During the Cold War, scientists and the US military attempted to develop faster means of communication that were less vulnerable to Soviet attack. They focused on studying what we now broadly call systems or networks, which includes the interrelationships between information, computer technology, and the people who use them. Early applications of these ideas centered on examining economic models, human-machine interaction, and more efficient management of the Vietnam War. By the 1960s and 1970s the concept of systems was still very new to the general population. However, these topics has quickly seized the imagination of artists, who approached networks and systems in different ways.
Some parodied the notion of efficiency, adopting themes of chance and noise to disrupt the clear communication these programs aimed to achieve. Many chose to embrace systems, creating work that was both made of and about the relationships between things, people, and concepts. Artists also often chose to work from within these structures to criticize them, employing the aesthetics of systems to show the potential problems that come with organizing the world through these methods.
Changing installations in the Best Buy Aperture highlight materials from the Walker Collections and Archives & Library.