![]() ![]() One of the other things that I notice – I was an engineering student in the 1980s – is that the curriculum hasn’t really changed dramatically. Patrick McCray: When one looks at the history of engineering education, one of the things that jumps out is the fact that roughly every 15 years or so, experts in engineering education go through a process of reevaluating the nature of their curriculum. How was curricula reshaped with this in mind, does it need another reboot? The MIT Press: Chapter two of Making Art Work mentions the issues engineering leaders and educators faced in providing a well-rounded education within increasingly specialized topics that they hoped integrating arts and the humanities could enhance engineers’ creativity. These financial resources provided security to allow him to become a professional artist and, later on, start the journal Leonardo. Frank had held onto his shares of stock and suddenly they were quite valuable. His story is somewhat exceptional because the aerospace company that he helped start in the 1940s became very profitable during the Cold War. So, he set aside rocket engineering and decided to become a professional artist around 1953. The reasons for this were personal and had to do with his previous ties to the Communist Party back in California in the 1930s. After years working on rocket technology, he turned his back on the military industrial complex. Patrick McCray: Frank Malina is a fascinating character. Can you speak more to his dramatic shift from working as a rocket engineer to his career as a professional artist? Malina is a crucial subject in your book. This provided the economic means for companies and engineers to get involved and collaborate with artists. ![]() At the same time a lot of countries, especially the United States, experienced a period of unparalleled prosperity. This was of course the era of the Apollo moon program. One was the fact that new technologies, especially those related to computers and electronics, were becoming increasingly prominent in the public eye. Looking beyond these personal reasons, however, I think there were two broader forces at work. ![]() Meanwhile some of the engineers were (for lack of a better word) “forced” to collaborate because these were projects that the managers wanted them to take on. I think a lot of artists were increasingly interested in all of the new technologies that were beginning to emerge and become commercialized at the time. I think for some people it was an opportunity to learn about how another community approached the creative process. Patrick McCray: I don’t think there was any single reason for why artists and engineers wanted to collaborate. The MIT Press: In the introduction to Making Art Work, you mention that “the reasons why engineers and artists wanted to collaborate were complex, personal, and varied.” What would you say was the biggest push behind this creative collaboration? Once I got back to the United States, I started to do the research that became the basis for Making Art Work. What I observed was a real eye-opening experience. At that time, I still had a romanticized view of the artist as someone who worked alone often in their studios somewhere. Since I already knew how historians did their research, I became increasingly interested in the processes and practices that artists used. Some of the people who were there were historians like myself but there were also some artists present. I had a fellowship that took me to France. I first got interested in the intersection of art and technology back in 2012. Patrick McCray: Thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about my new book, Making Art Work. The MIT Press: You have significant background work in the history of technology and science, what brought you to this fascinating crossover between art and technology? If you can’t find the resource you need here, visit our contact page to get in touch.Įstablished in 1962, the MIT Press is one of the largest and most distinguished university presses in the world and a leading publisher of books and journals at the intersection of science, technology, art, social science, and design. ![]() The MIT Press has been a leader in open access book publishing for over two decades, beginning in 1995 with the publication of William Mitchell’s City of Bits, which appeared simultaneously in print and in a dynamic, open web edition.Ĭollaborating with authors, instructors, booksellers, librarians, and the media is at the heart of what we do as a scholarly publisher. Today we publish over 30 titles in the arts and humanities, social sciences, and science and technology. MIT Press began publishing journals in 1970 with the first volumes of Linguistic Inquiry and the Journal of Interdisciplinary History. International Affairs, History, & Political Science.MIT Press Direct is a distinctive collection of influential MIT Press books curated for scholars and libraries worldwide. ![]()
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