Making Art Work: How Cold War Engineers and Artists Forged a New Creative Culture
The creative collaborations of engineers, artists, scientists, and curators over the past fifty years.

Artwork as opposed to experiment? Engineer versus artist? We often see two different cultural realms separated by impervious walls. But some fifty years ago, the borders between technology and art began to be breached. In this book, W. Patrick McCray shows how in this era, artists eagerly collaborated with engineers and scientists to explore new technologies and create visually and sonically compelling multimedia works. This art emerged from corporate laboratories, artists' studios, publishing houses, art galleries, and university campuses. Many of the biggest stars of the art world--Robert Rauschenberg, Yvonne Rainer, Andy Warhol, Carolee Schneemann, and John Cage--participated, but the technologists who contributed essential expertise and aesthetic input often went unrecognized.
1136401349
Making Art Work: How Cold War Engineers and Artists Forged a New Creative Culture
The creative collaborations of engineers, artists, scientists, and curators over the past fifty years.

Artwork as opposed to experiment? Engineer versus artist? We often see two different cultural realms separated by impervious walls. But some fifty years ago, the borders between technology and art began to be breached. In this book, W. Patrick McCray shows how in this era, artists eagerly collaborated with engineers and scientists to explore new technologies and create visually and sonically compelling multimedia works. This art emerged from corporate laboratories, artists' studios, publishing houses, art galleries, and university campuses. Many of the biggest stars of the art world--Robert Rauschenberg, Yvonne Rainer, Andy Warhol, Carolee Schneemann, and John Cage--participated, but the technologists who contributed essential expertise and aesthetic input often went unrecognized.
27.99 In Stock
Making Art Work: How Cold War Engineers and Artists Forged a New Creative Culture

Making Art Work: How Cold War Engineers and Artists Forged a New Creative Culture

by W. Patrick Mccray
Making Art Work: How Cold War Engineers and Artists Forged a New Creative Culture

Making Art Work: How Cold War Engineers and Artists Forged a New Creative Culture

by W. Patrick Mccray

eBook

$27.99 

Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
WANT A NOOK?  Explore Now

Related collections and offers


Overview

The creative collaborations of engineers, artists, scientists, and curators over the past fifty years.

Artwork as opposed to experiment? Engineer versus artist? We often see two different cultural realms separated by impervious walls. But some fifty years ago, the borders between technology and art began to be breached. In this book, W. Patrick McCray shows how in this era, artists eagerly collaborated with engineers and scientists to explore new technologies and create visually and sonically compelling multimedia works. This art emerged from corporate laboratories, artists' studios, publishing houses, art galleries, and university campuses. Many of the biggest stars of the art world--Robert Rauschenberg, Yvonne Rainer, Andy Warhol, Carolee Schneemann, and John Cage--participated, but the technologists who contributed essential expertise and aesthetic input often went unrecognized.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780262359504
Publisher: MIT Press
Publication date: 10/20/2020
Sold by: Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format: eBook
Pages: 344
File size: 6 MB

About the Author

W. Patrick McCray, Professor in the History Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the author of four other books, including the prize-winning The Visioneers.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Schematics
1 Preamplifier
2 Fluxes
3 Heterodyne
4 Powering Up
5 Transducer
6 Surges
7 Parallel Processing
8 Overload
9 Amplitudes
Conclusion: Waves, Loops, and Bubbles
Notes on Sources
Notes
Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Come for the history, stay for the fascinating art: in this thoughtful and engaging study, McCray sets aside cultural polemics to focus on how collaborations between artists and engineers rewired notions of creativity, emphasizing the labor required to do so.”
Michael D. Gordin, Rosengarten Professor of Modern and Contemporary History, Princeton University
 
“A truly impressive achievement. Not only the best introduction to the big onrush of art and technology from the Cold War to the counterculture, but one that also offers a wealth of new insights to dedicated students of the period by taking the vantage point of engineers.”
Douglas Kahn, author of Earth Sound Earth Signal: Energies and Earth Magnitude in the Arts
 
“Shedding new light on canonical figures and elucidating the less familiar contributions of others, such as Frank Malina and Elsa Garmire, Patrick McCray’s history of the art and technology movement of the 1960s distills questions and lessons that testify to its ongoing relevance for the arts, industry, and academe today.”
Anne Collins Goodyear, Codirector, Bowdoin College Museum of Art

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews