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Technology

When we consider technology, we most likely think of the world

since the industrial revolution of the 19th Century and

more recent developments, such as transportation, manufacturing, communication,

scientific ad medical advancements in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Many artists, such as Vincent van Gogh,

Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco took notice of technology.

Futurists in Milan were enthralled with machinery and the movement in cities.

Minimalist artists of the 1960s imitated the qualities of a machine.

Vincent Van Gogh

The Huth Factories at Clichy

1887 Oil 21 ¼” x 28 ¾”

Van Gogh saw the growing industrial environment upon the agricultural space.

Diego Rivera

Man at the Crossroads

1934 Fresco 15’ x 37’

Rivera painted the changes from an agricultural world to industry, machinery and war.

José Clemente Orozco

Totem Poles & Machine Images

Panel 9-12 – An Epic of American Civilization

José Clemente Orozco / Social Realism

Modern Culture I - IV

Panels 22-25 – An Epic of American Civilization

Giacomo Balla

Speeding Automobile

1913 Oil 23 ½” x 38 ¼”

Futurism viewed the flux of cities in motion,

industry and machinery as well.

They painted simultaneous motion.

Umberto Boccioni

Unique Forms of Continuity in Space

1913 Bronze 45” h

Minimalist, such as Donald Judd aimed to be

machine-like. To be anonymous, take away the artist’s

hand, unlike a brush stroke. Minimalist celebrated

materials, simplicity and repetition.

Untitled

1966 Aluminum, Plexiglas

40” x 190” x 40”

Untitled 1967

Aluminum

6 1/8” x 24” x 27” each

Dan Flavin

Minimal Art

Pink out of a Corner

1963-64

Untitled 1980s

Untitled

(in Honor of Harold Joachim)

1977

red, yellow, blue & green

8’ fluorescent tubing

Richard Serra

Minimal Art

Union of the Torus and the Sphere

2001 Steel 142” x 447” x 125”

Betwixt the Torus and the Sphere

2001 Steel 142” x 450” x 319”

Richard Serra

Minimal Art

Sylvester

2001 Steel 163” x 492” x 380”

Evaluating the Constructed World

We are bombarded with disjointed imagery everyday.

We see images flipping channels on the television, passing billboards, surfing the Internet.

Some artists question this act of perception.

How reality is presented and how viewers reintegrate these random images.

Images shape our lives and

we can become engaged in the diversity and variety

that our contemporary culture has to offer

or become hypnotized by infotainment and the electronic light.

Jean Tinguely

Homage to New York

1960

Assembled on the rooftop of the

Modern art Museum in New York,

Tinguely started his work of art,

which caught on fire and

collapsed due to a roll of paper

being threaded in the wrong

direction. It ended up being a

on-time event.

Neo-Dadaist, Robert Rauschenberg juxtaposed

images seen on television with imagery from art.

Ever-changing images seen everyday are

reproduced and start to lose their effect.

Estate

1963 oil/silkscreen 7’11” x 5’9”

Retroactive 1964

Nam June Paik explored the impact and means of television

and its impact on us as humans.

Paik warned against the television taking over our lives and

that we needed to fight back.

His early works were humorous in their intent.

TV Cello

1971

TV Bra

1969

Hamlet Robot

1996

Buddha Duchamp Beuys

1989

TV Buddha

1974

Nam June Paik

Nam June Paik

Electronic

Superhighway

1995

Nam June Paik

Fin de Siècle II

(the end of the century)

1989

Video installation of

300 TV sets

continuously changing

Paik’s video installations

speak about the imposing

presence of mass media in

everyday life, a feature in

the home, in business,

in sports, in entertainment,

in commerce and so on,

where the viewer is a

mere spectator.

Nam June Paik

Video Fish 1975-1979

Are viewers like a fish in a bowl? Are we really seeing reality?

Banksy

“vandalized paintings”

Who’s watching who?

Who monitors are existence

and movements?

Alexandre Arrechea

Latin America - Cuban

Cornfield 2007

watercolor

Arena 2007

Ai Weiwei

Forever Bicycles 2010

1200 Forever brand bicycles without handlebars or seats

Taipei Fine Art Museum, Taiwan

Ai Weiwei

Sunflower

Seeds

2010

Turbine Hall,

Tate Museum

London

Ai Weiwei

Sunflower Seeds

100 million

porcelain ceramic

seeds