Founding of the Independent Group (IG)

The Independent Group (IG), a collective of British artists, critics, and designers who came together in the early 1950s, explored the intersection of pop culture, mass media imagery, and art in technology. They sought to bridge the gap between high art and popular culture and were interested in the impact of new technologies on art and society. IG members Richard Hamilton and Eduardo Paolozzi would go on to infulence computer art again in the early ’70s influence Slade to adopt technology in art’s teaching. Thus, they were a principal group in the surge of participatory and technological art of the ’50s and ’60s whose influence extends far beyond. The group’s members, including Hamilton, John McHale, Paolozzi and Alison and Peter Smithson, even paved the way for the Pop Art movement and influenced contemporary art and design. Hamilton, McHale and Paolozzi were in particular interested in art’s mechanization. IG’s collage work juxtaposed art and technology in a way that was revelatory and radical at the time. The group’s vision to anticipate both mass media and digital art make them critical touchstones in the history of the mechanization of art and, thus, on-chain generative art.