record

Thesis Info

LABS ID
00561
Thesis Title
Art and Technology in the Second Half of the 20th Century: The Code as Paradigm
Author
José Oliveira
2nd Author
3rd Author
Degree
PhD
Year
2016
Number of Pages
463
University
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Thesis Supervisor
Margarida Acciaiuoli
Supervisor e-mail
acciaiuoli AT fcsh.unl.pt
Other Supervisor(s)
Jorge Martins Rosa
Language(s) of Thesis
Portuguese
Department / Discipline
Contemporary Art History
Languages Familiar to Author
Portuguese and English
URL where full thesis can be found
Not yet available
Keywords
Art and Technology, Code, Technoculture, New Media, Systems Aesthethics
Abstract: 200-500 words
The thesis sustains that code (computers programming code, as well as the genetic code), represented starting points for a paradigm shift in contemporary art when it began to be integrated in art practices in the second half of the 20th century. Those new models originated from a certain resistance in welcoming those new mediations, both at the critical and institutional level, which, consequently, lead to lack of attention regarding its integration into the mainstream art history discourse and a lapse in time that is important to rehabilitate in order to understand the 21st century art practices. The first part of this study is concerned with the analyses of the social and tecno-cultural contexts of the 20th century as well as the new aesthethic directions (systems, information and database aesthetics) in order to show that the technological shift based on information and (later) biologic technologies, were not foreign environments in the artistic creation. The second part of this study is concentrated in the artistic practice analysis of the early developments and support of new media pioneers (both in national and international terms), with some emphasis on works by Portuguese artists Leonel Moura and Marta de Menezes, as differentiated examples of the use of code (information technology and biology) in their respective artistic projects. The artistic practice in the early 21st century, briefly considered at the end of this study, shows that new paradigms were brought to light with the introduction of new media. Namely at the institutional relationship level, in the archive and preservation methods, in exhibition and selling works of art, in the creation of new interdisciplinary academic curriculum and artistic research, and in the synergies (and sometimes symbiotic approach) between art and science.