The 1960s in Britain was the period of rapid economic and social change. Under this circumstance, the visionary architect Cedric Price designed the Fun Palace, of which idea came from the theatre producer, Joan Littlewood. They hoped this place to be an improvisational learning space, so Price proposed the building as ‘kit of parts’ which can respond to programmatic indeterminacy. Cybernetics was introduced to control this flexibility dramatically changed the character of the project from ‘theatre of people’ to ‘interactive machine’. That resulted in the change of the status of user from subjective human beings to abstract data in the cybernetic algorithm as well, and led the project to a completely opposite direction from that Price intended. After Fun Palace, cybernetics technology could still be found in his other projects, and it can be assumed that this was because the algorithmic system of cybernetics were on the same line of thought of Price’s idea ― anti-building or ‘kit of parts’. The effects of cybernetics varied in projects; Similar negative effect in Fun Palace can be found in Generator project, but on the other hand, in Potteries Thinkbelt project, cybernetics showed a positive aspect by contribution to the development of project on the formal analogy of algorithmic network.

1960년대를 통해서 비디오 예술의 선구자 백남준은 철학적이고 미학적인 토대 위에서 그의 비디오 예술을 정당화하려고 했다. 그의 한 가지 전략은 그의 비디오 예술과 노버트 위너의 사이버네틱스를 연관 짓는 것이었다. 백남준은 비디오 예술과 사이버네티스 모두 피드백이라는 공통 특성을 가진다고 주장했다. 그는 더 나아가서 이 둘 모두가 복잡한 피드백 메커니즘 때문에 결정론적인 통제로부터 벗어난다고 생각했다. 예를 들어, 예술가가 텔레비전 영상을 조작하고 이에 관객이 참여하는 것은 예술가, 예술작품 (텔레비전 이미지), 그리고 관객 사이에 복잡한 피드백 연결고리들을 만들기 때문에 이 전체적인 과정은 결정론적인 통제나 예측을 벗어난다는 것이었다. 이런 비결정론은 예술을 만드는 과정에 관객이 참여하는 것을 충분히 정당화했다. 백남준은 또 이런 사이버네틱스의 피드백을 불교와 음양의 동양철학을 통해 해석했다. 사이버네틱스는 그로 하여금 그의 동양인으로서의 정체성과 서양의 비디 오 예술 속에 내재한 동양적인 요소를 찾는 데 도움을 주었다.

This paper focuses on the social implication of new media art, which has evolved with the advance of technology. To understand the notion of human- computer interactivity in media art, it examines the meaning of “cybernetics” theory invented by Norbert Wiener just after WWII, who provided “control and communication” as central components of his theory of messages. It goes on to investigate the application of cybernetics theory onto art since the 1960s, to which Roy Ascott made a significant contribution by developing telematic art, utilizing the network of telecommunication. This paper underlines the significance of the relationship between human and machine, art and technology in transforming the work of art as a site of communication and experience. The interactivity in new media art transforms the viewer into the user of the work, who is now provided free will to make decisions on his or her action with the work. The artist is no longer a god-like figure who determines the meaning of the work, yet becomes another user of his or her own work, with which to interact. This paper believes that the interaction between man and machine, art and technology can lead to various ways of interaction between humans, thereby restoring a sense of community while liberating humans from conventional limitations on their creativity. This paper considers the development of new media art more than a mere invention of new aesthetic styles employing advanced technology. Rather, new media art provides a critical shift in subverting the modernist autonomy that advocates the medium specificity. New media art envisions a new art, which would embrace impurity into art, allowing the coexistence of autonomy and heteronomy, embracing a technological other, thereby expanding human relations. By enabling the birth of the user in experiencing the work, interactive new media art produces an open arena, in which the user can create the work while communicating with the work and other users. The user now has freedom to visit the work, to take a journey on his or her own, and to make decisions on what to choose and what to do with the work. This paper contends that there is a significant parallel between new media artists’ interest in creating new experiences of the art and Jacques Rancière’s concept of the aesthetic regime of art. In his argument for eliminating hierarchy in art and for embracing impurity, Rancière provides a vision for art, which is related to life and ultimately reshapes life. Rancière’s critique of both formalist modernism and Jean-François Lyotard’s postmodern view underlines the social implication of new media art practices, which seek to form “the common of a community.”