The aesthetics of habitability : Edward C. Wortz, NASA, and the art of light and space, 1966-1973
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation explores four American artists working at the intersection of sculpture, architecture, and design in the late 1960s and early 1970s as they shaped the discourse of "habitability, " a spatial term developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). While NASA initially used habitability to describe the physiological suitability of hostile environments (e.g., outer space) for human exploration, this study shows how these artists revised the meaning of this term in order to accommodate a variety of architectural, environmental, psychological, and social interpretations. Over the course of four chapters, I examine the artistic practices and theories of four Los Angeles-based artists—James Turrell, Robert Irwin, and Larry Bell, all members of a 1960s "Light and Space" sculptural movement; and Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, a feminist graphic designer and co-founder of the Woman's Building, an independent feminist art and education center—as they directly engaged with the concept of habitability (and in turn, NASA's research) between 1966 and 1973. I consider these four artists and their responses to habitability—which ranged from their enthusiastic collaboration with social scientists and engineers, to their careful parsing of the philosophical and epistemological foundations of the discourse, to their explicit critique on the basis of difference and gender—by way of their work with two additional figures who simultaneously developed habitability in empirical and aesthetic contexts: Edward C. Wortz (1930--2004), a perceptual psychologist who worked in the aerospace industry at the height of the 1960s "Space Race"; and his wife, Melinda (Farris) Wortz (1940--2002), who wrote extensively about these artists as an art historian, critic, and curator. The first comprehensive examination of the Wortz archives, this study addresses the intersection of art and science during the Cold War. I combine formal analysis of the artwork occasioned by these collaborations (minimal abstract sculpture, installations of projected light, experimental architecture, and radical interior and graphic design) with inquiry into the social history of both postwar American art and scientific research.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2014 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Thomas, James Merle |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Art and Art History. |
| Primary advisor | Lee, Pamela M |
| Thesis advisor | Lee, Pamela M |
| Thesis advisor | Maxmin, Jody |
| Thesis advisor | Turner, Fred |
| Thesis advisor | Wolf, Bryan Jay |
| Thesis advisor | Zervigón, Andrés Mario |
| Advisor | Maxmin, Jody |
| Advisor | Turner, Fred |
| Advisor | Wolf, Bryan Jay |
| Advisor | Zervigón, Andrés Mario |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | James Merle Thomas. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Art and Art History. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2014. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2014 by James Merle Thomas
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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