Telematic Embrace

by Ascott, Roy

• ISBN13: 9780520218031
• ISBN10: 0520218035
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-04-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

Long before e-mail and the Internet permeated society, Roy Ascott, a pioneering British artist and theorist, coined the term "telematic art" to describe the use of online computer networks as an artistic medium. InTelematic EmbraceEdward A. Shanken gathers, for the first time, an impressive compilation of more than three decades of Ascott's philosophies on aesthetics, interactivity, and the sense of self and community in the telematic world of cyberspace. This book explores Ascott's ideas on how networked communication has shaped behavior and consciousness within and beyond the realm of what is conventionally defined as art. Telematics, a powerful marriage of computers and telecommunication, made technologies we now take for granted--such as e-mail and automated teller machines (ATMs)--part of our daily life, and made art a more interactive form of expression. Telematic art challenges traditional relationships between artist, artwork, and audience by allowing nonlocal audiences to influence the emergent qualities of the artwork, which consists of the ebb and flow of electronic information. These essays constitute a unique archaeology of ideas, tracing Ascott's meditations on the formation of consciousness through the intertwined cultural histories of art and technology from the 1960s to the present. Shanken's introduction situates Ascott's work within a history of ideas in art, technology, and philosophy. Given the increasing role of the Internet and the World Wide Web in the creation of commerce and community at the dawn of this new millennium, scholars, students, laypeople, policymakers, and artists will find this collection informative and thought-provoking.

Author Biography

Roy Ascott is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Design/Media Arts at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
Preface and Acknowledgments	xi
From Cybernetics to Telematics: The Art, Pedagogy, and Theory of Roy Ascott	1	(96)
Edward A. Shanken
SELECTED ESSAYS OF ROY ASCOTT
The Construction of Change (1964)	97	(11)
Statement from Control (1966)	108	(1)
Behaviourist Art and the Cybernetic Vision (1966--67)	109	(48)
Behaviourables and Futuribles (1967)	157	(4)
The Psibernetic Arch (1970)	161	(7)
Table (1975)	168	(6)
Connective Criticism (1977)	174	(2)
Network as Artwork: The Future of Visual Arts Education (1978)	176	(2)
Towards a Field Theory for Postmodernist Art (1980)	178	(5)
Ten Wings (1982)	183	(2)
Art and Telematics: Towards a Network Consciousness (1984)	185	(16)
Concerning Nets and Spurs: Meaning, Mind, and Telematic Diffusion (1985)	201	(11)
Art and Education in the Telematic Culture (1988)	212	(10)
Gesamtdatenwerk: Connectivity, Transformation, and Transcendence (1989)	222	(5)
Beyond Time-Based Art: ESP, PDP, and PU (1990)	227	(5)
Is There Love in the Telematic Embrace? (1990)	232	(15)
Photography at the Interface (1992)	247	(8)
Heavenly Bodies: Teleconstructing a Zodiac for the Twenty-First Century (1993)	255	(2)
Telenoia (1993)	257	(19)
From Appearance to Apparition: Communication and Culture in the Cybersphere (1993)	276	(8)
The Ars Electronica Center Datapool (1993)	284	(26)
The Planetary Collegium: Art and Education in the Post-Biological Era (1994)	310	(9)
The Architecture of Cyberception (1994)	319	(8)
Back to Nature II: Art and Technology in the Twenty-First Century (1995)	327	(13)
The Mind of the Museum (1996)	340	(16)
Weaving the Shamantic Web: Art and Technoetics in the Bio-Telematic Domain (1998)	356	(7)
Art @ the Edge of the Net: The Future Will Be Moist! (2000)	363	(12)
Technoetic Aesthetics: 100 Terms and Definitions for the Post-Biological Era (1996)	375	(8)
Appendix I. Roy Ascott's Professional Appointments	383	(4)
Appendix II. Roy Ascott's Publications	387	(8)
Appendix III. Roy Ascott's Art Projects and Exhibitions	395	(3)
Appendix IV. CAiiA-STAR Research Conferences	398	(1)
References	399	(14)
Index	413