Communication aesthetics

movement 1983-present Italy France

Communication Aesthetics is both a theory and an art tendency, devised in 1983 by the Italian philosopher Mario Costa and the French artist Fred Forest at Mercato San Severino, Italy, and set out in a manifesto signed with Horacio Zabala. It calls for art that works through late twentieth-century communications technology - video, telex, satellites, computer networks - on the observation that networks increasingly shape perception, space and social life. The artist becomes a "social operative", replacing the production of art objects with staged interactions among participants; artworks are events such as live telecasts and networked cafés. An informal international group formed around the idea, including Roy Ascott, Antoni Muntadas and Derrick de Kerckhove, and its examples run from Hole in Space to Ascott's distributed-authorship project La plissure du texte.

Defining characteristics

  • Communications technology as both medium and subject
  • Art as event and interaction rather than finished object
  • Networked participation: remote audiences complete the work
  • Political self-awareness: the artist as social operative
  • Space, time and perception reshaped by telecoms explored directly

Key figures

  • Fred Forest (b. 1933) — French artist and co-founder of the theory; telecommunications and sociological art
  • Mario Costa — Italian philosopher of aesthetics at Salerno who co-founded the theory
  • Roy Ascott (b. 1934) — British artist of telematic works such as La plissure du texte

Example works

  • Hole in Space — Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz (1980)
  • La plissure du texte — Roy Ascott (1985)
  • Electronic Café '84 — Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz (1984)

Sources

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