prosthetic knowledge

SOFTWARE - An Exhibition (1970) 

Fascinating art catalogue of an exhibition which explores the creative potential of communication technologies, with ideas and approaches which are relevant today.

Some hightlights:

The first three images above refer to a project called ‘Seek’ by M.I.T. featuring an enclosed space filled with toy blocks that are placed by a robotic hand. Also inside are some gerbals who navigate themselves around the changing environment they find themselves in.

“Notes on art and information processing” essay by Jack Burnham is worth a read, with some great highlighted quotes.

“The Crafting of Media” brief essay by Theodor H. Nelson also has some interesting points, inventing the term ‘cybercrud’ to refer to information shared to one another via computer, and the first time (I have heard) the term ‘hypergram’ used a visual relation to hypertext, which could be best understood in the way a photo in Facebook or Flick is tagged with additional information which is referenceable within it.

Tactile Film by Linda Berris.

There are many others (various sound art projects, one which employs solar panels), even conceptual billboard work.

You can get a link to a pdf download via Monoskop Log here (discovered via brown-and-son)