Book Release and Talk

Art, Time and Technology examines the role of art in an age of ‘real time’ information systems and instantaneous communication. The increasing speed of technology and of technological development since the early nineteenth century has resulted in cultural anxiety. Humankind now appears to be an ever-smaller component of dauntingly complex technological systems, operating at speeds beyond human control or even perception. This perceived change forces us to rethink our understanding of key concepts such as time, history and art. Art, Time and Technology explores how the practice of art - in particular of avant-garde art - keeps our relation to time, history and even our own humanity open. Examining key moments in the history of both technology and art from the beginnings of industrialization to today, Charlie Gere explores both the making and purpose of art, and how much further it can travel from the human body.
This is the first book that critically situates the technologies of real-time computing within the broader discourses of visual and media history. From Jack Burnham to John Cage, Leroi-Gourhan to Marshall McLuhan, and Les immateriaux to Stanley Kubrick, Gere challenges us to consider the role of the entire apparatus of communication in the ongoing construction of art as information processing system. Barbara Maria Stafford, author of Devices of Wonder: From the World in a Box to Images on a Screen.

Published by Berg in May 2006–Hardback, £50.00, ISBN 1845201345. Paperback, £16.99, ISBN 1845201353.

About the author: Charlie Gere is Reader in New Media Research at Lancaster University and is the author of Digital Culture.

Art at the Edge of Time: Talk and Discussion: Tue 30 May 2006, 19:00; Nash Room, Institute for Contemporary Arts, The Mall, London, SW1Y 5AH.

The average newscast these days is likely to report the outbreak of a new computer virus or a new technique for growing bodily organs. In an age when technology seems increasingly to have a mind of its own, art offers an important check on technology’s relentless proliferation. This dialogue between new media artist-curator Jon Ippolito and scholar Charlie Gere probes the seismic shift in art’s role during a time of accelerated change. The participants will draw on research from two books just published this spring. At the Edge of Art (Thames & Hudson), by Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito and Art, Time and Technology, by Charlie Gere (Berg Press). Both books are available from the ICA bookshop with a 10% discount for ICA members.

Jon Ippolito is Assistant Curator of Digital Arts at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, and director of The Pool, an online arts group. Charlie Gere is eader in New Media Research at Lancaster University and is the author of Digital Culture. Art at the Edge of Time is part of the Man Machine Season

Full Price : £5. ICA Members : £4.

(In lieu of a more formal book launch for Art, Time and Technology please join me for a drink in the ICA bar after the talk on the 30th).