Software - Information Technology: Its New Meaning for Art UP222
Software - Information Technology: Its New Meaning for Art was an exhibition curated by artist and critic Jack Burnham and held at the Jewish Museum in Brooklyn, New York City, from 16 September - 8 November 1970, and the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., from 16 December 1970 until 14 February 1971. The show put together computers and conceptual artists, linking them through the idea of software as a process or a program to be carried out by a machine or by the audience based on "instruction lines" formulated by the artist.
The exhibition’s title is related to the true sense of the word software, designating the flexibility of certain logical procedures and not exclusively the interaction of data with the machine to produce commands for executing specific functions. By shifting the concept of program toward an artistic field, Burnham tried to draw parallels between projects relying on devices for transmitting information (fax machines, teleprinters, audiovisual systems), and those that used language as material without resorting to technology.
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The exhibition’s title is related to the true sense of the word software, designating the flexibility of certain logical procedures and not exclusively the interaction of data with the machine to produce commands for executing specific functions. By shifting the concept of program toward an artistic field, Burnham tried to draw parallels between projects relying on devices for transmitting information (fax machines, teleprinters, audiovisual systems), and those that used language as material without resorting to technology.
