TEXT2SPEECH: Contemporary Art and Cybernetics

Join the ICA Student Forum in a series of free reading groups that respond to the ICA’s programme of exhibitions and events.

The group is targeted at the widest possible public, but will be most attractive to students and recent graduates who seek an incentive to read and discuss the most recent contemporary art theory with others. It provides a platform for the discussion of texts that have not necessarily reached university syllabuses yet and also provides an opportunity to network with others.

At this third meeting, Etan Ilfeld’s Contemporary Art and Cybernetics: Waves of Cybernetic Discourse within Conceptual, Video and New Media Art (in Leonardo, Vol. 45, No. 1, 2012, pp. 57-63) will be read and discussed. The perspective provided in this short essay offers a platform for us to think about whether current artistic practices dealing with new technologies are in dialogue with earlier questions posed by artists of the mid to late twentieth century.

Tracing a short history with varied examples, Ilfeld takes an analytical approach, looking at cybernetics both in its scientific and artistic contexts, in an attempt to think through its place in artist discourse today.

During the session we will ask questions such as: What does it mean to see conceptual art through the frame of cybernetics? Do recent practices have a relationship to the past and what, if any, is the value of creating this lineage? What other examples or alternative histories may there be within this field?

This reading group has been programmed to respond to the upcoming archival exhibition in the ICA Reading Room of Cybernetic Serendipity.

When you have purchased your ticket, please contact   to receive an electronic copy of the text.

Event initiated by Student Forum member Jane Scarth.