Thinking Machines – Jason Allen Ashlock – Medium

Like a film critic asked if the Oscars got it right this year, one has to feel a sense of standing too close to the frame, the field of vision too narrow to provide the context necessary for proper judgment. After spending an afternoon among the various installations that comprise "Thinking Machines: Art and Design in the Computer Age: 1959–1989," I wonder if this anxiety applied to the team tasked with creating this exhibit. In this case, I think not. Here, closeness to the frame is a virtue, not a vice. The thread running through the exhibit's diverse elements is both lucid and enjoyable: celebrating the collaborative possibilities between human artists and computational machines, and the energies unleashed when the humanistic meet the systematic.