Art in the Information Age: Technology and Conceptual Art

Art historians have generally drawn sharp distinctions be-tween conceptual art and art-and-technology. This essay reexamines the interrelationship of these tendencies as they developed in the 1960s, focus-ing on the art criticism of Jack Burnham and the artists in-cluded in the Software exhibition that he curated. The historiciza-tion of these practices as distinct artistic categories is examined. By interpreting conceptual art and art-and-technology as reflections and constituents of broad cultural transformations during the information age, the author concludes that the two tenden-cies share important similarities, and that this common ground offers useful insights into late-20th-century art.