This brings to mind some of the original intentions of the “Group de Recherches d’Art Visuel” in the early 1960s. The Paris-based group had sought to engage viewers kinesthetically, triggering involuntary responses through ambient-propelled “surprises.” Levine’s emphasis on visual disengagement is much more assured and iconoclastic; unlike the labyrinths of the G.R.A.V., his possesses no individual work of art deflecting attention from the environment as a concerted experience.

Questions have been raised concerning the implicit anti-art position connected with Levine’s disposable and infinite series. These hardly qualify as anti-art as John Perrault has point out. Besides emphasizing that the context of art is fluid, they are a reductio ad absurdum of the entire market mechanism which controls art through the fiction of “high art.” They do not deny art, they deny scarcity as a legitimate correlative of art.

The components of systems –– whether these are artistic or functional –– have no higher meaning or value. Systems components derive their value solely through their assigned context. Therefore it would be impossible to regard a fragment of an art system as a work of art in itself –– as say, one might treasure a fragment of one of the Parthenon friezes. This became evident in December 1967 when Dan Flavin designed six walls with the same alternate pattern of “rose” and “gold” 8-foot fluorescent lamps. This “Broad Bright Gaudy Vulgar System,” as Flavin called it, was installed in the new Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. The catalog accompanying the exhibition scrupulously resolves some of the important esthetic implications for modular systems.

The components of a particular exhibition upon its termination are replaced in another situation. Perhaps put into non-art as part of a different whole in a different future. Individual units possess no intrinsic significance beyond their concrete utility. It is difficult either to project into them extraneous qualities, a spurious insight, or for them to be appropriated for fulfillment or personal inner needs. The lights are untransformed. There are no symbolic transcendental redeeming or monitary added values present.

Flavin’s work has progressed in the past six years from light sources mounted on flat reliefs, to compositions in fluorescent fixtures mounted directly on walls and floors, and recently to totalities such as his Chicago “walk-in” environment. While the majority of other light artists have continued to fabricate “light sculpture” –– as if sculpture were the primary concern –– Flavin has pioneered articulated illumination systems for given spaces.

By the fact that most systems move or are in some way dynamic, kinetic art should be one of the more radical alternatives to the prevailing formalist esthetic. Yet this has hardly been the case. The best publicized kinetic sculpture is mainly a modification of static formalist sculpture composition. In most instances these have only the added bonus of motion, as in the case of Tinguely, Calder, Bury, and Rickey. Only Duchamp’s kinetic output managed to reach beyond formalism. Rather than visual appearance there is an entirely different concern which makes kinetic art unique. This is the peripheral perception of sound and movement in a space filled with activity. All too often gallery kinetic art has trivialized the more graspable aspect of motion: this is motion internalized and experienced kinesthetically.

There are a few important exceptions to the above. These include Otto Piene’s early “Light Ballets” (1958–1962), the early (1956) water hammocks and informal on-going environments of Japan’s Gutai group, some works by Len Lye, Bob Breer’s first show of “Floats” (1965), Robert Whitman’s laser show “Dark” (1967), and most recently, Boyd Mefferd’s “Strobe-Light Floor” (1968).

Formalist art embodies the idea of deterministic relations between a composition’s visible elements. But since the early 1960s Hans Haacke has depended upon the invisible components of systems. In a systems context, invisibility, or invisible parts, share equal importance with things seen. Thus air, water, steam and ice have become major elements in his work. On both coasts this has precipitated interest in “invisible art” among a number of young artists. Some of the best of Haacke’s efforts are shown outside the gallery. These include his Rain Tree, a tree dripping patterns of water; Sky Line, a nylon line kept aloft by hundreds of helium filled white balloons; a weather balloon balanced over a jet of air; and a large-scale nylon tent with air pockets designed to remain in balance one foot off the ground.

Haacke’s systems have a limited life as an art experience, though some are quite durable. He insists that the need for empathy does not make his work function as with older art. Systems exist as on-going independent entities away from the viewer. In the systems hierarchy of control, interaction and autonomy become desirable values. In this respect Haacke’s Photo-Electric Viewer Programmed Coordinate System is probably one of the most elegant responsive environments made to date by an artist (certainly more sophisticated ones have been conceived for scientific and technical purposes). Boundary situations are central to his thinking.