Arte Programmata: Freedom, Control, and the Computer in 1960s Italy. Lindsay Caplan. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2022. 328p. Paper, $33 ISBN: 978-1-5179-0995-6.

Abstract

Arte Programmata: Freedom, Control, and the Computer in 1960s Italy, by art historian Lindsay Caplan, adds a fresh perspective to narratives about art and technology. The book also has much to offer those working in the field of library and information science. Arte Programmata takes us deep into how Italian artists of the 1960s and 1970s engaged with information theory and the idea of computers. It also expands understanding of Italian art of this period, focusing on lesser-known artists and collectives like Bruno Munari, Enzo Mari, Gruppo N, and Gruppo T. The book is not only a well-researched art history, however; it is also a meditation on the broad concepts of freedom and control as they are enacted in and emerge from technological frameworks. In analyzing the work of Arte Programmata artists and drawing on contemporary critical theory about technology and society, Caplan makes the intriguing argument that “programming, planning, and control are not categorically antithetical to individual freedom but form the conditions that enable and encourage subjective agency” (3).