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December 19th, 2020
Bell Telephone Labs
The modern world would be a pale shade of itself if not for the myriad foundational technologies developed at the Bell Telephone Labs. Its engineers invented the transistor and photovoltaic cell, charge-coupled devices, frickin’ lasers even Unix and the C++ programming language. Those same engineers also worked with some of the Cold War era’s most influential artists including Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Yvonne Rainer to create a wholly new style of artistic expression.
In his new book,
Making Art Work: How Cold War Engineers and Artists Forged a New Creative Culture, W. Patrick McCray follows the exploits of often-unsung technicians like rocket pioneer cum kinetic artist, Frank J. Malina and Bell Labs electrical engineer and Experiments in Art and Technology founder Billy Klüver, as they leveraged their technological prowess in the pursuit of creating compelling new works.
Historian W. Patrick McCray s new book explores the collaboration of art and technology in the 1960s
A detail of Cosmos, which is stored at the Oxford Brookes Library. Photo: The Malina Family.
By Jim Logan
SANTA BARBARA, CA
.- When we see aliens riding flying lizards in the movie Avatar, were watching the marriage of art and technology. Such digital wizardry is so common these days we take it for granted.
W. Patrick McCray would like to remind you that just a few decades earlier, artists and engineers began to step outside their separate spheres to collaborate in ways that would set the stage for the creative alchemy that now touches most every facet of our lives.