Artists as Inventors- Inventors as Artists In Leonardo Reviews June

Artists as Inventors- Inventors as Artists

by Dieter Daniel and Barbara U. Schmidt, Editors
Haitje Cantz Verlag 73760 Ostfildern
240 pp., illus. 70 b/w. Paper, € 24.80
ISBN: 978-3-7757-2153-0.

Reviewed by Giuseppe Pennisi
Via dei Gracchi 285 00192 Rome (Italy)
Professor of Economics Università Europea di Roma

giuseppe.pennisi@gmail.com

This is a quite useful book for those interested in an aspect of the social science of arts in general and in the economics of arts more specifically; what the contribution of artists to technological innovation (via inventions) has been in the past, what it is now and what it is likely to be in the future. These are probing questions, particularly in a phase where the economic size of Europe (for century the cradle of artistic expression) is shrinking and that of other continents (especially Asia) is expanding. Another attraction of the book is that most of the 13 paper are written by German scholars, mostly historians but also media specialists - a rather rare combination in research area mostly dominated by Anglo-Saxon and French authors. Finally, the methodologies employed are quite diverse: from history of science (Werrett's paper) to media archeology and medical social studies (Hagen's and Borck's), from art history and media history (Daniel's and Kwastek's) to the artistic practice (Penny's, Lacerte's and Harrasser's) . The papers are counter pointed by interviews with contemporary artists (again mostly German) on topics ranging from the history of technology and retro-engineering, critical-ironic innovation, self-reflexive conceptual art, differences between art and technology.

The book does not have a specific thesis to purport. Its focal point is the concept of "artist as inventor," but the "communication vessel" (thus, the emphasis on media) functions only is the inversion - "inventor as an artist"- is also valid. As important message from this paradigm is the role of arts with respects to the social context, audience reception, and production aesthetics as shown by the developments of photography, telegraphy and media technologies. One of the two editors of the volume, Dieter Daniels depicts how inventors such as Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla have embodied the social understanding of the role of mythical genius who creates that which is absolutely new and never before seen and conceived.

Leonardo is, of course, the symbol of the artist-inventor as well as of the inventor-artist. Many papers and the introduction deal at length with his double role and his several methods (not a single or an unique method modern artists-inventors might attempt to follow).

The focus on Leonardo (on his counterpart, Galileo Galilei) is also a limitation of the analysis. In my perception , nowadays artists-inventors as well as inventors-artists are not individual geniuses but the result of teamwork and enterprise-type organization. Thus, some papers are missing from the book; those that would have dealt with art-invention and invention-art as an enterprise. Also the historical papers have a flaw: the focus on Leonardo and on Galilei misses the point the Italian Renaissance "bottega" was an enterprise. Just an example "L'Incoronazione di Poppea" is music drama signed by Claudio Monteverdi as the leader of is "bottega" and its most sensual duet ( Pur ti miro/pur di godo) is neither written nor composed by Monteverdi but by the younger Francesco Cavalli, whose "bottega" later produced such sexually explicit music drama as "La Callisto".

Last Updated 1 June, 2009

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