Before the Art of New Media

Lidija Merenik

The restaging of Tendencies 4, the 1968 Zagreb based exhibition series and colloquium, in the recent show bit international -- [New] Tendencies -- Computers and Visual Research does more than deepen and internationalise our understanding of computer art's early history. It also presents an opportunity to revisit the cultural landscape of Tito's Yugoslavia. Here Lidija Merenik considers the show in Graz and [New] Tendencies' unique engagement with international avant-gardist concerns, technology's utopian potential and the socialist cultural landscape of ex-Yugoslavia. [More....]