International. Any information found in the book which I will refer to is taken from the Praeger edition.

Online magazines come and go

In the Spring of 2001, when Randall Packer taught a course in Advanced Web Design: Producing an on-line e-zine, the magazines he wrote about were still in existence.
Salon is now subscription only, or you can get a 'free' day pass if you watch a commercial. Once there, you can read current articles and browse the archives back to 1995; that is, if you're willing to search around the archives. Browsing by date finds articles in 2000, but browsing by subject will find articles back to 1995. Maybe it's asking too much to have an issue by issue listing. [Dec. 24/06 - Now it's there, right back to November, 1995, with a table of contents for each article. Just scroll down to the bottom of the first page to find the search box.]

But I did search around until I found an article by Thomas Bartlett (for his page see Audiofile, with lots of downloadable mp3 files), which listed the 10 best records of the year for 2004. One of those is "Real Gone" by Tom Waits. So I googled that and found the ANTI web site which has just enough downloadable music and video to make me want to buy the album. And a jukebox, which unfortunately played Merle Haggard as the first track. Tracks can be selected, though. The ANTI page has lots of links, including one to a NPR review of Waits' album, with sound clips inside the audio file of the program.

More to follow, when I get around to checking out the other magazines that Randall Packer suggested that his students read.

The Digital Stage - Powered By Bloglines: "A totally self-indulgent guide to the websites I find, and like, as I ramble though cyberspace, or at least the web-connected part of it."

My other blog, just what it says it is.