Robert Barbanti's 'Les origines des arts multimédia' Reviewed

Louis-José Lestocart reviews Robert Barbanti's book on the origins of multimedia art in art press n°361 (November 2009). Barbanti, a professor at Paris 8, traces multimedia through key events: John Cage and Merce Cunningham's Untitled Event (non-representation, chance, non-linearity); Allan Kaprow's 18 Happenings in 6 Parts leading to 9 Evenings (lasers, infrared TV, sensors); Cage and Cunningham's Variations V; and Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable. The term 'multimedia' dates to 1962, coined by English critic Lawrence Alloway—who also coined 'Pop Art' in 1958 and was a curator at the Guggenheim, originating from the Independent Group (London painters, architects, critics, art historians interested in cybernetics, pop music, Hollywood cinema, and Marshall McLuhan)—to describe the art of Rauschenberg, Kaprow, Whitman, Oldenburg, Grooms, Dine, and Halsen. Barbanti emphasizes the theoretical and historical role of radio, tape recorders (1930s), the LP record (1948), television, and video, which he calls 'mnemo-tele-technological acoustic techniques' or 'ultra-instruments' that alter time-space perception (Abraham Moles). This dynamic of dissolution and proliferation of mediums, playing with codes and multiple materials, makes the artwork 'open' and reproducible, introducing a 'letting be' (Cage). Beyond art, it reflects the complexity of being and the world.