Detached from HiStory: Jasia Reichardt and<i>Cybernetic Serendipity</i>

Abstract

In 1965 Jasia Reichardt, then assistant director of the Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) in London, embarked on one of the most technologically ambitious art exhibitions of its time. Cybernetic Serendipity: The Computer and the Arts, on view at the ICA from August 2 to October 20, 1968, explored the role of computers in the arts, broadly conceived to include music, poetry, theater, film, dance, graphics, robots, installations, and environments. At the time, the word “computer” designated a variety of devices, from IBM mainframes to individually improvised analogue machines. By linking the computer to creative practices, the exhibition challenged the separation of art and creativity from science and technology. Because computers could produce work in diverse media, the exhibition also implicitly questioned distinctions between presumably discrete creative realms.