Frank Popper
Encyclopedia
Frank Popper is a historian
of art
and technology
and Professor Emeritus of Aesthetics and the Science of Art at the University of Paris VIII. He has been decorated with the medal of the Légion d'honneur by the French Government. He is author of the books: Origins and Development of Kinetic Art, Art, Action, and Participation, Art of the Electronic Age and From Technological to Virtual Art.
Popper documents the historical record of the relationship between technology and participatory forms of art, especially between the late 1960s and the early 1990s. Sharing his focus on art and technology are Jack Burnham
(Beyond Modern Sculpture 1968) and Gene Youngblood
(Expanded Cinema
1970). They show how art has become, in Frank Popper's terms, virtualized.
played an important part in pioneering the unambiguous use of optical movement and in fashioning links between science, technology, art and the environment. Popper has been a champion of the humanizing effects of such an interdisciplinary synthesis.
Key to his initial thinking and activities as an aesthetician, cultural theorist, curator
, teacher, and art critic
was his encounter in the early 1950s with the kinetic artist (and author of the book 'Constructivism'), George Rickey
. He subsequently encountered the artists Nicolas Schoffer
and Frank Malina
, whose works were based on first or second-hand scientific knowledge. Also Op Art
in the early 1960s had a powerful effect on him. Indeed Op proved to be a strong predecessor to what he is calling Virtual Art in that Op Art called attention to the spectator's individual, constructive, and changing perceptions - and thus called upon the spectator to transfer the creative act increasingly upon him or herself. Op beckons forth a consideration of the enlargement of the audience's participatory role; both in regard to the perception
of meaning and actual physical changes to the work of art. Popper also has had many personal encounters in Paris with the GRAV group, Carlos Cruz-Diez
, Yaacov Agam
, Jesus-Rafael Soto and Victor Vasarely
which proved to have had a substantial impact on his view of art and art history
.
and many others working with the early concept of networking
. These artists confirmed his interest in spectator participation, which brought him to the late 1980s and the 1990s when immersive virtual reality and digital art
began to become established. Popper began to investigate a range of works emerging in this era, including that of Shawn Brixey
, Ebon Fisher
and Joseph Nechvatal
. To explain and illustrate the emergence of a techno-aesthetic Popper stresses the panoramic and multi-generational reach of virtual art. As regards to virtual art, openness is stressed both from the point of view of the artists and their creativity and from that of the follow-up users in their reciprocating thoughts and actions. This commitment to the teeming openness found in virtual art can be traced to the theories of Umberto Eco
and other aestheticians. Recently Eco has expressed a consideration of the computer as a spiritual tool.
Popper uses the term, "virtual art," in reference to all the art made with the technical media developed at the end of the 1980s (or a bit before, in some cases). These include human-machine interfaces such as visualization casks, stereoscopic spectacles and screens, generators of three-dimensional sound, data gloves, data clothes, position sensors, tactile and power feed-back systems, etc. All these technologies allowed immersion into the image and interaction
with it. The impression of reality felt under these conditions was not only provided by vision and hearing, but also by the other bodily senses. This multiple sensing was so intensely experienced at times, that Popper could speak of it as an immersive virtual reality (VR).
In his book "From Technological to Virtual Art", Popper traces the development of immersive, interactive new media art from its historical antecedents through today's digital art
, computer art
, multimedia
and net art. Popper shows that contemporary virtual art is a further refinement of the technological art of the late twentieth century - and also a departure from it. What is new about this new media art
, he argues, is its humanization of technology, its emphasis on interactivity
, its philosophical investigation of the real and the virtual
, and its multisensory nature. He argues further that what distinguishes the artists who practice virtual art from traditional artists is their combined commitment to aesthetics
and technology
. Their "extra-artistic" goals - linked to their aesthetic intentions - concern not only science
and society
but also basic human needs and drives.
, to immerse ourselves in computer art
and interact with it, Popper identifies an aesthetic-technological logic of creation that allows artistic expression through integration with technology. After describing artistic forerunners of virtual art from 1918 to 1983 - including art that used light, movement, and electronics
- Popper looks at contemporary new media art
forms and artists. He surveys works that are digital based but materialized, multimedia offline works, interactive digital installations, and multimedia online works (net art) by many artists. The biographical details included reinforce Popper's idea that technology is humanized by art.
Virtual art, he argues, offers a new model for thinking about humanist values in a technological age. Virtual art, as Popper sees it, is more than just an injection of the usual aesthetic material into a new medium, but a deep investigation into the ontological, psychological and ecological significance of such technologies. The aesthetic-technological relationship produces an unprecedented artform.
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
of art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
and technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
and Professor Emeritus of Aesthetics and the Science of Art at the University of Paris VIII. He has been decorated with the medal of the Légion d'honneur by the French Government. He is author of the books: Origins and Development of Kinetic Art, Art, Action, and Participation, Art of the Electronic Age and From Technological to Virtual Art.
Popper documents the historical record of the relationship between technology and participatory forms of art, especially between the late 1960s and the early 1990s. Sharing his focus on art and technology are Jack Burnham
Jack Burnham
Jack Wesley Burnham Jr. is an American writer on art and technology, who taught art history at Northwestern University and the University of Maryland...
(Beyond Modern Sculpture 1968) and Gene Youngblood
Gene Youngblood
Gene Youngblood is a theorist of media arts and politics, and a respected scholar in the history and theory of alternative cinemas. His Expanded Cinema , the first book to consider video as an art form, was influential in establishing the field of media arts as a recognized artistic and scholarly...
(Expanded Cinema
Expanded Cinema
Expanded Cinema by Gene Youngblood , the first book to consider video as an art form, was influential in establishing the field of media arts. In the book he argues that a new, expanded cinema is required for a new consciousness...
1970). They show how art has become, in Frank Popper's terms, virtualized.
Kinetic art
In his books 'Origins and Development of Kinetic Art' and 'Art, Action and Participation', Popper showed how Kinetic ArtKinetic art
Kinetic art is art that contains moving parts or depends on motion for its effect. The moving parts are generally powered by wind, a motor or the observer. Kinetic art encompasses a wide variety of overlapping techniques and styles.-Kinetic sculpture:...
played an important part in pioneering the unambiguous use of optical movement and in fashioning links between science, technology, art and the environment. Popper has been a champion of the humanizing effects of such an interdisciplinary synthesis.
Key to his initial thinking and activities as an aesthetician, cultural theorist, curator
Curator
A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...
, teacher, and art critic
Art critic
An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...
was his encounter in the early 1950s with the kinetic artist (and author of the book 'Constructivism'), George Rickey
George Rickey
George Rickey was an American kinetic sculptor.Rickey was born on June 6, 1907 in South Bend, Indiana.-Life and work:...
. He subsequently encountered the artists Nicolas Schoffer
Nicolas Schoffer
Nicolas Schöffer was a Hungarian-born French artist. He can be considered as the father of cybernetic art. He was born in Kalocsa, Hungary and resided in Paris from 1936 till his death in his Montmartre atelier in 1992. His career touched on painting, kinetic sculpture, architecture, urbanism,...
and Frank Malina
Frank Malina
Frank Joseph Malina was an American aeronautical engineer and painter, especially known for becoming both a pioneer in the art world and the realm of scientific engineering.-Early life:...
, whose works were based on first or second-hand scientific knowledge. Also Op Art
Op art
Op art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions."Optical art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing." Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made...
in the early 1960s had a powerful effect on him. Indeed Op proved to be a strong predecessor to what he is calling Virtual Art in that Op Art called attention to the spectator's individual, constructive, and changing perceptions - and thus called upon the spectator to transfer the creative act increasingly upon him or herself. Op beckons forth a consideration of the enlargement of the audience's participatory role; both in regard to the perception
Perception
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...
of meaning and actual physical changes to the work of art. Popper also has had many personal encounters in Paris with the GRAV group, Carlos Cruz-Diez
Carlos Cruz-Díez
Carlos Cruz-Diez is a Venezuelan kinetic and op artist. He lives in Paris. He has spent his professional career working and teaching between both Paris and Caracas. His work is represented in museums and public art sites internationally...
, Yaacov Agam
Yaacov Agam
Yaacov Agam is an Israeli sculptor and experimental artist best known for his contributions to optical and kinetic art.-Biography:Yaakov Agam was born Yaakov Gipstein on May 11, 1928, in Rishon LeZion, then Mandate Palestine...
, Jesus-Rafael Soto and Victor Vasarely
Victor Vasarely
Victor Vasarely was a Hungarian French artist whose work is generally seen aligned with Op-art.His work entitled Zebra, created by Vasarely in the 1930s, is considered by some to be one of the earliest examples of Op-art...
which proved to have had a substantial impact on his view of art and art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...
.
Virtual art
Following this inclination he took interest in the works of Piotr Kowalski, Roy AscottRoy Ascott
Roy Ascott is a British artist and theorist, who works with cybernetics and telematics. He is President of the Planetary Collegium.- Biography :...
and many others working with the early concept of networking
Social network
A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...
. These artists confirmed his interest in spectator participation, which brought him to the late 1980s and the 1990s when immersive virtual reality and digital art
Digital art
Digital art is a general term for a range of artistic works and practices that use digital technology as an essential part of the creative and/or presentation process...
began to become established. Popper began to investigate a range of works emerging in this era, including that of Shawn Brixey
Shawn Brixey
Shawn Alan Brixey is Associate Professor of Digital Arts and Experimental Media, and the Floyd and Delores Jones Endowed Chair for Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle...
, Ebon Fisher
Ebon Fisher
Ebon Fisher is a transmedia artist hard working at the intersection of art, biology and digital media. Informed by his exposure to cybernetics and feedback systems at the MIT Media Lab in the mid-1980s, Fisher has approached his work as an evolving collaboration with the world, culminating...
and Joseph Nechvatal
Joseph Nechvatal
Joseph Nechvatal is a post-conceptual art digital artist and art theoretician who creates computer-assisted paintings and computer animations, often using custom-created computer viruses.-Life and work:Joseph Nechvatal was born in Chicago...
. To explain and illustrate the emergence of a techno-aesthetic Popper stresses the panoramic and multi-generational reach of virtual art. As regards to virtual art, openness is stressed both from the point of view of the artists and their creativity and from that of the follow-up users in their reciprocating thoughts and actions. This commitment to the teeming openness found in virtual art can be traced to the theories of Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
and other aestheticians. Recently Eco has expressed a consideration of the computer as a spiritual tool.
Popper uses the term, "virtual art," in reference to all the art made with the technical media developed at the end of the 1980s (or a bit before, in some cases). These include human-machine interfaces such as visualization casks, stereoscopic spectacles and screens, generators of three-dimensional sound, data gloves, data clothes, position sensors, tactile and power feed-back systems, etc. All these technologies allowed immersion into the image and interaction
Interaction
Interaction is a kind of action that occurs as two or more objects have an effect upon one another. The idea of a two-way effect is essential in the concept of interaction, as opposed to a one-way causal effect...
with it. The impression of reality felt under these conditions was not only provided by vision and hearing, but also by the other bodily senses. This multiple sensing was so intensely experienced at times, that Popper could speak of it as an immersive virtual reality (VR).
Digital art
Digital art is a general term for a range of artistic works and practices that use digital technology as an essential part of the creative and/or presentation process...
, computer art
Computer art
Computer art is any art in which computers play a role in production or display of the artwork. Such art can be an image, sound, animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, videogame, web site, algorithm, performance or gallery installation...
, multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
and net art. Popper shows that contemporary virtual art is a further refinement of the technological art of the late twentieth century - and also a departure from it. What is new about this new media art
New media art
New media art is a genre that encompasses artworks created with new media technologies, including digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, virtual art, Internet art, interactive art, computer robotics, and art as biotechnology...
, he argues, is its humanization of technology, its emphasis on interactivity
Interactivity
In the fields of information science, communication, and industrial design, there is debate over the meaning of interactivity. In the "contingency view" of interactivity, there are three levels:...
, its philosophical investigation of the real and the virtual
Virtual
The term virtual is a concept applied in many fields with somewhat differing connotations, and also, differing denotations.The term has been defined in philosophy as "that which is not real" but may display the salient qualities of the real....
, and its multisensory nature. He argues further that what distinguishes the artists who practice virtual art from traditional artists is their combined commitment to aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
and technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
. Their "extra-artistic" goals - linked to their aesthetic intentions - concern not only science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
and society
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
but also basic human needs and drives.
Definition
Defining virtual art broadly as art that allows us, through an interface with technologyTechnology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
, to immerse ourselves in computer art
Computer art
Computer art is any art in which computers play a role in production or display of the artwork. Such art can be an image, sound, animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, videogame, web site, algorithm, performance or gallery installation...
and interact with it, Popper identifies an aesthetic-technological logic of creation that allows artistic expression through integration with technology. After describing artistic forerunners of virtual art from 1918 to 1983 - including art that used light, movement, and electronics
Electronics
Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...
- Popper looks at contemporary new media art
New media art
New media art is a genre that encompasses artworks created with new media technologies, including digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, virtual art, Internet art, interactive art, computer robotics, and art as biotechnology...
forms and artists. He surveys works that are digital based but materialized, multimedia offline works, interactive digital installations, and multimedia online works (net art) by many artists. The biographical details included reinforce Popper's idea that technology is humanized by art.
Virtual art, he argues, offers a new model for thinking about humanist values in a technological age. Virtual art, as Popper sees it, is more than just an injection of the usual aesthetic material into a new medium, but a deep investigation into the ontological, psychological and ecological significance of such technologies. The aesthetic-technological relationship produces an unprecedented artform.
External links
- Centre d'Art Contemporain Frank Popper, Marcigny, France
- From Technological to Virtual Art book by Frank Popper
- Frank Popper interviewed by Joseph NechvatalJoseph NechvatalJoseph Nechvatal is a post-conceptual art digital artist and art theoretician who creates computer-assisted paintings and computer animations, often using custom-created computer viruses.-Life and work:Joseph Nechvatal was born in Chicago...