Variable Conditions: Para-computational Arts in Canada, 1965–1995 (McGill-Queen's/Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation Studies in Art History) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0228018854 ISBN 13: 9780228018858

Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2023

Synopsis

Variable Conditions recovers and explores early Canadian encounters between computational media and contemporary art in the late twentieth century, charting a network of developments linking meteorology, computation, and the arts that arose long before the age of cloud computing.

Essays uncover the material conditions that shaped the emergence of computational arts in Canada, from projects executed by mainframe to digital paintings and analog synthesizer performances. A surprising number of institutional circumstances granted access to early computer hardware – government nuclear and hydroelectric infrastructure, agencies as diverse as the National Film Board and the National Research Council, and a myriad of university settings across the country – and creative conditions varied from benign administrative neglect to the artistic exploration of randomness or a distinct emphasis on thematizing transformation as a motor for graphic visualization and auditory exploration. Interviews featuring leading artists give first-hand insight into artistic practices and the historical moment in which they occurred. The book provides valuable new perspectives on computer art pioneers such as Leslie Mezei, Robert Adrian X, Suzanne Duquet, Roger Vilder, and Vera Frenkel, as well as new contexts for understanding Michael Snow and IAIN BAXTER&. Not limiting their explorations to art generated using computers, contributors outline the integration of computational techniques and concepts into artistic methods across disciplines and trace computation’s emergence as a matter of interest and concern for a range of contemporary cultural producers.

Combining historical analyses with theoretical approaches to computation and its entanglement with contemporary cultural discourses and social movements, Variable Conditions excavates the origins of computational arts and, in the process, sketches a new landscape of interdisciplinary creation and surprising connections between scientific and artistic institutions.

About this title

About the Author

Adam Lauder is an art historian, curator, and writer based in 8entaronk/Toronto.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0228018854
• ISBN 13: 9780228018858
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 392
• Editor: Lauder Adam