Roy Ascott | Read Response

Roy Ascott states strong and convincing opinions regarding the evolution of the conversation with modern art.  The essay describes a transformation in what modern artist’s hope to accomplish by creating works.  This change is likely in response to societal bias on what art can and cannot do.  All the while, artist’s have always had the utmost belief that their work could yield a worldly impact.  With the advancements to technology that occurred in the 1960s and beyond, the ways of making art and the ways of showing art have changed greatly.  Ascott claims this allowed for visual artists to change how spectators interacted with their work; from simply viewing to interacting.  This change for the audience is what propels the artist and the art work beyond a visual context to behavioral one.  Ascott also discusses the concept of cybernetics which with it comes the possibility of the artwork being able to give feedback.  This belief is questionable to me.  The author is faithful that art can be survive being made to engage interactively with a person and a person’s actions.  I find that view short sighted as it fails to consider the evolution of technology.  Granted, this was written in the 1960s and technology since then has exponentially grown in capability.  I would expect, however, art work designed to be self organizing would not be able to keep up with our society’s rapid technological growth.