If… then… On a history of algorithms in art since 1960

• Applicant: Aurea Klarskov
• Subject Area: Art History
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 544239921

The project aims to examine case studies on artistic practice since 1960 based on step-by-step instructions and predetermined rules. The analytical term guiding this esthetic and theoretical research is the algorithm. The basic definition of an algorithm is a finite number of precisely defined instructions for solving a problem. In the 21st century, the term is used ubiquitously. It is exactly this ubiquity that has turned it into a blank space, and far-reaching potentials and perils of digital life are projected onto the somewhat mysterious operations of algorithms. This blank space thus requires fundamental research, which the social sciences, cultural studies and the emerging field of critical algorithm studies have been doing for decades. I want to add to this fundamental research from the vantage point of art history and contribute to the research body of an algorithmic artistic practice. To do so I concentrate on three case studies. The first case study is situated within the US-American context since 1960: I want to research the use of digital as well as analogue algorithms in the work of Hungarian-American artist Agnes Denes. Part of the analysis of her intellectual environment and artistic practice is the reaction to cybernetic theory by artists of her generation. The second focus is on Hungarian-French artist Vera Molnár, a pioneering computer artist. Part of her theoretical and artistic network is the work of German philosopher of science Max Bense and other pioneering artists experimenting with art and computers. With the third emphasis on German conceptual artist Hanne Darboven, I focus on concepts of work in an algorithmic practice, connecting it to the historical legacy of punch cards and looms undergirding information technology. I will investigate the art historical prehistory of the omnipresent algorithms of the 21st century with the help of interdisciplinary methods. Digressions into technology and media history, as well as into the history of science will be as necessary as a feminist and ecological footing. Artistically and philosophically claims of determinism and control are pitted against notions of freedom, uncertainty and chance. The two-way approach considering digital as well as analogue algorithms allows for a more varied collection of case studies and a theoretically more ambitious analysis than a mere history of digital algorithms in art. The algorithm as an epistemic term both gives reason to research a concrete algorithmic practice and delivers the analytical metaphor for describing a specific turn in artistic practice since the beginning of the Information Age.

• DFG Programme: WBP Position