[Reader-list] [Announcements] Leonardo Electronic Almanac Supplement - Vol 14 No 3 - 4

[Nisar Keshvani, LEA]

________________________________________________________________

Leonardo Electronic Almanac e-digest
Volume 15, Number 3 - 4, 2007
http://leoalmanac.org
ISSN #1071-4391
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LEONARDO REVIEWS
----------------

< Aesthetic Computing, Paul Fishwick, Editor > reviewed by Michael Kelly

< John Cage Performs James Joyce > and < Fluxus Replayed > reviewed by Mike
Leggett

< SC06 Nov. 11-17, 2006, Tampa, Florida, U.S.A. > reviewed by Jack Ox

< New Review Titles – February 2007 >


LEONARDO
--------

< Contents: Leonardo Vol. 40, No. 1 (2007) >


LEONARDO NETWORK NEWS
---------------------

< Happy 40th Birthday Leonardo >

< MutaMorphosis: Challenging Arts and Sciences >

< Leonardo/OLATS Awards the Leonardo-EMS Prize to criticalartware >

< New Intern Carolina Dabbah Ceballos Joins Leonardo >

< Special Thanks to Amy Ione for Leadership of Leonardo Education Forum >

______________________________________________________
Leonardo Reviews February 2007
______________________________________________________

<www.leonardo.info/ldr.html>
ISSN: 1559-0429
This month in Leonardo Reviews we have the usual range of commentary on
recent publications, films and music germane to the art/science/technology
community. Unusually we are able to offer a digest of a very long review of
Paul Fishewick's book Aesthetic Computing by a new member of the pane
Michael Kelly. I also include a review of two pieces by Takahiko Iimura by
Mike Leggett who has been an avid follower of his work in the Leonardo
Review columns. Both reviews are well referenced and provide a useful
resource for research. Finally I have included Jack Ox's reflections on
Super Computing 2006 held at Tampa. For all the rest of the work by the
Leonardo Reviews Panel and a longer version of Kelly's Review please go to
our main site at <www.leonardo.info/ldr.html>

Michael Punt
Editor in Chief
Leonardo Reviews

< Aesthetic Computing >
Paul Fishwick, Editor
Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006
Reviewed by Michael Kelly, Department of Philosophy, University of North
Carolina

Let me start with two brief disclaimers to make it clear what aesthetic
computing is not, since it is a new field and there is naturally some
unclarity about its identity.  Aesthetic computing is not the application of
computer artifacts – models, programs, data, codes, interfaces, and the like
– to art or aesthetics.  There is such a field and it's called computer art
or computer aesthetics.  Also, aesthetic computing is not directly concerned
with the development of new art mediums such as interactive art, software
art, internet art, and the like, though these mediums may enter the
discussion because they embody some of the results of aesthetic computing.

Rather, aesthetic computing is about the application of the arts and
aesthetics to computing.  According to Paul Fishwick, aesthetic computing
takes the computing discipline itself as its raw material and explores how
aesthetics might productively shape computing (including programming
languages, AI, HCI, graphics, visualization) (pp. 7-8)?  Or in the words of
Roger Malina, the aim of aesthetic computing is "to transfer ideas and
techniques from the arts to computer science and engineering" (p. 44).

In elaborating on the impact and scope of this transfer, Malina highlights a
dichotomy within aesthetic computing, or indeed within computing as a whole:
Is the computer to be understood as a transparent "information appliance" or
as a "medium for reshaping perception and cognition" (p. 44).  If the
computer is an appliance, aesthetic computing is a matter of design aimed at
making the computer as transparent as possible so that we can achieve the
desired results, such as effective communication or legible visualization.
But if the computer is capable of shaping perception and cognition,
aesthetic computing is a way to understand how perception and cognition can
be shaped by and, in turn, shape, technology.

Following the structure of this dichotomy, Malina outlines two kinds of
claim, weak or strong, that can be made on behalf of aesthetic computing,
depending on whether we're talking about the design of the finished products
of computer technology or the codes underlying computer software.  "The weak
claim is that by stimulating the flow of ideas and methods from the arts to
computing, computer scientists and engineers will achieve their objectives
more easily, quickly, or elegantly" (p. 47; italics added).  For example,
artists can demonstrate how computing devices are more likely to be adopted
by the public if they are found aesthetically appealing; these insights
might, in turn, inspire innovation in future research projects (with the
Apple iMac or iPod often sited as exemplary success stories).  By contrast,
the strong claim about aesthetic computing is "that by introducing ideas and
methods from art and design into computing, new practices and approaches
will emerge responding to new objectives that would not naturally have
evolved within the computing sciences and engineering" (p. 48).  Here, the
claim is that aesthetic insights gained from artistic practice do not merely
allow computer scientists to achieve ends formed without taking aesthetic
considerations into account but that these insights actually shape the
objectives of computing enough "to redirect the future development of
computing, provoking new developments and inventions that would otherwise
have been impossible.  A different computer science and engineering may
emerge" (p. 50). This is a strong claim indeed, which Fishwick corroborates
by claiming that one of the "core goals" of aesthetic computing is "to
modify computer science through the catalysis of aesthetics" (p. 11).

To answer which, if either, claim about aesthetic computing can be
supported, we first need to clarify what aesthetics is.  Fishwick offers
some clarification by dividing aesthetics into three concerns: modality, or
"ways in which we interface and interact with objects"; culture, meaning
genres, movements, and such in the history of the arts; and quality,
referring to symmetry, complexity, parsimony, beauty, etc. (pp. 12-13).
Although this division is helpful, the inclusion of "quality" (or, better,
"property") requires some clarification because it determines how we
approach modality and culture.  So let me add yet another disclaimer.
Aesthetics is not merely about symmetry, harmony, elegance, optimality, and
other similar properties of the artifacts of computing, whether they are
used in computing or created by it.  It's not that these properties aren't
relevant in aesthetic computing; it's just that aesthetics is a
philosophical discipline and these properties are not, by themselves,
philosophical issues.  In fact, aesthetics is not about the specific
properties of any particular objects, whether works of art, natural objects,
or artifacts of computing.   If I can use the term 'Beauty" with a big 'B'
to stand for the set of all such properties, including the particular
property of beauty with a small 'b', Beauty is not a property of any
object.  This does not mean, intentionally or unwittingly, that aesthetics
is subjective or that, as we often hear, Beauty is in the eye of the
beholder.  Aesthetics isn't subjective any more than it's objective, since
beauty is not in the subject any more than it's in the object. 

Then what is aesthetics, or, where is Beauty?  In the language of
eighteenth-century aesthetics, Beauty is a relational property, that is, a
property resulting from relations between human subjects and certain objects
in art or nature.  Or, in the language of contemporary computing, Beauty is
an interactive property between human subjects and the artifacts of
computing.  What this means is that when aestheticians take up the question
of Beauty, they concern themselves with the nature and structure of the
cognitive and affective relationships between human subjects and certain
objects in the world, to which we can now add computers.  The objects here
are at the same time occasions for interactions not only between humans and
objects but among humans.  To take a simple example that does not
necessarily involve computers, when several people take pleasure in a
painting, opera, or pop song, the artwork is an occasion for these
individuals to discover something they have in common.  The philosophical
issue this discovery provokes is what, at a deeper level, makes it possible
for people to have a work of art in common.  This deeper level involves
human emotions, passions, and the like, as well as their effects on human
perception and cognition.  Insofar as aesthetics is the interdisciplinary
study of the complex commonality that underlies our shared experiences of
art, it is necessarily connected to other disciplines that are also
concerned with human emotions, perception, and their interactions. 

In contrast to this account of aesthetics, many contributors to this volume
seem to attribute Beauty to artworks and thus to computers.  For example,
Laurent Mignonneau and Christa Sommerer emphasize complexity, diversity, and
emergence as the properties in HCI, with a special focus on "users'
interaction input" (pp.169-183); Jonas Löwgren identifies a set of nineteen
qualities tied to HCI (pp. 383-403); Stephan Diehl and Carsten Görg
understand beauty in terms of the sum of elementary properties (pp. 229-37);
and, finally, Michael Leyton develops aesthetic rules: maximization of
transfer and maximization of recoverability (pp. 289-313).  But this focus
on Beauty as a property is what I'm claiming is problematic.  Beauty is a
property of relations or interactions among humans (which may very well be
what the above authors have in mind) rather than of the works that occasion
such relations or interactions.  Aesthetics is the understanding of what
makes such relations or interactions possible, not just what makes them more
effective, more pleasurable, and the like, though by understanding what
makes them possible, we'll presumably be in a better position to address
these other concerns.  Aesthetic computing is the same type of understanding
connected directly to computers.   In a word, if aestheticians now work with
computer scientists, as I now expect they will, it will be a natural
extension of what they've been doing all along.

Now, to return to the weak and strong claims for aesthetic computing, it's
helpful, following Fishwick, to narrow computer science to three areas and
to identify what aesthetic computing might involve in each case.  First, on
the level of computer programming, there are questions about whether and, if
so, how to represent programs and data structures with "customized,
culturally specific notations."  Second, there are issues about how to
incorporate "artistic methods in typically computing-intensive activities."
And third, in connection with HCI, there are issues about how to improve
"the emotional and cultural level of interaction with the computer" (p. 6).

Fishwick provides a good example of the first case, for he argues that
aesthetics will alter not only the design of computer software at the point
that users begin to interface with it, but also the very programming that
makes software possible (pp. 9, 13-20).  The rationale for this strong claim
is that programming will change as computer scientists alter their
objectives as a result of attaining a better understanding of the aesthetics
of HCI.  Put simply, programming will have to change to create the desired
interface – an obvious point, but one that is now coming with an aesthetic
imperative attached.  Norm Tractinsky's and Dror Zmiri's research on
"skinnability" (alternate interfaces to commonly used applications) is a
good example here because they focus on interaction, while taking consumers'
interest in skinnability as evidence of their interest in the aesthetics of
computing (pp. 405-22).

Concerning visualization, there are two types which fall under the general
heading of data visualization: scientific visualization, which is the
creation of visual representations of scientific data from physics, biology,
or any of the natural or social sciences; and information visualization,
which involves visual models of information from all sorts of sources:
business, government, the sciences, or elsewhere.  Both types involve
aesthetics since visualization is, in Donna Cox's words, "the creative
translation of data into visual representation" (p. 94).  She provides a
systematic and clear analysis of the aesthetics of visualization by
explaining the basic metaphorical structure of the translation of data into
visual models (pp. 89- 114).

Now, some people also speak of knowledge visualization, which, if I
understand it, is a meta-level of visualization that articulates the
epistemological implications of the two types.  For in knowledge
visualization the claim is that you're not just visualizing or illustrating
what is already known; rather, in the words of Monika Fleischmann and
Wolfgang Strauss, "artistic works in the area of aesthetic computing must
lead to a synthesis of sensory perception and cognitive insight, yielding
new ways of thinking and models of experience" (p. 131).  How this
perceptual/cognitive interface works is a basic subject matter of
aesthetics.  For example, Aaron Quigley uses the expression "relational
information," which is very similar to the idea of beauty as a "relational
property" or "interactive property" (pp. 316-33).  So there's a natural role
for aesthetic computing in visualization.

Finally, in the third area of computer science, HCI, we have the following
picture, to quote from Frieder Nake and Susanne Grabowski: "Interface
aesthetics is different from the aesthetics of packaging," the design
approach to aesthetic computing, "in that the interface to software belongs
to the software.  Software never appears without its interface.  The
human-computer interface is, first of all, the face of its software" (p.
67).  In this light, the weak and strong claims about aesthetic computing
would be better characterized, as they are by Jay Bolter and Diane Gromala,
as the inside and outside of computers, meaning the code and the interface
(pp. 369-82).  So we don't have to choose between the weak or strong claims
any more than we have to choose between the code and the interface.  Rather,
the interaction between the code and the interface is the basis of HCI and,
in turn, the basis of aesthetic computing.

At the end of his introductory essay, Fishwick asks whether aesthetic
computing is something new or whether it just "rehashed old material."  He
and his expert contributors argue that technology has developed to the point
today where it is not only possible to pay attention to aesthetics, but
there is now a sense of urgency coming from computing.  In Fishwick's words:
"We have had to wait for the technology to become available to leverage the
arts" (p. 13).  If this is accurate, what we have here is a new field called
aesthetic computing.  And what we have in this collection is an excellent
contribution to aesthetic computing, an extremely valuable text for
aestheticians and computer scientists alike.

References and Notes:

1. Fishwick claims that computer interface "should be as much about quality
as it is about quantitative performance" (p. 21).  My turn away from
"quality" seems at odds with this claim.  But I think we are proposing
something very similar because he seems interested in quality only as it
relates to the affective as well as cognitive dimensions of HCI rather than
to the properties of artifacts (e.g., a computer or a graphic user
interface) that would occasion such interaction.

2. Frieder Nake and Susanne Grabowski (pp. 53-70) add semiotics to the
aesthetics and computing mix, apparently on the belief that aesthetics is
subjective (p. 55) and needs to be offset by the more objective semiotics.
As I understand aesthetics, however, semiotics does not add anything that
couldn't be included within aesthetics.  Umberto Eco's combination of
aesthetics and semiotics is an example of what I have in mind here.

3. Jane Prophet and Mark d'Inverno (pp. 185-96) prefer to use the term
"transdisciplinarity" in place of "interdisciplinarity" or
"multidisciplinarity," because they think the first term emphasizes that
something new emerges from the interactions among these disciplines.

4. Elsewhere [e.g., in my Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1998) or Iconoclasm in Aesthetics (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2003)], I characterize aesthetics as critical reflection
on art, culture, and nature.  In this light, aesthetic computing is critical
reflection on – or philosophical analysis of – the aesthetic theories,
principles, beliefs, ideas, and the like underlying computing once it is
governed not only by technological concerns but by artistic practices.

< John Cage Performs James Joyce > by Takahiko Iimura Takahiko iimura Media
Art Institute, Tokyo, Japan, 1985/2005 DVD, 15 mins., B&W Sales, $US100
(personal); $US400 (institutions) (No ISBN) < Fluxus Replayed > by Takahiko
Iimura Takahiko iimura Media Art Institute, Tokyo, Japan, 1991/2005 DVD, 30
mins., B&W Sales, $US100 (personal); $US400 (institutions) ISBN
4-901181-24-6. Distributor's website:  http://www.takaiimura.com/home.html
Reviewed <http://www.takaiimura.com/home.html%0B%0BReviewed> by Mike Leggett
Creativity & Cognition Studios University of Technology Sydney legart [at}
ozemail [dot] com [dot] au Taka Iimura is a senior figure among contemporary
Japanese artists and has been working with film, sound and video since the
1960s. He was one of several Japanese who, coming from a 20th Century
tradition of avant-garde intervention,1 contributed to the Fluxus group in
the 60s. Like many media artists, Iimura made recordings of contemporaries
and their work. Alongside his film and video artworks, (the video
Observer/Observed reviewed in Leonardo 35.1), portable video enabled
documentation, (and general note making), more economically than film. As
the cycle of experimentation moves through another generation, glimpses of
precursors through archive recordings of this kind help ground artists'
surviving words and artworks. John Cage (1912-1992) as the senior figure of
Fluxus (NYC), active experimentally since the late 30s, is the subject of a
video portrait shot by Iimura in 1985, released in 1991 and made available
on DVD in 2005. Cage had a long-standing fascination with the work of James
Joyce, in particular Finnegans Wake, the book becoming the basis of many
works, the best known of which is the Roaratorio — an Irish Circus on
Finnegans Wake. Commissioned by German radio and IRCAM in Paris the sound
recording was completed in 1979, lasted about an hour and was a 62 track mix
of the sounds referred to in the text, the text itself as prepared (using a
mesostic system), and read by Cage, together with music played by the Irish
traditional music players of the day. Roaratorio is one of the classics of
Cage's oeuvre 2 and in Iimura's 15-minute recording, John Cage Performs
James Joyce, Cage presents the core of the spoken part of the work. Its
composition, like many of his other works, is aided by the I-Ching. Here he
briefly explains that none of the sentences (sic) in Finnegans Wake are
selected, only words, syllables and letters, from different pages according
to the chance decisions made by consulting the I-Ching and its
representational hexagrams. In this way the 624 pages of the book are
compressed into 12 pages of text, and it is one of these pages that we see
him holding. He reads from it, sings it, and then, hustling close to the
camera and its microphone, whispers it. At the bottom of the screen are
superimposed each time, two lines of sub-titling synchronised with the text
he is using. Iimura's presence is felt but not seen, though we hear him
responding to Cage's explanations at the outset. Cage's voice is not strong;
he is in his seventies, and we strain to hear him against the noise of New
York traffic coming through the window in the background of a sunlit room.
His demeanour remains buoyant, at one point making light of a fumble he
makes with a watch he is holding, an event incorporated into the flow of the
tape. Like so many of his initiatives, the line between the artwork and its
making is blurred, a statement aided and amplified by Iimura's collaboration
in its making. In Fluxus Replayed also released in 2005, Iimura documents an
event in 1991 held to reproduce historical performances by NYC-based Fluxus
artists of the 1960s. The S.E.M Ensemble together with some of the Fluxus
artists themselves, perform works by Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono, Dick Higgins,
George Brecht, Allison Knowles, Ben Patterson, Jackson Mac Low and Emett
Williams. Iimura has edited together the sounds and images captured by two
cameras as raw evidence of the goings-on, with scant regard for the
conventions of continuity editing, thus maintaining the document in the
space between the moment of recording and that of viewing. Time compression
is only obvious in Ono's Sky Piece for Jesus Christ (1965) as the baroque
instrumental ensemble are wound around with white paper, accumulating as a
series of jump cuts to the point where their music is reduced to a series of
bumps and scrapes, before the musicians are man-handled off the stage, still
attached to their chairs and instruments. Again, Iimura gives some idea to
younger generations of how these early precursors to contemporary
performance art appeared to audiences, in a setting typical of the genre —
church hall ecclesiastical architecture, painted walls, wooden floor. Though
much of this work was sound-based, produced collaboratively for group
performance using chance determinations and framed with a sense of the
aesthetics of noise, the written scores or instructions for each piece may
well have satisfied many members of the audience. Glimpsed in the
background, some walking around, others squirming in their seats, the
probably overlong evening has been bravely foreshortened into a useful
30-minute document by the artist with the video camera. Notes: 1. Two
publications on this subject: Into Performance: Japanese women artists in
New York, by Midori Yoshimoto, Rutgers University Press, 2005; Dada in
Japan: Japanische avant-garde 1920-1970, by Stephan von Wiese, Jutta
Hulsewig and Yoshio Shirakawa, Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, 1983. 2. An extensive
discography now exists for Cage and other sound artists, together with
collected reviews, samples and the means to buy recordings at
http://www.moderecords.com/main.html.

< SC06: International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking,
Storage, and Analysis >
Reviewed by Jack Ox
Jackox [at] Comcast [dot] net

How relevant is Supercomputing to artists? What kind of artist would want to
go there, either to learn or to demonstrate their work to this audience? I
admit that we are not yet a sizable population within the conference
attendees, but would like to make a case for an expanded participation.

Consider the areas of research that are engaged in utilizing super computing
technology: biology and genomics, networking and telepresence with the
LambaRail, chemistry and the rational design of drugs, reverse engineering
of the brain with studies on the limits of  human ability. Leonardo's
community including artist and scientists have been working in these areas
in a very serious way for a relatively long period of time. Ray Kurzweil,
the keynote speaker, asked, "Is it possible to understand our own brains?"
As usual he was philosophical, and he speaks to artists as well as
scientists, speaking copiously on the exponentially accelerating rate of
progress, of which supercomputing is a major ingredient.

Donna Cox, with her wonderful team of scientific visualization specialists
(Robert Patterson and Stuart Levy) are regulars at this conference. Their
artistry is actually part of the scientific world far more than of the art
world. They were at the NCSA  booth showing HD, stereoscopic visualizations
of galaxies and weather systems.

But there were also artists producing performances that operate more in the
traditional area of the performing arts, although using high performance
networking technology for both the collaborators and the dispersed
audiences. This group is lead by Jimmy Miklavcic, a multimedia specialist at
the University of Utah's Center for High Performance Computing, with
artistic direction by Beth Miklavcic. The group, called Another Language
Performing Arts Company, re-presented their fourth InterPlay performance
called Dancing on the Banks of Packet Creek during Supercomputing. Because
the group is working over Internet2 they have had to choose faster
communication over high resolution, employing serious video compression. But
Miklavcic has made this work to his artistic advantage. The various streams,
coming in from Boston University, Purdue University , the University of
Maryland, and the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, all to the University of
Utah, are mixed by Jimmy Miklavcic and look astonishingly like paintings
with very beautifully applied surfaces and muted colors. All of the
performers work in tandem with the sound, which is mostly improvised, and in
return is influenced by the choices of the performers and the visual of the
main mix.  It was very impressive how the performers dealt with the
considerable, irregular delay, known as jitter, on the still packet driven
Internet2. 

Miklavcic uses AccessGrid Video (Cassette) Recorder (AGVCR)  to capture and
record the video streams from all of the players. These files can them be
played back at a later time (as they were at Supercomputing), and they can
be edited via a built-in editor. This is how they are interwoven into such
fascinating, painting like images. The result is not "visual music" but
rather music with image. The video was compressed with H.261 compression, a
standard video conference method used in the Access Grid system.

The concept behind the performance is an exploration into the "inundating
wave of digital information and non-experiential knowledge"  that we are
subjected to during our digital lives. Each of the participants created
parts on their own while thinking about the same concept. Each site
contributed at least two video streams, with the music performed and
transmitted from the Fairbanks and Boston locations. The performers involved
in "Packet Creek" are all quite proficient in areas such as film, radio
broadcasting, and dance, and also have extensive scientific and
technological backgrounds including mathematics, computer engineering,
biomedical engineering, digital art, and 3-D animation.

My question is how would this performance change if it were to be on the
National Lambda Rail  (NLR) instead of Internet2? All of sudden the video
compression would not be necessary, and the sound would have little delay,
with a regularity that can easily be overcome by musicians. I believe that
the whole aesthetic quality would change dramatically.

Of course the NLR also had a great presence at SC06. One could sit at their
booth for hours, taking in one great half hour talk after another. Tom West,
the President and CEO of NLR, gave several introductions to the technology
throughout the conference. We were also treated to presentations by Larry
Smarr (Calit2 at UCSD)on genomic and oceanographic research over Optiputer,
a member of NLR, Jason Leigh (Electronic Visualization Lab at UIC) about
SAGE wall immersive technology , and Maxine Brown (UIC) on
TransLight/StarLight and TranLight/Pacific Wave , the complementary efforts
funded by the Nation Science Foundation (NSF) that provides the
infrastructure connecting US, European and Pacific Rim research and
education networks.  All of this information is extremely useful to any
member of our community who desires to be dancing on the very exciting edge
of high performance computing and networking technology.

New Reviews, February 2007

< Cartographies of Tsardom. The Land and its Meanings in Seventeenth Century
Russia>
by Valerie Kivelson Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen

< Our Daily Bread > by Nikolaus Geyrhalter Reviewed by Martha Blassnigg

< Inside Out  HYPERLINK "
http://www.leonardo.info/reviews/feb2007/inside_harle.html"    > by Zohreh
Shayesteh Reviewed by Rob Harle (Australia)

< John Cage Performs James Joyce > by Takahiko Iimura
and
< Fluxus Replayed > by Takahiko Iimura Reviewed by Mike Leggett

< King of Infinite Space: Donald Coxeter, the Man Who Saved Geometry > by
Siobhan Roberts Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen

< Playing the News > by Jeff Plunkett and Jigar Mehta, Directors Reviewed by
Amy Ione

< SC06: International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking,
Storage, and Analysis > Reviewed by Jack Ox

< Seeing High & Low. Representing Social Conflict in American Visual Culture
> by Patricia Johnston, Editor Reviewed by Jan Baetens

< Technology Matters: Questions to Live With > by David Nye Reviewed by
Michael Punt

< Transitio_mx. Festival Internacional de Artes Electrónicas y Video > by
Amanda Lemus, Adriana Casas, and Lilia Pérez, Eds. Reviewed by Stefaan Van
Ryssen

To read all reviews, visit: <leonardo.info/ldr.html>


______________________________________________________

Leonardo Table of Contents 40:1
______________________________________________________


Editorial

< A Disturbance in the Flow >
By Meredith Tromble

After Midnight

< @Joburg >
By Nathaniel Stern

The Leonardo Gallery

< The Dream of Reason >

Curated by Elysa Lozano and Inês Rebelo
Including work by Tom Dale, Anthony Discenza, Frederick Loomis, Lauren
Kirkman, Elysa Lozano, Inês Rebelo, Alexander Ugay and Roman Maskalev

Artists' Statements

< Himalaya's Head: Disturbed Visual Feedback in an Interactive Multi-User
Installation >
By Sarita Dev and Maurits Kelder:

< The Genetic Creation of Bioluminescent Plants for Urban and Domestic Use >
By Alberto Estévez:

Historical Perspective
< 1970s Iran >
By Robert Gluck

ABSTRACT: Iran in the 1970s was host to an array of electronic music and
avant-garde arts. In the decade prior to the Islamic revolution, the Shiraz
Arts Festival provided a showcase for composers, performers, dancers and
theater directors from Iran and abroad, among them Iannis Xenakis, Peter
Brook, John Cage, Gordon Mumma, David Tudor, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Merce
Cunningham. A significant arts center, which was to include electronic music
and recording studios, was planned as an outgrowth of the festival. While
the complex politics of the Shah's regime and the approaching revolution
brought these developments to an end, a younger generation of artists
continued the festival's legacy.

Special Section: Live Art and Science on the Internet

< Recipe for a Google"! Party >
By Adam Overton

< ELIZA REDUX: A Mutable Iteration >
By Adrianne Wortzel

ABSTRACT: The author discusses her on-line interactive telerobotic work
ELIZA REDUX, its sources and the emblematic use of the
psychoanalyst/analysand relationship as a performative vehicle.

< Wigglism: A Philosophoid Entity Turns Ten >
By Ebon Fisher

ABSTRACT: The author describes The Wigglism Manifesto, a work authored
amidst the fury of early exchange on the World Wide Web. The term Wigglism
refers to a quality shared by biological and artificial life forms alike.
The manifesto has taken an open-source approach to its cultivation, allowing
numerous voices to nurture the entity into being. This collective approach
to truth cultivation embodied by the manifesto was inspired, in part, by the
author's experiences with community-based media rituals in the North
Brooklyn community before it gentrified in the mid-1990s. The project has
affirmed its initiator's sense that cultivating a living system can be a
vital alternative to traditional creative practices more aligned with
manufacturing and commerce.


Color Plates

General Articles

< Formulating Abstraction: Conceptual Art and the Architectural Object >
By Therese Tierney

ABSTRACT: Digital techniques, primarily software appropriated from the
entertainment and industrial design sectors, have destabilized the essential
status of the architectural image-object formulated in classical
philosophical thought. Western European art experienced a similar crisis
when conceptual art movements of the 1960s challenged Clement Greenberg s
notion of medium specificity. The author examines work by conceptual artists
whose theories posit alternative views of spatial and social relations based
on open-ended systems and indeterminacy. An examination of the relationship
between materiality and abstraction as exemplified in new media s
reformulation of architectural design processes, indicates how a more
inclusive and mutable profession has been realized.

< A Taxonomy of Abstract Form Using Studies of Synesthesia and
Hallucinations >
By Michael Betancourt

ABSTRACT: The author proposes a taxonomy of abstract form anchored in an
examination of the history and theory of synesthesia and abstract art. The
foundations of this taxonomy lie in empirical psychological studies of
"form-constants" found in cross-modal synesthetic visions and hallucinatory
states, specifically the work of Heinrich Klüver in his examinations of
mescaline and the mechanisms producing visual hallucinations. While the
proposed taxonomy is limited only to synesthesia-inspired abstraction, it
has suggestive possibilities when considered in relation to other forms of
non-synesthetic abstraction such as Islamic Art, the geometric forms found
on classical Greek vases, and other kinds of decorative abstract patterns.

Special Section: ArtScience: The Essential Connection

< Niko Tinbergen's Visual Arts >
By Robert Root-Bernstein

ABSTRACT: Dolores Hangan Steinman and David Steinman: The Art and Science of
Visualizing Simulated Blood-Flow Dynamics
The increasing use of computer enhancement and simulation to reveal the
unseen human body brings with it challenges, opportunities and
responsibilities at the interface of art and science. Here they are
presented and discussed in the context of efforts to understand the role of
blood-flow dynamics in vascular disease.

< A New Art Form: Exploring Nature's Creativity with a Self-Organizing
Medium >
By Robert Steinberg

ABSTRACT: The author describes a new art form that uses the self-organizing
potential of a water-based medium to provide an ever-changing environment
for interpretation and elaboration. The medium allows for little separation
between plan and execution. The artist, nature and science interact on the
"canvas" to create an art rich in novelty and surprise.

From the Leonardo Archive

< Kinetic Painting: The Lumidyne System >
By Frank J. Malina

< The Cybernetic Stance: My Process and Purpose >
By Roy Ascott

Leonardo Reviews

Reviews by Jan Baetens, Roy R. Behrens, Martha Blassnigg, Dene Grigar, Rob
Harle, Amy Ione, Michael R. Mosher, Michael Punt, Aparna Sharma

Endnote

< Vita Lona, Ars Longa: Aging, Longevity Extension Technology and the Arts >
By Stephen Wilson

Leonardo Network News



______________________________________________________

Leonardo Network News February 2007
______________________________________________________

The Newsletter of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and
Technology and of l'Observatoire Leonardo des Arts et Technosciences
CELEBRATING THE FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY of the LEONARDO NETWORK

Leonardo Network News Coordinator: Kathleen Quillian.
E-mail: <kq at leonardo.info>.

< Happy 40th Birthday Leonardo! >

Forty years ago in Paris, a group of artists, scientists and engineers got
together and decried the lack of professional venues where emerging work
bridging the two cultures could be presented, debated and promoted. Frank
Malina, himself a research engineer and a professional artist, convinced
publisher Robert Maxwell of Pergamon Press to take on the challenge of
publishing a peer-reviewed scholarly art-science-technology journal, the
first time such a project had been attempted.

To date we have published the work of 5,538 artists, researchers and
scholars. We wish we could bring this community together for a celebration,
but in keeping with our networked times, we are collaborating with groups
around the world on a variety of events:

Leonardo Celebrates Leonardo da Vinci
Special Section of Leonardo, 2007--2008, edited by David Carrier

What, building upon Leonardo's ways of thinking, can artists and scientists
tell each other today? Full call for papers: <leonardo.info> Inquiries and
proposals: <david.carrier at cwru.edu>.

Leonardo in New York (February 2007)
Panels, events and exhibition organized by the Leonardo Education Forum at
the 2007 College Art Association meeting: <
leonardo.info/isast/educators.html>.

MutaMorphosis: Challenging Arts and Sciences (Prague, Czech Republic, 7-10
November 2007): <www.mutamorphosis.org>.

Leonardo co-sponsors a conference and exhibitions in Prague, organized by
the International Centre for Art and New Technologies (CIANT): <ciant.cz>.

Lovely Weather in Ireland

We have initiated a three-year collaboration with Regional Cultural Centre
Letterkenny, Donegal County, Republic of Ireland, to host a Leonardo 40th
Anniversary exhibition and collaborate on an Art and Climate Change Project,
"Lovely Weather": <www.donegalculture.com>.

Leonardo in India
The Leonardo/OLATS is working with groups in Bangalore, India, for a
symposium and workshop. We welcome contact with Indian artists and
scientists who might wish to be involved.

Leonardo in North America (2008)

We are planning a final 40th anniversary symposium and celebration in North
America. Further details will be announced on <www.leonardo.info>.

Leonardo in Spain: Expanding the Space (October 2006)

We were pleased to co-sponsor Expanding the Space, a conference and workshop
on space exploration and the arts: <expandingthespace.net>.

All 40 years of Leonardo Articles Now Available On-Line
Volumes 1-33 available through JSTOR: <jstor.org>.
Volumes 34-39 available through MIT Press: <mitpressjournals.org>.

If you are interested in being involved, or have ideas on how we can
celebrate the work of the new Leonardos, send e-mail to rmalina [at]
prontomail [dot] com

WHAT YOU CAN DO TODAY

We know what Leonardo da Vinci could have used for his 40th birthday in
Milan: a gift membership in the Leonardo organization and subscription to
the Leonardo journal. If you know any budding Leonardos, buy them a gift at
<leonardo.info/members.html>.

< MutaMorphosis: Challenging Arts and Sciences, International Conference >
8-10 November 2007, Prague, Czech Republic Conference website: <
www.mutamorphosis.org>

MutaMorphosis is an international conference organized by CIANT as part of
the ENTER festival in the framework of the Leonardo 40th anniversary
celebrations. The festival will also feature the first retrospective
exhibition of the work of Leonardo Founding Editor Frank J. Malina. The
conference will explore the major mutations that are affecting the future of
our world. Papers will be presented by artists, scientists and researchers
on the evolution of life and the societies they constitute, and on the modes
of knowledge, expression and communication of humans, animals and other
forms of life.

The conference will concentrate on the growing interest within the worlds of
the arts, sciences and technologies in extreme and hostile environments.
These environments appear as symptomatic indicators of the mutations that
are taking place. They are potential vectors for an awareness of the
different problems at the origin of the disturbances that threaten the
ensemble of the Earth's eco-systems. Conference Steering Committee: Alban
Asselin, Louis Bec, Annick Bureaud, Don Foresta, Denisa Kera, Roger F.
Malina (co-chair: rfm [dot] mutamorphosis [at] gmail [dot] com), Louise
Poissant, Pavel Sedlák (co-chair: sedlak [at] ciant [dot] cz), Pavel
Smetana.

Organizer: CIANT – International Centre for Art and New Technologies in
Prague, Czech Republic <www.ciant.cz>.

Co-Organizers: Leonardo, U.S.A. <www.leonardo.info>, France <www.olats.org>;
Hexagram, Canada <www.hexagram.org>; Pépinières européenes pour jeunes
artistes, France <www.art4eu.net>.

Partners: Centre for Global Studies at Charles University, Czech Republic <
cgs.flu.cas.cz>; CYPRES Arts Sciences Technologies Cultures, France <
www.cypres-artech.org>; Czech Academy of Sciences – Week of Science and
Technology; <www.avcr.cz/tydenvedy>; French Institute in Prague, Czech
Republic <www.ifp.cz>; MARCEL, U.K. <www.mmmarcel.org>; UQAM, Canada <
www.uqam.ca>.


< Leonardo/OLATS Awards the Leonardo-EMS Prize to criticalartware >

We are pleased to announce that Leonardo/OLATS and the Electroacoustic Music
Studies Network have awarded a special prize to criticalartware (Jon Cates,
Ben Syverson and Jon Satrom) for their paper "likn: A Flexible Platform for
Information and Metadata Exchange," which they presented at the
Electroacoustic Music Studies Conference in Beijing, China, October 2006.

criticalartware's project likn is an artware application that addresses the
nature of knowledge, ideas and language in the era of globalization. More
specifically, likn is a functional online collaborative environment that
wages a persistent critique of the desire to standardize and universalize
meaning, and offers an alternative by applying postmodern and postcolonial
theories to the challenge of organizing discourse and media. The paper can
be accessed online at <www.leonardo.info>.

The Leonardo-EMS jury, consisting of Marc Battier, Kenneth Fields
and Ricardo dal Farra, convened on Thursday 26 October after the official
closure of the third Electroacoustic Music Studies Conference.

The Electroacoustic Music Studies Network (EMS Network) has been organized
to focus on the better understanding of the various manifestations of
electroacoustic music. Areas related to the study of electroacoustic music
range from the musicological to more interdisciplinary approaches, from
studies concerning the impact of technology on musical creativity to the
investigation of the ubiquitous nature of electroacoustic sounds today. The
choice of the word "network" is of fundamental importance, as one of the
goals of the EMS Network is to make relevant initiatives more widely
available. More about the Electroacoustic Music Studies Network can be found
at <www.ems-network.org>.
Leonardo/OLATS has established a collaboration with the EMS network through
which annual Leonardo-EMS Awards for Excellence will be made for the best
contributions to the EMS symposium as decided by a joint jury.


< New Intern Carolina Dabbah Ceballos Joins Leonardo >

In early 2007 Carolina Dabbah Ceballos joined Leonardo as an intern to work
on the YASMIN project. Carolina is a 24-year-old graphic/web designer. She
was born in Jordan and comes from a Greek and Colombian background. She
obtained her bachelor's degree in computer science at Al-Ahliyya Amman
University in Amman, Jordan. She attained grade 5 status as a piano player
from ABRSM (Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music), U.K.  She is
also fluent in four languages: Arabic, English, Spanish and French.

Carolina is now working on her masters of fine arts at the University of
Texas at Dallas. Her research concentrates on game therapy for
post-traumatic stress patients by creating a virtual environment around the
9/11 tragedy in New York City.  She is also employed at UTD as a teaching
assistant to Thomas Linehan, the director of the Arts and Technology
program.

< Special Thanks to Amy Ione for Leadership of Leonardo Education Forum >

Leonardo would like to recognize the outstanding leadership by Amy Ione of
Leonardo Education Forum (LEF). Ione was first voted in as a co-chair of LEF
in 2005 and in 2006 rotated to the position of Chair, helping to organize
all activities surrounding the 2007 College Art Association Conference in
New York City. During this time, Ione was also instrumental in initiating
relations with the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA). In
November 2006, LEF presented "New Media Futures: The Artist as Researcher
and Research as Art in the 21st Century" at the 2006 SLSA meeting in New
York City. In February 2007, Ione completed her rotation as Chair of LEF and
was replaced by incoming Chair Eddie Shanken.


________________________________________________________________

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * LEA PUBLISHING INFORMATION * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
________________________________________________________________


Editorial Address:
Leonardo Electronic Almanac
PO Box 850 Robinson Road Singapore 901650
keshvani [at] leoalmanac [dot] org

________________________________________________________________

Copyright (2007), Leonardo, the International Society for the
Arts, Sciences and Technology
All Rights Reserved.

Leonardo Electronic Almanac is published by:
The MIT Press Journals, 238 Main Street, Suite 500, Cambridge Center,
Cambridge, MA 02142, U.S.A.

Re-posting of the content of this journal is prohibited without permission
of Leonardo/ISAST, except for the posting of news and events listings that
have been independently received. Leonardo/ISAST and the MIT Press give
institutions permission to offer access to LEA within the organization
through such resources as restricted local gopher and mosaic services. Open
access to other individuals and organizations is not permitted.

________________________________________________________________

< Ordering Information >

Leonardo Electronic Almanac is a free supplement to subscribers of Leonardo
and Leonardo Music Journal.

To subscribe to Leonardo, visit: <www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/leon>

To subscribe to Leonardo Music Journal, visit: <
www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/LMJ>

For Leonardo and LMJ subscription queries contact:
journals-orders [at] mit [dot] edu

________________________________________________________________

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ADVERTISING * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
________________________________________________________________

Leonardo Electronic Almanac is published monthly -- individuals and
institutions interested in advertising in LEA, either in the distributed
text version or on the World Wide Web site should contact:

Leonardo - Advertising
211 Sutter St., suite 501
San Francisco, CA 94108

phone: (415) 391-1110
fax: (415) 391-2385
E-mail: kq [at] leonardo [dot] info
More Info: <leonardo.info/isast/placeads.html#LEAads>

________________________________________________________________

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
________________________________________________________________


LEA acknowledges with thanks the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations for their
support to Leonardo/ISAST and its projects.

________________________________________________________________

< End of Leonardo Electronic Almanac 15:2-3 >
________________________________________________________________

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