The Evolving Role of Technology as A Creative Medium

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The Evolving Role of Technology as A Creative Medium
One of the essential issues raised by one of the speakers from PLASMA this semester concerns the intersection of art and technology. Lindsay Caplan, one of the speakers in the assigned readings and also the author of the book Arte Programmata: Freedom, Control, and the Computer in 1960s Italy, discusses the ways technology is being employed in the art to allow audiences to see personal and collective experiences in new ways. Kaplan’s book, which is mentioned severally in the discussion, covers the evolution of technology as a creative medium in postwar Italy. The book traces the origins of Italian avant-garde’s first trials with art and technology as artistic tools to address social issues like the reconceptualization of the connection between personal freedom and collectivity. This essay will discuss the evolving role of technology as a creative medium using Caplan’s insights from the PLASMA discussion on the intersection of art and technology.
Throughout history, art has evolved in tandem with technology, not just in how art is produced but also in how it is understood, transmitted, and consumed. For instance, technology has created a setting in which art is more reachable to a broader and more assorted audience. While the intersection of art and technology may appear to be a very recent phenomenon or very American, the relationship between the two is both enduring and worldwide as art itself (Doyle and Valiulis). This fact is highlighted in the talk by Kaplan, who argues that the evolving role of technology as a creative medium can be traced to the 1960s. Not just in America but other global art hubs: “…art and technology in the 1900 sixties that it wasn’t just in New York and London. It was also happening elsewhere, making this movement much more international” (Class Reading ). One of the earliest instances of the intersection of art and technology was the Italian kinetic art of the 1960s.
In the late 1950s, Italy became a global hub of avant-garde art. Italian kinetic art was one of the phenomenal art movements to appear in Europe, with several artists like Bruno Munari, Marina Apollonio, Enzo Mari, Grazia Varisco, Alberto Biasi, and Edoardo Landi producing neo-avant-garde artworks of historical significance. This group of kinetic artists investigated the link between art, technology, and science to design interactive works that eliminated the rigid rules between the artist and the public (Camurri and Volpe). For instance, the 1964 Venice Biennale included Biasi’s light prism, which employed assorted media like electric motors, prisms, mirrors, and light to produce varying light rays that regularly appear and disappear. These experiential pieces challenged the public’s perception of art and ushered in an era of technology as a creative medium. These groundbreaking artists in postwar Italy provided the conditions for a cutting-edge approach to art production, dissemination, viewing, and defiance of easy classification.
Another reason why the kinetic art of postwar Italy is important in the conversation on the evolving role of technology as a creative medium relates to the pe...