Gemini Rising

The intense and immense interest in the so-called fine arts generated among the general public particularly within the last two decades has rendered the artist more vulnerable than ever to the wiles and subtleties of the writer on art. The media of comment and interpretation of art (or its corruption and exploitation according to some) do seem to have proliferated in geometrical progression when compared to the arithmetical increase of original artistic statement. Little of this writing can stand on its own poetic merits; to be sure, much of it is popularizing, parasitical prose, and there seems to be little enough reason for adding to its bulk here.

But the phenomenon itself is worth marking or even exploring briefly in order to dis­tinguish it from an important tradition, now flourishing with a new vigor, in which works of art are being reproduced. We are of course referring to that broad surge of activity in the area usually called the "graphic arts." This term may include a host of approaches and techniques ranging from etching and engraving (whether on wood, linoleum or metal plates) to silk screen prints — and sometimes it overlaps the areas of photography and typography. Here we shall be concerned with some of the more recent outstanding creative efforts and technical advances in the field of lithography, and more especially with the activity and publications of Gemini, G.E.L., which within the space of a few years has come to be widely acknowledged as among the very finest lithographic presses anywhere in the world.

The different approaches of current writers to art may indeed suggest various points of view from which to regard Gemini. There are the reviewers and critics, whose writing about art ranges from the most vapid and superfluous journalism to essays containing sometimes helpful interpretation, stimulating insights and invaluable documentation. The latter ideal suggests an appropriate mode for writing about, say, the publication of a particularly important series of prints. It is with such an intent that I have, for example, written about Gemini's completion of the "Booster and Seven Studies" by Robert Rauschenberg, in ART INTERNATIONAL last year. Then there are the masters of belles lettres. or more generally, the cultural historians for whom the phenomenon of Gemini, G.E.L. in Los Angeles — rather than the significance of any particular series of prints — is of primary interest. Thus we might consider some of the commercial or even sociological implications of Gemini's philosophy and practice, among which are these stated goals: "To have a standard of excellence that permits only graphics of the highest quality to be printed," while publishing these quality graphics in size ranges and edition numbers that permit a retail price low enough to encourage many individuals (partic­ularly young people, and those who could not otherwise afford to own original paintings) to purchase contemporary works of art.

In the somewhat more restricted scope of the art historian the existence of Gemini ‑ since its founding in 1965 as "Gemini, Ltd." by Ken and Kay Tyler - also asserts its importance. It was just at this time that the Los Angeles "art world" was enduring several crises. The Los Angeles County Museum had suffered a serious setback in the eyes of many local artists and patrons by having lost its initial director, Dr. Richard F. Brown — and by becoming thereby embroiled in rife and bitter disputes which involved the museum's functions far too much with petty and personal political considerations. The respected publication ARTFORUM at about the same time decided to move its offices to New York; and several of the leading galleries were forced, or chose to go out of business. One could not help viewing the artistic future of Los Angeles — and thus, to a certain justifiable extent that of the Far West in general — somewhat darkly. Among institutions, the universities, like the museums, had largely failed to provide any kind of healthy cultural focus. But in the midst of this rather bleak situation Gemini swiftly established itself as a signal, positive force, and the authority of an institution (in a most healthy sense) passed to it and was acknowledged with optimism. Neverthe­less, it would be quite wrong to suppose that the influence of Gemini was only apparent or important in a local sense. On the contrary, perhaps part of the reason Gemini was able to succeed in these ways, almost without trying, may be seen in the adamant lack of a parochial attitude. Of course West Coast artists stood most to gain from Gemini's express program of sponsoring younger painters and others, drawn to graphic media for the purpose of exploring and experimenting with new methods and materials, new forms and surfaces, and larger scales for both two-and three-dimensional graphics. Another effect of the Gemini program was felt when top flight contemporary artists were invited to work, whether at the Gemini press, in studios arranged for them, or in industrial shops and laboratories toward "research and development in new areas of printing, combinations of print media, improved types of equipment and the adaptation and redevelopment of industries' new materials and processes to the craft of hand printing."

From this it is easily seen how a strictly historical account of the printing industry, or how a chronicle of technological innovations would have to take serious notice of Gemini, G.E.L. For the impact of this activity was not, by any means, provincial in scope. Indeed, the art historian concerned with broader movements and trends in the fine arts of recent years would certainly note a resurgence of creative interest in the graphic arts. And in the few years of its operation, Gemini would fit squarely into this picture — in some ways as an effect, as a fulfillment for which there was a crying need, but in other perhaps more important ways also as a cause. Many artists, and among them some of the best known and most highly respected men, would quite probably not have chosen to devote their serious attention to graphic production had there not been a Gemini with its eagerness to confront challenge and, together with the artist's own unique requirements, to probe new and (if necessary) unorthodox solutions for specific esthetic statements.

Above all, it is important to emphasize that this approach has worked. It has consistently proven its success on many levels. Not only have artists been delighted (sometimes amazed!) when Ken Tyler and his printers have come up with solutions for especially taxing problems, they have also frequently gained a deepening respect for the craft of printing which has had a feedback effect on the rest of their art.

Now, of course, the reputation of Gemini among practicing artists is more than secure ­it is, for some anyway, almost mystical. For example, Frank Stella worked on the "Star of Persia" and the "V" series for a period of months during 1967 and 1968. The two "Star of Persia" prints use metallic colors on graph paper with critical precision in registration of one color over another, with the addition of metal flakes in the ink for pigmentation. And the "V" series are unique prints using also metallic colors, with an epoxy overprinting which gives to the surface a very special texture and high gloss. Stella was thus able to re-state and to extend his serial ideas from painting into the medium of graphics — precisely because he could obtain colors in the litho process, which he developed together with the printers at Gemini, that were impossible to obtain in his paintings on canvas.

In their first major project, the "White Line Squares" series by Josef Albers, begun in 1966, some significant steps were already taken toward refining the art of printing. The prints required eleven months to be produced, backed by several years of planning and discussions between Tyler and Albers. The problem was to find some way of printing Albers' idea of a flat field square (considerably difficult to achieve with consistency and uniformity) with a white line inside. The results showed a degree of critical registration and accurate flat color that were previously unknown to the field of lithography; thus Tyler has printed all of Albers' lithographs published in America.

The "Booster" project with Robert Rauschenberg presented an assortment of technical, artistic and sometimes purely practical problems, most of which have been mentioned in the article referred to earlier. At this time it might be worth recalling that the super-print, as a culmination of the seven studies, is (with one possible exception) the largest lithograph ever published by a fine arts press. Rauschenberg is currently at work on another project, in fact, which pushes Gemini's capacity to its limits — an exceptionally large litho, measuring forty by eighty-four inches, the dimensions of the largest hand litho press. But even the slightly smaller "Booster" project required special research in order to obtain a lithographic paper large enough and fine enough for the print.

Ken Tyler has also brought Gemini to the attention of the printing industry. A recent article in the trade publication WESTERN PRINTER AND LITHOGRAPHER (April 1968) cites his design and development in 1965 of a hydraulic motor driven flat bed printing press. He designed and built a second such press in 1967, and it "represents some of the most unique innovations of any press developed for hand printing in the world." But it doesn't stop there. About one-fourth of Gemini's time is devoted to print and material research, experimentation and testing. Almost every phase of printing is touched by these investigations: from improved ball grained aluminum plates and the chemicals for these plates to refining light-sensitive coatings and transfer paper tech­niques, from papers that will print litho and screen combinations, or that will emboss with litho, to ink research in producing flourescent, metallic, matte finish, epoxy and litho-screen inks.

Some of these brilliant newly developed "Day-Glo" colors were used for the first time by Robert Rauschenberg in a series published earlier this year based on the theme of Bonnie and Clyde. This was also the first time Rauschenberg had so concentrated upon a single recurrent subject in his art and had used it in a graphic project. There were some extraordinary circumstances surrounding the work on these prints - the artist, in order to preserve the spontaneity of the drawing, worked day and night for six days, with the Gemini staff right beside him.

In addition to single prints, Gemini, G.E.L. has published two fine litho books. The first of these was ABOUT WOMEN, with poems by Robert Creeley, and a sumptuous series of prints by John Altoon. One of the most recent projects comprises the second book in Gemini's catalog, and the first major effort in the litho medium by Claes Olden­burg. The deluxe edition will include both the prints and the text by the artist — a relatively rare combination of both imagery and writing for publications of this sort. As in earlier projects, some entirely new problems were posed by the artistic conceptions, such as special kinds of embossing and ball point pen transfers, together with an unusually wide spectrum of other litho and printing techniques. Even further in the direction of three-dimensional prints will be a future edition of Oldenburg's sculptural version of the Chrysler Airflow, to be released later this year.

The above mentioned artists represent just a few of those who have been drawn to Gemini to work, although these series have established high technical standards for the history of graphic production in America, as well as marking impressive statements in our contemporary artistic life. Among the other distinguished artists who have worked with the Gemini staff are Man Ray, Allan D'Arcangelo, Ed Ruscha, Joe Goode, David Hockney, Kosso Eloul, William Crutchfield and many more.

There remains to be mentioned in conclusion the superb series of prints currently being prepared for publication by the foremost lithographer of our time, Jasper Johns. The recurrent imagery of numerals in John's art finds lithographic expression in a group of prints called "Figures," which also marks the largest scale on which the artist has worked with this theme. They might be taken as a sort of compendium of litho techniques, and as a testament of the resourcefulness of Gemini, employing a tremendous range of print qualities from bold crayon to subtle wash. As a stunning counterpart to the imagery of numerals there is also "Gray Alphabets," the largest single print Johns has attempted. It uses four colors in top overlay printing of metallic flake pigment, and generally brings to hand made lithographs a certain authority never before articulated with such grandeur.

Since 1966 the press was incorporated as Gemini, G.E.L. (Graphic Editions Limited) by Ken Tyler, Sidney Felsen and Stanley Grinstein. In those few years it has dramatically risen to become the brightest sign — with high promise, and already responsible for the most impressively successful achievements within the world of the graphic arts.

Kurt von Meier
For the exhibition catalog at the Witte Memorial Museum in San Antonio, Texas
October 13-November 10, 1968

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In July of 1969, Kurt was contacted by William Ritchie, a writer compiling an anthology, who asked Kurt if he could reprint "Gemini Rising" in his book. In response, Kurt updated some information about Gemini, but more significantly spoke about the evolution of his own ideas about "fine art" and its place in the world. Coming on the heels of his being forced to leave his teaching position at UCLA, and the difficulty he was having finding another teaching position, Kurt's letter exposes the rawness of his feelings--both personal and professional. In 1969 the war in Vietnam was raging, and discontent in America was high. Kurt believed a cultural revolution was taking place, and that the forces of repression were becoming more aggressive. He was right, of course. America soon elected Richard Nixon, and the likes of Pat Buchanan (speechwriter for Nixon) articulated the "Establishment's" take on that very same cultural war. Accordingly, this letter is a snapshot of those times, but also a wider critique of the place of art--in commerce and in everyday life. A portion of Kurt's letter is as follows:

"With each new and impressive project the inspired craftsman­ship of Master Printer Tyler and his Gemini staff elicits greater admiration, commands greater respect. But it is also a little unsettling to see how my own ideas have changed in the long year that has passed since I had occasion to present some of my thoughts about "Gemini Rising. A footnote for the magic freaks: my chart has Gemini rising, which may or may not explain a lot of things, such as why I spend a lot of time on head-trips, playing with words. The star of Gemini, the press, the "institution," now seems to have fully risen. Clearly there is much less need for a renewed introduction or "apology." Perhaps now that my esteem for the people of Gemini and my highest regard for their work are clearly established-- and here reaffirmed--it may be possible and polite to raise two points of questioning criticism. The first of these is essential and functional; it questions the perpetuation, rather self-consciously, of a mythologized printer's tradition, modern­ized, institutionalized, and now computerized. A lot of this is good and real and honest and has much to do with producing super-high-quality work by people who love what they are doing. Right there is so much of what the cultural revolution of the last fifteen or so years is all about. The poet Gary Snyder talks about a revival of certain basic neolithic cultural values--or perhaps it is a survival of them until, now almost at the last minute, they are being rediscovered by the kids, by the hippies and the heads--by all members of the Great Subculture. Among these values which did and still do work for viable relationships among human beings is that of the "common work of the tribe." It is difficult to find examples of truly common work engaged in with the same sense of natural, total dedication that inspires, say, the planting of corn in some of the "primitive" tribes of surviving indian cultures in the Southwest. But maybe there is an important element of this is "work" that takes place in Gemini and in places like it. Sure, there is all the Capitalist, mercantile, industrial economic horseshit, plus all the incredibly pretentious and irrelevant Fine Art mind-fuck routine--but there is also something undeniably beautiful and all too rare about the way people who really know what they are doing get it to­gether, help each other, work out the problems, do the thing and do it as well as they know how, plus have fun doing it. That is really what is a valuable model supplied by Gemini.

At the same time there is also apparently a lot of excess baggage--in addition to that cited above, re: Art and Commerce. The specific example that comes to mind is from Tyler's notes on the Albers series; "Each printing element has been defaced and a cancellation proof has been pulled." The rationale for this is spelled out under the heading "Cancellation Proof" in Gemini's Print Terminology, on the back of all their Print Documentation. The relevant paragraph reads:

'To assure that no further proofs can be pulled from the printing element after the edition has been printed, the printing element is cancelled by either the artists or the printer. The printing image is fully inked and then de­faced by the use of a sharp instrument, a rubber or stone hone or acids or combination. One impression is pulled of this defaced printing element to document the act. The impression is signed and dated by the artist. If the printing element is a stone the total surface is washed with solvents and then the stone is resurfaced by a grind­ing method for future use. Aluminum plates are washed with solvents and scrapped since they are not reused.'

This professes and perpetuates the notion of art as a pre­cious object in the full framework of assumptions that sur­round a scarcity-commodity economy--specifically where such scarcity commodities are artificially made or kept rare, hence expensive, hence limited in their availability and appeal to a very small, wealthy and otherwise privileged portion of the society. What has become quite clear and welcome in the last decade and a half--although it is still not recognized by many in the world of tine arts and letters (who, of course, have strong vested interests in maintaining the mythologies of what Leslie Fiedler calls the great Culture Religion)--is that this is no longer where it's at. However snotty and restrictive our tradition of the so-called fine arts in Western civili­zation, there is a present "generation  (it is a spiritual, not a chronological or biological grouping--something else a lot of people who should know better have failed to grasp) the real, relevant, and genuinely interesting art of today just no longer fits into that old bag. The sundering of economic assumptions tied to the old capitalist-mercantilist system (which never did work very well anyway, even on its own terms) is exemplified by a score of contemporary (big-money) rock groups: Jimi Hendrix, the Who, the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, the Doors and many others who either have announced that they will no longer play for pay, or who complement their gainful employment by performing free for kids all over the country--all over the world. What the hell kind of capitalism is that?

And about the dope dealer; the gainful employment of a certain fascinating fringe of the  "fine arts scene" but a key figure in the larger cultural revolution, how does the theory of supply and demand, or cost curves, or even shrewd U.S. street-corner horse-dealing common sense-how do all these--attributed, not only taken for granted but lauded by the method of our public school training--how do they correlate with reality to be encountered any day of the week in almost any town in the nation the dealer who doesn't want to make real profit from sales--just his costs and the slim overhead to cover his own supplies--because otherwise he would acquire bad Karma An awful lot of money and an awful lot of people are involved in such scene, and what does Econ. 1-B have to say about it? And of course there are the free stores in San Francisco, Detroit, the Lower East Side--and the free performances, and all the tender gestures of freedom which may indeed mean more than giving away free commodities. What seems to blow the mind of all Establishment personnel is that the cultural revolutionaries, perhaps by definition, are trying to live their philosophies of beauty and love and freedom. There is quite possibly no­thing so subtly undermining for the "Liberal" as being con­fronted with examples, seeing and meeting people, human beings, who are realizing precisely those principles on which he has, maybe only a short time before, sold out. I mean, if you have concluded that Love can not save the world, and that mankind is essentially bad, stupid or damned, then you may very well not like to be reminded of the goodness, enlightenment and grace that do, after all, show some signs of flourishing.

And this revised (revived?) attitude toward Love is just like the new attitude toward art--the arts, all of the arts, not just some kind of manifested superfluity for the privileged classes, the "Fine Arts'). Art and love are free--they have always been free. How could they possibly be otherwise? And yet for years we have labored under burdens which, as the Zen master, Takishima Rosen might say, are totally unnecessary. Perhaps the mythology of Art, as a separate activity for human beings to be practiced by professionals, who then begin to treat their knowledge, skills and understanding of the processes of making Art as if they were scarcity commodities, privileged information for use against essentially hostile and competitive members of society--perhaps the appearance of this kind of artist, who we know first sold out to the kings and priests to become their spiritual as well as political, social as well as econ­omic vassal, perhaps this happened first with the rise of the modern, organized, fragmented political state. The artist as a special filament in the thread of human history begins with the concept of history itself, we are suggesting, i.e., about five thousand years ago with the invention of writing and with the subsequent formation of political organization (and religion as a separate activity, along with Art--rather than these being integrated into the total fabric of an organic, tribal social and cultural structure). We do know, anyway, that in those so-called primitive tribes that have preserved some of this essentially Neolithic organization, the artist occupies a place within that network of human relationships that is very different in kind from what he has become in the "modern (last 5,000 years) west.

Without going into this too deeply here, it should be enough to point out that art critics, art historians, and the legion of just plain art bullshitters are inconceivable for a people whose art is not something separate and apart from their lives. There may indeed be secrets and levels of comprehension that are (deliberately or otherwise) denied to the artist's fellows; but I think that the main thrust of art in arty primitive social context is not only pretty well understood, but is also accepted. This is, of course, precisely what we lack in our own spiritually impoverished Western tradition. We never seem to have grasped what art is really about, and why we tolerate the artist at all. It was an extraordinary instance when Phidias rose from the ranks of the artist to become a public dignitary—his fellow creators were, before and after him in Greek the polis, regarded as what we might call artisans, or even more complimentarily, technicians (derived, to be sure, from techne). This brings up a second point--although I have not yet brought the first one home. Well, to do that without insulting anyone who has teen­age kids, or anyone who walks down the street with their ears and their eyes open, or anyone who watches TV for its content, or anyone who reflects for a while on what the end Products of our Western so-called civilization really are in fact (i.e. anyone who can read the front page of any newspaper from almost any city any day of the week and be brought by that ubiquitous and ugly experience to experiencing some concern for his children, for himself, for mankind or for the earth itself). As Bob Dylan helped everyone else say it, the times they are a changing. Sure, Chan Buddhism was persecuted in 8th century China by the authoritarian, Establishment, status-quo, institutionalized and de-humanizing formal religion of Confucianism. The cynics who don't like to be reminded that something nice they gave up on is still believed in and lived by others put down the current representatives of the Great Subculture: the turned-on kids, the electronic-cybernetic-computer nut, the already almost mythical hippie, the groovy spade, the hip Chicano, the new esthetico-political activist, the freaked-out artist (poet, film-maker, comicbook creator, musician, or even the painter and sculptor in some cases, and the folk architect), in short, the radical heads. But to anyone who can step back the slightest psychic distance from the sensory‑overload system of his own environment, it is usually clear that a cultural revolution is underway--has already been underway for several years now--and shows all signs of not only continuing, but also of being 1) the most supremely relevant concern for anyone involved in spending time thinking about or doing anything in the realm of "art' and 2) just maybe the only thing (phenomenon, movement, event?) that will save the world.

Now, to return to our friends at Gemini. Why do they destroy some­thing beautiful which they have worked so hard to create? Why are the plates mutilated--to control the quality of prints taken from them, or as a ploy to insure the scarcity-commodity "value" (mercantile value, not esthetic?) of the prints taken from them? It is not at all clear where the profes­sional, artistic, traditional concern for quality (there is a legitimate claim here, on the surface) interpenetrates the calculating mercenary factors. Have they ever been truly separate since art stopped being one with religion in a tribal context of people who ruled them­selves, who got it together, helped each other, and who were making it as a group of human beings? (And how many people do you read about on the front pages who get it together without getting busted?)

There is a message here, whether it is about the incidental "subject matter" of the Watts so-called riots, the political convention in Chicago, the Poor People's march on Washington, the Century Plaza incident in Los Angeles or the People's Park in Berkeley. The government of power and control, based upon repression, terror and violence, becomes very anxious when the citizens it has kept divided begin to get together--and it is that anxiety betrayed every day in the "paranoid over-reactions" which boil so furiously under the lid of "law and order." So Gemini isn't filled with a bunch of crypto-Nazis, rednecks or dumb cop mentalities; they are beautiful people, they do beautiful work, they are my friends, I love them. Wouldn't it be nice, I have medi­tated, if they could drop some of that excess baggage? Do they really need, do they like, do they want that poltroonish obeissance to the unholy demons of Fine Art and Commerce? And if not, then why not just forget it?

All those other new-tribal things they have going for them can make it so much better anyway. Admittedly, they have to deal with the artists--and unfortunately the best of them are not necessar­ily the most enlightened. Perhaps Gemini should take some kind of lead in helping artists to confront the problem of "ownership" of esthetic ideas, of art as private property, of all the associated ego trips in Western art (Fine Art) like originality, the Romantic concept of uniqueness, etc. The things that are original and unique have very little to do with the bases upon which art is commercially exploited. There is no real ownership of ideas, esthetic or otherwise. Both the artist and the philosopher add to the net wealth of the community and should be among its honored citizens. That they are not now says much for the values current, about which we all know: the handlers of money (stock investors, bankers, money-lenders, etc.) and the dealers in instruments of death run our country and a good part of our lives and the lives of other people who would like to have nothing to do with our country (but the Department of Defense is the world's largest industry). I understand that if you ask the creative mental­ities to stop considering their art as a product that has to be marketed they may holler,"Whaddya mean give it away?" Well, that isn't exactly the alternative—Albers could run off his prime edition and sell same; but when he was finished, or Gemi­ni was finished, then give away the plates, perhaps, to someone who wanted a print for himself. But the effacing ritual stands for something fundamentally alien to the integral relationship of art in a healthy cultural and societal framework—such as exists in most primitive societies, or in what is left of them.

Of course that means we are going to have to start thinking about supporting our artists. And if anyone can be an artist, we may be prepared to support all citizens--guaranteed annual sustenance--one of the best things Buckminster Fuller ever said was that the only identification card (or did he say credit card or social security card, or club membership card?) anyone needs is his birth certificate. People who are not ready to begin to think on this kind of level simply deal themselves out of relevance to the real problems quaking the world now. Artists who turn their backs of the revolu­tionary implications of their work are no better, no more excusable than educators who, in their self-appointed blind­ness continue to indoctrinate the sons and daughters of the Republic with all the inhibitory schemata we have devised to keep people in line, to make them "productive citizens." There is a revolution underway. Its goal is nothing short of saving the planet earth. There are many artists, more scientists, and even some educators who are up front in this revolution. That does not make their art or their science or their teaching any better in itself--but it certatainly does increase the potential relevance of whatever work they do. There is an interesting, newly-formed organization which may help tie this together: E (xperiments) in A (rt) and T (echnology). In a rather naive but well-intentioned way, together they have aimed at bringing the artist and the scientist and/or technician (although they are not at all the same). Apart from the trivial failings of any movement that assumes the guise of an art club, there is something momentously relevant about EAT. (Nice, too, that the acronym has to do with nourishment).

Some 5,000 or so years is what we have already mentioned as the time span of Western civilization-- approximately since the beginning of writing (whether in the Nile or the Ganges or the Tigris or the Euphrates or the Yellow River basins) and hence the beginnings of the modern, abstractly structured political and religious state with all its implications for the fragmenting of the mental­ities and personalities of its citizens. But in that time, technology has clearly produced extraordinary advantages for survival in competition with other non-"civilized" so­cieties, and obvious short-term advantages in exploiting the soil, sea and air of the planet Barth. That is why almost all 'primitive" societies have been obliterated by the cancer­ous, total spread of Western civilization--well, maybe that is not "why" but it is a factum est from which we can proceed. We can never go back to being Neolithic men. We have destroy­ed our own possibilities for a second start by profoundly altering the ecological relationship between human life and almost all other forms of life on this planet. And now we find that some of the longer term effects of civilization are deeply and irreversibly self-destructive not only the pollutants with which we have poisoned the seas and the atmosphere and the soil (for ourselves and for everyone and everything else), but also, and perhaps even more importantly, those pervasive anxieties, that boiling unfulfillment inside us. It would be quite another matter if civilization had worked. But it ob­viously has not--not in the ways that are really important for human beings. So if it doesn't look too promising to go ahead--I mean, our civilized governments are all more in­terested in destroying populations than in controlling them; California's space industry flourished last year while its budget for mental hospitals was substantially sliced--and if it impossible to go back to being Noble Savages, then Experiments in Art and Technology may offer one of the few remaining viable alternatives. It is perhaps only through Experiments (probing, exploration, following up "silly,"useless," "mad" recombinations; seeking new relationships, new parameters, playing) in Art (in any of its senses of the activity of creative mentalities--art also being that which gets to people) and Technology (utilizing those resources for which we have paid so dearly--the best of science and medicine and machinery, "hardware" and technology that has been produced over the last few thousand years, and especially within our present century, decade)--it perhaps only EAT that will or can save the world. One of the keys would seem to be to make the resources of our planet available to those who can best use them to show us how to get it back together as one big (and possibly desperate but still beautiful) global tribe. That is the most important direction for technology, and that is the most enlightened application of it, and that is what art and artists can best show us: how to use the cultural (software) and technological (hardware) re­sources we have developed or preserved to the ends of bringing the whole world together.

Kurt von Meier