The 1980s: An Institutionalization of the Technologically Tentative
*I’m really enjoying the tech-art gossip in this Garnet Hertz tome.
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…As time passed, the genre of electronic art— lacking formal institutional
representation— congealed into international subcommunities. The period
of the 1980s saw the experimentation of the 1960s and 1970s congeal into a
number of relatively stable local organizations that encouraged technologi-
cally oriented practices. In Austria, for example, the yearly Ars Electronica
Symposium exhibition and conference began in Linz in 1979. During the
same period, other similar organizations began to emerge to foster artists
that wanted to significantly engage with information and media technolo-
gies. Other initiatives include the V2_ Organization / Institute for the Unsta-
ble Media. It started in 1981 in the Dutch town of ‘s- Hertogenbosch as an
interdisciplinary artists’ squat. Out of frustration at the visual arts com-
munity, in 1987 it began to focus exclusively on electronic art and other
“unstable media.”48 Founders Alex Adriaansens and Joke Brouwer saw the
instability of electronic art as an advantage. Happenings and installations
became their core strength and brought these artists more in touch with
playful and interactive mass culture (figure 0.1.3).
In Canada, InterAccess in Toronto grew out of the Artculture Resource
Centre (ARC), founded in 1981. The organization brought together artists
that were using Telidon, a Canadian pre- web interactive telecommunica-
tions system somewhat similar to videotex or Minitel. Initially launched
with a solo show by Brian Eno in 1981, the organization grew to include a
core group of artists including Nancy Paterson, Tom Leonhardt, Jeff Mann,
Graham Smith, Nell Tenhaaf, Paul Petro, Doug Back, and David Rokeby.49
Other institutions founded during this period include the Transmediale fes-
tival in 1988 in Berlin and the Zentrum fur Kunst und Technologie (ZKM,
“Centre for Art and Technology”) in 1989 in Karlsruhe, Germany.
These organizations were driven by the frustration electronic artists had
with being neglected by mainstream visual art during the 1970s and 1980s.
Alex Galloway notes that the contemporary art journal October, which can be
viewed as a yardstick for artistic and intellectual trends, did not even cover
the field of art and technology until 1985.50 And, as previously mentioned,
museums were reluctant to embrace projects that incorporated electronic
media. As a result, electronic artists often labored in silent obscurity. Accord-
ing to Edward Shanken, “even Paik, the most celebrated artist associated with
Art and Technology, struggled well into the 1980s.”51 Organizations such as
Ars Electronica, V2_, and InterAccess supported artists, helping them to con-
tinue making groundbreaking interactive and intentionally unstable work
that bucked institutional demands. These organizations often worked as
collection points for DIY practitioners— a bit like proto- hackerspaces— that
aided in the production and distribution of this work.
Electronic art started to ride on separate circuits through distinct exhibi-
tion styles, approaches, and events. Many artists that used electronic tech-
nologies viewed their work as part of a dynamic process, rather than part of
the “serious and stable” institutional model. This process- based view often
clashed with galleries interested in the preservation and presentation of static
objects. Instead of maintaining a hermetic white gallery, electronic art orga-
nizations created spaces where projects were designed to be touched, make
noise, and break down.52 At times, these electronic art performances more
closely resembled a music venue than a gallery. These performative and
interactive spaces required electrical infrastructure and staff to help start up
projects, keep them running, and shut them down. With an emphasis on
interactivity, these initiatives often drew historical inspiration from avant-garde
and interventionist art movements like Fluxus and Dada along with
technology- minded theorists like Marshall McLuhan.
To this day, numerous art festivals focus exclusively on electronic art, like Ars Electronica, the
International Symposium of Electronic Art (ISEA), the Dutch Electronic
Art Festival (DEAF), and the Festival Internacional de Linguagem Eletrônica
(FILE) in Brazil. In response, some mainstream institutions invested in
substantial support for art and technology initiatives in a museum setting.
For example, the Centre Pompidou in Paris integrated engineers as part of
their maintenance and preservation efforts by the late 1990s.53 Inclusion
of DIY electronic work in larger institutions happened occasionally, but
the work primarily thrived in small, subcultural communities that regularly
blended art with engineering, design, science, and information technolo-
gies. Through a slow grassroots evolution over the course of the twentieth
century, electronic art has developed a distinct cultural approach to doing
and appreciating art; most of it is best understood as a variegated DIY pro-
cess and mindset instead of a stable and institutionalized canon….