> I now think that first of all the relationship between science and technology is a dialectical one, so there doesn't have to be a directed causal chain,
I think Forman's interested in the change in "cultural primacy" vis-a-vis science and technology, and not their actual relationships. He makes this pretty clear in his first section on modernism, where (to cite just one instance) he argues that Marx gave primacy to science in spite of materialist viewpoint. Forman argues the same for figure like Somabrt and Veblen.
> I think there is also push-pull system going on in making art and studying art as an historian or critic. You will miss a lot of aspects to art, unless you know how to make some.
Your mention of criticism suggests you're talking about contemporary visual art here, and I'd have to say that at least since Duchamp and/or Clement Greenberg, that medium has pretty much given over its making to critical theory.
I'm not sure less elite forms of v-art have bounced back from being tarred as kitsch in 1939.
Best, Charles