Walter built two autonomous robot vehicles each using two vacuum tubes and three relays. Reports of their behavior are, perhaps, unbelieveable. For further start here.

First broadcast of "tape music" over French Radio.

Electronic music studio under auspices of French National Radio.

May 1950 pp42-45
Aug 1951 pp60-63

Electronic music studio under auspices of German Radio. Uses only electronically generated sounds.

A sound producing tower (50 m high) for the 1st Salon Bâtimat, Paris (France). Perhaps the first electro-kinetic sculpture.

Philips, Eidnhoven
NHK, Japan
RCA Sarnoff Labs, Princeton

Claimed to be the first self governed (autonomous) cybernetic sculpture.

Perhaps the first complete computer-aided musical composition. Note that in 1954 Yannis Xenakis also used a computer as a compositional aid on Metastasis.

The first fully electronic movie soundtrack. Composed using "broken" machines.

First meeting to establish AI (ver 1.0) as a discipline.

First general computer controlled music studio. Established under the direction of Lejaren Hiller.

Posits a chasm between the Sciences and Humanities.

The first modular analog synthesizer.

Kinetic sculpture destroys itself in MOMA sculpture garden, March 17, 19:30-19:57. Executed with help from Billy Kluver. The Tompkins description in his Bachelors book is enlightening.

ARPA director encourages research that led to the rise of human-computer interactivity and the personal computer

First computer generated sound composition. Executed at Bell Labs using the MUSIC IV program developed by Max Mathews and Joan Miller.

Refocuses cybernetic systems from control to organization.

Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Pavillon de Marsan, Le Louvre (Paris)

20-channel remote-controlled anthropomorphic robot. Kludged together in classic NJP style, played a recording of John F. Kennedy's inaugural address and excreted beans.

Georg Nees, Studio Galerie, Stuttgart, January, 1965
Michael Noll and Bela Julesz, Howard Wise Gallery, NYC, summer(?)
Frieder Nake, Wendelin Niedlich Galerie, Stuttgart, November 1965

Kinetic sculpture shown at the Guggenheim, NYC. Seawright was pioneer of interactive sculptures, using mirrors and electronic components.
Also: Sculptures by George Rickey and James Seawright, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, 1970.

First production modular analog synthesizer sold by Robert Moog.
From 1962-66 the San Francisco Tape Music Center, Donald Buchla, Paul Ketoff, and others developed solid state analog music production studios and equipment.

Billy Kluver's cover organization. He also collaborated with artists prior to this, in Beyond... Burnham mentions a show at Cordier & Eckstom gallery (NYC) in 1964. Note that Duchamp showed here a lot too... Burnham also refers to a show at the Albright-Knox gallery in Bufallo in 1963.
9 Evenings: Theater and Engineering, with Rauschenberg, etal, 69th Regiment Armory NYC, October 13-23.

Suggests that the "spirit of cybernetics" offers the most effective means for achieving a two-way exchange between the artwork and its audience.

Possibly the first computerized sculpture at Philips Evoluon center.

Interactive sculpture, possibly the first plant/machine hybrid. Included in the 1968 MOMA Machine show.

One of the first instrument-performer interactive musical performances. The (composer designed and constructed) instrument, space, and performer feed information back to each other. Also in the same vein, Mesa (1966).

Tokyo based engineering collective (including Haruki Tsuchiya) shows a sound and light driven painting machine.

Art, Science, and Technology journal.

Curated by Jasia Reichardt, ICA London, August 2 to October 20. Scanned catalog.

New Tendencies computer art exhibition in the Gallery of Contemporary Art Zagreb (today the Museum of Contemporary Art), August 2 - August 8. New Tendencies published a journal, Bit International and held exhibitions and colloquia from 1961-1978

Jack Burnham book outlining systems, cybernetic, and conceptual art. See also:
Systems Esthetics, Artforum, September 1968;
Real Time Systems, Artforum, September 1969;
Alice’s Head: Reflections on Conceptual Art, Artforum, February 1970;
Art and Technology: The Panacea That Failed, c 1980, reprinted in John Hanhardt, Video Culture. A repudiation of all that went before.

Pontus Hultén curator. MOMA, NYC, Nov 25, 1968 - Feb 9, 1969. Including commissioned collaborations between artists and engineers under the umbrella of EAT.

Hybrid digital/analog synthesizer designed and built by the composer in collaboration with University of Illinois enginners. "Completed" in 1972.

Society established in London.

One of the first museums to encourage visitor interaction with their exhibits. They opened with the traveling version of Cybernetic Serendipity from the ICA (via the Corcoran Annex) and purchased some of the works for permanent display when the show closed 18 months later.

First "network" performance. Presented at the NY Guggenheim Museum but controlled by a remote data link to a computer in Boston.

Curated by Kynaston McShine. Proto-conceptual show with artist's book as catalog, The Museum of Modern Art, NYC, July 2 - September 20.

Jack Burnham curated show of cybernetic and information art, The Jewish Museum, NYC, September 16 through November 8, 1970. Supposedly traveled to the Smithsonian Institution December 16 through February 14, 1971.

Maurice Tuchman curated show at Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Resulting from a program that paired artists with corporations from 1967-71.

Created (video) environments that responded to the movement and gesture of the viewers.

Claimed to be the first experimental cybernetic performance, at Hamburg Opera-house, with music by Pierre Henry, choreography by Alwin Nikolais with Carolyn Carlson

Cyber-Systems Timeline