Art as Information Ecology

“Masterfully intertwining aesthetics, information theory, and entropy concepts, Jason A. Hoelscher offers an insightful account of the accelerated transformations of art practices in the 1960s. Art as Information Ecology will open new pathways toward a better understanding of the complexities of periodizing contemporary art at a time when artworlds are in more intense communication with other systems. This ambitious book is bound to create ripple effects.” - Cristina Albu, author of Mirror Affect: Seeing Self, Observing Others in Contemporary Art

“In Art as Information Ecology, Jason A. Hoelscher digs deep, looking into contemporary artworks in very different ways than ever before: from the premise that art can be a foundation of information that is like a multilayered cake, impossible to finish. I applaud Hoelscher for his in-depth, intense, and focused look into how art is a base for information systems that carry beyond the work themselves.” - Sharon Louden, artist, educator advocate for artists, and editor of the Living and Sustaining a Creative Life series of books

“If the task of humanists presently is to make bridges with STEM, [Art as Information Ecology] is a worthwhile effort in that direction. . . .  For too long scholars have theorized about Western art in terms of the evolution from the static and remote icon; Hoelscher proposes to create a discourse that places art in the midst of contemporary intellectualism and to acknowledge how context, ever-changing, partly constitutes the work of art. Recommended.” - P. Emison, Choice