Communication aesthetics

Communication Aesthetics was devised by Mario Costa and Fred Forest at Mercato San Severino in Italy in 1983. It is a theory of aesthetics calling for artistic practise engaging with and working through the developments, evolutions and paradigms of late twentieth century communications technologies. Observing the emerging supremacy of networks over subjects, it called for an artistic approach that was both adapted to, and invested in this changing techno-social arena.

At the occasion of Artmedia, on Video Art organized by Mario Costa, Professor of Aesthetics at the University of Salerno, Fred Forest had been invited to enact a performance and installation involving the Italian National Television Broadcaster (RAI). The ensuing encounter revealed their mutual enthusiasm and interest in the evolution of the place of art in society given then developing communications technologies. Following an evening of intense discussion they wrote and signed a manifesto with Argentinian artist Horacio Zabala acting as witness. From the next day onwards, they established a list of artists whose practises reflected the artistic movement they had thus established. As a result, Roy Ascott, Antoni Muntadas, Stéphan Barron, Marc Denjean, Natan Karczmar, Jean-Claude Anglade, Mit Mitropoulos, Christian Sevette, Robert X Adrian, Jean-Marc Philippe, Wolfgang Ziemer Chrobatzek, Tom Klinkowstein, Eric Gidney, Ugo la Petria, Horacio Zabala, Daniel Dewaele and Piotr Kowalski expressed their alignment with the informal international group. Derrick de Kerckhove, director of the Marshall McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto, in direct communication with Fred Forest and Mario Costa, then set up a Canadian group titled “Strategic Arts” responding to the same concepts and objectives and in which Norman White was involved.

Communication Aesthetics is currently intact, though for geographical reasons it is today broken up into three distinct spheres of thought, action and intercession:

...
Wikipedia