8/7/2019 Cordeiro_Anteonica

1/3

Leonardo

"Artenica": Electronic ArtAuthor(s): Waldemar CordeiroSource: Leonardo, Vol. 30, No. 1 (1997), pp. 33-34Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1576373 .

Accessed: 03/03/2011 10:38

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless

you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you

may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at .http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpress. .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed

page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The MIT Press and Leonardo are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to

Leonardo.

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpresshttp://www.jstor.org/stable/1576373?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpresshttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpresshttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/1576373?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpress

8/7/2019 Cordeiro_Anteonica

2/3

SPECIAL SECTION

Arteonica: Electronic A r t

WaldemarCordeiro

lhe crisis of contemporary art is a consequenceof two variables: the inadequacy of traditional art media totransmitinformation, and the inefficiency of the informationthey carry in regards to language, thought and action.I understand by "communication" the transmission andprocessing of information, as well as the technical mecha-nisms employed in transmitting and storing information.Thus, communication systems comprise both the craft ofpainting and the machine that reproduces or complementsfunctions of the nervous system,the brain or human behaviorin the creation of artworks,reproducing them through an ar-tificial organ.The obsolescence of the traditional communication systemof art resides in the limited consumption implicit in the verynature of the transmission medium. Due to the limited num-ber of possible viewers, the high costs, the geographic limita-tions and the technical difficulties, the traditional communi-cation system of art fails to live up to the qualitative andquantitative cultural demands of modern society.Traditional artworks are physical objects to be displayed inphysically determined places, and they assume the physicaldisplacement of the viewers. In a city such as Sao Paulo,which has eight million inhabitants, and whose projectedpopulation for 1990 foresees more than eighteen million in-habitants, these communications media are not viable. Theywill be even less viable for an international culture, which isessential for the harmonic development of humankind.These simple evidences do not seem to have been suffi-ciently understood. Artists of traditional training try to ad-dress the communications crisis by leaving the gallery spaceand working in the urban micro-landscape or the regionalmacro-landscape-wrapping mountains, for example. Theseartists have not realized that what is obsolete is not the scale,but the nature of the thing.Traditional art is known more through mechanical andelectronic reproduction than through direct observation.This communicative translation (or commutation) implies,however, loss of information from the point of view of themessage intended at the origin. The reverse is also true: thetranslation to the canvas of messages from mass media (pop)does not escape from the same degradation of information.The digital conversion of the analog image via screen or CRTcan substantiallyalter the gestaltic structure of the message.The artwork,which implicitly defines the physical space inwhich it is consumed, separates itself from the social environ-ment. It requires a specific zone for its artistic fruition. Theinformational crisis of contemporary art results from the con-tinuation of tradition, which perpetuates the alienation thatresults from the linear development of the artistic process.This is also a form of isolation, not a physical but a semanticone, inasmuch as the consumption of the artwork requires

previous knowledge of exclusiverepertoires. The communicative/informational isolation conflictswith the open and interdiscipli-nary character of a planetary cul-ture.

The use of electronic mediamaylead to a solution to the com-municational problems of art,since telecommunications andother electronic resources re-quire, for their informational op-timization, certain forms of im-age processing. In the case ofelectronic art (arteonica), thetransmission of information does

ABSTRACTReprintedhereisBrazilianelectronicartpioneerWaldemarCordeiro'streatiseonarte6nica,electronicart.Writingin1971,theartistforesawtheunavoidableobsolescenceoftraditionalartwithitslimitedsystemof commu-nicationandaccess.Theauthor,oneofSouthAmerica'sfirstcom-puterartists,writesoftheim-pendingplanetarycultureandsees thecomputeras aninstru-mentforpositivesocietalchange:electronicartcancontributeto

greaterenvironmentalbalanceandcandemocratizethedissemi-nationandreceptionof artitself.

not provoke a transformation. The use of new communica-tions media would mean very little, however, if we do not takeinto account the most complex cultural variables. When thenumber of viewers increases, the cultural situation becomesmore diversified and the feedback becomes more complex.As the understanding of general conditions grounds all cre-ative effort, the creative act requires more complex methodsand more efficient media. It is in this direction that art willfind again the conditions to realize its historical role.

It is clear that the mere employment of the computer willnot signify the solution for all problems. We can see today atendency towardsa technical virtuosity,which demonstrates asophisticated hedonism. This tendency, despite not formulat-ing new artistic problems, has the important merit ofdemystifyingtraditional art and contributing to an analysisofmental processes in artistic activity, due to the automatedmethod employed. Should we handle artistic issues eitherwith machines or with teams in which the computer is a part-ner, we will learn more about how individuals handle artisticissues. Simulation efficiently and promptly duplicates tradi-tional art production, which it drains and exhausts, thus issu-ing a death certificate to misoneism. This tendency, as muchas it employs countless resources, is still limited to the isola-tion I pointed out above regarding the diagnosis of the com-municative possibilities of traditional art, even though in thissectorial condition it promotes an iconoclastic operation thatis very hygienic. The most urgent problem is not a rivalrywithtraditional art, because such a rivalrywould mean accepting

Waldemar Cordeiro (1925-1973). Contact: Analivia Cordeiro, Rua das Granjas, 506GranjaViana, Cotia, Sao Paulo SP 06700-000, Brazil.Originally published in Waldemar Cordeiro, ed., Arteonica(Sao Paulo: Editora dasAmericas, 1972) pp. 3-4. This book was the catalog of an international exhibition ofcomputer art organized by Cordeiro and show at the Fundacao Armando AlvaresPenteado, Sao Paulo, 1971. Translated by Eduardo Kac.

LEONARDO, Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 33-34, 1997 33? 1997 ISAST

8/7/2019 Cordeiro_Anteonica

3/3

a field of action that is definitely con-demned to obsolescence.. ~ Another tendency in electronic artaims at creating interdisciplinary works,

taking advantage of scientific researchand discoveries. These works borrowfrom neurology and Gestalt psychology,processing images with the aid of a com-puter. This tendency inscribes itself inthe wake of Concrete art, which was de-veloped in the historical context of thefirst industrial revolution (Suprematism,Neoplasticism, Constructivism, etc.).These movements helped create a "ma-chine language" appropriate to the com-munications systems of the urban andindustrial society. In this sense we canhighlight the evident similarities be-tween Concrete art and Computer art.The tendencies in art which favored asyntax of forms suffered a profound cri-sis in the 1960s due, chiefly, to the ap-pearance of a new popular massculture,made possible by electronic communi-cations media. This phenomenon af-fected in different ways the field of art,particularly through conservative agen-das such as Pop Art, New Realism andNew Figuration. The new popular cul-ture became responsible for introducing

in art new variables that transcend stylesbased on a syntaxof forms. We must em-phasize, however, the importance of thedevelopment of syntactic research-from mechanical media to electronicmedia-for the cognizance of humanactivities. The computer is acquiring aprominent role in culture, as scientificand technical methods change the sta-tus of the image. Today we see applica-tions in the areas of automatic patternrecognition, creative programming, andprogramming of critical studies of artis-tic messages.In Brazil, computer art started out in1968. It has methodological antecedentsin Concrete art, which appeared in thelate 1940s and which peaked in the1950s and 1960s. Concrete art was theonly art form in Brazil to utilize digitalcreative methods. Coinciding with thehighest period of industrializationin thecountry,Concrete artoffered algorithmslargelyemployed in communications viaindustrial production means. VisualConcrete art had a major influence overthe Brazilianavant-gardein the fields ofpoetry, music and graphic design.When foreseeing the future impor-tance of electronic media for Brazilian

culture, we must consider the variable ofterritorial extension. The ever-expand-ing telecommunications system consti-tutes-concerning socio-economicalactivities-a factor of relationship, ap-proximation and integration. The samecommunicative macro-infrastructurecould offer the means for the develop-ment of an artistic culture that has na-tional and international reach. In thepast, culture faced physical limits result-ing from the settlement of national terri-tory by different-sized communities lo-cated thousands of kilometers apart.Some of these areas of extremely lowpopulation density were virtually unin-habited and lacking modern conve-niences. On the other hand, in othercommunities, the population's coexist-ence in excessively close proximityended up downgrading living condi-tions and jeopardizing potential com-munications. Electronic media couldcorrect these two anomalies and pro-mote a greater environmental balancebetween physical factors and communi-cation itself.

-Waldemar Cordeiro, 1971

34 Cordeiro,Arteonica:Electronic Art: Arteonic