Meeting Ikarus


'Jürgen Claus Jürgen Claus

Gallery of the World Beyond – Moviedrome – Electronic Museum

Paper at the symposium "The Orbital Age", Ars Electronica 1986

The utopias of art are only seemingly dead since the technologies of today make the apparently utopian a permanent presence. Space, however, close or distant, even galactic space, has always been occupied by the imagination and the fantasies of artists and authors. They invaded space by means of the new technologies, as did Melies who, hardly in control of his movie-camera, made the film "Journey into the Moon" in 1902. That same year, Scheerbart using the good old print medium published his "GALLERY OF THE WORLD BEYOND".

In the early days of aviation (around 1908/09) the telluric consciousness was replaced by the planetarian, as has been described by Ingold. Malewitsch's "Suprematist Satellites" (1920) and Tatlin's flying apparatus (1930–32) mark important stages. With the advent of actual satellite technology (October 4, 1957), artists/movie-makers/media authors, too, start testing the satellite technologies as to their properties as vehicles for artistic expression.

Around 1965, VanDerBeek built his "MOVIEDROME" as a first test station of a worldwide network of communication between artists. Polieri developed the fundamentals of his communication games drawing up his theory and doing field work at his total theatre. Today we are faced with the idea and the first beginnings of an "ELECTRONIC MUSEUM" using advanced technologies for the transmission and reception of immaterial messages. Canada with its "Living Museum" (1979), Ascott with the international Computer Network of Artists (1980), Adrian X with "The World in 24 Hours" (1982 at Ars Electronica), the international Sky Art Conferences of Otto Piene (since 1981), and the "Writing Tests" in the Centre Pompidou in 1985 are but a few examples of what happens on the way towards an Electronic Museum of our age.

In his paper, Jürgen Claus, employing slides and video, demonstrates the opportunities of an Electronic Museum in 1986: Artists Meeting Icarus.

In this conference, employing slides and video, Jürgen Claus presents examples of recent works by contemporary artists who include technology in their art in the wide sense of the word. Among the topics presented can be found: Objects of environment art incorporating computer controlled processes, events of telecommunication bringing together people at most distant places by means of electronics, video disks and computer animation developed by artists, cybernetic sculptures using computer programs, and computer graphics as the fifth group of topics. JUrgen Claus, born in Berlin in 1935, artist and prolific author, organized the exhibition "Art and Technology" at the Federal Ministry of Research and Technology in Bonn in 1984, and is now preparing the exhibition "TERMINAL ART" for Ars Electronica 1986 in Linz. His latest book on "Chipppp-Art" was published by Ullstein in December 1985. He participated in numerous exhibitions in Paris (entre artes Electra, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1983–84) and in symposia.