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Radical Software and the legacy of Gregory Bateson.

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This letter is a response to William Kaizen's essay connecting Dan Graham to the legacy of Gregory Bateson by way of Radical Software ("Steps to an Ecology of Communication: Radical Software, Dan Graham, and the Legacy of Gregory Bateson," Art Journal, Fall 2008). Let me acknowledge at the outset that Radical Software emerged from a world that is difficult to interpret. Despite being a participant and observer, I waited over fifteen years before offering "A Genealogy of Video" (Leonardo 21, no. 1, 1988). For a non-participating art historian to attempt to interpret this world, nearly forty years later, is to take on a formidable task. I admire Kaizen's courage in taking it on, and, indeed, he gets quite a few things right. Yet his essay is not without need of correction.

As Kaizen notes, I met Gregory Bateson at a small conference in Princeton (1970), where Bateson was passing out prepublication copies of his "The Cybernetics of 'Self': A Theory of Alcoholism." Keying off this paper, Kaizen goes on to depict my use of video as "self-focused." I would note that at that 1970 conference, most of the serious discussion was not about "the self," but about what Barack Obama is now calling "the planet in peril, "The natural ecology-was of utmost concern to Bateson, as his 1970 "The Roots of Ecological Crisis" indicates.

More than the paper on self, Bateson's discussion of the destruction of the natural ecology impressed me. It also impressed another artist at the conference, Frank Gillette. In connecting Bateson's legacy with Radical Software, Kaizen fails to report on Frank Gillette or even indicate his importance, a serious omission. Gillette founded Raindance, the group that published Radical Software, wrote for Radical Software, and produced work influenced by Bateson, as evident in Video: Process and Meta-Process at the Everson Museum in Syracuse, organized by Jim Harithas (1973). Gillette took part with Bateson in the conference on ecological thinking and city planning sponsored by Mayor John Lindsay of New York City and cited by Kaizen. Gillette also gave Bateson a tour of the exhibitions current in New York City at the time of that conference (Gregory-was not impressed).

Kaizen asserts, "Paul Ryan was the figure most responsible for introducing Bateson's thought to the art and activist worlds." This is not accurate. If he is referring to the video movement in New York City, then Frank Gillette should be credited with at least...

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