From nisarh at keshvani.com Wed Jul 7 20:12:45 2004 From: nisarh at keshvani.com (nisar keshvani) Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 19:12:45 -0500 Subject: [LEAuthors] Leonardo Electronic Almanac vol 12 no 7 July 2004 Message-ID: <200407071912.AA43254064@keshvani.com> ________________________________________________________________ / ____ / / /\ / /-- /__\ /______/____ / \ ________________________________________________________________ Leonardo Electronic Almanac volume 12, number 7, July 2004 http://lea.mit.edu ________________________________________________________________ ISSN #1071-4391 ____________ | | | CONTENTS | |____________| ________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION ------------ FEATURE ------- < Translation, Transcodification, Transmission: Erika Tan's *Pidgin: Interrupted Transmission*, by Janice Cheddie > LEONARDO REVIEWS ---------------- < Europe-Asia Contemporary Music Festival, reviewed by Alexandre A. Ovsyannikov > < HYLE: International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry, reviewed by Rob Harle > < Luchino Visconti, reviewed by Andrea Dahlberg > LEONARDO JOURNAL ---------------- < LEONARDO selected abstracts - Vol. 37, No. 4 (August 2004) > LEONARDO COLLABORATION ANNOUNCEMENT ----------------------------------- < ISEA 2004 > ISAST NEWS ---------- < Leonardo/ISAST new address > < Pacific Rim New Media Summit: A pre-symposium program of ISEA 2006 > < Leonardo and Harvestworks event collaboration > < Leonardo/ISAST collaborates on 100th anniversary colloquium on Gregory Bateson > < Leonardo and Ours Foundation announce Virtual Vernissage of Spacearts Database > ________________________________________________________________ _______________ | | | INTRODUCTION | |_______________| ________________________________________________________________ In this month's issue of LEA, our feature article is by Janice Cheddie, who discusses "issues of cultural translation, digital media and notions of difference," using a work by U.K.-based artist Erika Tan as a basis for her exploration. Leonardo Reviews includes a review of the Europe-Asia Contemporary Music Festival in Kazan, Russia, by Alexandre A. Ovsyannikov; Rob Harle's review of a special issue of *HYLE: The International Journal for the Philosophy of Chemistry*; and Andrea Dahlberg's review of a new book on Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti. Elsewhere, we feature selected abstracts from the upcoming issue of Leonardo (Vol. 37, No. 4); an announcement and information on Leonardo's collaboration with ISEA2004, taking place in Finland, Estonia and the waters in-between; and the latest news on the activities of Leonardo/ISAST. ________________________________________________________________ ______________________________ | | | FEATURE | |______________________________| ________________________________________________________________ TRANSLATION, TRANSCODIFICATION, TRANSMISSION: ERIKA TAN'S *PIDGIN: INTERRUPTED TRANSMISSION* By Janice Cheddie, Research Fellow, Cross Cultural Contemporary Arts (AHRB), G.4 Laurie Grove Baths, Goldsmiths College, University of London, London SE14 6NW, U.K. j.cheddie at gold.ac.uk ABSTRACT "Translation, Transcodification, Transmission" seeks to open a discussion on the issues of cultural translation, digital media and notions of difference. It seeks to explore these issues through the discussion of shifts within contemporary international exhibition-making and UK-based artist Erika Tan's 2001 installation, *PIDGIN: Interrupted Transmission*. _____________________________ In the last decade, the scene of international exhibition- making has been marked by a number of shifts. First, the center- periphery binary of post-colonialism has been under critical scrutiny, leading to examinations of the structures and transformations of contemporary globalization [1]. Second, major international art exhibitions and many museums and institutions have been preoccupied with concepts of geographical circulation, migrations, diaspora etc., as conditions of the global subject and thus not exclusively the condition of the post-colonial subject [2]. Third, contemporary international exhibition- making, as a discursive practice, has been increasingly characterized by a re-mapping of the world as a series of peripheries that do not have a center. Fourth, this questioning of the center-periphery binary, within international curatorial practice, has been underpinned by the emergence of the transnational subject. Dan Cameron, senior curator at the New York New Museum and Director of Istanbul Biennale 2003, posits the concept of the artist as a global citizen. As a global citizen, Cameron argues, the artist is at the forefront of producing a creative practice informed by the processes of globalization, travel and migration [3]. One of the most influential texts on globalization in relationship to notions of the cultural imagination and difference has been Arun Appadurai's *Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Global Modernity* [4]. Within Appadurai's analysis, the transnational imaginary is one that is produced within the intersections of mass migration and electronic media. As with mediation, so with motion. The story of mass migrations (voluntary and forced) is hardly a new feature of human history. But when it is juxtaposed with the rapid flow of mass-mediated images, scripts and sensations, we have a new order of instability in the production of modern subjectivities. As Turkish guest workers in Germany watch Turkish films in their German flats, as Koreans in Philadelphia watch the 1988 Olympics in Seoul through satellite feeds from Korea, and as Pakistan cab drivers in Chicago listen to cassettes of sermons recorded in mosques in Pakistan or Iran, we see moving images meet de- territorialized viewers. These create diasporic public spheres, phenomena that confound theories that depend on the continued salience of the nation-state as the key arbiter of social changes. In this sense, both persons and images often meet unpredictably, outside the certainties of home and the cordon sanitaire of local and national media effects. This mobile and unforeseeable relationship between mass-mediated events and migratory audiences define the core link between globalization and the modern [5]. While it can be argued that Appadurai's text is widely cited within visual culture [6], there is very little theoretical work that has sought to closely examine digital artists' work within the context of the wider shifts and processes of globalization and difference. The theoretical focus within discussions of cultural difference, globalization and visual culture, to date, has been largely on the discursive content of the work. My own area of theoretical interest in Appadurai's text is the conjuncture between visual culture, globalization and the construction of the visual imaginary. In my desire to examine these issues, I have sought to link Appadurai's text with the international space of visual culture, through the work of Sarat Maharaj on cultural translation. Maharaj has characterized the international space of contemporary visual culture as the "scene of translations": "Beyond the demand for assimilation, beyond absolutist notions of difference and identity, beyond the reversible stances of 'self and other' in which the Euro-centric gaze fashions itself . . . in the 1990s we have come to see the international space as the meeting ground for a multiplicity of tongues, visual grammars and styles. These do not so much translate into one another as translate to produce difference [7]." Within my theoretical positioning, I am seeking to position cultural translation as a series of digitally mediated processes. It is beyond the scope of this essay to discuss in detail the complex issues of globalization, trans-national subjectivity. My main focus, within this essay, is a narrow one, in that it seeks to open a discussion on the issue of translation, digital media and notions of difference. Furthermore, my essay seeks to open the discussion of these issues through the discussion of one artist, Erika Tan, and a single installation - *PIDGIN: Interrupted Transmission (2001)*. I have focused on Tan's installation because it allows for a detailed reading of the networks and circulations of digital media, difference and translation. Erika Tan, artist and curator, was born in Singapore in 1967. Tan studied social anthropology and archaeology at Kings' College, Cambridge, and Film Directing at the Beijing Film Academy before completing her MA in Fine Art at Central St. Martins', London. Tan has been exhibiting as a visual artist since 1994 and her body of work includes photographs, videos, websites and multi-media installations and has been included in a number of major U.K. and international exhibitions [8]. At a recent conference presentation [9], Maharaj introduced the notion of "pidgin" as a key term in understanding his "scenes of translation". Maharaj, through a series of visual devices, positions "pidgin" as a vehicle for communication derived from particular contexts and local conditions. Through this positioning, he argues that "pidgin" is not a "mother-tongue" language, but rather a meeting ground for cultural exchange and contact. It is in this sense that Maharaj asserts that within pidgin there are no native speakers. The importance of pidgin, for Maharaj, is that as an amalgamation of languages pidgin breaks the link between language, authenticity, origin, culture and belonging. Tan's *PIDGIN: Interrupted Transmission* (2001) presents the audience with modes of digital, cultural and linguistic translation as a series of interplays between the visual, sonic, textual and computer realms. My central concern here is to explore the complex processes of cultural translation within contemporary media, through theorizations of transcodings and transmissions as discursive, cultural, visual and technical concepts. It is through these theoretical frameworks that I am seeking to position Tan's installation as an intersection between contemporary visual culture, technology and cultural translation. PIDGIN: AS GALLERY SITE When installed within the gallery space, *PIDGIN* is comprised of two large projection screens that are placed opposite each other at either end of the gallery, each one home to a parallel stream of images and icons. At times, the content on one screen seems echoed or mimicked by that of the other. This interplay is actually very precisely synchronized and is mediated by the presence of a third element (a computer control-system called Smartpax, running the software program Trax) [10]. On this third monitor screen, positioned on a desk next to a book of research documents, clusters of digital data drift by (corresponding to the image-sequences on the different projectors), each cluster accompanied by the traces of the underlying computer code as well as by textual annotations. As part of the installation, Tan translates four texts from written English to various phonetic translations [11]. *PIDGIN* seeks to explore the relationship between these "translated texts" and the interplay between the visual sonic and machine realms of the installation. In doing so, Tan seeks to draw the audience into a series of complex and questioning relationships, with the differing realms of contemporary translation. Within contemporary culture, translation is largely focused on the written and spoken word. However, *PIDGIN* introduces other forms of translation into the installation, such as the notion of translation as sonic, visual and technological processes. Tan writes: "Pidgin/*PIDGIN* is a form of broken transmission. What came very quickly with this piece were the ideas associated with the term 'pidgin', which also linked up with the Dataton's SMARTPAX technology, which I have used to create the work. The SMARTPAX hardware and TRAX software control different devices, so it is a way that different devices can communicate with each other. In *PIDGIN*, SMARTPAX connects two DVD players and a CD player, switching each one on and off, locating specific sections within a disk to create a dialogue with the different elements of the work. That corresponds to the idea of *PIDGIN* and communication via a linguistic code or language. Although the SMARTPAX technology is sophisticated, it can't make a seamless jump from one bit of footage to another on the DVD. It takes a couple of seconds to 'locate' and 'trigger' the next bit of footage. As it jumps, there is a break in transmission - this has informed how the work has been created and how it has been edited [12]." TRANSCODING In my analysis of *PIDGIN*, I am seeking to utilize the term "transcoding", as a discursive term to analyze the relationship between cultural translation and globalization. The concept of transcoding has been used as a technical and discursive term in relationship to debates concerning the development and use of digital media. For Lev Manovich [13], transcoding is not only the translation from analogue to digital code, but a wider process involving a cultural re-conceptualization derived from computer-based ontology, epistemology and pragmatics. Within the construction of the cyborg, Donna Haraway positions the term transcoding as signifying a key process in the construction of new technological subjectivities [14]. Within cultural and critical theory, the term has been used as a discursive term in relationship to the analysis of cultural change and cultural memory [15]. In *PIDGIN*, we witness the movement of the concept of transcoding/translation from notions of a correspondence of meaning to an exploration of the various modes of translation/transcodings as ongoing and mutating processes. In this movement, Tan seeks to incorporate into our understanding the translation human/machine/sonic/visual codes and structures, a conceptual maneuver that stresses the production of cultural forms dislocated from their individual or discernible points of "origin". Thus, Tan's installation both predates and echoes Maharaj's assertion of pidgin as a language where there are no native-speakers. The importance for cultural translation is the removal of the notion of origin. Within Haraway's construction of the cyborg, the term "transcoding" challenges the ontological and epistemological sites of origin within Western culture. In positioning, "pidgin" as a language formed within the contemporary scene of cultural translation, informed and produced within the structures and processes of contemporary digital media, Tan opens up new avenues to explore the intersection between cultural translation and technology. In putting forward the notion of translation/transcoding in relationship to cultural difference, I am not invoking Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a minor language [16]. Rather, I am putting forward the relationship between globalization, digital media and visual culture as a powerful discursive force that is operating throughout our understandings of contemporary visual culture and difference. The focus here is to begin a discussion on the ways in which technology and its dissemination of visual culture and cultural difference is explored and embedded within the processes of technology. It is in this sense that the various processes of transcoding of visual culture within the domains of electronic media cannot be theorized with the Deleuzian concepts of a "minor language." TRANSLATION/TRANSCODINGS/CREOLIZATION It is this interchange between the two concepts of pidgin as a system of communication and as a contact language between human and technological forms that are played out within *PIDGIN* [17]. This linkage between technology and new cultural forms is further emphasized within Tan's playful suggestion that languages emerging within the use of SMS ("texting") can be located as a new form of pidgin/Creole. Tan argues in the exhibition text that there is no distinction between notions of pidgin and Creole but rather that these distinctions are academic territorial boundaries, not profoundly differing epistemological or ontological approaches. Furthermore, Tan "un-homes" the concept of pidgin/Creole. (This, of course, is a pun - within the installation itself an image is repeatedly shown of the release of homing pigeons from their cages and the image of pigeons as carriers of diseases and communications). Tan's process of the un-homing of *PIDGIN* is the removal from its linguistic/literary/regional/historical framings of pidgin/creole into wider discussions. Tan's installation seeks to draw the audience's attention to the emergent new languages between the visual/textual/sonic/computer and discursive realms. In mobilizing the concept of "pidgin" in relationship to the emergence of a new cultural landscape, it is possible to link the process of creolization, as proposed within the installation, as a contemporary experience of modernity [18]. Tan's work further shifts the processes of creolization as contemporary experience by linking these processes - through the installation's translated texts, computer code and the enactment of the game "Chinese Whispers" to wider issues of translation, technology and transmission. At the heart of this concept of "creolization" lies a translation and the transcodings of the "everyday" into a new cultural environment and encounters - the emphasis is not on literary transformation, but on mass cultural transactions [19]. Thus, the focus of our notions of "translation" within the contemporary moment has to be the transcoding of cultural difference within the visual, rather than a focus on "formal" literary or textual, transmissions of contemporary electronic media. INTERRUPTIONS *PIDGIN* further opens up a way to investigate the level of intervention within contemporary visual culture, technology and difference, embedded within the processes of the work and not simply at the level of content. Central to Tan's installation, in its fabrication and its editing, is the ways in which computer software produces a series of gaps and interruptions within the image and its transmission. Tan utilizes the gaps and interruptions embedded within computer software as it seeks to move between the differing devices used to fabricate the installation. In utilizing these gaps, Tan suggests that notions of degradation and interference frame the contemporary experience of technology as it moves through various technological translations [20]. These gaps, interruptions in the transmission, form part of the audience's encounter with the installation and are woven throughout *PIDGIN* to explore differing translations of meaning. Within *PIDGIN* these gaps and interruptions produce moments of temporal disruptions and incoherence, partly the product of the inability of the technology to produce seamless operations: but also through Tan breaking the association with the popular imaginary of technology as a means of "speeding up" instant communication and processing. Tan further inflects the notion of technological temporality as a marker of recorded time and electronic traces, through her manipulation of the timeline within the installation. In *PIDGIN*, Tan's time line presents the viewer with idea that the installation has a technologically driven structure and linearity, but this in fact is false. In the installation, Tan presents us with a constructed time-line, a fake timeline, which does not factually show the moments when things are being triggered, thus disguising the time delay between the "representation of action" and "real action". These gaps are temporal moments within the installation, opening up the encounter with the work as engagements with the differing notions of temporality. The installation presents us with diverse notions of temporality - temporality as a technologically measured device; temporality as technologically recorded time; temporality as a lived experience moment within the duration of the installation. Thus, within Tan's work we see the ways that technology, as a discursive network, constructs, circulates and disrupts its own modes of production. *PIDGIN*, in mapping out a discursive field between the human, machine and the ways that it operates within the realm of textual information and technological networks, seeks to explore the temporal processes and disruptions embedded within contemporary digital networks [21]. Thus, the work incorporates the idea within the production of a notion of temporal disruption, presenting us with a slowing down process. In slowing down, it is possible to read Tan's process as one that seeks to incorporate within the installation's visual, temporal and sonic productions the philosophical concept of duration [22]. It is duration, as lived experience of temporality and subjectivity, that produces a deficit of transmitted information. *PIDGIN* asks the installation audience to experience gaps, slippages and loss of meaning between the visual image and audio as part of the artist's process-based mode of production. This invites the audience to focus on the three-way relationship between the viewer, the physical space and the transcoding within computer-based processes. Within this triad, Tan has sought to open up the spaces of artistic intervention, seeking to create a lacuna that incorporates moments of duration and possible incoherence. These constructed and conceptual spaces do not necessarily demand understanding on a linguistic or discursive level. Within the installation, the gap can be read as devices that invoke threshold, temporal and physical spaces, that create the possibility for mis-understanding and mis-translations, and improvisation. This triad is embedded with the structure, production and completion of the installation - through the utilization of the slippages and gaps with the software devices - as part of the structure of the audience's encounter with the piece. *PIDGIN* does not present a coherent structure of meaning within the visual image produced, but a work whose meaning is also embedded within the technological construction and distribution of the work. Tan's engagement with the technological rendering of the work also informs part of the audience's encounter with the installation's explorations of the discursive and technical concepts of interrupted transmissions. *PIDGIN* thus constructs a discursive field through which networks of meaning are mediated through the human cultural and machine code. Tan's work also opens up a dialogue concerning the ways in which the circulation of contemporary cultural difference is mediated through these slippages and interruptions in transmission, circulations of cultural difference which move across and through discursive spaces. It is through these modes of distribution that cultural difference acquires transformations of meaning. "BROKEN TELEPHONE/CHINESE WHISPERS": TRANSMISSIONS "Broken Telephone/Chinese Whispers" forms a central motif within Tan's installation. A playful device that alludes to Tan's own mixed English and Chinese heritage, "Broken Telephone/Chinese Whispers" enters into a dialogue with the relationship between "transmission/translation" and points them to ways in which messages are relayed and progressively distorted through successive iterations. "Broken Telephone/Chinese Whispers" invokes concepts of transmission in three complex ways: transmission as a formal process that can situate objects and bodies in inharmonic, noisy and terrestrial relations without consuming their autonomy [23]. Central to the game of Chinese Whispers is the construction of the listening subject within the game, where the participants are often stripped of the visual clues of communication. In place of these, the game enacts modes of proximity, spatial awareness and distortion, asking the audience to reflect on the multifarious ways in which transmissions takes place. Tan further links this piece to issues concerning technology by forming a network of people that suggests a linking of communicating devices such as the telephone, as the production of incomplete and fractured processes through poor reception, transmission and interference. *PIDGIN* positions transmission as a cultural product and process, as suggested by Walter Benjamin in his analysis of Kafka [24]. In this text, Benjamin puts forward the notion of transmission as a process that locates a distinction between the notions of truth and how meanings and productions of everyday cultural values are explored. In this way, cultural difference within the processes of electronic distribution is conducted through the textures and sonic realms of the electronic screen. These textural and sonic structures communicate difference within modes of "contamination." As a critical term, "contamination" has been located as a state of being where we cannot know what an "authentic" state of existence is [25], thus signaling the beginning of a productive state of cultural exchange. In this way, Tan returns us to a discursive notion of creolization as the loss of the moment or point of origin or authenticity. Thus contamination, degradation, incoherence and interference are enacted with the installation's game of Broken Telephone/Chinese Whispers. Within common usage of the term "Chinese whispers," an alternative and troubling aspect of transmission is evoked - modes of transmission that produce alternative structures and networks of knowledge and understanding, like Benjamin's concept of transmission. Within "Chinese Whispers" the object of truth may have been lost, but what is communicated are differing and competing networks for our understanding of truth and the lack of purity of any language. "Broken Telephone/Chinese Whispers" points to construction of listening, within the distribution of information, as a conscious, embodied act, rather an auditory function. Finally, in discussing transmission as a technical process, the game of Broken Telephone/Chinese Whispers evokes the game of Chinese Whispers to shift our focus away from concepts of authenticity and truth to locations of the transmissibility of culture. Here is the dislocation of the "concept" of Chinese whispers as transmission of culture of the "other" but an exploration of the pleasure and ritual of human communication. The gaps and interruptions produced within the transmissions of the relayed message are informed and mirrored by the computer software that carries other forms of code. If one follows Tan's use of *PIDGIN* as a contact language, a theorization whereby Tan embeds the notion of a contact language within human and technological interactions, these contact languages for Tan, through SMS and other devices, are acts of improvisation that visually and sonically create the space in which culture is transmitted and interacted with. Rather than "making do," these acts of improvisation call for a deep affinity of the structural tones of nuances of the languages. As such, these acts can be read as acts of translation that produce not a correspondence of meaning but rather a working besides and within the various human and technological languages. These languages, within their processes of improvisation, construct the terrain upon which the processes of interaction take place. This is the space that Tan has so gracefully sought to explore. _____________________________ REFERENCES AND NOTES 1. See, for example, Documenta 10 (Kassel, Germany 1997); Johannesburg Biennale, "Trade Routes" (South Africa, 1998); Sao Paulo Biennale, "Anthograppia," (Brazil); Venice Biennale, "Apertutti," (Venice, Italy, 1999); Documenta 11 (Kassel, Germany, 2002), 50th Venice Biennale, "Dreams and Conflicts: The Dictatorship of the Viewer" (Italy, 2003). 2. See "Cities on the Move" (Hayward Gallery, London); "Century City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis" (Tate Modern, London, 2001); and "Short Century" (Chicago, 2002). 3. See "Justice Deferred," by Dan Cameron, Istanbul Biennale "Poetic Justice" Catalog (Turkey, 2003). 4. A. Appadurai, *Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Global Modernity* (Minneapolis, MI: University of Minnesota Press, 1998). 5. In regard to this, see Appadurai [4] p.4, and Manuel Castells, *The Rise of the Network Society, Volume 1, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (Oxford, U.K.: Black Publishers, 1996). 6. See Okwui Enwezor, "Mega-Exhibitions and the Antinomies of a Transnational Global Form," in *Manifesta Journal: Journal of Contemporary Curatorship* (Ljublana, Slovenia: 2004). 7. Sarat Maharaj, ed. Jean Fisher, "Perfidious Fidelity: The Untranslatability of the Other," in *Global Visions: Towards a New Internationalism in the Visual Arts (Kala Press: London, 1994) p. 28. 8. Tan's exhibitions include "Cities on the Move," Hayward Gallery, London, 1999; "Slipstream," Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 2001; "Sites of Construction," CAS Gallery, Osaka, Japan, 2000; East International Norwich Art Gallery, U.K.; "JUNCTURE," Cape Town, South Africa, 2000; "Incommunicado," U.K. National Touring Exhibition, Hayward Gallery, London U.K., 2003- 2004. 9. "Middle England," Exeter, U.K., 30 April - 1 May, 2004.] 10. See www.dataton.com for more information on SMARTPAX. 11. These texts are Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, *Manifesto of the Communist Party*; McKenzie Wark, *All that is Solid Melts into Airwaves*; Translation-Lingua Vision: www.linguavision.com/translat.htm ; and *Genesis* 11:1-9. 12. Erika Tan, *PIDGIN: Interrupted Transmission*, exhibition catalog (Film and Video Umbrella, London: 2001). 13. Lev Manovich, *The Language of New Media* (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press: 2001). 14. Donna Haraway, "A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s," in the *Haraway Reader* (Routledge, London and New York: 2004). 15. See Fredric Jameson, *The Political Unconscious as a Socially Symbolic Act (Methuen, London: 1981) and Paul Gilroy, *Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness* (Verso, London: 1992). 16. See Deleuze and Guattari, *Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature* (Minnesota University Press, Minneapolis, MN: 1986). 17. I borrow the term "contact language" from the anthropologist Mary Louise Pratt, in *Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation* (Routledge, London and New York: 1992); in relationship to digital culture, see the exhibition "Contact Zones: Art of the CD-ROM," curated by Timothy Murray. 18. See ?douard Glissant, *Poetics of Relation* (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press); in relationship to visual culture, see Enwezor et al, eds., "Cr?olit? and Creolization," at Documenta 11, Platform 3, Hatje Cantz, 2003. 19. For discussion of these issues in relationship to cinema, see Rey Chow *Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality and Ethnography* (Columbia University Press, New York, NY: 1995). 20. See L. Manovich [13]. 21. For the importance of multiple temporalities within notions of the trans-national and the role of global communications, see: Roger Rouse, "Thinking Through Transnationalism: Notes on the Cultural Politics of Class Relations in the Contemporary United States," in *Public Culture*, No. 7 (1995) 353-402. 22. In relationship to film and difference, see Laura U. Marks, *The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment and the Senses* (Duke University Press, Durham, NC: 2000). 23. See Douglas Kahn, Ed., Introduction, *Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio and the Avant-Garde,* (MIT University Press, Cambridge, MA and London: 1992) p. 20. 24. Walter Benjamin, "Some Reflections on Kafka," in *Illuminations* (Schocken Books, New York, NY: 1969). 25. Jean Fisher, "Some Thoughts on Contamination," in *Vampire in the Text: Narratives of Contemporary Art* (InIVA, London, 2003) p. 252. MANUSCRIPT RECEIVED 27 FEBRUARY 2004 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Janice Cheddie is a writer and researcher on visual culture based in the Cross-Cultural Contemporary Arts Research Project (Arts and Humanities Research Council), Goldsmiths College, University of London, London, U.K. ________________________________________________________________ _________________________________ | | | LEONARDO REVIEWS | | 2004.07 | |_________________________________| ________________________________________________________________ This month, Leonardo Reviews is delighted to carry one of our occasional reviews from our colleagues in Russia. This report by Alexandre A. Ovsyannikov was translated by L. Komissarova and edited for publication here by Dene Grigar's team. His report of *The Europe-Asia Contemporary Music Festival* suggests that the event epitomized some of our editorial ambition, drawing art, science and geopolitical histories into a single agenda. Also featured here this month is Rob Harle's review of a fascinating nexus of art and science as it appears in *HYLE: International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry.* In this special edition, art and chemistry form the main focus of attention and, by all accounts, it is a fascinating and worthwhile intellectual venture. Finally, in a rather more mainstream fusion of the arts and sciences (and technology), Geoffrey Nowell-Smith's revised and updated book on Luchino Visconti comes under the scrutiny of a relative newcomer to the panel, Andrea Dahlberg. Elsewhere in this month's reviews, Amy Ione, Robert Pepperell and Roy Behrens are joined by Dene Grigar, Michael R. Mosher, Dennis Dollens and one of our newest reviewers, John Knight. All their reviews can be read on line at: http://leonardoreviews.mit.edu We hope that you enjoy them. Michael Punt Editor-in-Chief Leonardo Reviews _____________________________ EUROPE-ASIA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL Karzan, Russia, April 2004 Reviewed by Alexandre A. Ovsyannikov; review translated by L. Komissarova At a distance of 800 kilometers from Moscow, on the Volga River, lies the city of Kazan. The fates of many famous people who contributed much to world science and art are connected with this city: the mathematician N. Lobachevsky, the writer M. Gorky, the singer F. Shalyapin, the ballet-dancer R. Nureyev, the composer S. Gubaidulina and others. In 2005, Kazan celebrates its millennium under the patronage of Russian President V. V. Putin. What does the capital of Tatarstan look like now on the world cultural map? Our region is a meeting place of great civilizations - East and West, Europe and Asia. The problem of mutual understanding of these poles has been discussed in the world at all levels for a long time. Kazan has brought its contribution to this process by the establishment of an international musical forum called "Europe-Asia" that reflects the idea of spiritual communication of its different peoples and traditions. Held this spring for the sixth time, the event is as popular as the Shalyapin opera singers festival and the Nureyev ballet dancers' festival, regularly held in Kazan. The Europe-Asia Contemporary Music Festival started in 1993. Festival events took place not only in Kazan, but also in other cities of the Tatarstan Republic - Naberezhni Chelni (1993, 1996), Almetyevsk (1998), Nizhnekamsk (2000, 2002), Bugulma (2002) and Zelenodolsk (2000, 2002, 2004) - giving a view of new art to many people. Composers and performers from almost 30 countries have taken part in Euroasian music dialogue during these years, and music of Tatar authors has joined in the world art process. The guests of the festival were composers and performers of contemporary, professional vocal, instrumental and traditional music, as well as those who experiment in the sphere of electronic sounds and multimedia devices, non-traditional instruments and new forms of performance. The fact that the phenomenon of New Music - which originally addressed rather "advanced" connoisseurs of art - has won a broader audience denotes a gradual disappearance of conservative views toward music. Otherwise, many of these musical exercises, which were performed sometimes with the aid of exotic ancient drums, sometimes with the latest models of computers, would scarcely gather many sympathetic listeners. A preliminary musical education of the audience has been conducted by the chief founder and constant participant of the International Festival of Contemporary Music Europe-Asia in Kazan, Chairman of the Union of composers, Chairman of Tatarstan section ISCM in the Russian Federation - R. F. Kalimullin and his team. The festival program included numerous discussions, lectures on problems of multimedia and modern composers' practice, excursions to the Kazan studio of light-music "Prometheus," to the exhibitions of avant-garde art. One of these picturesque expositions - "Children Draw Music of Sofiya Gubaidulina" - was presented to the city by the studio "Prometheus" and at the moment is being held in the Kazan Centre of contemporary music of S. Gubaidulina, which was opened in 2001 in honor of the seventieth birthday of the outstanding composer. The Centre is one of the organizers of the festival this year, together with the Ministry of Culture and the Union of Composers of the Tatarstan Republic. On a level with traditional, contemporary vocal and instrumental music, a special program of electro- acoustic and interactive compositions was performed at the sixth festival. "Termen-Centre" also demonstrated its art. This center was founded on the base of Moscow Conservatoire in 1992 and named in honor of the famous inventor L. S. Termen. Director of the Centre A. Smirnov and the soloist D. Kalinin performed an interactive concert for the Japanese flute (syakuhati) and spatial termen-sensors, using the computer program MAX/MSP. Also the opus "Immatra," by a young, talented Kazan composer, Radick Salimov, was "sounded." His work was favorably received by the audience, who responded to a refined facture of a musical exposition in a counterpoint with choreography and video- projection images. The final chord of the festival was a philosophical-lyrical show, "Items from the Red Book," by composer Alexander Bakshi. Its plot addresses the purpose of the Euroasian musical forum. As the authors of this work say: "There is an idea in the air, to compile the Red Book of Peoples. In spite of wars, catastrophes and terrorist acts, the world's population is growing, but the number of nationalities is becoming smaller in number. It is not that people are dying out, but cultures they belong to are. The archival records of folk music created by Selcups and Crimchaks [small nationalities who once lived in Russia] are heard in our performance. Few people know about them. The native bearers of traditions have nearly vanished. But there is another interesting point - approximately at the same time when these nationalities began to die out, something wrong started to happen to great cultures of the West. Suddenly they began to talk about crisis, death of the Author, about the end of Modern epoch . . . . " The scenarist and the artist both were involved in what one of the subtitles of the performance called "[t]he game of imagination for the pianist and six characters." The video- projections of still and dynamic images of texts, pictures and portraits created a counterpoint in the actors' acting. A vacuum cleaner, electric furnace, electric drill, children's balls and live parrots comprised the arsenal used by the actors to build the complex and ambiguous scenic imagery, growing as a lump of snow to the final part. The spectacle started with kaleidoscopic episodes involving such characters as a virtuoso cellist, a musician with a hurdy-gurdy, a shrill-voiced Punch disturbing the pianist (A. Lyubimov) to play his etudes, a yard-keeper with a broom, grumbling "I'm bored with you walking up and down," and a singing female ballet-dancer. And then, all of a sudden, they gave way to portraits of J. Bach, A. Chekhov and G. Ulanova. The final words, taken from Chekhov's *Cherry Orchard*, produced directly, with no allusion, a melancholy feeling of the elapsing beauty - the disappearance of cultures, which, like Chekhov's *Cherry Orchard,* are on the verge of destruction now. The touched and enthusiastic public didn't let the authors and actors leave the stage for a long time and all the spectators took away hope that nobody else will ever be enlisted in "The Red Book." We hope that the Europe-Asia Contemporary Music Festival, which takes place in the centre of the original Russian region, where the Islamic and Orthodox Churches are in close proximity and where the unique communities of Turks, Slavs, Jews, and people of other national cultures exist, will bring to Kazan jubilee concerts in 2005 with even more admirers of modern art from all over the world. _____________________________ HYLE: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR PHILOSOPHY OF CHEMISTRY Special Issue: Aesthetics and Visualization in Chemistry, edited by Tami I. Spector and Joachim Schummer, HYLE Publications / University of Karlsruhe, Institute of Philosophy, Karlsruhe, Germany, Vols. 9.1 and 9.2, 2003. 243 pp., illus. b/w. $28.00 per issue for individuals. Includes "Chemistry in Art: A Virtual Exhibition" on CD-ROM. Available online at: http://www.hyle.org/journal/issues.htm. ISSN: 1433-5158. Reviewed by Rob Harle, Southern Cross University, Australia recluse at lis.net.au This issue of *HYLE* is an exciting and bold attempt to not only explore the relationship of chemistry to art but, by extension, to address the current contemporary art/science liaison in some detail. I recommend this special issue as essential reading for *Leonardo* members and subscribers because it raises important questions regarding *Leonardo*'s fundamental project and raison d'?tre. The journal is divided into two sections. The first comprises six scholarly essays, discussing aesthetics and visualization in chemistry. These are followed by book reviews and reports. The second section has four essays, a very interesting and important dialogue (between a chemist and arts critic/curator), and a CD- ROM containing a virtual art exhibition, *Chemistry In Art*, the art works being specifically commissioned for this issue. There are a number of fundamental questions involved in the current art/science liaison that as yet seem not to have been satisfactorily addressed. The most important of these are: (a) What is the difference between science and technology? (b) At what level do artistic works created from a liaison with science become "art" rather than simply process diagrams, models and documentation of science processes? As Spalding says, "I did not want to see sculptures of giant beakers [in regard to the commissioned art]" (p. 234). (c) In the liaison, artist and scientist must be equal partners - how can this possibly be achieved? All the essays except one are written by chemists or philosophers, the exception being an essay by James Elkins, an art theorist and historian. There are no essays by artists! Is this glaring omission because chemistry and philosophers believe artists make art and do not (or cannot) seriously discuss theoretical issues? The editors/curators asked the artists to provide "a brief text in their art projects" (p. 228). This is not the same thing as a theoretical discourse about the "intersections of art and chemistry" by the artists. The knowledge of what constitutes art is rather limited in most of the essays. Quite often, reference is limited solely to drawing or painting. Understandably, perhaps - why should a chemist know any more about art than an artist knows about chemistry? This point highlights question (c) above, in severe terms. These are the sorts of issues that this journal raises, if we read it closely from a critical perspective. This is not to say that the essays in *HYLE* are of little value; on the contrary, they are extremely interesting as well as scholarly and discuss "visualization" in the past and contemporary "world of chemistry." However, we need more if we are to develop a true symbiotic relationship between science and art. This symbiosis will mean crossing Wittgenstein's notion of each discipline's specific "language game" barrier. The final entry in the journal, "Between Chemistry and Art: A Dialogue," is a very open discussion between one of the editors Tami Spector and the art curator/critic David Spalding. This discussion does address some of the issues I raised above and does not tend towards the insularism of the earlier essays. Spector, to her credit, indicates that she has learnt much about art from her involvement in this project. This provides a clue to possible answers to some of the questions regarding the liaison of art and science. That is, both artists and scientists have to do some serious learning about each other's practices, philosophies and methodologies. The artworks on the CD-ROM virtual exhibition - which includes images, installations and sculptures - are quite stunning, some strangely beautiful, some created specifically from scientific chemical processes and some commenting upon chemistry's cultural and social impact. I will not attempt to describe these works. The colors and forms in L. E. Last's images, for example, cannot be adequately captured with words. Readers will have to purchase the journal and view the virtual exhibition themselves - they will not be disappointed. Repeating my opening remarks, this is an important issue of the *HYLE* journal for all interested in the liaison between art and science generally, and art and chemistry specifically. I hope it will spawn further heated debate in this exciting and almost limitless enterprise. _____________________________ LUCHINO VISCONTI by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, London, UK: BFI Publishing, 2003, 250 pp., illus. Trade, ?48.00; paper, ?13.99. ISBN: 0-85170-960-5; ISBN: 0-85170-961-3. Reviewed by Andrea Dahlberg, 9 Belvedere Road, London SE1 8YW, U.K. andrea.dahlberg at bakernet.com 2003 was the year filmmaker Luchino Visconti made a major resurgence in the English-speaking world. New versions of *The Leopard* and *Death in Venice* were released and more Visconti films were released on DVD; in the United Kingdom, a major retrospective of Visconti's films toured the country and the British Film Institute published a new edition of Geoffrey Nowell-Smith's monograph on Visconti. This book was originally published while Visconti was still alive and working in 1967 and was updated in 1973 to include three films he made in the intervening years. At this time, it was probably the leading work in the English language on the Italian director and was known in particular for proposing a variant of auteur theory to the effect that a film director could produce a coherent, recognizable body of work without being conscious of all those characteristics that marked out and defined his work. In the 2003 edition of the book, Nowell-Smith adds a new preface and an excellent retrospective essay but leaves the body of the text as it was in 1967 and 1973. Regrettably, few additional studies of Visconti have since been published in English and any serious study of this director must still rely on Italian and French sources. It is a pity, therefore, that Nowell-Smith did not take this opportunity to completely rewrite the book for a new readership of film studies students and serious readers interested in this complex and contradictory director. As he explains in the preface, because the bulk of the text was written before film studies had developed and flourished as a subject there is, apart from putting forward a variant on auteur theory, nothing of a theoretical nature in it. The monograph was intended for an "educated general reader." Such a person seems not to be much interested in film theory but understands, without further elaboration, statements such as a description of *Death in Venice* as "the film in which Visconti reaches the culminating point of his identification with the Hegelian Geist." This educated reader is also someone who has a reasonable grasp of Italian history. The analyses of Visconti's films are rather too narrow by today's standards, and there is almost no consideration of the processes leading to the making of the films, of the other people involved in their making and their meaning and reception by particular audiences. There are complaints about several censored versions of English releases of films, such as *Rocco and His Brothers*, that are now outdated as full versions are now available to English-speaking audiences. The retrospective, written in 2002, is a fascinating attempt to give an overview of Visconti's films, to identify what characterizes them and to critically assess them from today's perspective. Nowell-Smith argues that the inheritors of European art cinema of the 1960s are Coppola, Scorsese, Woody Allen and Jim Jarmusch. He considers the significance of Visconti's homosexuality as evidenced in his films and against the background of denial at the time they were made. But it is his argument that what truly distinguishes Visconti as a film director is his understanding and interpretation of the Marxism of Gramsci and Lukacs and his own construction of a theory of history evident in all his films that is most impressive. It seems that Visconti has suffered from the inability of commentators to characterize his work as neo-realist, melodramatic or operatic or unify them under the heading of some other genre. Visconti is too complex for easy characterizations, but Nowell-Smith makes an original and fascinating case for a unique theory of history as the unifying theme present in the diverse range of his works. The monograph includes a select bibliography, full filmography, and list of Visconti's theater and opera stagings. Despite the dated qualities of the body of the text, it is still probably the leading text on Visconti's films in the English language. ________________________________________________________________ _________________________________ | | | LEONARDO JOURNAL | |_________________________________| ________________________________________________________________ LEONARDO, VOL. 37, NO. 4 (AUGUST 2004) - SELECTED ABSTRACTS ARTISTS' STATEMENTS ------------------- ART IN THE SPACE AGE: EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OUTER SPACE AND EARTH SPACE by Takuro Osaka t-osaka at dd.catv.ne.jp The author's interest in Space Art has taken several forms, including project proposals for the effective use of the International Space Station, research on the theme of the possibility of art in outer space, and conducting interviews with astronauts. He has also performed experiments in a microgravity environment generated by parabolic flight. This article provides an account of his plans and the results of these experiments. _____________________________ RESEAU/RESONANCE: CONNECTIVE PROCESSES AND ARTISTIC PRACTICE by Andreas Broeckmann abroeck at transmediale.de Based on a paper presented at the Artmedia VIII Symposium, > Aesthetics of Communication to Net Art," 29 November - 2 December 2002, Paris Most Internet art projects use the Net solely as a telematic and telecommunicative transmission medium that connects computers and servers and through which artists, performers and users exchange data, communicate and collaboratively create files and events. At the same time, however, some artists are exploring the electronic networks as specific socio-technical structures with their respective forms of social and machinic agency, in which people and machines interact in ways unique to this environment. The author discusses recent projects that use the Net as a performative space of social and aesthetic resonance in which notions of subjectivity, action and production are being articulated and reassessed. This text discusses the notion of "resonance" in order to think through these approaches to network-based art practices. _____________________________ MAPPING THE DATABASE: TRAJECTORIES AND PERSPECTIVES by Sharon Daniel and Karen O'Rourke Sharon Daniel - sdaniel at ucsc.edu Karen O'Rourke - korourke at free.fr Based on a paper presented at the Artmedia VIII Symposium, > Aesthetics of Communication to Net Art," 29 November - 2 December 2002, Paris The authors attempt to re-imagine classification systems as emergent systems - where names, categories and associated data structures arise from the bottom up through collective usage. Each has employed cartographic methodology as an interaction metaphor in the design of dynamic, evolving systems that allow participants to create and archive their own itineraries and maps on-line. These systems explore the aesthetic dimensions of the database. The authors have presented and tested prototypes of two developing systems, *Subtract the Sky* and *A Map Larger Than the Territory,* in a workshop/exhibition. This article provides a brief description of the premise and implementation of both projects. It concludes with some preliminary findings from the workshop/exhibition and the authors' shared research. _____________________________ ARTISTIC EXPERIMENTS ON TELEMATIC NETS: RECENT EXPERIMENTS IN MULTI-USER VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS IN BRAZIL by Gilbertto Prado gttoprado at uol.com.br ; Web: http://www.cap.eca.usp.br/wawrwt Based on a paper presented at the Artmedia VIII Symposium, > Aesthetics of Communication to Net Art," 29 November - 2 December 2002, Paris The author explores the transformation and derivations in the field of artistic experimentation on the Net. The article examines the accomplishments artists have made with the "new poetics" of the dynamic universe of telematic art, expressed in contemporary artistic production. The text introduces five distinctive projects in multi-user virtual environments that were recently produced in Brazil and then places the projects within the more general context of art on the Net. _____________________________ DAY-DREAMING STATES IN INTERFACED ENVIRONMENTS: TELEMATIC RITUALS IN *OUROBOROS* by Diana Domingues ddoming at ucs.br ; Web: http://artecno.ucs.br Based on a paper presented at ISEA 2002, 11th International Symposium on Electronic Art, Nagoya, Japan, 2 - 31 October 2002 The anthropological effects of cyberspace grant to the interfaced body a new capacity for attempting higher and more complex levels of interaction. The author's on-line project *Ouroboros* provides first and second interactivity. The web site explores the seamless condition of being a reptile in interaction with various environments as it evokes the symbolism of the great world serpent Ouroboros. The author proposes that interactive technologies return us to forms of communication similar to the rituals of primitive societies. Feedback and emergent behaviors effected through tele-immersion, remote action and self-organizations related to the lives of snakes are intended to provide the sensation of being in a daydreaming state. _____________________________ INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION IN DIGITAL MEDIA ARTS: A PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE PRODUCTION PROCESS by Brigitte Steinheider and George Legrady Brigitte Steinheider - bsteinheider at ou.edu George Legrady - legrady at arts.ucsb.edu Based on a paper presented at ISEA 2002, 11th International Symposium on Electronic Art, Nagoya, Japan, 2 - 31 October 2002 The complexity of digital media technologies requires artists to form teams of specialized experts integrating their contributions. Studies on interdisciplinary collaborations in organizational and scientific research-and-development teams have revealed that three processes - communication, coordination and knowledge-sharing - significantly influence their efficiency and effectiveness. This model was applied to an international and interdisciplinary digital media art production team to analyze the effects of team members' geographical dispersion, differing nationalities and heterogeneity of disciplines. The results are in accordance with previous studies of teams in corporate and scientific settings but also reveal differences between artistic and industrial product development processes. _____________________________ GENERAL ARTICLES ---------------- *Feel-in-Touch!*: Imagination through Vibration: A Utopia of Vibro-Acoustic Technology, Puppetry and Multimedia Art by Oguzhan Oezcan oguzhan at ozcan.info This article introduces a conceptual design for an interactive artwork called *Feel-in-Touch!* Its aim is to improve the use of imagination in artworks using abstract images in the formats of interactive media and vibro-tactile aids. New technologies can visually realize every surrealistic narration we can imagine, but these technologies limit our perceptions by presenting only one way of imagining, instead of multiple alternatives. This restricts creative thinking. Working from the above assumption, this article explores how to increase the degree of imagination in an interactive artwork. The author discusses problems of the imagination in art and interactive media and summarizes current research on vibro-tactile and vibro-acoustic applications. He then outlines *Feel-in-Touch!* and discusses the outputs of this conceptual design. _____________________________ CHIMERA CONTEMPORARY: THE ENDURING ART OF THE COMPOSITE BEAST by Dave Powell david.powell47 at knology.net The author examines the history of artists' depictions of fanciful organisms that are formed by combining parts of various species. Broadly tracing the progression of this pursuit from prehistory through the Ancient, Renaissance and Romantic Periods and up to the twentieth century and contemporary genetic art, the article analyzes the seemingly consistent effort to render these forms simultaneously non-threatening or vulnerable in attitude and visually realistic. The author asks whether this practice, which seems to stem from aesthetic concerns, is sufficiently critical in regards to current trends in genetic engineering. ________________________________________________________________ ______________________________ | | | LEONARDO COLLABORATION | | ANNOUNCEMENT | |______________________________| ________________________________________________________________ ISEA2004: YOUR CHANCE TO EXPERIENCE THE CUTTING-EDGE OF RESEARCH, TECHNOLOGY AND ELECTRONIC ARTS "The ISEA conference remains a premier venue that brings together the visual, performing arts and sounds arts professionals, but also the theorists, scientists and engineers that are involved in the emerging disciplines." - Roger Malina, executive editor, Leonardo ISEA2004 CRUISE: AUGUST 15-17 ISEA2004 TALLINN: AUGUST 17-19 ISEA2004 HELSINKI: AUGUST 19-22 The ISEA2004 Symposium (http://www.isea2004.net) creates the most exciting hub of new media technology, research and art this August in Helsinki, Tallinn and on the amazing cruiser ferry connecting these northern capitals. Finns and Estonians have joined forces to throw what may well be the coolest conference ever. This interdisciplinary symposium presents the latest technological and artistic innovations by the most advanced media labs from all over the world, building a unique interface for future products and businesses. ISEA2004 is the key happening for those working with digital media, content production, wireless applications and mobile technologies. It brings together almost 2,000 top professionals: developers of new technologies, scientists, artists, journalists and curators. At the same time, the spectacular cruise on the Baltic Sea serves as a forum for pleasant networking and leisure; it is also a perfect opportunity to figure out what the Finns will be up to in the future. Joining ISEA2004 is easy and the registration costs are low. Your FULL EXPERIENCE event package includes not only two nights' accommodation on the ferry, but also breakfasts, luxurious buffet dinners with wine and beer, the funky club program on three stages over two nights with 25 DJs and live gigs and, of course, the major conferences in Tallinn and Helsinki. IT IS REALLY HARD TO BEAT THAT! Book your tickets for the fast-selling event at http://www.isea2004.net/tickets - we recommend booking soon as the most popular cabins are filling up. See more information on who is coming and what the program will be like below and at http://www.isea2004.net/programme.html. For group bookings, contact Mika Minetti, mika at isea2004.net, +358 40 719 2280. The multi-venue ISEA2004 cruise on the Baltic Sea, conferences in Tallinn and Helsinki (where you will have six simultaneous streams to choose from), exhibitions and electronic music clubs unite the leading media labs of the world, researchers, developers of new technologies, designers and artists during the one-week symposium. More than 300 leading innovators, artists and scholars have been selected to present their work from altogether 1,200 proposals received by the ISEA2004 International Program Committee ( http://www.isea2004.net/programme/index.html#IPC). NETWORKING AND CLUBBING DURING THE ALL-INCLUSIVE CRUISE Collaboration between researchers, artists, scientists and businesses is an essential part of this year's ISEA2004 symposium. In fact, ISEA has never been organized on this scale before. The Silja Opera cruiser ferry alone will host 20 installations, around 10 performances, interactive games and numerous DJ and live acts. The entire ship turns into an arena for networking meetings, poster sessions, panels, workshops and seminars while sailing through the beautiful archipelago from Helsinki to Stockholm and on to Tallinn via the ?land islands. Networking sessions offer business units, artists and journalists the chance to pitch their products and share ideas. Because of the great scale of the event, you will not only become absorbed in the inspiring networking sessions, but will find it hard to resist joining the numerous clubs on the luxury boat while eating five-star buffet dinners with wines and beers, all included in the most affordable price! The ferry program stretches from lifts to swimming pools, pushing the limits of technological and artistic creation. Kelly Dobson (MIT Media Lab, USA) brings along her Machine Therapy project to the ferry's gym. The locative sound installation Float by Tuomo Tammenp?? (Finland) and Tamas Szakal (Hungary) will turn the ship into a play-head and the route into the track by translating GPS coordinates, distances to islands, depth, direction and speed into a slowly developing soundscape. In the game project Floating Territories by Leon Cmielewski and Josephine Starrs (Australia), renowned throughout the world for their animations, ISEA2004 participants receive swipe cards that arbitrarily assign a tribal allegiance, after which migration and participants' family history will be explored. Icols Strategy Defense and Arms Fair maps out relations between the new media technology that artists use and modern warfare, such as GPS, augmented reality systems and VR-technologies. Icols presents a modified "arms fair" in Mariehamn, capital of the demilitarized zone of ?land. After the cruise, ISEA2004 continues in Tallinn and Helsinki with conferences and a wide range of other events. The conferences offer networking possibilities for almost 2,000 top professionals. Top speakers present future trends and latest innovations in their own fields. Design, technology and research have never been brought together like this before. The topics range from wearable technologies to wireless and mobile applications. In Tallinn, Katherine Moriwaki from NTRG (Networks and Telecommunications Research Group, Ireland) presents her project and design concepts related to fashion and technologies, emerging communication infrastructures, networks and the body. Tallinn and Helsinki keynotes include Arturo Escobar (University of North Carolina, USA), Sarah Kember (Goldsmith College, UK), Joanna Berzowska (Concordia University, UK), Michel Maffesoli (Sorbonne, France), Shuddhabrata Sengupta (Sarai New Media Initiative, India), Erkki Huhtamo (UCLA, USA), Wendy Hui Kyong Chun (Brown University, USA) and Matthew Fuller (Piet Zwart Institute, the Netherlands). Tickets and more information at http://Www.isea2004.net/tickets and http://www.isea2004.net/programme.html. For group bookings contact Mika Minetti, mika at isea2004.net, +358 40 719 2280 ISEA2004: EARLY BIRD CATCHES THE FERRY DO NOT MISS THE EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION FOR ISEA 2004 - book now!! SAVE 30% on tickets - RESERVE on-line here: http://www.isea2004.net/tickets. The cruise prices are all- inclusive (meals, travel, program all in one). BOOK YOUR TICKETS HERE: http://www.isea2004.net/tickets p.s. Information on the program structure is on our website http://www.isea2004.net. Our full program consists of over 300 shortlisted entries. Stay tuned for updates! ________________________________________________________________ ______________________________ | | | ISAST NEWS | |______________________________| ________________________________________________________________ LEONARDO/ISAST NEW ADDRESS The Leonardo/ISAST headquarters have moved. As of 1 May, 2004, you can reach us at: Leonardo/ISAST 211 Sutter Street, Suite 800 San Francisco, CA 94108 phone: (415) 391-1110 fax: (415) 391-2385 General email: isast at leonardo.info Web: http://www.leonardo.info _____________________________ PACIFIC RIM NEW MEDIA SUMMIT: A PRE-SYMPOSIUM PROGRAM OF ISEA 2006 The Pacific Rim New Media Summit is a program of ISEA 2006, the International Symposium of Electronic Art, hosted by the City of San Jose, California. The Summit is a gathering of organizations and representatives from the Pacific Rim and Asia to focus on development of partnerships among institutions with the objective of addressing the challenges of how information technology and creativity are shaping new directions in art, science, architecture, design, literature, theater, music, academic research and information technology based industry. Why is this important? The political and economic space of the Pacific Rim represents a dynamic context for innovation and creativity framed by issues of economic globalization, regional interaction, and environmental change. Silicon Valley has a vested interest and a cultural responsibility to help identify and enable new forms of cultural production in the region and locally. Encompassing all states and nations that border the Pacific Ocean and Asia, including all of Southeast Asia, Pacific Latin America, and the Pacific Islands, this event will address the developmental role and capacity of new media art to foster greater mutual understanding. What will be achieved? Not just another conference, the intention of the Pacific Rim Summit is to enable development of specific outcomes that foster cross-cultural and trans-regional cooperation, including the establishment of an ongoing network of organizations and formalized program of interaction between Pacific Rim new media organizations. An International Steering Committee will identify Summit themes and invite presentations. Other objectives include: 1) a publication of white papers from Summit working groups proposing specific collaborative programming; 2) cooperative agreements for enabling collaborative research and creative practice between organizations; 3) diaspora community involvement to shape specific outreach programming responsive to city of San Jose's diverse international heritages; 4) defining working models for knowledge transfer from expert practitioners to lay participants. A special volume of *Leonardo: The Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology* will be devoted to the Summit. Why San Jose and why now? San Jose is the metropolitan capital of Silicon Valley. 2006 will be the first year of a planned biannual international festival of art and technology. ZeroOne will be the name by which the ongoing festival will be known. It begins in 2006 with the hosting of ISEA 2006. ISEA stands for Inter-Society for Electronic Arts (http://www.isea-web.org). It is an international, artist-run organization, which sponsors a symposium and festival of digital arts every 2 years in a different city around the world. A consortium of San Jose-based organizations competed for and won the bid to host the ISEA Symposium in 2006. The sponsoring organizations for the ISEA2006 | ZeroOne San Jose Festival are: o CADRE Laboratory for New Media, San Jose State University o City of San Jose o Cultural Initiatives Silicon Valley o San Jose Convention and Visitors Bureau o San Jose Museum of Art o Tech Museum of Innovation o ZeroOne: The Art and Technology Network The Pacific Rim New Media Summit is a program of ISEA 2006 and will be held August 7-8 preceding the traditional academic conference. Summit Director: Joel Slayton Co-Chair: Roger Malina ISEA 2006 Director: Steve Dietz Co-Sponsors: Leonardo/ISAST and CADRE Laboratory for New Media Proposed Venue: SJSU/City of San Jose Martin Luther King Library For more information, see www.sanjoseca.gov/cityManager/releases/2003_ISEAaward.pd _____________________________ LEONARDO AND HARVESTWORKS EVENT COLLABORATION Leonardo/ISAST collaborated with Harvestworks in holding their Interactive Project: Activated Environments and Hybrid Instruments conference, April 23-25, 2004 in New York City. The weekend-long seminar featured artworks by the Harvestworks residents, panel discussions and demonstrations, and involved arts organizations and artist's studios in the city. Representatives from the Leonardo community included *Leonardo Music Journal* editor-in-chief Nic Collins, who presented his own work and moderated a panel on the topic of Hybrid Music Instruments. The Electronic Music Foundation sold back issues of *Leonardo* and *Leonardo Music Journal* and CDs at very special rates, along with selections from the EMF catalog. For more information, see http://www.harvestworks.org _____________________________ LEONARDO/ISAST COLLABORATES ON 100TH ANNIVERSARY COLLOQUIUM ON GREGORY BATESON Leonardo/ISAST is co-sponsoring "Multiple Versions of the World: A Conference Marking 100 Years of Gregory Bateson's Influence," to be held 19-20 November, 2004 at Santa Clara University's Center for Science Technology and Society, Santa Clara, CA. http://www.batesonconference.org/ Among the many featured speakers are: Mary Catherine Bateson: Institute for Intercultural Studies Peter Harries-Jones: Prof. of Anthropology (Emeritus), York University, Ontario; author of *A Recursive Vision* Jerry Brown: Mayor of Oakland; former Governor of California Nathan Gray: Co-founder OXFAM America; founder, EarthTrain Tim Campbell: World Bank Institute; author *Quiet Revolution* and *Leadership and Innovation* Jay Ogilvy: Co-founder, Global Business Network; author, *Creating Better Futures* Carol Wilder: Assoc. Dean and Chair, Dept. of Communication, New School University (NYC); author *Rigor and Imagination: Essays from the Legacy of Gregory Bateson* Kenny Ausubel: Founder and president, Collective Heritage Institute (which produces the Bioneers Conference) The November 20 portion of the conference is being sponsored by: Bioneers Inc. Gateway Pacific Foundation Global Business Network Inc. Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology The Natural Step Point Foundation The Tides Family of Organizations Urban Age Institute Urban Age Magazine A special event will be the world premiere of Nora Bateson's film tribute to Gregory Bateson: *That Reminds Me of a Story.* For more information about the Bateson Centennial Conference, click http://www.batesonconference.org/. To purchase tickets to the conference click http://www.acteva.com/go/Bateson _____________________________ LEONARDO AND OURS FOUNDATION ANNOUNCE VIRTUAL VERNISSAGE OF SPACEARTS DATABASE Spacearts - Space Art Database Project - http://www.spacearts.info Artists have been at the forefront of space exploration since its very beginning. Their works of imagination have stimulated and catalyzed a new human endeavor. Works of art and literature about space have both anticipated and stimulated space development while exploring destinations and technological concepts that were often too dangerous, too distant or too advanced for the science and technology of the moment. Artists have worked closely with space scientists and engineers to help them to visualize and develop their scientific and technological concepts, making the dream of space exploration a reality. Science-fiction literature with a space theme, combined with cinematography, has since become one of the most popular and financially successful artforms of all time. As such, it stimulates the public's fascination with space exploration and likewise has a positive influence on maintaining the public's support for further space development. Today, a new breed of contemporary artists have initiated projects to explore outer space on their own terms by realizing their art beyond Earth or with their own bodies in weightlessness. To date, there has been no existing comprehensive documentation of this vast genre of art. The goal of "SpaceArts - the Space Art Database" is to document this important and exciting art form and to make it publicly accessible via the World Wide Web. The project was made possible through funding from the European Space Agency Technology Transfer and Promotion Office and has been carried out by the OURS Foundation http://www.ours.ch and Leonardo/OLATS http://www.olats.org (the French sister organization of Leonardo/ISAST - http://www.leonardo.info). SpaceArts, with an initial web-based database engine and integrated content management, has been custom built and is now open to the public at http://www.spacearts.info SpaceArts is being developed simultaneously in English, German and French in order to serve as wide an audience as possible. In this initial phase of the project, the database has currently documented the work of approximately 25 contemporary artists, each with a selection of their most important works. It is estimated that the database will eventually document the work of approximately 1000 artists, covering all the diverse facets of the genre of space art. For more information, see http://www.spacearts.info ________________________________________________________________ ___________________ | | | | | CREDITS | | | |___________________| Nisar Keshvani: LEA Editor-in-Chief Patrick Lambelet: LEA Managing Editor Michael Punt: LR Editor-in-Chief Andre Ho: Web Concept and Design Consultant Roger Malina: Leonardo Executive Editor Stephen Wilson: Chair, Leonardo/ISAST Web Committee Craig Harris: Founding Editor Editorial Advisory Board: Irina Aristarkhova, Roy Ascott, Michael Naimark, Craig Harris, Julianne Pierce Gallery Advisory Board: Mark Amerika, Paul Brown, Choy Kok Kee, Steve Dietz, Fatima Lasay, Kim Machan fAf-LEA corresponding editors: Ricardo Dal Farra, Elga Ferreira, Young Hae-Chang, Fatima Lasay, Lee Weng Choy, Jose-Carlos Mariategui, Marcus Neustetter, Elaine Ng, Marc Voge ________________________________________________________________ ___________________ | | | LEA | | WORLD WIDE WEB | | ACCESS | |___________________| For over a decade, Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA) has thrived as an international peer-reviewed electronic journal and web archive, covering the interaction of the arts, sciences and technology. LEA emphasizes rapid publication of recent work and critical discussion on topics of current excitement. Many contributors are younger scholars and artists, and there is a slant towards shorter, less academic texts. Contents include Leonardo Reviews, edited by Michael Punt, Leonardo Research Abstracts of recent Ph.D. and Masters theses, curated Galleries of current new media artwork, and special issues on topics ranging from Artists and Scientists in times of War, to Zero Gravity Art, to the History of New Media. LEA is accessible using the following URL: http://lea.mit.edu ________________________________________________________________ _________________ | | | LEA | | PUBLISHING | | INFORMATION | |_________________| Editorial Address: Leonardo Electronic Almanac Studio 3a, 35 Place du Bourg-de-four 1204 Geneva, Switzerland E-mail: lea at mitpress.mit.edu ________________________________________________________________ Copyright (2004), Leonardo, the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology All Rights Reserved. Leonardo Electronic Almanac is published by: The MIT Press Journals, Five 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 which 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 http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=4&tid=27& mode=p Leonardo Electronic Almanac is free to Leonardo/ISAST members and to subscribers to the journal Leonardo for the 2004 subscription year. The rate for Non-Leonardo individual subscribers is $35.00, and for Non-Leonardo institutional subscribers the rate is $77.00. All subscriptions are entered for the calendar year only. All orders must be prepaid by check (must be drawn against U.S. bank in U.S. funds), money order, MasterCard, VISA, or American Express. Where student subscription rates are available, a verification of matriculant status is required. Note: In order to place orders electronically, you must be using a browser that is SSL-compliant. If you are unable to open the ordering link listed above, then your browser does not support the security features necessary to use this interface. Please use the addresses below to submit your order. Address all orders and inquiries to: Circulation Department MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142-1407 USA TEL: (617) 253-2889 (M-F, 9-5) FAX: (617) 577-1545 (24 hours) For questions contact: journals-orders at mit.edu (subscriptions) ________________________________________________________________ ________________ | | | 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 Department 211 Sutter Street, Suite 800 San Francisco, CA 94108 phone: (415) 391-1110 fax: (415) 391-2385 General email: isast at leonardo.info More Info: http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e- journals/Leonardo/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 12 (07) > ________________________________________________________________ From nisar at keshvani.com Wed Jul 7 21:23:42 2004 From: nisar at keshvani.com (nisar keshvani) Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 20:23:42 -0500 Subject: [LEAuthors] LEA cfp: New Media Poetics and the Digital Prose Message-ID: <200407072023.AA55705868@keshvani.com> ** Sincere apologies for cross-posting ** ** Worldwide Call for Submissions ** LEA Special Issue: New Media Poetics and the Digital Prose Guest Editor: Tim Peterson (tscotpeterson at hotmail.com) The Leonardo Electronic Almanac (ISSN No: 1071-4391) is inviting papers and artworks that deal with New Media Poetics and the Digital Prose. This category includes multimedia digital works (image/text/sound) as examined through the lens of "writing," specifically any of those concerns central to avant-garde poetry rather than narrative or prose: reader as active participant in the "ergodic" sense, the use of chance or automatism inherited from movements such as Oulipo (highlighting the literalized metaphor which automatism becomes here), and the complex relations between the author, reader, and computer-as-writer/reader which evolve from that interaction. Any work that foregrounds the medium as such (for example, web poetry that incorporates code) is also welcome. We would particularly like to emphasize the "poetics" of new media writing as well, that is, the point where aesthetics intersects with politics to create dynamic attempts at social change. LEA encourages international artists / academics / researchers / students to submit their proposals for consideration. We particularly encourage authors outside North America and Europe to send proposals for articles/gallery/artists statements. Proposals should include: - 300 word abstract / synopsis - A brief author biography - Any related URLs - Contact details Deadline for proposals: 15 Aug 2004 Please send proposals or queries to: Tim Peterson newmedia at astn.net and Nisar Keshvani LEA Editor-in-Chief lea at mitpress.mit.edu http://lea.mit.edu ******************************************************************************** LEA Information and URLs ------------------------------------------- Receive your FREE subscription to the Leonardo Electronic Almanac e-mail digest at http://mitpress.mit.edu/lea/e-mail -- just provide your email address, name, and password, and check off that you'd like to be added to the Leonardo Electronic Almanac monthly e-mail list to keep on top of the latest news in the Leonardo community. How to advertise in LEA? http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/isast/placeads.html#LEAads For a paid subscription (to become an ISAST member and access archives dating back to 1993): http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=4&tid=27&mode=p What is LEA? ------------- Established in 1993, the Leonardo Electronic Almanac (ISSN No: 1071-4391) is the electronic arm of the pioneer art journal, Leonardo - Journal of Art, Science & Technology. The Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA), jointly produced by Leonardo, the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (ISAST) and published under the auspices of MIT Press is an electronic journal dedicated to providing a forum for those who are interested in the realm where art, science and technology converge. Content ------- This peer reviewed e-journal includes profiles of media arts facilities and projects, profiles of artists using new media, feature articles comprised of theoretical and technical perspectives; the LEA Gallery exhibiting new media artwork by international artists; detailed information about new publications in various media; and reviews of publications, events and exhibitions. Material is contributed by artists, scientists, educators and developers of new technological resources in the media arts. Mission ------- Since 2002, LEA formed a strategic alliance with fineArt forum - the Internet's longest running arts magazine. Through this partnership, LEA concentrates on adding new scholarship and critical commentary to the art, science and technology field, with LEA subscribers benefiting from the latest news, announcements, events, and job/educational opportunities through fAf's online news service. LEA's mission is to maintain and consolidate its position as a leading online news and trusted information filter while critically examining arts/science & technological works catering to the international CAST (Community of Artists, Scientist and Technologists) ******************************** From nisar at keshvani.com Tue Jul 20 23:58:45 2004 From: nisar at keshvani.com (nisar keshvani) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 22:58:45 -0500 Subject: [LEAuthors] LEA July 2004: Translation, Transcodification, Transmission: Erika Tan's *Pidgin: Interrupted Transmission by Janice Cheddie Message-ID: <200407202258.AA97911068@keshvani.com> *sincere apologies for cross-posting* Leonardo Electronic Almanac: July 2004 ISSN#1071-4391 art | science | technology - a definitive voice since 1993 http://lea.mit.edu *Translation, Transcodification, Transmission: Erika Tan's *Pidgin: Interrupted Transmission*, by Janice Cheddie* This month, Janice Cheddie discusses "issues of cultural translation, digital media and notions of difference," using a work by U.K.-based artist Erika Tan as a basis for her exploration. *Leonardo Reviews: July 2004* Leonardo Reviews includes a review of the Europe-Asia Contemporary Music Festival in Kazan, Russia, by Alexandre A.Ovsyannikov; Rob Harle's review of a special issue of *HYLE: The International Journal for the Philosophy of Chemistry*; and Andrea Dahlberg's review of a new book on Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti. Also in this issue, we feature selected abstracts from the upcoming issue of Leonardo (Vol. 37, No. 4); an announcement and information on Leonardo's collaboration with ISEA2004, taking place in Finland, Estonia and the waters in-between; and the latest news on the activities of Leonardo/ISAST. Editorial ideas / proposals: lea at mitpress.mit.edu ******************************************************************************** LEA Information and URLs ------------------------------------------- Receive your FREE subscription to the Leonardo Electronic Almanac e-mail digest at http://mitpress.mit.edu/lea/e-mail -- just provide your email address, name, and password, and check off that you'd like to be added to the Leonardo Electronic Almanac monthly e-mail list to keep on top of the latest news in the Leonardo community. How to advertise in LEA? http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/isast/placeads.html#LEAads For a paid subscription (to become an ISAST member and access archives dating back to 1993): http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=4&tid=27&mode=p The Leonardo Educators Initiative ------------------------------------------------------- The Leonardo Abstracts Service (LABS) is a listing of Masters and Ph.D. theses in the art/science/technology field, for the benefit of scholars and practitioners. LEA also maintains a discussion list open only to faculty in the field. Students interested in contributing and faculty wishing to join this list should contact lea at mitpress.mit.edu What is LEA? ---------------------- For over a decade, Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA) has thrived as an international peer-reviewed electronic journal and web archive, covering the interaction of the arts, sciences and technology. LEA emphasizes rapid publication of recent work and critical discussion on topics of current excitement. Many contributors are younger scholars and artists, and there is a slant towards shorter, less academic texts. Contents include Leonardo Reviews, edited by Michael Punt, Leonardo Research Abstracts of recent Ph.D. and Masters theses, curated Galleries of current new media artwork, and special issues on topics ranging from Artists and Scientists in times of War, to Zero Gravity Art, to the History of New Media. Copyright? 1993 - 2004: The Leonardo Electronic Almanac is published by Leonardo / International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (ISAST) in association with the MIT Press. All rights reserved. From nisar at keshvani.com Sun Jul 25 12:30:58 2004 From: nisar at keshvani.com (nisar keshvani) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2004 11:30:58 -0500 Subject: [LEAuthors] LEA Gallery Special cfp: Global Crossings (GX) Message-ID: <200407251130.AA10551544@keshvani.com> LEA Gallery cfp: Global Crossings (GX) ** Worldwide Call for Submissions ** Please feel free to spread the word widely: LEA Gallery Special: Global Crossings (GX) Guest Curators: Dennis Summers and Choy Kok Kee (gxgallery at astn.net) The Leonardo Electronic Almanac Gallery (http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/LEA2004/gallery.htm) is inviting submissions in conjunction with the Leonardo Global Crossings Initiative. The Gallery is looking to make visible the work of international artists, professionals and scholars who live and work in a wide variety of situations where access to established venues for exhibition, display and publication is limited. Difficulty of access may be attributed to cultural, geographic, ethnic, institutional or disciplinary diversity, or issues related to the North/South divide, age, gender, etc. Through this Gallery we seek to showcase little-known work in the art-science-technology field and to counter the natural tendency of networks to be inward looking, thus reinforcing established points of view. We are looking for work that considers the global earth in some fashion or another. It can be work that addresses global social, political economic, spiritual, etc. issues. It can be work that physically or metaphorically lies in multiple locations on the planet, it can be work that may have personal relationships to multiple locations on the planet. Or anything else that loosely falls along the concept of being "global" in nature. LEA encourages international artists / academics / researchers / students to submit their proposals for consideration. We particularly encourage young authors outside North America and Europe to send proposals. Form -------- Create a single web page, in any common format that either documents the work or actually is the work. As long as it is only one page, the work can take any form. Try to avoid pages that require special or unusual plugins. Keep in mind that many parts of the world do not have high-speed Internet access. Process ----------- Zip all necessary files into a folder named after the contributing artist. Send as an attachment to gxgallery at astn.net or if necessary, provide ftp instructions. In a separate attachment include: - 300 word abstract / synopsis / description of work - A brief author biography / resume - Any related URLs - Contact details In the subject heading of the email message write ?Name of Artist: LEA Global Crossings ? Date Submitted?. Deadline for submissions: 31 August 2004 Please send proposals or queries to: Dennis Summers/Choy Kok Kee gxgallery at astn.net or Nisar Keshvani LEA Editor-in-Chief lea at mitpress.mit.edu http://lea.mit.edu ******************************************************************************** What is the Global Crossings (GX) Initiaitve? ----------------------------------------------------------- This initiative is part of the Leonardo/International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (ISAST) Global Crossings (GX) Project. GX is committed to identifying and showcasing the work of international artists, professionals, and scholars from outside North America and Europe. Leonardo/ISAST has initiated this policy to reach out to diverse cultural and global communities to overcome the considerable natural barriers that prevent trans-cultural collaboration in the emerging art-science-technology field. This initiative is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, New York. Leonardo/ISAST, a leading international scholarly and professional network, has for 35 years been an advocate of new creative practices, documenting and promoting innovative work through its publications and projects. Info: http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/globalx.htm What is LEA? ------------- Established in 1993, the Leonardo Electronic Almanac (ISSN No: 1071-4391) is the electronic arm of the pioneer art journal, Leonardo - Journal of Art, Science & Technology. The Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA), jointly produced by Leonardo, the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (ISAST) and published under the auspices of MIT Press is an electronic journal dedicated to providing a forum for those who are interested in the realm where art, science and technology converge. Info: http://lea.mit.edu Content ------- This peer reviewed e-journal includes profiles of media arts facilities and projects, profiles of artists using new media, feature articles comprised of theoretical and technical perspectives; the LEA Gallery exhibiting new media artwork by international artists; detailed information about new publications in various media; and reviews of publications, events and exhibitions. Material is contributed by artists, scientists, educators and developers of new technological resources in the media arts. Mission ------- LEA's mission is to maintain and consolidate its position as a leading online news and trusted information filter while critically examining arts/science & technological works catering to the international CAST (Community of Artists, Scientist and Technologists) ********************************