Andreas Broeckmann - Machine Art in the Twentieth Century

Leonardo

Roger F. Malina, Executive Editor

Sean Cubitt, Editor-in-Chief

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Machine Art in the Twentieth Century, Andreas Broeckmann, 2016

See for a complete list of titles in this series.

Andreas Broeckmann

The MIT Press

Cambridge, Massachusetts

London, England

2016 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.

This book was set in Stone Serif and Stone Sans by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited. Printed and bound in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Broeckmann, Andreas, author.

Title: Machine art in the twentieth century / Andreas Broeckmann.

Description: Cambridge, MA : The MIT Press, 2016. | Series: Leonardo book series | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016017052 | ISBN 9780262035064 (hardcover : alk. paper)

eISBN 9780262336093

Subjects: LCSH: Art and technology. | Art, Modern20th centuryThemes, motives.

Classification: LCC N72.T4 B76 2016 | DDC 700.1/05dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016017052

ePub Version 1.0

Leonardo, the International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology, and the affiliated French organization Association Leonardo have some very simple goals:

1. To advocate, document, and make known the work of artists, researchers, and scholars developing the new ways that the contemporary arts interact with science, technology, and society.
2. To create a forum and meeting places where artists, scientists, and engineers can meet, exchange ideas, and, when appropriate, collaborate.
3. To contribute, through the interaction of the arts and sciences, to the creation of the new culture that will be needed to transition to a sustainable planetary society.

When the journal Leonardo was started some forty-five years ago, these creative disciplines existed in segregated institutional and social networks, a situation dramatized at that time by the Two Cultures debates initiated by C. P. Snow. Today we live in a different time of cross-disciplinary ferment, collaboration, and intellectual confrontation enabled by new hybrid organizations, new funding sponsors, and the shared tools of computers and the Internet. Above all, new generations of artist-researchers and researcher-artists are now at work individually and collaboratively bridging the art, science, and technology disciplines. For some of the hard problems in our society, we have no choice but to find new ways to couple the arts and sciences. Perhaps in our lifetime we will see the emergence of new Leonardos, hybrid creative individuals or teams that will not only develop a meaningful art for our times but also drive new agendas in science and stimulate technological innovation that addresses todays human needs.

For more information on the activities of the Leonardo organizations and networks, please visit our websites at http://www.leonardo.info/ and http://www.olats.org.

Roger F. Malina

Executive Editor, Leonardo Publications

ISAST Governing Board of Directors: Nina Czegledy, Greg Harper, Marc Hebert (Chair), Gordon Knox, Roger Malina, Tami Spector, Darlene Tong.

In a way, this book has been in the making for over twenty years. When I started my first job at the V2_Organisation in Rotterdam in 1995, my assignments were the preparations for a symposium for the Dutch Electronic Art Festival (DEAF) and a program for the Next 5 MinutesTactical Media conference. For the latter I wrote a text which became the basis for my contributions to later V2 programs, like the event series on Machine Aesthetics (1997), and to the DEAF editions on The Art of the Accident (1998) and Machine Times (2000); this text was also the beginning of the trajectory that led me to write this book. I therefore remain deeply indebted to my former colleagues at the V2_Organisation, Alex Adriaansens, Joke Brouwer, Marc Thelosen, and Peter Duimelinks, for providing the most stimulating environment a young, runaway academic could wish for.

On the many trails and detours that I have taken since, the most important inspiration has always come from my work with artists, some of whom also feature in this book. It is a great privilege to be in conversation and exchange with those who continue to work, and with those who can share their memories of artists they lived and worked with. I want to single out Vera Molnar who welcomed me in her studio in Paris, and Elonore de Lavandeyra Schffer who keeps the memory and archive of Nicolas Schffer. On a sad note, the untimely passing away of Seiko Mikami in early 2015 must remind us of the transience of our endeavors.

The first notes for this book were written during a residency at the Banff Center, Canada, and important parts of the research were done at Kunstbibliothek Berlin and Staatsbibliothek Berlin, with additional research conducted at Museum Tinguely in Basel. Online resources like