She is a writer on art, art critic and exhibition organizer.

 

She was born in Poland but has lived in London most of her life. She was Assistant Director of the ICA in London (1963-71) and Director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery (1974-76). She is principally interested in the relationships between art and science, art and technology and art and the history of ideas.

 

Some of her best known exhibitions, such as “Between Poetry and Painting” (1965) and “Cybernetic Serendipity” (1968) were about the connections between one field and another. The principal idea of “Cybernetic Serendipity” exhibition was to examine the role of cybernetics in contemporary arts. She has written several books , including “The Computer in Art” (1971), “Robots – Fact, Fiction and Prediction” (1978) and edited “Cybernetics, Art and Ideas” (1971). She also worked on visualization of mathematics, a project called “Fantasia Mathematica”. She was one of the directors of ARTEC biennale in Japan (focused on art and technology) between 1989-98. In 1998 she staged an exhibition called “Electronically Yours” about electronic portraiture at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

 

Since 1988 she has been looking after the Themerson Archive, the archive of a writer and an artist, whose avant-garde publishing company, Gaberbocchus Press, launched in 1957 a Common Room for artists interested in science and scientists interested in the arts.

 

She continues to pursue her interests in the relationship of art and technology.