School of Art Visiting Scholar Lecture Series
Wednesday, March 11, 2015 at 6:00 PM in Art B-01
Charissa N. Terranova, Ph.D., associate professor of aesthetic studies, Edith O'Donnell Institute of Art History, University of Texas at Dallas.
"Art History via General Systems Theory - from Biology to the Machine and Back"
Artist, writer, and impresario Jack Burnham wrote of a new art based in “relations” in his 1968 essay, “Systems Aesthetics.” In the phrase “systems aesthetics” he not only brought together emerging Conceptualism and Computer Art, but also set in relief an idea of “art” understood in terms of organismic relational function. Through describing contemporary art in terms of systems and relations, Burnham extended art out from the object-centric class-and-taste paradigm of connoisseurship and style to the world of science and technology hybrids. Art from this perspective can be read as a living, breathing complex system.
In her talk, Dr. Terranova traces the role of Burnham’s relational art from Theoretical Biology to General Systems Theory. She will discuss how these ideas have helped to her to see art in terms of complex living systems, and how this idea has lived within art history for over 100 years. This talk will work through relations and systems in her books, Automotive Prosthetic: The Car and Technological Mediation in Conceptual Art (UT Press, 2014) and Art as Organism: Biology and the Digital Image (IB Tauris, 2015)
Visiting scholar lectures at School of Art are supported with Art History special instruction fees. Exhibitions and speaker programs presented by Landmark Arts at School of Art are supported by a generous grant from the Helen Jones Foundation and with cultural activities fees administered through the College of Visual & Performing Arts.
