When the Machine Made Art

The fact that the first computer art has military origins and is imbued with various techno-science mythologies, places the movement at odds with artworld orthodoxy. Yet, while mainstream art critics reproach computerized art, a comparison between similar art forms of the era, such as conceptual art [...]
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The fact that the first computer art has military origins and is imbued with various techno-science mythologies, places the movement at odds with artworld orthodoxy. Yet, while mainstream art critics reproach computerized art, a comparison between similar art forms of the era, such as conceptual art, reveals that the criticism of computer art was motivated more by the fear of the machine than by aesthetics. Dr. Grant Taylor shows that social anxiety, often fueled by Cold War dystopianism, posited the computer as a powerful instrument in the overall subordination of the individual to the emerging technocracy. But even though anti-computer sentiment abated in the late 1970s, computer art did not find acceptance. When the Machine Made Art illustrates how computer art's exponents, desiring artworld legitimacy, traced its lineage back to modernism. Conversely, in the 1980s, art theorists, employing the latest critical theory, began critiquing the assumptions of modernism, and thus viewed computer art's modernist history as hopelessly outdated.And yet other critics reconciled computer technology with the critical insights of postmodernism, viewing the computer as a pluralistic agent that could challenge modernist conventions.