Part One: Information Arts

Culture is being re-defined right before our eyes. For centuries, art and technology have been considered separate parts of culture. Now, because we live in an information society, they may be be coming together. We are, say some people who study such things, at a critical place in history, where it's sometimes impossible to distinguish between techno-scientific research and art. The creation, movement and analysis of ideas is increasingly the center of our cultural, social and economic life. And that's why a startling (and hefty) new book calls itself "Information Arts" -- because the art such a culture produces has to deal with information if it's going to remain central. So this is the first part of a series -- inspired by "Information Arts," edited by Stephen Wilson and published by the MIT Press -- which deals with the new intersection of art, science and technology. This book is onto an enormous idea, exploring the science and art from algorithms, robotics, quantum physics, coding, nanotechnologies, genetic and kinetic art to electrical music, telecommunications and A.I.

The fusion of culture and technology into sophisticated art forms seems obvious when you think about it. But until now, few people have. Most of society is too busy clucking about how new technologies are stealing credit cards, transmitting smut and rotting young brains.

This fusion, Wilson says, is a signal that views of art and research are evolving, broadening, integrating. As he points out, the arts and the sciences are any culture's two greatest engines: "sources of creativity, places of aspiration, and markers of aggregate identity." Before the Renaissance, they were considered the same thing -- science was called natural philosophy.

In the l960s, philosopher C.P. Snow developed his "Two Cultures" theory -- Snow asserted that those in the humanities and arts and those in the sciences have developed sufficiently different languages and worldviews that they no longer understood one another. Wilson believes that art and science/technology are no longer segregated from one another, and that the Net, the Web and pioneering work by artists and scientists are re-connecting the two, creating a new sphere of culture he calls "Information Arts."

From programming to telecom design, Wilson has brought together the work great artists and thinkers in culture and technology and shown us how they are moving closer together, even in fields like bionics, parapsychology and bioelectricity. Coders are artists, not just scientists. So are Web designers and people who paint genetic portraits.The book takes this fusion and looks at its groundbreaking influence on life, thought, cultural theory and artistic activity.

"Leonardo da Vince is well-known was history's greatest integrator of art and science, " writes Wilson, but he was by no means unique in having interests that spanned art and science. Educated people of his time were expected to. But, says Wilson, by the 20th century, science and art had already become distinct and separate fields.

New inventions have stimulated artistic experimentation in fields such as photography, cinema, sound recording, electrical machines and lights -- think of Brian Wilson, Brian Eno, U2. Wilson writes about how Xerox's PARC initiated an artist-in-residence program called PAIR, an open-ended approach in which artists and scientists and researchers jointly defined a program on culture and/or technology, with the definition of the problem becoming part of the collaboration. The book chronicles scores of other experiments in business, Academe and science labs.

So who cares about the re-connection between culture and technology? Anyone interested in either, really. The most interesting and revolutionary parts of the Net and Web -- coding, gaming, role-playing -- have always drawn on artistic as well as technological sensibilities. And many of us have had the sense that we are witnessing a re-definition of what culture is. That's of equal appeal to people like me, drawn to the culture of technology but not the machinery, and technologists, who love technology but want it to embrace culture and artistry. In subsequent columns, we'll draw from the book to talk about the "information arts," and some of the amazing work occurring now at the intersection of culture and technology.

Next: Research agendas in biology and medicine, especially biology and genetic research.

Comments

Baloney

[sphealey]

Culture is being re-defined right before our eyes. For centuries, art and technology have been considered separate parts of culture. Now, because we live in an information society, they may be be coming together

Baloney. As if, on the one hand, the development of plaster of Paris, oil paints, silver halide photography, etc. in their day didn't have just as much impact on the world of art as CG does today. And, on the other hand, as if the most super-duper computer artist on staff at Lucasfilm doesn't spend a good percentage of his time goofing on charcoal sketches on paper.

This reminds me of the day in the 1980's when everyone thought they could fire their graphic artists and give standard employees graphic arts software. Result - lots of hideous graphics produced by non-artists with GA software.

I doubt Gaugain would have had any difficulty with Photoshop. Nor should any true artist today, whether or not he grew up with Photoshop, have any difficulty using any medium that he needs to get the job done.

sPh

Programming as an art

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly what Donald Knuth has been saying since 1974. He even goes on to tell us that the word "tech" has its roots in a greek word for "art".

We are only 28 years late.

new culture definition?

[Em Emalb]

"And many of us have had the sense that we are witnessing a re-definition of what culture is. That's of equal appeal to people like me, drawn to the culture of technology but not the machinery, and technologists, who love technology but want it to embrace culture and artistry."

from Dictionary.com:

culture Pronunciation Key (klchr)
n.

The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought.
These patterns, traits, and products considered as the expression of a particular period, class, community, or population: Edwardian culture; Japanese culture; the culture of poverty.
These patterns, traits, and products considered with respect to a particular category, such as a field, subject, or mode of expression: religious culture in the Middle Ages; musical culture; oral culture.
The predominating attitudes and behavior that characterize the functioning of a group or organization.
Intellectual and artistic activity and the works produced by it.

Development of the intellect through training or education.
Enlightenment resulting from such training or education.
A high degree of taste and refinement formed by aesthetic and intellectual training.
Special training and development: voice culture for singers and actors.
The cultivation of soil; tillage.
The breeding of animals or growing of plants, especially to produce improved stock.
Biology.
The growing of microorganisms, tissue cells, or other living matter in a specially prepared nutrient medium.
Such a growth or colony, as of bacteria.

seems to me that culture's definition still hasn't changed Jon ;)

it's a joke...don't laugh.

Old-School Katz!

[Grendel Drago]

Culture is being re-defined right before our eyes.

And now Jon Katz will do his best impression of 1996. Coming up next: how the internet will erase borders and make prejudice and hatred a thing of the past.

Oh, and how the Dow will reach ten billion by next week. It's a new economy, after all.

--grendel drago

Rubbish

[RazzleFrog]

Art, technology and science have always gone hand in hand. Music and math - Pythagoras mixed music, math and astronomy. Bach mixed music and math.

Art and Anatomy - Rembrandt painted his "Anatomical Lecture" showing anatomical dissection. Artist Antonio Pollaiuolo performed dissections to learn more about the human form.

Photography is perhaps the best example of art and technology joining together.

I could probably come up with many more examples throughout all of history of when technology influenced art and vice versa but I think my point is made.

Re:Gutenberg

[JamesOfTheDesert]

Art and technology have been fused for quite some time.

Exactly. I gather none of these people ever heard of Futurism. Or gone to the movies, for that matter.

Oh well, I suppose, in the Age of the New Economy, we have to have the New Culture as well, even if it's really not new.

Information for people with clue.....

[MosesJones]

The seperation of Art and Science was a creation of the "Arts and Crafts" movement in the Victorian era. Basically the Brits saw the educated French plebs doing better than their uneducated British counterparts and set out to match them. Unfortunately they asked a complete and utter berk called William Morris who argued that arts and science were different and arts should be held above.

Jon's article is wrong for many reasons, but the above is true. What Jon totally and utterly neglects is the fact that in most European countries except the UK there isn't this seperation. Engineers and Scientists are revered in France and Germany and when you say "I've got an Engineering Degree" people are impressed as they know its hard, if you say "I've got a degree in Marketing" they know you are a fool.

So Jon missed out the historical background (nice one) and presented an English speaking only view.

So much for the searching and inclusive nature of the internet.

The book.

[Lemmy Caution]

I have the book, and it's not so much a general "gee, artists are getting into science" book but more of a fairly detailed catalog and study of the way specific artists are using new technologies, often in ways that (in true self-conscious post-modern - yes, the word has a meaning - form) ask questions about the nature and role of the technology at hand. I recommend the book as a reference, as well as a speculative work.

Living in a technological society isn't a reflection of the level of advancement of that society, it's a reflection of the stances inherent in everyday life. Heidegger's "The Question Concern Technology" addresses this - that we approach the world as a set of problems to be addresed technologically, and this in turn structures our perception of society and nature. Technologies themselves will also transform how we percieve of the world.

Insofar as some (not all) artists see themselves as having the task of documenting the unconscious of a society, they may immerse themselves in technologies in order to retrieve insights about their effects on our culture.

Technology has ALWAYS been related to art

[Kibo]

Regardless of pithy comments AC's have to offer, this is neither accurate nor new. "State of the Art" comes to mind. Is the cg in Tron not art? Laser light shows? The butt ugly architecture of the 70's? The beautiful Konsai(sp?) Airport? Modern graceful bridges?

Ever since man found fire, and began to share his knowledge, there has been a boundry between what is known and true, and what his intuition told him. To me, that is the domain of art. Where the knowledge can be described with paper and pencil and some formal model its technology. But when it leaves that domain, and you're counting on someone's skilled hand, be it behind a welding torch, or a keyboard, that is art.