ABSTRACT
Roy Ascott’s Groundcourse was an art foundation course that took place at two UK schools of art in the early 1960s: first Ealing College of Art and then Ipswich School of Art. Its radical application of cybernetics to fine art training resulted in an extraordinary course in which structures of communication – both organic and mechanical – were interrogated. The focus on systematized thinking saw self-conscious modes of practice evolve, in which art objects functioned as tools, systems, or games. At the same time, surveillance had a defined presence within the course, with exercises set to assess, and at times alter, human responses. This chapter looks at how behaviorism created and disrupted systems within the course, with particular regard to the performative attitudes that evolved within Groundcourse. It considers how Ascott’s use of a transdisciplinary cybernetic vision translated into modes of pedagogy that interrogated the emerging critical instability around objecthood and selfhood in the visual arts.
