Richard Loveless
Arizona State University and Global Connections: Art and Technology Consulting Services

A Personal Context

At the age of sixteen I made my debut as a student at a highly regarded art school. I admit to having known little about the visual arts beyond having fallen in love with my high school art teacher, who had recently graduated from the same institution I was now attending. Even though I had grown-up playing several instruments, singing in many styles of music during elementary and secondary school years, and occasionally performing in oratorical contests and theatre productions, my sense of the "whole of the arts" was limited.

Like most of my peers, we viewed visual arts, music, theatre and dance as separate art forms. As second or third-generation immigrant families in a relatively young nation,we were constantly reminded that all great art and arts institutions originated in Europe, and seldom, if ever, was there a reference to our practice as uniquely anything. We unwittingly embraced analogue traditions even though no one ever referred to art in those terms. Digital forms were not yet a reality in theory or practice.

The artist/teachers who comprised the faculty of those first generation art schools in the United States had been recruited from the art academies of Eastern and Western Europe in the early 20s. Art training in this country for the first half of the 20th century was predicated on the experience of this group of young artists who arrived at the same time, developed their collective wisdom as they aged together, imparting it freely to those of us who aspired to become future artists.

As a novice art student of the 50s these were my mentors. There was our British art history and drawing professor who had designed World War I posters, as the poet Joyce Killer wrote the copy. There was the French craftsman who, when he was sober, crocheted altar cloths on the side for the regional Catholic churches. Then there was our Hungarian professor, the only woman teacher, who introduced us to colour combining hundreds of scraps of coloured paper to verify the authenticity of Joseph Alber's theories.

We were led to believe that to be older implied an accumulated experience that made one wiser, that such wisdom was earned over time though hard work, sacrifice and the ability to deal with the consequences of success as well as failure.Being on the young side of that growth curve, one was obviously naive, immature and lacking in longevity. It was very clear to us, and reinforced by our parents, that one should always listen to our elders.

With age came wisdom that would in time contribute to a better understanding of our place in the world:to question the validity of their wisdom was believed to be a sign of brash arrogance, not to be tolerated in the young. The nature of personal authenticity as a core belief in one's self was to be put on hold, carefully concealed until we had earned the right to be considered wise.

This is not to deny that the experience of working with and learning from the renowned artists of our college was less than a profound experience in many ways. The richness of the traditions they represented, as well as the linguistic environment they created to support their theory and practice was enlightening, enriching and impressive. Many of the first books in my library were gifts from those teachers who willingly presented them to students who had exhibited some sense of mastery in the class. In time I gave those books to my students, who continue to be inspired by the ideas and images that lived within those pages.

Yet the context for most of the pedagogy being presented to us was rooted in ideas and ideals from cultures that existed many centuries before even their own birth. These were times when life evolved at a slower pace, when mobility from the origin of one's birth was severely limited, and a time when the dynamics of change were less discernible or immediately felt.

As a neophyte of the 20th century, making a life as an artist was for me a chance experience in a budding democracy. A swiftly changing economy, coupled with the dawning of a new global consciousness made possible by technology developments that were redefining media and communications, foretold a new role for the artist. Somehow the speed of change had forced us to live more in the moment, to be comfortable in the now, less dependent on the past, while remaining optimistic that as we invented ourselves, we had the potential to create the future.

As I think back to the 50s and 60s, the images that fed my passion for becoming an artist came from notable scholars outside of the arts. It was Marshall McLuhan who once remarked, "The day the Russians sent Sputnik into outer space,the earth turned into an art object." That was for me an astute observation and a profound realisation, later elaborated on by the Canadian filmmaker, Mark Slade in his book The Language of Change.

In this seminal work, Slade proposed that a new definition of literacy was evolving. He described the shift from a dependence on tools (the analogue world) to the merging of two new language forms; the language of "data in motion"and "images in motion". While crude computational devices were just in their infancy, the emergence of digital codes not yet a reality, his premise accurately predicted what was to come.At that moment each language was the province of particular disciplines,"data" belonging to the families of science, mathematics,engineering etc., and "images" belonging to the families of the arts, and media communication systems.

His vision was of the new things that would ensue in the coming together of these two groups; that new collaborations would form redefining the nature of science as well as the arts. What we observed from man's first and subsequent interplanetary explorations provide only the beginning of our realization of what McLuhan envisioned when he speculated that the earth had become an art object.

Another profound influence on my thinking came from the comprehensivist theories of Buckminster Fuller.Bucky operated on the premise that a newly born child enters the world in the form of perfection. Given normal sensory instrumentation,a child has the potential to fully integrate everything through the senses. He further believed that it was not possible for one human being to give a concept to another; in other words, learning is not dependent on a "conceptual exchange". Learning is first and foremost rooted in perception, and trusting the moments of one's sensory life naturally leads to a comprehension of one's place in the universe.

To be sure, it took a great leap of faith to think that a newborn child could be perfect, yet in observing the infants that came along in my own family I soon became a believer.The challenge was to find ways to protect them from an educational system patterned after the "older is wiser" belief system.It was an acute realisation that knowing, experiencing and becoming was a personal journey that fashioned its own authentic form of wisdom, one that was not only a gift to ourselves, but one equally regarded by those individuals who grew through preceding generations.

At about the same time I had an occasion to meet and work with Philip Morrison, the noted astrophysicist at MIT. His premise was that any significant scientific and/or art experience is comprised of three parts: first it must have an aesthetic, second, we must change our perceptions in the act of doing something and third, the experience must have effect.In effect, precepts trigger concepts, which lead to action, which in turn feed our perceptions for future learning. The following story may serve to illustrate Fuller's comprehensivist theory as well as Morrison's criteria for significant learning.

Soon after I purchased my second computer,an Amiga 1000, I invited a student to bring her five-year-old son to my studio. The objective was to see how the child would respond to creating meaning in the virtual world of the light screen in contrast to the drawing he was doing with traditional media tools. A drawing program had been installed, and he simply had to think of the mouse as a drawing instrument, even though we presumed as we did with a pencil or crayon, that it was a natural extension of his central nervous system.

As he began the drawing process he spoken bold terms, "I think I will make a drawing of my whole family." As he proceeded the scribbling became more and more intense, he then announced, "Oh I think I will just make a drawing of myself." Whereupon he continued to make random marks that eventually triggered his next observation, "This is me cruising around on a skateboard." As that image developed,he began to recognise the shape of some letters, claiming that this indeed was the insignia on the surface of the skateboard.Yet in a flash of insight and clear purpose he said, "Oh I might as well create the whole universe, then I can skateboard anywhere I wish."

To move from one's concept of family,back to the self, to one's ability to think in terms of the universe is a realisation many would wish for all of our children. To recognise that it is not only possible to think in terms of the universe but to sense its value apart from the older, wiser members is a myth worth perpetuating. Unencumbered by the past, the child was free to imagine places he had not yet seen.

The remarkable scholar Margaret Mead made yet another observation that verified the experiences I was having with some faculty members in graduate school. In an essay she described what she referred to as "pre-figurative" and"co-figurative" cultures. Mead's observation was this:given the accelerated pace of change experienced by individuals who were born in the first half of the 20th century, those young people, less encumbered by prior life experiences were more flexible,adaptable and willing to adjust to change.

Mead speculated that the ability to adjust to rapid change developed a form of wisdom that was absent in their elders. She believed that a consequence of this shift was that the time would come when it would no longer be feasible for the old to teach the young. It was her belief that authentic learning accumulated in each moment with one's ability to recognise and adapt to the changing context. If that was indeed the case, she believed those who have lived several generations earlier should not be the sole mentors in preparing youth for an improbable future.

In 1968 I was offered my first university teaching position in the college of fine arts at a relatively new institution just beginning its sixth year. Quite deliberately they had chosen to recruit a very young faculty. With two exceptions we were under thirty-five, most under thirty. Within a few months our conversations became a form of longing. We began to lament the fact that there were no older artists on our faculty. We missed their presence, the linguistic environment they embraced, as well as the historical contexts they had assimilated as part of their artistic practice.

Yet in time we aged together much the same as our earlier teachers, but with one exception: we made a conscious effort to recruit and integrate younger artists into the faculty to satisfy our own need for intergenerational wisdom.The dynamics of change for us were dictated by the emergence of new media technologies that were shaping the ideas that Mark Slade had only imagined a few years earlier. Advances in imaging and computational technologies had created a new counterpoint between familiar symbolic language systems. No longer were letters, numbers,visual images and other notation systems separated by distinct disciplines.

In what seemed to be the blink of an eye,we found ourselves immersed in a new context. Our all too familiar dependence on tools to create analogous relationships to human experience had been overshadowed by a new interdependence between these formerly distinct and separate symbolic language systems.This forced us to develop new procedures for thinking about being an artist. The potential to create new forms through the manipulation of digital algorithms signalled a convergence between the disciplines that, if we accepted the challenge, would forever revolutionise our creative practice.

In an earlier essay I stated another way:"No matter the time or place of our birth during the first half of this century, we arrived as analogue babies, enriched and yet encumbered by traditions in the arts that were formed by a myriad of cultures. The last half of the century is another story; new arrivals are digital babies, and while many analog-trained artists liked the first half better, the digital presence offers one clear promise: the future isn't what it used to be."

Why Intergenerational Wisdom

How does the new digital presence challenge our preconceptions of artistic practice? First we need to change the rhetoric to imply that all of the arts are a "human performance";the traditional boundaries that once separated the arts have been blurred. While historically we have thought of the visual artist as one who has worked primarily in solitary, and the performing artist as functioning in collaborative groups, with the evolution of electronic media technologies, new forms for collaboration became inevitable.

Just recently I experienced a gallery performance by an artist in collaboration with an acupuncturist,creating a sound work orchestrated by digital algorithms interacting with the flow of energy between the artist's upper and lower intestinal track, his spleen and liver. The acupuncturist was twice the artist's age.

In the words of the interactive cinema artist Toni Dove, the new challenge "is to invent an uncanny interface, one that is capable of multiple mediated streams of experience". In this new context space becomes narrative,and the media becomes spatialised. Thinking metaphorically, our challenge is to redefine the practice of collaborations for the digital reality: to invent an uncanny interface between individuals who by their intergenerational experience can contribute multiple streams of wisdom that has the potential to enrich and inform the group.

The difficult task is to convince participants who represent the older generations to be open to the insight and experience of the younger members, embracing each and everyone as equally valued partners for developing a formidable group culture.

Some Practical Suggestions
I. Forming A Great Collaborative Group

What do I mean by seeking intergenerational wisdom? When putting together a great group to participate in a creative collaboration, make a concerted effort to include individuals whose age separate them by lived time and experience. Identify individuals who were born in different decades: for example, someone in their 70s or 60s, with an individual in their 50s, or 40s,with others in their 30s or 20s, with others in their upper teens.Consider gender and ethnic identity differences as well, not to be politically correct but to engage qualities that only diversity can provide.

Having lived long enough to value and embrace Margaret Mead's admonition, I am convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that I can learn equally if not more important things from a diverse group of individuals younger than my peers.Like that young faculty I joined some thirty-five years ago, conversations with peers my age sound more alike than different. For those who were fortunate to be born into and immersed in the new conversation brought about by the digital reality, there is a new vocabulary,a new poetry of variables in defining qualities of artistic mind.We must pay careful attention to the attributes that originate from young artists who are unencumbered by the analogue traditions that excited many of us about the arts in the first place.

While the analogue babies certainly have something significant to contribute to the conversation, it is one of my greatest joys to admit that many of the things I once thought made so much sense are just so much nonsense to the young!Grant us the wisdom to be open to and accepting of the new realities Mead envisioned, continually striving to reinvent ourselves to participate with others in creating the future of art.

II. The Importance and Value of Leadership in a Great Group

Much has been written about leadership as it applies to all sorts of group enterprises. The book Organising Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration by Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward-Biderman presents excellent case studies featuring great groups and great leaders. Integrating key factors of their research with my own experience, a fresh set of beliefs emerged that I think has universal appeal for art collaborations.

I confess that earlier, in my passion to re-define the nature of collaborations, I had a tendency to dismiss traditional beliefs about the importance of strong leaders in favour of some fuzzy sense of equality for sharing in the decision-makingprocess. I admit that I was wrong! The fallacy in my thinking was in trying to redefine creative collaboration without redefining the nature of leadership as well. Once that connection was made, I engaged colleagues who possessed intergenerational wisdom to conceptualise a process for identifying different models of effective leadership.

Eventually these beliefs have taken theform of a series of video interviews that we now use to train future collaborators. The videos represent a wide range: some are individual artists who have broad-based experience in collaborations, some present and/or former collaborators, and managers of institutes or centres that support collaborative research. Verifying some of the observations of Bennis and Biderman, I have come to believethat while a great leader knows "true north" they have a special way of gaining the trust and respect of a diversely talented group, permitting each to maintain their individuality as they fly together in the same direction.

III. Researching Different Models of Collaboration

Collaborations come in many different forms. Groups vary in number, characteristics and qualities of participant skills and experience, in the duration of the project, in the process for determining conceptual focus, as well as determining outcomes. Equally important are the different ways a group arrives at and embraces a collective belief in pursuing a task together, as well as agreement on how to share the credit. In my view, the singular quality that unifies a great group is when each memberassumes responsibility and ownership for conceptualising the key ideas, participates in defining and often redefining procedures, accepting the division of labour that will be necessary to produce a successful result.

As the founding director for three notable art and technology research and/or training programmes spanning four and a half decades, I have developed, revised and reinvented creative management systems that acknowledge the technological transformations that have redefined artistic practice. Specifically, how to orchestrate the poetry of artists and technologists who were caught in the transition between tool-based analogue practices and the multiple symbolic language-based pathways inherent in the secrets of binary code?

In an effort to conduct research that might in time contribute significant perspectives and knowledge to this new form for creating, a colleague and I conceptualised a three-part anecdotal study, which we pursued over nine years. The objective was to develop three case studies focusing on particular patterns that appear most often in various collaborations. Since the patterns we observed clearly coincided with the failure or success of projects, we concluded that great groups were more desirous of and responsive to particular qualities of leadership. In other words, they wanted to be led not managed.

Before addressing the three key assumptions and methodology that guided our inquiry, I should tell you something about the two of us who developed the study. My colleague was Dr. Mel Roman, Emeritus Professor of the Albert Einstein Medical College in New York City where he taught, researched and practised for four decades. Parallel to professional practice as an internationally renowned psychologist, Roman has been an active conceptual artist, having participated in the Experiments in Art and Technology (EAT) projects in the 60s and 70s. He has a long and distinguished history of working collaboratively in public and private agencies as well as arts institutions. Now in his mid-70s, he continues to collaborate on provocative installations and exhibitions that engage interdisciplinary groups.

Soon after I accepted the position as founding director of the Institute for Studies in the Arts at Arizona State University, I met Mel Roman and knew instantly I would never be the same. My background and experience spans 46-years as an artist, as a practitioner and scholar in arts management, having founded and directed four centres and institutes that explored the emergence of electronic media technologies and their impact on artistic practice. Our combined histories in the arts as well as social and political activism had verified long-held beliefs in the value of collaborative relationships long before the reality of the digital presence came into view.

While our experience as artists reflected engagement in such practices, we believed that the literature on collaboration was primarily focused on the mentalities of the for-profit business community, with little if any consideration given to the role of the artist. The emergence of human modes intersecting with digital codes signalled to us a new potential to engage the aesthetic sensibilities of the artist in collaborationswith science, engineering, medicine, architecture, education, business and all related aspects of the new economy. Through some creative management decisions, I appointed Mel Roman "Human Being in Residence" at the Institute, and that was the beginning of our search for new insights regarding collaboration in the digital reality.

CASE STUDY I

The study was based on three assumptions. First, we were convinced that given the opportunity, people have a tendency not to choose to collaborate with the most challenging and gifted individuals. Expressed differently, earlier observations seemed to indicate that people often choose to work with others who are good at the same things they are; that is to say, they unconsciously gravitate to one another to reinforce each other's weaknesses rather than support their individual strengths.

To test this notion, we spent considerable time over three years observing a number of self-selected groups from the initial conceptual development stages of their collaboration to closure. We made no attempts at intervention, simply to observe, record, and notate various aspects of the process, concentrating on individual behaviour and the resulting group culture using standard identifiers found in the literature. Parallel to the observational work, my colleague and I developed a set of training materials on "The Art, Psychology and Discipline of Creative Collaboration". We subsequently conducted training workshops with healthcare professionals at the Albert Einstein Institute in Provincetown, applying some of the knowledge we accumulated from observing arts collaborations.

The anticipated outcome for part one of the study was to identify characteristics of successful as well as failed collaborations, and apply that new knowledge to the next study.

CASE STUDY II

The second assumption was that, given what we now know about successful and/or failed collaborations, it is possible to exercise leadership in convening future collaborativegroups rather than permitting them to be arbitrarily self-selective. If we were to participate directly in forming groups, would the choices we make lead to richer interpersonal dynamics that in turn produce more successful outcomes?

This is how it worked. When a particularly exciting idea for a collaborative project was proposed, we made an assessment to determine the particular characteristics, skills and experience of participants that would be needed to support the idea. This included human as well as technological resources, space needs, as well as adequate funds to support the effort. We initially assumed that the individual who proposed the idea should be the designated leader, and in most cases they were, but not without intervention on our part. This took the form of schooling that individual on the role and responsibilities of a successful leader of highly talented individuals in an elite group.

However, our intervention did not end here. My colleague and I led the process for recruiting the individuals we felt possessed the diverse experience, skills and intergenerational wisdom to breathe life into the idea. Once the group was identified and brought together, we stepped outside the process, maintaining similar but expanded observational techniques that we used in the first study.

We were now able to compare and contrast characteristics of self-selected versus the outsider/leader-selected groups. Individuals in selected groups were initially more independent, less like-minded, yet in time produced richer interdependent relationships with other members. These interactions led to an increased complexity of choices, particularly at the conceptual level, expanding the leaders' initial vision to include aspects of their collective wisdom and experience.

To realise this aspect we introduced a three-part planning model that is used by futurists in determining possible scenarios. During the first stage the initial idea is expanded through an image-driven process. Groups are challenged to address the open question, "What is possible?" In stage two the group shifts its method to an analytically driven process, asking, "If we proceed to develop this or that scenario, what will the probable outcome be?" In stage three the group must confront the value question, "What is the preferable outcome?"

Having shared equally in the entire processfor conceptualising the project, we observed a highly increased sense of ownership and commitment to realising the outcomes.

CASE STUDY III

Our third assumption was that there is a marked difference between being an outside observer formally studying the behaviour of a group, and being an insider who participates as a member. Even though one might question the ability to be both a participant and an active observer, we thought that we were uniquely qualified to function in these dual roles with professional responsibility and personal grace.

During the last three years of the study,we each joined a collaborative project as artist/participants. From this insider view, we continued to monitor the behaviour of the groups. Our objective was clear. We were not attempting to intervene in some subversive way to shape the procedures according to our beliefs learned from prior observations. We simply attempted to participate applying our own artistic sensibilities, yet being especially perceptive in identifying the poetry of variables that were driving the process to closure.

Collaboration 1

The collaboration I joined involved four artists, a composer, three technologists and two graduate associates,with a computer scientist/dancer as the group leader. We ranged in age from mid 60s to mid 2Os. Our project, Interactive Development of Emergent Art (EIDEA), involved the creation of an artificial life environment where participants of all ages were invited to create virtual creatures to be introduced into an artificial world created by the group. Once inside, participants could observe the evolving behaviour of virtual plant and animal life, and at the same time they could call up their own creations to interact with, influence and shape the overall conditions of the environment.

Additional elements included live external real-time weather condition feeds, as well as movement sensing data collected from the circulation patterns of participants; all contributed to shaping and restructuring the artificial world. A sand-filled box on the floor became a data display where the combined information from all real and virtual interactions were traced continuously, producing a series of colour drawings that were recorded in snapshot fashion and stored in a visual database. If one was not able to physically experience the environment in proximity, it was possible to connect to it through the Internet, observe in real time what was happening, create a creature to be introduced to the population and/or study the gallery of emergent images that were continuously generated.

The overall concept for EIDEA belonged to the group leader, who was in his 30s. A fellow in his 60s created the creature design components. The composer who designed the interactive sound response system was in his 40s; a robotics designer was in his 30s; a media specialist was in her 50s. Graduate associates were in their early 20s. Each contributed a particular quality to being in the moment. All members possessed qualities we attribute to wisdom: they were judicious, responsible, intelligent, astute, informed, perceptive and understanding. Some were analogue and others were digital babies, yet we each believed that our collaboration was in the moment, now, and this lived experience was essential to our growth as artists as well as the future of art.

Collaboration 2

Mel Roman joined in collaboration with a renowned video/computer artist to create an interactive mediated exhibition and archival collection. Their objective was to trace through the exploration of symbolic language systems, the similarities and differences in their respective artistic, social and cultural development. Their project was White on Black and Black on White.

Roman was the son of white Russian Jewish immigrants in Manhattan, and his collaborator, Philip Mallory Jones, was an African American raised on the south side of Chicago. Roman was in his 70s, Jones in his early 50s. An undergraduate in her teens and an advanced graduate student (one of the editors of this publication) in her 30s rounded out the group, contributing research and the technology design skills that enabled them to simulate, prototype and pre-visualise each stage of the conceptual process.

The ideas and methods expressed in the Michael Schrage book Serious Play: How the World's Best Companies Simulate to Innovate were elaborated on to define some of the methods used to coalesce their thinking and imagining. Sharing life stories through photographs, collected artefacts and creative work from their portfolios, they developed a series of simulated environments where participants could interact with a myriad symbols, sounds and events. Beyond the events themselves, they planned an electronic archival database where participants could research and do in-depth studies on any of the individual elements woven into the installation.

Their intentions were much greater than telling personal stories, but to demonstrate the power of those diverse moments and events in all of our lives that shape our identity, our values and beliefs. The range of diversity in age and lived experience on the part of the collaborators combined to transform the conceptual and technological outcomes in profound ways. Multiple forms of wisdom were in evidence and celebrated at every stage of the process.

Summary

In this brief essay I have explored the nature of my own personal and professional transformation as an artist, first enticed by analogue traditions and in time seduced by the digital reality. During this journey, circumstances led me to engage leadership roles for developing new institutes and centres whose mission has been to redefine art practice, creative research and training. As the writer Mary Travers once said about the characters in her books, "I didn't create them, I summoned them."

Somehow, it became clear to me early on that there is a child in each of us, which if summoned, trusted, and fully articulated, provides an authentic basis for living fully in the moment. In a sense we all possess a form of magic that lives and breathes with each new experience. Our choice to become artists, or follow any other profession in life, is based on insights and needs that often defy conventional wisdom. Responsibility in this sense does not imply conforming to norms of behaviour, but as the term suggests, the ability to respond to the changing context.

One day my six-year-old daughter came home from school somewhat alarmed that the letters P.I.C.T. were displayed on every bulletin board, window and classroom door inher building. Having no reference for their meaning, she asked her teacher what this was about. It seems the newly appointed principal had required all teachers to display the letters inanticipation of her initial presentation to the students.

After several weeks past with the anticipation building, the day finally arrived when the secret would be revealed."P" stands for punctual, "I" stands for industry,"C" stands for courteous, and "T" stands for temperance. These were, in the principal terms, the essential pillars of wisdom that she intended to pass on to her charges, expecting them to accept and embrace them with conviction.

But unfortunately that wasn't the case with my second grade daughter. She had recently volunteered to be a writer for the school newspaper, The Acorn. In the following edition I read her letter to the editor. "Dear Editor: I think P.I.C.T. can mean different things. 'P' stands for perception, 'I' stands for imagination, 'C' stands for creativity, and 'T' stands for turned on! Thank you, Lynne Loveless."

With or without age comes wisdom. Nourishing intergenerational relationships in creative collaborations offer great promise for cultivating personal as well as collective responsibility to participate in redefining qualities of artistic mind.

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