Introduction
Jack Burnham's Software exhibition brings information processing, conceptual systems and interactive processes into an art institution. It connects systems aesthetics, conceptual art and computational culture, providing an important context for understanding artworks through rules, protocols, programs and informational processes rather than exclusively as discrete objects.
View full image ↗Illustration of the Software: Information Technology: Its New Meaning for Art exhibition catalogue (1970), from the Daniel Langlois Foundation’s catalogue record.
Jewish Museum / Daniel Langlois Foundation · Rights in the original image and document remain with their respective holders
Source · Software exhibition, Jewish Museum, New York ↗RESEARCH ACCOUNT
The exhibition as information processing
ANTI-AI ARCHIVE · Revised 2026-10-02
Conceptual art meets experimental systems
Jack Burnham’s Software ran at New York’s Jewish Museum from 16 September to 8 November 1970. Its catalogue brought scientific experiments into contact with conceptual art, including contributions associated with Hans Haacke, Joseph Kosuth, Sonia Sheridan and MIT’s Architecture Machine Group.
Section sources: Software exhibition, Jewish Museum, New York
Software as a broader proposition
The archival description treats software as flexible logical procedures, not solely computer instructions. Commands, information exchange and audience behaviour could become artistic material without requiring a computer in every work. The exhibition therefore cannot be reduced to a display of new hardware.
Section sources: Software exhibition, Jewish Museum, New York
A comparison for generative art
Editorial interpretation: Software helps investigate changing authorship and spectatorship when procedures become central to a work. It supplies institutional and conceptual context for generative art. Reading it merely as a rehearsal for contemporary text-to-image systems would erase its conceptual-art setting.
Section sources: Software exhibition, Jewish Museum, New York
Sources for this account
Foundation catalogue dates, participants and curatorial description read; individual installations were not reconstructed.
This account expands the archive within the cited scope. Historical interpretation is not presented as the original author’s statement or as a proven causal influence. The account and translation are AI-assisted, pending independent human review. Section references identify evidence without claiming independent verification of every historical statement.
Continue with a comparative question
Compare the methods, forms of control or presentation contexts of this entry and Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition.
Compare the methods, forms of control or presentation contexts of this entry and Art and Technology program/exhibition.
Dates & version record
Date displayed for this node: 1970 · Historical date recorded for the source: 1970
These dates refer to the historical event or recorded version, not this page’s publication date. The original date precision and unresolved questions are retained.
Original sources & further reading
These links lead to the cited paper, article, institution or conference page. External texts retain their source languages.
Software exhibition, Jewish Museum, New York
https://fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=541
Current cited URL
Software exhibition, Jewish Museum, New York
https://monoskop.org/Software_(exhibition)
URL cited in a research master or supplement; it may have moved or expired
Provenance, translation & verification
Timeline entry #035 · Historical node
Research materials & supplement references · 1
AI Art Genealogy Research Master · p. 10 · 025
Date as recorded: 1970
Software exhibition, Jewish Museum, New York ↗
Software exhibition, Jewish Museum, New York
Archive account based on the listed research materials, not a full translation of the linked work. AI-assisted translation; independent human review pending.
The master’s research claims and dates await independent verification.
Cite this node
ANTI-AI ARCHIVE. Software exhibition, Jewish Museum, New York. Art-history node #035. https://salondesrefuses.cn/en/art-history/025
For specific historical claims, also cite the original sources above and include your access date. This account is not a full translation of the linked work.
Adjacent nodes follow chronological order; adjacency does not establish direct influence or causation.