Cybernetic Serendipity - a walk around the exhibition

A vital account of the groundbreaking 1968 exhibition Cybernetic Serendipity, held at the ICA, London from the innovator in the history and curation of art and technology, Jasia Reichardt, with many new images & original documents presented for the first time. In addition to giving insight into the exhibition and the work leading up to and around it, the publication also gives an eye witness account of a key moment in art and culture in London, at one of the centres of change at the time, the ICA. The exhibition and the celebrated exhibition cover were designed by Franciszka Themerson, with students of the Bath Academy of Art assisting in the exhibition design. The walk around consists of images of the works displayed with short descriptive texts, prefaced by the history of the project, including scans of the first proposal for the exhibition to be considered by the ICA Management Committee, which consisted of Sir Roland Penrose, Dorothy Morland, John Bodley, Theo Crosby, and Desmond Morris, who had just become the ICA’s director. The walk around the exhibition is followed by an article, ‘Cybernetic Serendipity – getting rid of preconceptions’, published in Studio International, November 1968. A timely retrospection at this current moment of debate around AI and creativity.