Emerging Technologies Alter How Artists Create

U of Ideas in Science ó November 1998 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Contact: Melissa Mitchell, Arts Editor (217) 333-5491; [email protected]

TECHNOLOGY Emerging technologies radically altering how artists create works

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. ó If Andy Warhol were alive, chances are heíd be on the art worldís bleeding edge, dipping into a high-tech, electronic palette to create art that can be seen ñ and maybe even heard ñ but canít be purchased in any gallery.

Like some of the most innovative artists working in the í90s, Warhol created art in a medium known as artistsí books. Artists today are still making books or book-like objects that function as art ñ as they have throughout this century, according to U. of I. art and design professor Buzz Spector. But emerging technologies are radically altering the way artists create, produce and distribute their work.

One particularly new wrinkle is that ìpeople are writing and creating just for the Web,î said Nan Goggin, who, with Spector, team-teaches a course on artistsí books. Artists who still create their work using traditional materials also are turning to electronic means to market their art, Goggin said. ìAll the publishers have an online component these days ñ from established publishers of artistsí books to individual artists, who distribute or sell their own work directly from their Web site.î

Goggin and Spector will discuss these and other ways in which technology is affecting the medium during a panel discussion and Artistsí Book Fair Nov. 19-21 at the U. of I.ís Krannert Art Museum. The fair is just one component of an ambitious, three-part series of events the museum is hosting on the topic of artistsí books. On view Nov. 14-Jan. 10 will be the United Statesí first glimpse of ìDie B¸cher der K¸nstler: Artistsí Books from 1920-1990,î an exhibition organized by the Foreign Relations Institute in Stuttgart, Germany, and coordinated in the United States by the Goethe-Institut in Chicago.

ìThe exhibition is an exhaustive display of self-published and small-press artistsí books from Germany,î said Krannert curator Leslie Brothers. ìWhile it includes some early examples, dating back to the í20s, the core of the collection begins with artists associated with the Fluxus movement of the 1960s.î Also represented are ìinfluential book-centered artistsî who have produced their work in the last 30 years ñ among them Dieter Roth, whose complete collection of books is included in the show.

As an adjunct to the exhibition, the museum is transforming one of its galleries into a reading room, where visitors can get a hands-on feel for what contemporary artists are creating today ñ from limited-edition books published by small presses to multimedia, Web-based books and CD-ROM publications, comix and book-related materials. The three-day book fair and panel discussion ñ which will bring artists and publishers from across the country to the U. of I. ñ was conceived, in part, Brothers said, as a way to give museum visitors an even better feel for what book artists are doing today.

ìAn exhibit of books which you canít touch or buy creates a problem and an opportunity,î Brothers said. ìTo really appreciate a book, you have to pick it up. Once you really appreciate a book, you want to own it,î she said.

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