The machine, as seen at the end of the mechanical age at MoMA

The iconic exhibition inspired Software and facilitated art’s transition from the mechanical to the digital. Curated by collector and museum director, K.G. Pontus Hultén, the exhibition aimed to put the intersection of art and technology into historical perspective. Hultén wanted to examine the human-machine relationship with an extensive art historical overview. The detailed exhibition included over 200 pieces by more than 100 artists from the Renaissance to 1968. Artists ranged from Dürer and da Vinci to Tinguely and Tatlin. It traced the development of the myriad ways artists related to technology over time. From our mechanical past to the newly digitizing 1968, the exhibition questioned the consequences of these changes. “The Machine” also featured contemporary artists at the forefront of digital computing and art. Leon D. Harmon and Ken Knowlton of Bell Labs exhibited their celebrated early computer graphic, Studies in Perception I. Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage and Billy Klüver of Experiments in Art and Technology (EAT) exhibited nine works from a world-wide competition. The winner was Jean Dupuy’s “Heart Beats Dust.” Art historian Frank Popper called the show "a significant early moment in the passage from the mechanical to the electronic age in art.” It examined humanity’s mechanical past, opening the door for future artists to ask the new, difficult questions facing humans and technology.