In the 1950s and early 1960s numerous artists, in addition to Schöffer and Ascott, started to systematise art. This section explores the systematisation of art, termed systems art, as the second of the selected art developments considered a key part of the history of networked art. A selection of various international artists and their practice are first briefly introduced as a survey of the numerous approaches to systemising art that were occurring at this time. Next is an exploration of systems art through the writing of Jack Burnham, followed by two case studies of the artists Hans Haacke, who was closely associated with Jack Burnham, and Stephen Willats.
Figure 3.2.1: Métamatic no. 6 (Tinguely, 1959).
Strategies developed by artists to systematise art included combining various media and technologies to create artworks; conducting their practice through formalised frameworks, rules and processes; creating artist-led initiatives and organising their exhibitions, events and publications. Jean Tinguely for example constructed
mechanical systems called Métamatics, such as Métamatic no. 6 (Fig. 3.2.1), which could generate paintings mimicking those made by the Abstract Expressionists (The Art Story, 2018). By 1960 he was creating systems such as Homage to New York
(Fig. 3.2.2) that destroyed themselves in performances (Media Art Net, n.d.). Similar to Schöffer's and Ascott's art, Tinguely's art demonstrated the influence of
cybernetics on art through his use of systems. However, the artworks also satirically commented on industrialised society and how its culture, in particular, avant-garde contemporary art, was becoming canonised by institutions47 and removed from the society it should represent.
German artists Heinz Mack and Otto Piene founded the artist's group ZERO in 1958 (ZERO, n.d.). ZERO meant from nothing and was intended to indicate a desire to liberate contemporary art from constraints of institution and state (ibid). The group systematised their art by initiating temporary exhibitions in their studios, events in public spaces and rapidly creating a network of artists, including Jean Tinguely, and curators across Europe. This network disseminated their ideas as art through
manifestos as well as founding variations of the group such as Nul in Holland (Siegal, 2013). Their art world was effectively a system separate from the institutional system and which traversed nationality. ZERO artists were multi-media artists in the original sense of the term.48 They frequently employed systematic processes in their art by working with technological systems such as those used in the fabrication of industrial materials, natural systems such as fire, water, light and movement (Galloway, 2006).
In some cases, they employed systems as subject matter such as in the oeuvre of Roman Opalka, 1965/1–∞ (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018).49
In New York, Allan Kaprow, originally a painter, started to organise experimental performance events called Happenings in 1957 (1961, pp. 15–26) (Fig. 3.2.3).
Similar to ZERO events, these occurred outside of the context of the art gallery and theatre venues of the time to explore new forms of art in everyday environments
47 Canonisation by institutions is demonstrated by Clement Greenberg's 'patronage' of certain American artists in the mid-1950s to push his belief that the best avant-garde art was being created in America and that it all conformed to a particular style identified as Abstract Expressionism.
48 As explained by Randall Packer multi-media, as it was originally spelt, has been used since at least the 1960s to describe “various manifestations of avant-garde theater, mixed-media, performance art, installation, and other uncategorizable forms involving video, film, and electronic music”. It can arguably be traced back to nineteenth-century composer Richard Wagner (Packer, 2013). It should be considered the origin of multimedia, as one word, which is generally accepted as computer-based media combined on a computer to be experienced through the computer (Rockwell and Mactavish, 2004).
49 1965/1–∞ is Roman Opalka's life's work. It includes a series of paintings, containing counting from one to a number that would be decided by his death, self-portraits and sound recordings. In this manner, his life and time became a system to be explored and documented through numbers.
(Kaprow, 1961, p. 85). As a result of their exploratory nature, the Happenings were often very different from each other. Some were loosely scripted and had an overall purpose, perhaps a narrative or scenario, while others had “no structured beginning, middle, or end. Their form is open-ended and fluid” (ibid). Each Happening,
however, provided observers with a limited possibility of interaction. In a
performance context, this was a strategy to break down the fourth wall, that is the imaginary wall between audience and performers through which audience can see performers but performers do not acknowledge the audience. Equally important in an art context, however, was the removal of Psychical Distance (Bullough, 1912),50 the literal and cognitive, temporal and spatial distance, between observer and artwork. In an interview in the late 1960s, Kaprow refers to the structure of Happenings as a program, the term he employs “to call a scenario” (Schechner, 1995, p. 186), and discusses how this redefines control. He suggests that the Happening as art, removed from the defined space of “the canvas, the gallery, the stage” (ibid, p. 88) and merged with life, cannot be scripted as it is in conventional theatre.51 Instead, a systems way of thinking about the Happening is required to allow openness for the observer to interact, the performer to improvise and the performance to evolve.
Figure 3.2.2: Homage to New York event (Media Art Net, n.d.).
Figure 3.2.3: A Happening titled A Spring Happening (Kaprow, 1961, p. 17).
50 Bullough capitalises his term Psychical Distance, and this is retained in this research.
51 The aspiration to merge art with life is a reoccurring concept in artistic discussion since at least the start of the twentieth-century (Bishop, 2006 b). In the late 1950s, this was coined as art and life by Kaprow in an essay titled 'The Legacy of Jackson Pollock' (1958) (Beaven, 2012) and also became heavily associated with the work of John Cage.
In Paris, the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel — Visual Art Research Group
(Popper, 1968, p. 103) also contributed to the activation of the observer but in a very different way to Kaprow's Happenings. Their interest was primarily in the relationship or system of artist, observer and artwork (ibid). Their art, historically classified as optical art, was activated by the displacement of the observer and gave the illusion of movement. Through this combination of image, movement and time they created what they described as a “new visual situation” where the observer “was no longer able to maintain the distant relationship with the work which had previously been the rule. A virtual movement had been set up” (ibid).
In the examples discussed above, including Schöffer's light and sound artworks and Ascott's application of a theory of systems to art and pedagogy (see chapter 3.1), three points should be noted in the influence systems studies had on art at this time.
Firstly, the wide range of artistic practices, which included sculpture, visual art, kinetic art, optical art and performance, that were employing or being influenced by systems studies. Secondly, the variety of concepts, methodologies, processes and
philosophies from the fields of science and technology that were being adopted to achieve this. Thirdly, how systems studies was being applied in a diverse number of ways towards the re-conception of practice and its support mechanisms such as exhibitions, curating, critical writing and pedagogy.
In Art as Inquiry (1997) Marga Bijvoet discusses the appearance of scientific and technological terminology within art discourse throughout the 1960s. She refers to Marshall McLuhan's influence as specifically defining and contributing “words like structure, pattern, organization, indeterminacy, interrelatedness” while cybernetics supplies “words like feedback, information, parameter, software, hardware, entropy”
(ibid, p. 72). Bijvoet suggests that artists of this generation who were predisposed to experimentation and exploration in their practice and who often employed scientific and technological means to that end were sufficiently well-informed to incorporate their theoretical discussion in their statements and writings (ibid, p. 71).52 With all of these factors considered, there is no doubt that artist's use and application of systems to art can be considered to be at least partially responsible for the adoption
52 Bijvoet refers specifically to the statements and writings of Robert Smithson, Nam June Paik and Paul Ryan as examples.
of science and technology in art.
The application of systems to art should not, however, be considered only as an outcome of experimentation and exploration facilitated by science and technology.
Of equal importance was how systems studies was viewed as a means of engaging with what I have termed as the grand-project of questioning conventional concepts of the art form in the modern era; specifically the role of the artist, art as object, the means of its creation and the role of the observer (see chapter 3.1). In addressing these, systems studies could be considered as a way to reclaim art from institutions and reintegrate it into life.53 The foremost exponent of applying thinking from
systems studies to art was Jack Burnham,54 an artist that is now predominately known as an art writer, theorist, historian and curator. Burnham developed a concept of systems art that integrated systems studies, which he named systems esthetics55 in an Artforum article in 1968.
In his writing Burnham's concept of systems esthetics emerges from a sculptural background and his starting point is “the cultural obsession with the art object” (1975, p. 369); referring to the practice of artists shaping materials and to audiences'
expectations of an artwork as object. He refers to numerous artists working with a conceptual basis of a systems esthetic including Hans Haacke, Dan Flavin, Carl Andre, Robert Morris (Burnham, 1974), Robert Smithson, Dennis Oppenheim (Burnham, 1969) and Les Levine (Burnham, 1974). In the oeuvre of each artist, he identified how the object was either downgraded in importance through the use of commonplace or unaesthetic materials,56 as opposed to the aesthetic materials employed in object-based fine art, or removed completely. Instead, the artworks of the artists he discusses foreground “an awareness of systems and the functional relationships between art objects” (Rampley, 2005) or between art and life. The practice of these artists is one of systems that enable reconfiguration of the roles of
53 In addition to Allan Kaprow several other artists and art movements at this time, including John Cage and Fluxus, employ the term art and life to summarise this sentiment.
54 Jack Burnham (b. 1931), American artist, art writer, theorist, historian and curator.
55 Burnham's original orthography has been retained.
56 Bijvoet argues that the use of “cheap, non-precious daily-life and junk objects, natural materials like dirt or plants, and temporary materials subject to decay” (1997, p. 1) was characteristic of some artists practice at this time who attempted to break or cross boundaries in art. Examples can be found not just in the oeuvre of artists identified as systems artists but also within developments and movements such as conceptual art, Fluxus, Arte Povera and process art.
the artist and observer. The artist becomes a conceptual rather than craft-based role, and the observer potentially becomes participative in the artwork echoing the shift away from the use of the term observer in science that was occurring at the time.
According to systems esthetics systems art was the antithesis of formalism and as such can be understood as post-formalist (Rampley, 2005). Systems art was closely associated with conceptual art57 while formalism valued form and style above
concept thereby advocated materiality and medium specificity through which to achieve it. Systems esthetics intentionally set about supplanting formalism, most commonly associated with Clement Greenberg. In his essay 'Art and Objecthood' (1967) Michael Fried discusses the conflict that was occurring in modern art at the time as a result of the grand-project (see chapter 3.1), in particular, questioning art as object. Fried employs the contrast between formalist and minimalist solutions as an example. He describes formalism's part-by-part accumulation of media to create a composed whole thereby establishing relationships such as thematic, visual and textural within the artwork. Minimalism's artworks were instead composed as a whole, contained no relationships but induced the experience of a situation between observer and artwork (ibid). Minimalists, or literalists according to Fried, attempted to create artworks that were neither paintings or sculptures and relied on a theatrical quality for their experience in the moment (ibid). This view was indicative of the philosophical thinking within art at the time. It provided a backdrop to the examples surveyed in the introduction to this section as well as the emergence of all
conceptual art in the 1960s and prompted Burnham to set about engaging it with his concept of a systems art (Jones, 2012).
Systems art had similar theatrical qualities to minimalism, for example, it was time-based and could be reactive to external conditions such as an observer or the
environment. Systems art, however, avoided minimalism's aim to create artwork that was a singular whole. It considered minimalism as a theory of art that attempted to be an ontological theory of objecthood by defining the artwork as a single indivisible
57 Burnham's curation of the exhibition Software (Bijvoet, 1997, p. 60) at the Jewish Museum in New York was criticised for selecting too many conceptual artists. Many had never before worked with communication technologies (ibid) and as a result, Burnham was accused of an agenda that positioned systems art as fundamentally conceptual.
element only identifiable as art and separate from the rest of objecthood. Not only was this an impossibility, as any material or media employed in the artwork is itself a collection of matter and/or bundle of properties,58 but it also directly opposed systems theory's fundamental basis of the relationship between parts and wholes. Systems art also considered that formalism's aim “that it defeat or suspend its own
objecthood” (Fried, 1967, p. 125), that is its materiality, through its use of form and style within the medium employed was unnecessary. While minimalism redefined the object within and specifically for art, formalism ignored the object completely. As such, systems art considered the aims of both minimalism and formalism as philosophically flawed.
By stating that art is not inherently an object that is created but instead a
conceptually-based system, Burnham's concept of systems art could utilise the best of both formalism and minimalism. It was not a contradiction for a whole artwork to be composed of parts but a necessity from a systems art perspective. Those parts could have relationships within the artwork, as occurs within a closed system, but could also potentially have relationships with what is exterior to the artwork enabling it to be an open system. Additionally, the artwork required process for its system's relationships to occur. The removal of objecthood from art and its replacement with a conceptually-based system that was process driven, allowed systems art to align itself with systems thinking and developments in twentieth-century philosophy.
These stated that reality consisted of processes and not material objects and was demonstrated in the writings of Alfred North Whitehead, Xavier Zubiri, Alexius Meinong and Charles Sanders Peirce (Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2013).
A formalist artwork's part-by-part accumulation as a form and style as well as
thematic, visual and textural relationships it establishes may suggest a system within the artwork. However, it is purely one of representation and as such solely cognitive.
The parts are unable to act on or change each other and are not subject to entropy so do not have the qualities of either closed or open systems. As a result of being
58 The reference to a collection of matter or a bundle of properties here refers to ontological theories of objecthood. These include substance theory and bundle theory, specifically reductionism of objects as bundles, whether that is to its material matter such as atoms, electrons, nucleons, quarks and so forth or the properties or attributes they have.
intrinsically linked to form through materials and style through media, I suggest therefore that formalist art is from a systems studies perspective a close
approximation of an isolated system. It is not isolated in that it does not interact with the environment around it through input or output (see chapter 2.3) but has through its form and style a separation from its environment. This isolation is comparable to the separation that is created by Psychical Distance (Bullough, 1912). Additionally, being a system of representation that is solely cognitive aligns it with an isolated system's definition of being only possible, that is that it can only be described through systems of abstract language, which in this instance are visual. According to Fried, minimalist art is whole and has no parts (1967). As such, it has no possibility of being a system in itself. However, as a result of what Fried terms its theatrical qualities (ibid), it can be considered a part of a larger system of art or culture.
Systems art can be both a system in and of itself and part of a system, such as art as a whole or the culture it exists within, in ether form and/or style.
In systems art, meaning does not arise from material form as it does in object-based art, but instead from the relationships created between its parts and/or systems it resides within. This idea defined Burnham's systems esthetics. For Burnham, a system is effectively both the conceptual basis of a new type of art and the artwork that is created. While systems esthetics may initially have emerged from the issue of art as object, which for Burnham was a sculptural perspective, there are additional effects of his thesis. In Systems of Art: Art, History and Systems Theory (2008), Francis Halsall elaborates on these. He links the conceptual basis of systems esthetics with Lucy Lippard's term dematerialization, a strategy of divorcing art from objecthood (ibid, p. 114). Halsall also suggests that the many forms that systems art takes and the combinations of media they use, the multi-media, are a result of Dick Higgins' Intermedia and/or Rosalind Krauss' post-medium condition (ibid). Artists no longer position their practice in relation to any one medium but instead employ a variety of media as required (ibid) and as such see their practice as occurring between media forms.
Hans Haacke's59 oeuvre, more than any other artist's, demonstrated most thoroughly
59 Hans Haacke (b. 1936), German artist.
Burnham's theory of how artists who sought a solution to the objectification of art were employing systems. Haacke, in comparison with other artists Burnham cites as examples of systems art, developed a practice most rigorously and over the most extended period, steadily working through what can be considered levels of system complexity. In comparison to other practitioners, Haacke also displayed an attitudinal change in his approach to practice to the extent that Burnham called him an engineer (Burnham, 1967). Burnham would later comment that the ability “to think like an engineer [managing] input-output exchanges of materials, energy, and information”
(Jones, 2012) was an essential characteristic for an artist of systems art. For Burnham, Haacke was a new type of artist, interdisciplinary in nature, working between art, science and technology. Haacke confirms that this is the case when he states that:
“The artist’s business requires his involvement with practically everything
…. It would be bypassing the issue to say that the artist’s business is how to work with this and that material … and that the rest should be left to
…. It would be bypassing the issue to say that the artist’s business is how to work with this and that material … and that the rest should be left to