Frank Popper
Frank Popper | |
|---|---|
Canton of Ticino, Switzerland | |
| Nationality | French and British |
| Alma mater | Paris-Sorbonne University |
| Known for | Historian of art and technology |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Aesthetics and the science of art |
Frank Popper (17 April 1918 and From Technological to Virtual Art.
Popper documented the historical record of the relationship between technology and participatory forms of art, especially between the late 1960s and the early 1990s.[4]
Kinetic Art and Op Art
In his books Origins and Development of Kinetic Art and Art, Action and Participation, Popper showed how
Kinetic Art played an important part in pioneering the unambiguous use of optical movement and in fashioning links between science, technology, art and the environment.[5]
Popper was a champion of the humanizing effects of such an interdisciplinary synthesis.
Key to his initial thinking and activities as an
Jesus-Rafael Soto and Victor Vasarely, which proved to have had a substantial impact on his view of art and art history
.
Virtual art
Following this inclination Popper took interest in the works of
immersive virtual reality and digital art began to become established. Popper began to investigate a range of works emerging in this era, including those of Shawn Brixey, Ebon Fisher, and Joseph Nechvatal. To explain and illustrate the emergence of a techno-aesthetic Popper stressed the panoramic and multi-generational reach of virtual art. As regards to virtual art, openness is stressed both from the point of view of the artists and their creativity and from that of the follow-up users in their reciprocating thoughts and actions. This commitment to the teeming openness found in virtual art can be traced to the theories of Umberto Eco and other aestheticians. During his late career Eco expressed a consideration of the computer as a spiritual tool.[6]
Popper used the term,
immersive virtual reality
(VR).
In his 2006 book From Technological to Virtual Art, Popper traced the development of immersive, interactive new media art from its historical antecedents through
but also basic human needs and drives.Definition
Defining virtual art broadly as art that allows us, through an interface with
net art) by many artists.[8]
Virtual art, he argued, offers a new model for thinking about humanist values in a technological age. Virtual art, as Popper saw it, is more than just an injection of the usual aesthetic material into a new
ecological
significance of such technologies. The aesthetic-technological relationship produces an unprecedented artform.
Sharing Popper's focus on art and technology are Jack Burnham (Beyond Modern Sculpture 1968) and Gene Youngblood (Expanded Cinema 1970). They show how art has become, in Popper's terms, virtualized.[6]
Bibliography
- Origins and Development of Kinetic Art, New York Graphic Society/Studio Vista, 1968
- Kinetics, Arts Council of Great Britain, 1970
- Art—Action and Participation, New York University Press, 1975
- (in German) Die kinetische Kunst: Licht und Bewegung, Umweltkunst und Aktion, DuMont Schauberg, 1975
- (in French) Le déclin de l'objet, Le Chêne, 1975
- (in French) Art, action et participation: L'artiste et la creativité aujourd'hui, Klincksieck, 1980
- (in Spanish) Arte, Acción Y Participación: El Artista Y La Creatividad De Hoy, Akal Ediciones, 1989
- Agam, Harry N. Abrams, 1990
- Art of the Electronic Age, Thames & Hudson, 1997
- (in French) Reflexions sur l'exil, l'art et l'Europe: Entretiens avec Aline Dallier, Klincksieck, 1998
- From Technological to Virtual Art, Leonardo Books, MIT Press, 2006
- (in French) Écrire sur l'art : De l'art optique a l'art virtuel, L'Harmattan, 2007
- Yvaral (with Britta Vetter & Emma Healey), Robert Sandelson Ltd., 2007
Footnotes
- ^ Art, action and participation by Frank Popper. National Library of Australia collection
- ^ "Présidence de la République" (in French). Archived from the original on 2010-06-03. Retrieved 2010-05-30.
- ^ Lieser, Wolf. Digital Art. Langenscheidt: h.f. ullmann, 2009, p. 283
- ^ Christiane Paul, Digital Art, Thames & Hudson Ltd. p. 219
- ^ Kristine Stiles & Peter Selz, Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings (Second Edition, Revised and Expanded by Kristine Stiles) University of California Press 2012, p. 450
- ^ a b Joseph Nechvatal, Frank Popper and Virtualised Art, Tema Celeste Magazine: Winter 2004 issue #101, pp. 48–53
- ^ Margaret Boden, Mind As Machine, Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 1089
- ^ Origins of Virtualism: An Interview with Frank Popper conducted by Joseph Nechvatal", CAA Art Journal, Spring 2004, pp. 62-77
References
- Roy Ascott, Behaviourist Art and the Cybernetic Vision, in Cybernetica, Vol. IX, No. 4, 1966; Vol. X, No. 1, 1967: 29.
- (in French) Naissance de l'art cinétique, Gauthier-Villars, Paris, 1967
- Origins and Development of Kinetic Art, Studio Vista and New York Graphic Society, 1968
- (in Italian) L'Arte cinetica, Einaudi, Turin, 1970
- (in German) Die Kinetische Kunst-Licht und Bewegung, Umweltkunst und Aktion, Dumont Schauberg, 1975
- (in French) Le déclin de l'objet, Le Chêne, 1975
- Art, Action and Participation, Studio Vista and New York University Press, 1975
- Yaacov Agam, monographie, Abrams, New York, 1976
- (in French) Art, action et participation : l'artiste et la créativité aujourd'hui, Klincksieck, 1980
- (in German) Kunst zwischen Natur und Technologie. Ein Gespräch mit Frank Popper, Jürgen Claus, Treffpunkt Kunst. Keil Verlag Bonn, 1982, pp. 19–22
- (in German) Künstler und sozialer Wandel, Gespräch mit Frank Popper, Jürgen Claus, ChippppKunst, Ullstein Materialien, Frankfurt am Main/Berlin, Bd. 35232, 1985, pp. 116–120
- (in French) Réflexions sur l'exil, l'art et l'Europe : Entretiens avec Aline Dallier, Klincksieck, 1998
- Origins of Virtualism: An Interview with Frank Popper conducted by Joseph Nechvatal, CAA Art Journal, Spring 2004, pp. 62–77
- Joseph Nechvatal, Frank Popper and Virtualised Art, Tema Celeste Magazine: Winter 2004 issue #101, pp. 48–53
- Charlie Gere, Art, Time and Technology: Histories of the Disappearing Body, Berg, 2005, p. 146
- Margaret Boden, Mind As Machine, Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 1089
- (in German) Lieser, Wolf. Digital Art. Langenscheidt: h.f. ullmann, 2009, p. 283
- Kristine Stiles & Peter Selz, Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings (Second Edition, Revised and Expanded by Kristine Stiles) University of California Press 2012, p. 450
- (in German) Jürgen Claus, "Frank Popper", in: "Liebe die Kunst. Eine Autobiografie in einundzwanzig Begegnungen", Kerber/ZKM, 2013, pp. 178–186, ISBN 978-3-86678-788-9
- Christiane Paul, Digital Art, Thames & Hudson Ltd., 2015, p. 219
External links
Wikiquote has quotations related to Frank Popper.
- Claus, Jürgen (12 April 2018). "Frank Popper, Spirit Rector of Kinetic Art, is celebrating his 100th birthday". Leonardo.
- (in French) Centre d'Art Contemporain Frank Popper, Marcigny, France
- From Technological to Virtual Art book by Frank Popper
- Frank Popper interviewed by Joseph Nechvatal
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| People | |
| Other | |
