ARTH 353 Technology and Contemporary Art

• Fridays, 11:45 am - 2:30 pm
• Instructor: Dr. Charles Gagnon

Technology is often understood as pertaining only to machines and new media, but technology as a term is applicable to a variety of activities, for at its root technology is the study of technique, the science of the mechanical arts. Therefore for this course a series of selected technical objects will help us explores the technological in art making from 1960’s Generative Art to the recent theorizing of Glitch Feminism.

There will be an emphasis on the materiality and technical dimension of artwork as we try to establish and name specificities and differences that come from the use of technical objects such as a cathode ray tube screen, fluorescent lighting, microchips, the internet, and analog video. From these objects issues pertaining to programming, process, time, the decorative and interactivity will be examined. These objects, as well as others, will also serve to consider conflicting attitudes towards tools, machines, and technology, from the wonders of instant transmission to the growing fear of surveillance technology. This ambivalence towards machines is perhaps most famously found in the language of early science fiction that is still with us today, where the possible humanity of robots echoes the words concerning the humanity of enslaved people. This ambivalence towards machines is present as well in the place reserved for machines in museums, the use of technology for museological purposes, and the machine as maker of art.

Finally, to lead us in our thinking concerning technology in contemporary art, some of the artworks we will look at are by Nam June Paik, American Artist (yes it is their name), Shu Lea Cheang, Frieder Nake, Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Nadia Myre, Olafur Eliasson, and Sougwen Chung.