bit international . [Nove] Tendencije – Computer and Visual Research

Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum . Graz . Austria
28 April – 17 June 2007

opening: Friday 27th April 19 h

Curator: Darko Fritz (Zagreb / Amsterdam)


The Neue Galerie in the Landesmuseum Joanneum Graz examines one of the
most important international trends of the 1960s in the exhibition “bit
international . [Nove] Tendencije computer and visual research”, which
was of enormous influence at the time, but which has now slipped out of
public consciousness and has virtually been lost to the history of the
development of art. While numerous exhibitions have been held with the
titles “New Tendencies” or “Nouvelle Tendance” in Venice and Paris, the
place of origin - Zagreb, has vanished from the focus of attention. A
biennial event developed in Zagreb starting with concrete and
constructive art in 1961, maintained its avant-garde title by
introducing the computer as a medium of “artistic research” in 1961.
Simultaneous with the legendary Cybernetic Serendipity at the London
ICA in 1968, which is regarded as the first major computer art
exhibition, a colloquium also took place in Zagreb with an exhibition
of computer generated art, tendencije 4.

The Gallery for Contemporary Art – today the Museum of Contemporary Art
– dedicated a series of exhibitions, symposia and publications on the
subject of the ‘Computer and Visual Research’. Original projects in
both art and science were presented. During the heyday of the Cold War
artists and scientists from the entire world travelled to Zagreb – from
Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia and the
USA. The multi-lingual magazine published by the Gallery in Zagreb Bit
International was an initiation point for aesthetic and media theory
reflection and there was nothing that could be compared with it
anywhere else in the world. ‘Tendencije 4’ attempted to both accompany
and mould the historic transition in which the computer as a symbol
processing machine first entered consciousness as a machine for
artistic creation. The arts of the electronic media were not regarded
as an isolated phenomenon, but were included in the history and the
discourse on the fine arts and the performing arts.

A first review of the ‘Tendencije’ exhibitions and the publications of
Bit International has now been assembled in cooperation with the Museum
of Contemporary Art in Zagreb and with an international network of
collectors and private archives in an exhibition curated by Darko
Fritz. Graphic work, films, sculptures, poems, theatrical texts and
artistic concepts. The English language anthology accompanying the
exhibition (ed. Margit Rosen, in cooperation with Darko Fritz, Peter
Weibel) has made the broad range – of both art works and theoretical
writings accessible to a broader public of art and media historians and
artists once again for the first in 30 years. The project also promotes
an opening of awareness and sensitivity to the historical centres of
the arts and culture in Eastern Europe.

Exhibition in the Neue Galerie in the Landesmuseum Joanneum Graz
presents 93 artists and artists groups with more than 350 artworks,
alongside computer programs and other working process documents.

http://www.neuegalerie.at