jack burnham worked as a writer, and in the 1960s and 1970s made important contributions as an art theorist, critic and curator in the field of systems art. in systems art the concept and ideas of process related systems and systems theory are involved in the work to take precedence over traditional aesthetic object related and material concerns. burnham named systems art in the 1968 artforum article "system esthetics": "he had investigated the effects of science and technology on the sculpture of this century, and saw a dramatic contrast between the handling of the place-oriented "object sculpture" and the extreme mobility of systems sculpture".