Arte Programmata: Freedom, Control, and the Computer in 1960s Italy

Despite the first word of its title (“Art”) and the emphasis on the machine in its subtitle (“Computer”), this is not just a book on art and technology. Neither is it just an example of art history in the expanded (social, political, ideological, philosophical) space. Lindsay Caplan’s inspiring study is above all a reflection on the notion of freedom, more particularly on the possible conflict between negative freedom (“freedom from”) and positive freedom (“freedom of ”). It is also a direct dialogue with very contemporary thinkers on freedom, as illustrated for example in the writings by Antonio Negri and other “autonomists.” Yet at the same time, Arte Programmata is also a deeply historical study, in two senses of the word. First, it helps rediscover a halfforgotten and understudied, as well as superficially situated and largely misunderstood, aspect of the Italian “laboratory” during the years of the economic miracle (late 1950s–early 1960s) and the political and social upheaval that followed it. The “Arte Programmata” movement was a collective, and an inevitably changing one, working at the crossroads of art and design, art and technology, and art and social engineering, but also a node in a complex network of cultural, political, and industrial institutions and structures. The Olivetti company was one of the centers of this network (this company, with a strong political-democratic agenda, was a pioneer in the implementation of computers in the office and the home). Caplan’s book offers a detailed, well-balanced, not overinterpreted overview of the works, ideas, activities, projects, exhibitions, installations, manifestos, etc. of Arte Programmata and positions of both the group and its members—including Enzo Mari, Davide Boriani, Giovanni Anceschi, and Manfredo Massironi. In her discussion of the debates on the collective or individual interventions of Arte Programmata, the author rightly prioritizes the importance of the freedom-versus-control debate and clearly demonstrates what was at the heart of the group’s techno-aesthetic program, namely the attempt to escape from the crude dichotomy between techno-utopianism (technology as the power that unleashes and frees human creativity; technology as a springboard to a new society with much room for personal self-fulfillment) and the fear of technology as a dominating and crippling bureaucratic power (technology as a dictatorial tool of disciplinarization; technology as the reduction of the individual to the mere role of consumer in a capitalist society). Caplan’s analysis, based on the careful reconstruction of the group’s major public events in Italy and abroad, is a good example of what one might call an ecumenic avant-garde, which stresses the necessity of form, structure, and planning in the search for a new society and a new subject, liberated from the old forms of both individualism and domination. Arte Programmata is simultaneously revolutionary and pragmatic. It is revolutionary since its horizon is that of social change (even radical change). It is pragmatic since it claims that no revolution is possible without previous organization. Second, Caplan’s book is also historical, for in spite of its permanent dialogue with very contemporary concerns and questions, it gives an excellent idea of the specific context of the Arte Programmata movement during the roughly 10 years of its existence, that is, during a period of transition between a singular political context born in the postwar years and what the author defines as the post–May ’68 decade, which lasted until the late 1970s in Italy. After the editor-in-chief Michael Punt associate editors Hannah Drayson, Dene Grigar, Jane Hutchinson A full selection of reviews is published monthly on the Leonardo website: www.leonardo.info/reviews. leonardo reviews