044

Authors:

 Collins, Anne F.

Title:

 History Lessons: The Relationship of Art to Science and Technology in the United States, 1957-1971

Keywords:

 Art history, USA, !960s

Abstract:

 This paper offers a historical perspective on the current relationship of art to science and technology by examining the intense interaction between these disciplines in the United States in the decade and a half following the launch of Sputnik. It considers to what degree American projects of the 1960s can serve as models for contemporary collaborations.
During the period 1957 to 1971 considerable federal and corporate support became available for initiatives bridging the perceived "gap," described by C.P. Snow in The Two Cultures of 1958, between the arts and the sciences. Several arts organizations emerged to promote such activity, including Experiments in Art and Technology (EAT) in 1966, and the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1967. Numerous exhibitions featured art that engaged science and technology, including "The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age" at the Museum of Modern Art in 1968, "Software Information Technology" at the Jewish Museum in 1970, and "Art and Technology" at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1971. In a 1968 interview with Douglas Davis, Gyorgy Kepes, who founded CAVS, described the "welcome change in our cultural climate" that had occurred during the preceding decade, stimulating public interest in collaborations between art, science, and technology.

However, the enthusiasm that Kepes perceived in 1968 dimmed dramatically within five years. Social divisions, technical failures, and lack of clear aesthetic achievements contributed to the critical assessment during the early 1970s of shows mounted in 1971 and in preceding years as "failures. How can we apply the lessons of the 1960s to the transdisciplinary collaboration of the arts, sciences, and technology today? What successes should we emulate and what pitfalls can we avoid? Most importantly, how can we ensure that today's interest in the aesthetic and conceptual benefits promised by the interaction of art, science, and technology does not simply become a "trend," but instead a touchstone for larger social gains.
Collins, Anne F. ACol564504@aol.com University of Texas, Austin Anne F. Collins is completing her doctorate in art history at the University of Texas at Austin. Her dissertation, "American Art of the Second Machine Age: Sputnik, Space, and Technocracy, 1957-1971," examines the cultural context that promoted the interaction of art with science and technology during the decade and half following the launch of Sputnik. She is the 1998-1999 Guggenheim Fellow at the National Air and Space Museum. Ms. Collins is awaiting the publication of work related to her dissertation. "Robert Rauschenberg's Space-Age Allegory" is due to appear in the spring of 1999 in the 1998 National Aerospace Conference Proceedings; another paper was recently submitted for publication. For several years she has contributed to the annual bibliography of materials devoted the relationship of art and literature to science and technology published by Configurations: A Journal of Literature, Science, and Technology. She has also published a number of exhibition reviews and scholarly catalogue and encyclopedia entries, and assisted editors at Harry N. Abrams, Inc. with the 1998 revision of H.H. Arnason and Marla Prather, History of Modern Art, 4th ed. In 2000 she will co-chair "The Impact of the Artistic Imagination on Science and Technology During the Second Half of the Twentieth Century" at the College Art Association Annual Meeting. She received her M.A. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1994 and her B.A. magna cum laude in 1991 from Brown University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.