In a way, this book has been in the making for over twenty years. When I started my first job at the V2_Organisation in Rotterdam in 1995, my assignments were the preparations for a symposium for the Dutch Electronic Art Festival (DEAF) and a program for the “Next 5 Minutes—Tactical Media” conference. For the latter I wrote a text which became the basis for my contributions to later V2 programs, like the event series on “Machine Aesthetics” (1997), and to the DEAF editions on “The Art of the Accident” (1998) and “Machine Times” (2000); this text was also the beginning of the trajectory that led me to write this book. I therefore remain deeply indebted to my former colleagues at the V2_Organisation, Alex Adriaansens, Joke Brouwer, Marc Thelosen, and Peter Duimelinks, for providing the most stimulating environment a young, runaway academic could wish for.
On the many trails and detours that I have taken since, the most important inspiration has always come from my work with artists, some of whom also feature in this book. It is a great privilege to be in conversation and exchange with those who continue to work, and with those who can share their memories of artists they lived and worked with. I want to single out Vera Molnar who welcomed me in her studio in Paris, and Eléonore de Lavandeyra Schöffer who keeps the memory and archive of Nicolas Schöffer. On a sad note, the untimely passing away of Seiko Mikami in early 2015 must remind us of the transience of our endeavors.
The first notes for this book were written during a residency at the Banff Center, Canada, and important parts of the research were done at Kunstbibliothek Berlin and Staatsbibliothek Berlin, with additional research conducted at Museum Tinguely in Basel. Online resources like Media Art Net, Archive of Digital Art, Monoskop, Ubuweb, Thomas Dreher’s History of Computer Art, and Wikipedia have greatly supported my research, and I salute the individuals who maintain and develop sites like these, often more or less single-handedly.
The possibility of actually writing and finishing the book arose with the generous invitation by Claus Pias and Holm Keller to come and work at Leuphana University in Lüneburg where the teams of the EU-Innovation Incubator, the Centre for Digital Cultures, and the Leuphana Arts Program—especially Timon Beyes, Tina Ebner, Yuk Hui, and Alexandra Waligorski—provided both a supportive and an intellectually challenging work environment. I have greatly benefited from the academic context provided by Leuphana University’s Institute of Philosophy and Art and the university’s Kunstraum, and from the continued support of Ulf Wuggenig, Beate Söntgen, and Susanne Leeb. My colleagues at Leuphana’s Institute of Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media (ICAM)—notably Götz Bachmann, Rolf Grossmann, Wolfgang Hagen, Erich Hörl, Jan Müggenburg, Claus Pias, Sebastian Vehlken, and Martin Warnke—have offered an intellectual home which, cybernetically, provided crucial feedback and helped to clarify things that an art historian normally does not readily come across.
I am particularly grateful to those people who volunteered to read what was, at that point, clearly an unfinished manuscript, especially Joke Brouwer and Yvonne Wilhelm, both of whom generously offered critique and advice. Individual chapters were read and helpfully commented on by Alex Adriaansens, Götz Bachmann, Sylvia Broeckmann, Inge Hinterwaldner, Martina Leeker, Yukiko Shikata, Florian Sprenger, and the reading group of the Digital Cultures Research Lab (DCRL) in Lüneburg. Thanks also to the anonymous reviewers at MIT Press, one of whom was particularly critical and whose feedback was thus the most helpful toward improvements. Moreover, I had the opportunity to discuss some of the ideas that did or did not make it into the book during seminars with students at Zurich University of the Arts, at Danube University Krems, and at Leuphana University.
Closer to the publication date, a number of people were helpful in finding and providing images and permissions to publish them. Andrey Smirnov of the Theremin Center Moscow shared his research and the patents of Ary Sternfeld; Luca Zaffarano was most forthcoming with images and information on Bruno Munari; and Yukiko Shikata helped me find images and rights in Japan, in addition to the photographer of images that date back over thirty-five years. And near the end, Janet Leyton Grant, Paula Woolley, and Matthew Abbate helped to get the manuscript into shape.
At the MIT Press, I am grateful to Sean Cubitt and the editorial board of the Leonardo Books series for accepting the proposal, and to Doug Sery and Susan Buckley for elegantly supporting the production process.
The life that goes on off-screen was most importantly maintained by my family and my friends Tilman Lingesleben, Petra Kirberger, Yvonne Wilhelm, Christian Hübler, and Timothy Druckrey, as well as by my partner in crime in the jardins des pilotes, Stefan Riekeles. And all of it would not have been possible without the continued support, care, and intellectual challenge that I enjoy from my wife, Sandra Kuttner.