Postgraduate Course: The Artist and the Machine: Technologies of Behaviour and Control in Modern and Contemporary Art (HIAR11139)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course is about artists' machines as material, method and as work of art. Focusing on the rapid technological developments that took place following World War II in the period 1945-1975, it looks closely at the politics and ethics of control in an age of communication through, with and between machines. |
| Course description |
A new age of communication technologies emerged after WWII, bringing with it new questions about machines, control and behaviour. At the same time, interest grew across disciplines on the subject of systems, both organic and engineered. This course will take in the many artists worked on this fertile territory in the 1940s to the 1970s, and, in doing so, examine our changing relationship with machines in the twentieth century. The course starts with modernist conceptions of the organic and the machine, situating these against a longer art history of machines and artmaking.
The course will look at machines built by artists, such as Tinguely's failing machines and Nicolas Schöffer's cybernetic sculptures. It will examine at machines, cybernetics art and play, through the work of artists, curators and inventors such as Pask, Ascott and Reichardt. It will take on animal subjects and the machine in conceptual art. These topics are united by the same questions that were raised by the early cyberneticists including Norbert Wiener, Gordon Pask and William Ross Ashby. Ashby (1957, 1) wrote: 'Cybernetics, too, is a "theory of machines", but it treats, not things but ways of behaving. It does not ask "what is the thing?" but "what does it do?"' This approach unfolded to include not only machines themselves, but any living thing that was part of its system of operation - an idea that was taken up by many artists in the period.
Weekly 2-hour seminars will focus on an artist or group of artists that explored the interactive, behavioural or productive qualities of machines in their work. Seminar sessions will include regular opportunities for group work and discussion, focusing closely on weekly readings and close visual analysis of selected objects and works of art. Students will, in addition, share notes, links, images and ideas on an online platform (e.g., MIRO) during and outside of seminar. This will, in turn, support reflection and study.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | This Course does not require any additional costs to be met by the Student. |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Apply visual analysis skills to complex art objects and environments and contextualise them against relevant theories of behaviour, technology and control.
- Form arguments that demonstrate a critical, historic understanding of post-war art and technology.
- Synthesise complex theories of technology from different disciplines and apply these to art historical investigation.
- Develop original interpretations and insights on the machine as work of art grounded in independent research.
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Reading List
Gray, Chris H., ed. The Cyborg Handbook. Routledge, 1995.
Haraway, Donna. Manifestly Haraway. University of Minnesota Press. 1985; 2016.
Pickering, Andrew. The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future. University of Chicago Press, 2010.
Terranova, Charissa. Organic Modernism: From the British Bauhaus to Cybernetics. Bloomsbury, 2024.
Weiner, Norbert Weiner. The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society. Anchor Books, 1956.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Skilled Communication: Through discussion, presentation and more focused group work on the subject of art, behaviour and communication, you will extend your own abilities as an effective and confident communicator whilst also considering how we communicate through or with technology.
Aspiration and personal development: In researching and discussing the creative applications of machines, you will develop your critical awareness of frameworks of communication and your own agency within them.
Personal and intellectual autonomy: Through completing two assessment tasks, you will develop your intellectual autonomy whilst having the freedom to pursue personal interests. The course themes will support the development of a curious, questioning approach to the technologization of art over time and its relevance to contemporary life.
Research and enquiry: By extending your specialist knowledge of art and technology, you will develop your ability to critically evaluate interdisciplinary practices in modern and contemporary art. You will learn from this interdisciplinarity and apply it to art history and to other forms of visual culture. |
| Keywords | modern art,behaviour,history of technology,artists machines |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Kate Sloan
Tel:
Email: Kate.Sloan@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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