From leoalmanac at gmail.com Thu Oct 6 19:15:46 2005 From: leoalmanac at gmail.com (Leonardo Electronic Almanac) Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 01:15:46 +0200 Subject: [LEAuthors] Leonardo Electronic Almanac Volume 13, Number 9, September 2005 Message-ID: <5d60ab0c0510061615i59954631hcf55075718fedeea@mail.gmail.com> [image: The MIT Press] ________________________________________________________________ Leonardo Electronic Almanac Volume 13, Number 9, September 2005 http://lea.mit.edu ________________________________________________________________ ISSN #1071-4391 ____________ | | | CONTENTS | |____________| ________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION ------------ EDITORIAL --------- < Explaining the Mandate, by Sheila Pinkel > ABSTRACTS --------- < The Virtual Geodesy. Proposal for a Multiplayer Role-playing Game, by Mohammed Aziz Chafchaouni and Harold Brokaw > < Egyptian Cultural Heritage in the Digital Age, by Fathi Saleh > < Contemplations on Our Links to The Universe ? Searching and Finding The Hidden Harmony, by C. S. Unnikrishnan > < From the Consciousness of Limits to the Limits of Our Consciousness, by Philippe Boissonnet > < The Science Behind Bacterial Art, by Eshel Ben Jacob and Neora > < Technoetic Pathways to the Spiritual in Art, by Roy Ascott > < Experience of Expression: Instances from Indian dramaturgy and a discussion on 'consciousness', by Sangeetha Menon > < Concepts, Boundaries, and Ways of Knowing, by Arnold G. Smith > < Interstellar Altruism: Science, Art, and Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence, by Douglas A. Vakoch > < Poetic-Cubs, by Raquel Paricio and J. Manuel Moreno Arostegui > < Convergence Between Art and Science. A Digital Artistic Creation, by Chu-Yin Chen > < Bridging Cultures in Electronic Communication. New Multiliteracy Models for Interaction Design, by Patricia Search > < Spacesuit: Space Craft, by Bradley M. Pitts > < Self-Reflexivity in Science and Arts, by Anna-Maria Christoph-Gaugusch > < Lessons from the Philippine Triad, by Fatima Lasay > < Another Reading of the Greek myth of Orpheo through New Technologies: Poetic Proposition About Artificial Life, by Kiss Jocelyne > BONUS SECTION ------------- < Reflections from the International Festival of Cultures in Melilla, by Judy Kupferman > ONE FROM THE VAULT: FROM THE LEA ARCHIVES ----------------------------------------- < Essay Concerning Human Understanding, by Eduardo Kac > LEONARDO REVIEWS ---------------- < Encounter: Merce, reviewed by Richard Kade > < Talking Drum, and Rogue Wave, reviewed by Ren? van Peer > < Visionary Anatomies, reviewed by Amy Ione > LEONARDO JOURNAL ---------------- < Contents and Abstracts: *Leonardo* Vol. 38, No. 5 > LEONARDO NETWORK NEWS --------------------- < New Chairs Elected for Leonardo Education Forum > < *LMJ* Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Collins Extends Contract> < The Pacific Rim New Media Summit: A Pre-Symposium to ISEA2006 > < PRNMS Working Group on Place, Ground and Practice > < ISEA2006 Pacific Rim Directory, Organizations and Residencies Working Group Meeting > BYTES ----- < CFP - Leonardo Music Journal 16 (2006) > < School of Art Institute Chicago - Faculty Position in Film, Video And New Media > ________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION ________________________________________________________________ In September's issue of LEA, Sheila Pinkel's editorial questions whether the mandate of *Leonardo* can be expanded to explore the intersection between art, science, technology and society. We also continue our celebration of the Colloquium on Art/Science/Spirituality Reconnections Within Emerging Planetary Cultures and feature the final two sessions of the event. This month, One From the Vault extracts Eduardo Kac's *Essay Concerning Human Understanding*, which first appeared in LEA in August 1995. Leonardo Reviews focuses on CDs, websites and exhibitions this month, with Richard Kade's piece on *Encounter: Merce*, a contextualization of the importance of the event staged at Stanford University in March this year. *Talking Drum* and *Rogue Wave* both by Chris Brown are reviewed collectively by Ren? van Peer, one of our active music experts. Finally, Amy Ione, a familiar name to Leonardo Reviews regulars, has written about *Visionary Anatomies*, an event which although now history can be revisited ? at least in a restricted way ? on the web. Read about Leonardo Education Forum's new chairs and LMJ's editor extending his contract in Leonardo Network News, and find out more about the place, ground and practice working group in our ongoing series on *The Pacific Rim New Media Summit: A Pre-Symposium to ISEA2006*. Further to this, there is information about an ISEA2006 Pacific Rim Directory, Organizations and Residencies Working Group Meeting to be held in Adelaide, Australia. In our final section, Bytes, find out more about a call for papers for Leonardo Music Journal's next issue and the availability of a full-time faculty position. ________________________________________________________________ EDITORIAL ________________________________________________________________ EXPANDING THE MANDATE by Sheila Pinkel Leonardo International Co-Editor Pomona College Claremont, CA U.S.A. spinkel [@] earthlink [dot] net Since its inception, *Leonardo's* mandate has been to explore the intersection between the arts, sciences and technology. Now there is a 500-pound question on the table: Can the mandate of *Leonardo* be expanded to explore the intersection between art, science, technology and *society*? In the 19th century, Louis Jacques Mand? Daguerre of France and William Henry Fox Talbot of Great Britain, credited individually with the invention of photography, both happened to take photographs of their respective collections during their initial investigations of photographic processes. Daguerre photographed his fossil collection and Talbot his collection of china. Subsequent commentary has positioned these choices in the context of the intellectual and historical environment of the 19th century, a time of cataloging the physical and biological world as the concepts of the electromagnetic spectrum, the periodic table and phrenology were being developed. Thus, what appeared at the time to be the incidental and objective documentation of collections can be understood, in the context of history, as reflecting the values of the time period. In Weimar Germany, during the post-World War I 1920s, artists began investigating the physical world from a new frame of reference, which they termed *Neue Sachlichkeit*, or the new objectivity. These artists, including Albert Renger-Patzsch, Karl Blossfeldt and T. Lux Feininger, photographed the world from unconventional vantage points in an attempt to create a new aesthetic, one that they viewed as apolitical and objective. Their subject matter included the technology of the era's growing industrialization, and many of their images of nature also reflect this industrial vision. When juxtaposed against the history of the time - the growth of fascism and decline of labor movements - these images are understood in a more complex way as reflecting the values of the corporate industrial state. In the United States, Paul Strand, Edward Weston, Charles Sheeler and other photographers were the counterparts to the German Neue Sachlichkeit artists. From the vantage point of history we can read their images in several ways. For instance, as Sally Stein pointed out in a public lecture when analyzing Paul Strand's image of a white fence, we either can see it as an example of Strand's ability to abstract the physical world, or, if we look at it in the context of the time period, we can consider the point that the growth of industrial capitalism was resulting in the promotion of single-family homeownership, and fences suggested private ownership of property. So, while the image can be read as neutral, as an abstraction, it also can be read as reflecting the history and values of the time in which it was produced. Today, can we look at the intersections of art, science and technology and, with the understanding that we have gained from our dialogue with history, begin to comment on and assess these intersections in terms of their sociopolitical, economic and historic implications? Or must we wait for future generations to do this? Given the conditions in the world today, in which most of the world's population lacks adequate food, potable water, health care or educational opportunities, the AIDS epidemic is spreading in Africa and parts of Asia, and the war in Iraq rages on, some contextualization of these explorations is critical in order to render them historically and socially intelligible. The 500-pound question on the table remains: Can the mandate of *Leonardo* be expanded to explore the intersection between art, science, technology and society? THIS EDITORIAL FIRST APPEARED IN *LEONARDO*, VOL. 38, NO. 4 (AUGUST 2005) ________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACTS ________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION TO SESSION 3 This session looked at the role of new technologies (telecommunication, biological, etc.) in our future cultures, and asks how we will appropriate them and what creative use can be made of them. _____________________________ THE VIRTUAL GEODESY. PROPOSAL FOR A MULTIPLAYER ROLE PLAYING GAME by Mohammed Aziz Chafchaouni Media Artist, Spain and Morocco Al Andalus Foundation Avenida Reyes Catolicos 10 3er Iz 52 002 Melilla chaf_aziz [@] hotmail [dot] com and Harold Brokaw Al Andalus Foundation Professor for digital music Ashville University U.S.A. KEYWORDS Role-playing game, scientific data, world culture ABSTRACT This project aims at creating new relationships between scientific data and cultural content, as a basis for developing a multiplayer role-playing game. Players of this game will explore an interactive, 3D, Virtual Geodesy composed of geometric structures organized as habitats for a multitude of data streams expressing the diversity and uniqueness of tangible and intangible world cultural heritage art forms, events and expressions. Within the new potentials of information technologies, the project will utilize precise data gathered within the scientific domain, as 3D containers for visualization of information. The preciseness, yet vastness, of scientific data for building 3D sites will be well balanced by the symphonic arrangements of world culture content elements into harmonics of spatial locations. The total Geodesy system will have its own life, as intelligent geometric agents interact within it. They become the game's mind enabling multiple players, with their avatars, to interact, communicate, learn and discover, and for the game itself to evolve over time. The sites within the Geodesy are the departure and arrival points of the users who will be navigating through tridimensional animated highways of universal interactive cultural content. The system will enable synergetic multiplayer interactions, promoting cooperation over competition, livingry over weaponry. The project's singularity is the potential to model an ever-evolving intelligent cyber habitat, where every precise site could be as simple as an atom, or as complex as a virtual city. The strength, coherence, and dynamics of its structural topologies will be the backbone of the Geodesy. By the intelligence embedded in its design and the physics characteristics of its life system, it becomes a playground for infinite crossroads of data streams, taking root in the world culture heritage databases. BIOGRAPHY Mohammed Aziz Chafchaouni holds several university degrees in sociology and political science but decided to follow the path of the arts and the pure sciences. He holds a Master's Degree in Arts and Design from Tsukuba University, Japan and has also studied in U.S.A and France. A fundamental issue concerns him: How to approach the worldwide globalization trend while safeguarding cultural specificities. He strongly believes that in a world where information has taken on a quasi-mythical status, modern means of communication should contribute to the blossoming of Arab Islamic arts. Indeed, most of Chafchaouni's works of art are an attempt to shed new light on the artistic contribution of Islamic civilization (especially in Al Andalus) to universal heritage under the notion of Tawhid or unity between art, science and spirituality. His work spans a wide variety of supports: electronic archival of vestiges of Arab Islamic art on CD-Rom, virtual museum, film documentaries, 3D image Installations. _____________________________ EGYPTIAN CULTURAL HERITAGE IN THE DIGITAL AGE by Fathi Saleh Director CULTNAT Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage Smart Village Km 28, Cairo-Alexandria Desert Road Giza, Egypt Tel: +(202) 534 3001 Fax: +(202) 539 2929 fsaleh [@] mcit [dot] gov [dot] eg http://www.cultnat.org KEYWORDS cultural heritage, information technology, holistic vision ABSTRACT The Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage, CULTNAT, was established in January 2000, as a program operating under the auspices of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. By presidential decree, CULTNAT became, in February 2003, a centre affiliated with the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, thus asserting its identity and gaining physical status. This center has, among its targets, the following objectives: - Documentation of Egyptian cultural heritage in both its tangible and intangible aspects. - Documentation of the Egyptian natural heritage, which includes the natural reserves as well as the natural areas not yet inscribed under environmental protection. - Implementation of a national plan to execute this documentation program using the latest information technology in collaboration with national and international specialized organizations. - Building awareness of this heritage using all available publishing media, electronic and physical. - Training of professionals in the field of preservation and documentation of cultural and natural heritage. Our projects so far have included the documentation and digitization of an archeological heritage map of Egypt; the Arabic music heritage; Egyptian natural heritage; the architectural heritage of 19th and 20th century Cairo; and the folkloric and photographic heritage of the Egyptians. The products of CULTNAT's efforts are books and electronic publications that record Egypt's memory of its tangible and intangible heritage. Our way forward is to achieve maximum accessibility and to enhance pride in our global Egyptian Heritage by providing an easily accessible and reliable chronicle of Egypt's tangible and intangible heritage on the web. Despite the fact that CULTNAT is a relatively new center, it has already a number of ongoing programs, in addition to a vast network of cooperation with organizations that are concerned with heritage, such as UNESCO, UNDP and the European Union. These programs, which cover many different aspects of the Egyptian cultural and natural heritage, seek to document the tangible and the intangible, i.e. archaeology, architecture, manuscripts, music, folklore, natural resources. CULTNAT has not only developed action plans to electronically document Egyptian heritage but also contributes to safeguarding fragile treasures of Egyptian history through their digitization. Among these are the manuscripts of the National Archives and the stamps of the National Postage Organization. While applying new technologies to documentation, massive amounts of data are digitally compiled and sorted, facilitating accessibility to data. CD-ROMs, as well as books, guides and other paper publications, are extracted from this huge database. For greater diffusion, CULTNAT has made information accessible through its website at: http://www.cultnat.org. CULTNAT has also developed in collaboration with IBM, a unique website in the field of cultural heritage (http://http://www.eternalegypt.org/). One of the recent achievements of the center is that it has developed a multimedia presentation designed in a 3D-like manner called "Cultural Heritage in the Digital Age: The Egyptian Experience". Its purpose is to demonstrate how CULTNAT has manipulated ICT to document and promote the many faces and riches of our heritage. The purpose of this theatre presentation is to illustrate how ICT tools, such as multimedia, GIS, and virtual reality, are innovatively employed in the service of the documentation of the Egyptian cultural and natural heritage. CULTNAT's multimedia display includes: - Running activities and programs of CULTNAT - 3D Virtual Reality (a visit to the Mastaba of Qar) - The continuum of civilizations: Scenes from Ancient Egyptian tombs matched with present day images - The continuum of knowledge - Mathematics of the Ancient Egyptians and recent mathematics (Rhind Mathematics Papyrus [RMP]) - Astronomy of the Ancient Egyptians and the Arabs and its relationship to today's world knowledge of astronomy BIOGRAPHY Dr. Fathi Saleh is currently professor of computer engineering at Cairo University. In the meantime, he is the director of the Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage, which is affiliated to the Library of Alexandria with the support of the Ministry of Communications and information Technology. He is also a member of the Supreme Council of Culture. Between 1995-97 he was the Cultural Councillor at the Embassy of Egypt in Paris, and from 1997-1999, he was the Ambassador of Egypt to the UNESCO. Dr. Saleh graduated from the Faculty of Engineering of Cairo University and got his Ph.D from the University of Paris in France. His main interest is the application of new technologies in the different fields of Cultural and Natural Heritage. _____________________________ INTRODUCTION TO SESSION 4 Session 4 tries to make explicit the cultural background of the speakers, and explores how their own cultural and spiritual background has shaped their approach to art and science. This session deals with the broader discussion about art/science but integrates the cultural background of every speaker. _____________________________ CONTEMPLATIONS ON OUR LINKS TO THE UNIVERSE ? SEARCHING AND FINDING THE HIDDEN HARMONY by C. S. Unnikrishnan Gravitation Group Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Homi Bhabha Road Mumbai (Bombay) ? 400005 India unni [@] tifr [dot] res [dot] in KEYWORDS contemporary physics, harmony, universe ABSTRACT I discuss evidences, and consequences of our inseparable link to the entire Universe. The foundations of present day physics are rooted in the theories of relativity and the theory of quantum physics. Majority of physicists think that there will ultimately be conflict between these two foundations. They see this conflict in the concept of classical causality broken by randomness in quantum physics, and in the concept of classical locality, so essential and basic to relativity, again broken by quantum phenomena. Perhaps this is a problem with our understanding of quantum causality and quantum locality, and not an indication of a genuine discord between two successful theories. Theories are idealisations of our perception of the physical world and not the physical world itself. In trying to comprehend and explain the 'observables' we construct theories that depend on 'unobservables', hoping that there will be consistency and a full understanding in future. If we ignore the role of these unobservables, we can be misled by our own theoretical constructs. During the course of my research, and in a determined effort to understand, I have come to realise that the apparent conflict in our theories is not a real conflict of the physical world. Looking deeper one can see the harmony, and inseparability coexistent with locality. There is a tension between inseparability on the one hand and locality and causality on the other, in the language of physics, whereas such a tension is perhaps absent in our philosophical discussions on these concepts. Our attempt is to reconcile the two opposing notions by going deeper than the level superficially suggested by the mathematical structures of the present theories. The final result of this attempt will be important for the pure physical theory since even apparent incompatibility between two fundamental theories of physics is not a desirable feature for a consistent description of the physical world. This is also a very important aspect for the individual exploring the physical universe since the worldview that emerges from the exploration always has it roots and interpretation in terms of his cultural, philosophical and linguistic backgrounds where such a strong tension between inseparability of the whole and the local causal flow of events do not seem to exist. The subconscious subjectivity influences and motivates, but does not interfere significantly with the essential objectivity and clarity of the view. This search for harmony seems to take the explorer to new notions of space and time ? material, and causal, and yet inseparable from local. The existence of the whole can be felt in the part, as real, measurable, and undeniable. Despite the apparent randomness, the history and future of motion reveals the whole, and one is able to see glimpses of a design that is vast, and yet comprehensible. Its simplicity and harmony is spiritually enriching, and emotionally moving, and its scale and intimacy makes one feel secure in some strange way. BIOGRAPHY Born December 25, 1961, in Kerala, the southern coastal state of India. Schooling and undergraduate studies in Kerala, and M.Sc. in Physics from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Ph.D in Physics (1992) from Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Bombay, in the search for a fifth force. Joined as faculty member in TIFR in 1993. Presently Associate Professor (TIFR), Adjunct Professor, Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore, and Faculty Associate, Centre for Philosophy and Foundations of Science, Delhi. Was part-time Visiting Professor, Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, 2001-2003. Research interests are precision measurements related to foundational issues in physics using cold atoms and torsion balances, nature of the quantum vacuum, and foundational aspects of gravitation, quantum mechanics and cosmology. Have also been involved in advanced level physics teaching, especially in undergraduate and graduate level summer schools. Lecturer at the Schools of Cosmology and Gravitation, Ettore Majorana Centre, Erice, 2003-2005. Other interests are films and music. Some expertise in Indian music on bamboo flute and guitar. Worked with Indian film directors Tapan Sinha as actor (*Wheel Chair* in 1994, language: Bangla)) and with Shaji Karun as assistant director (*Vanaprastham* in 1998 - language: Malayalam)). Also worked (actor) in the malayalam TV serial, *Legends of Kerala* (1992). Was also a weekly columnist with the Malayalam daily from Bombay, *Kalakaumudi*, from 1999-2001. _____________________________ FROM THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF LIMITS TO THE LIMITS OF OUR CONSCIOUSNESS by Philippe Boissonnet Media Artist, Professor for Media Art Universit? Qu?bec Trois Rivi?res, Canada philippe_boissonnet [@] uqtr [dot] ca KEYWORDS Earth, universe, representations, holography ABSTRACT Passing from drawing to holographic installation, Philippe Boissonnet courts light by exploring its penetrating power and destabilization of vision. He sculpts light, reflecting upon its power. The artist focuses on the ambiguity and the attendant complexities inherent in the process of visual perception, clarifying the relativity of viewpoints in a multiplicity of faithful visual representations, often beginning with the terrestrial globe as a model or motif, his research opens to a planetary abundance, and then overflows beyond the traditional "landscape". What illuminates Boissonnet's work?form and/or matter? Light? Earth? The Earth and ourselves? In fact, his interactive holographic installations are built from a series of intermixtures of drawing, photocopy and photograph- questioning one after the other (one within another) our place on earth, our return to a world essentially trapped by perception. Adopting the cartographic paradigm within the conception of an "earth body", Boissonnet's artworks integrate our ability to embrace the Earth as a complex living entity interconnected to the image of our self, and to our consciousness. From *The consciousness of limits: Gaia*, a holographic and interactive sculpture created in 1992, to his most recent project which explores the CBR (Cosmic Background Radiation) *The limits of consciousness; Ouranos*, the artist will present and comment to the audience on his videos and still images of light, digital and holographic artworks, all from 1992 to 2004. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY JULIEN KNEBUSCH _____________________________ THE SCIENCE BEHIND BACTERIAL ART by Eshel Ben Jacob Professor of Physics and President of the Israel Physical Society, Israel School of Physics and Astronomy The Maguy-Glass Chair in Physics of Complex Systems Tel Aviv University 69978 Tel Aviv Israel eshel [@] tamar [dot] tau [dot] ac [dot] il http://www.star.tau.ac.il/~eshel/ http://www.physicaplus.org.il) http://www.star.tau.ac.il/~inon/baccyber0.html and Neora Cyberculture explorer and virtual reality worlds creator, Israel 16 Usishkin St Tel-Aviv 62591 Israel Tel: 972 3 544 0034 neoradotcom [@] gmail [dot] com http://www.neora.com KEYWORDS structures, patterns, bacteria ABSTRACT This picture is one of a series of remarkable patterns that bacteria form when grown in a petri dish. While the colors and shading are artistic additions, the image templates are actual colonies of tens of billions of these microorganisms. The colony structures form as adaptive responses to laboratory-imposed stresses that mimic hostile environments faced in nature. They illustrate the coping strategies that bacteria have learned to employ, strategies that involve cooperation through communication. These selfsame strategies are used by the bacteria in their struggle to defeat our best antibiotics. Thus, if we understand the mechanisms behind the patterns, we can learn how to outsmart the bacteria - for example, by tampering with their communication - in our ongoing battle for our health. The images come from the laboratory of Professor Eshel Ben-Jacob, of the Tel-Aviv University (http://www.star.tau.ac.il/~inon/baccyber0.html) as part of collaboration with Professor Herbert Levine of UCSD's National Science Foundation Frontier Center for Theoretical Biological Physics ( http://www.ctbp.ucsd.edu). The goal of this research is to unravel the adaptation secrets enabling bacterial survival against all odds. Their efforts build upon progress in two disparate fields - pattern formation in complex dynamical systems and the molecular biology and biophysics of bacteria. In a sense, the strikingly beautiful organization of the pattern reflects the underlying social intelligence of the bacteria. The once controversial idea that bacteria cooperate to solve challenges has become commonplace, with the discovery of specific channels of communication between the cells and specific mechanisms facilitating the exchange of genetic information. Retrospectively, these capabilities should not have been seen as so surprising, as bacteria set the stage for all life on Earth and indeed invented most of the processes of biology. As we try to stay ahead of the disease-causing varieties of these versatile creatures, we must use our own intelligence to understand them. These images remind us never to underestimate our opponent. BIOGRAPHY ESHEL BEN-JACOB is Professor of Physics at Tel Aviv University and the President of the Israel Physical Society. He finished his Ph.D in 1982 on the dynamics of coupled Josephson Junctions and spent 1981-1984 as a Post Doctoral fellow at the KITP in Santa Barbara. He was Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor from 1984-1989, and Associate Professor at Tel Aviv from 1987-1992. He is a world-renowned physicist who has made outstanding contributions to the applications of mathematical and physical perspective to the studies of biological systems from bacterial colonies to neuronal networks. He is particularly well known for his new approach to physical biology in which he integrates experimental investigations with generic modeling and new analysis methods. Recently he pioneered the idea of Complexity-Based Adaptability of biological systems such as colonies of microorganisms and cultured neuronal networks. His approach of "Let the Complex be Simple" led to the new functional holography of biocomplexity as well as the development of new measures of regulated complexity. Ben-Jacob is the Maguy-Glass Professor in Physics of Complex Systems and is also well known for his bridging between "Bacterial Art" and the idea of "Shaped to Survive". NEORA is the designer and producer of several advanced interfaces for museum sites, academic and commercial web sites. She is the creator of *Ayuni* - telepresence in Nablus, *NYSE*- vr 3D interactive simulation of the trading floor, and of *Medea_ex* (http://www.medeaex.org) - immersive/interactive theatre play, which was performed in the Schiller Festival in Manheim, Germany and Acco Theatre Festival 2003, Israel. Since then, she's been experimenting with online worlds for remote learning, and pro-active projected "cave-like installations" for large audiences. Neora teaches cyberculture in Tel-aviv University, and VR in Shenkar College of Engineering and Design. Neora is involved with the open source movement in Israel, and is the organizer of the first two hackers conferences in Israel ( http://www.y2hack4.org). In April 2000, Neora was chosen as one of the 10 most influential people on the Israeli Internet (published in Yediot Aharonot newspaper. The other nine figures were tie/suited distinguished men). She got this title for the insights in her novel, web works, several publications and teachings ? all of which were way ahead of her time. In the last millenium, Neora was a UNIX programmer and PC support team leader in Dec Ltd and CDC Ltd for several years, and co-founder/co-developer in SGH, a startup in 1994, for multi-user games. She's the author of *Digital Affair*(Hakibutz Hameuchad Publishing, 1993), journalist, editor and columnist in a few professional magazines and newspapers over the years. _____________________________ TECHNOETIC PATHWAYS TO THE SPIRITUAL IN ART by Roy Ascott Artist Planetary Collegium University of Plymouth Drake Circus Plymouth PL4 8AA England United Kingdom roy [@] planetary-collegium [dot] net http://www.planetary-collegium.net KEYWORDS technoetics, nanofield, biophotonics ABSTRACT As the new media art paradigm of interactivity unfolds, with telematics and mixed reality systems becoming ubiquitous and commonplace, artists working at the forward edge of speculative research will become increasingly involved in pursuing the nature of consciousness, the complexity of living systems, and the potential of biophysics, nanotechnology, and quantum science for the development of artistic theory and practice. The substrate for this work is to be found at the convergence of digitally dry and biologically wet systems, constituting what can be called *moistmedia*. At the same time there is increasing interest in the psychic, spiritual and mystical aspects of traditional cultures, and holistic models of being which challenge the West's materialist paradigm. For example, ethnobotany identifies societies across the world that have developed a technology of consciousness from psychoactive plants, while biophysics researches the significance of biophotonic emission from DNA molecules and the information network of light which gives living organisms coherence. There is a compelling analogy to telematic information networks that permeate the planet as a whole. The emergent field of *technoetics* attempts to address issues of this kind, and to provide perspectives on post-biological culture. This in turn presents ontological and epistemological challenges that call for subtle understandings of mind and spirit. BIOGRAPHY Roy Ascott has worked with issues of art, technology and consciousness since the 1960s. Seminal projects include: *La Plissure du Texte*, Electra, Paris 1983; *Planetary Network*, Venice Biennale, 1986; *Aspects of Gaia*, Ars Electronica Linz, 1989. He directs the Planetary Collegium, and is editor of Technoetic Arts. His theoretical work is published in many languages, including, (Japanese) Art & Telematics: Toward the Construction of New Aesthetics. Tokyo: NTT, 1998; (Korean) Technoetic Arts, Yonsei University Press. 2002; and Telematic Embrace: visionary theories of art technology and consciousness, (ed) Edward A Shanken. University of California Press, 2003. *Engineering Nature* will be published late 2005. _____________________________ EXPERIENCE OF EXPRESSION: INSTANCES FROM INDIAN DRAMATURGY AND A DISCUSSION ON 'CONSCIOUSNESS' by Sangeetha Menon National Institute Of Advanced Studies Indian Institute of Science Campus Bangalore, India 560 012 prajnana [@] yahoo [dot] com smenon [@] nias [dot] iisc [dot] ernet [dot] in http://www.geocities.com/prajnana KEYWORDS representation, human body, consciousness ABSTRACT *Natya*, the Indian concept of dance-drama means visual representation (*abhinaya*) in fourfold forms such as using parts of the physical body (*angika*), verbal utterances (*vacika*), costumes and ornaments (*aharya) and physical signs of mental states (*satvika*). The rigorous and specified rules together with an integral approach to emotions, first-person experience of the actor and the spectator make *natya* belong to a higher order of cognition and experience. There is a wholesome representation of human emotions through a complex act of the external body (physical body gestures, costumes, music and plot) and the spiritual body (emotions, states of mind and unique relationship between the one who is presenting the re-representation and the one who is enjoying it). The fulfillment of *natya* is achieved through the effective and joint performance of different kinds of *abhinaya* and *mudra* (representation of objects, emotions and ideas through single hand and combined hand gestures), the theme of the play, music and involvement of the spectators. The role of spectators is considered to be an active event that mutually influences the performance of the actor in terms of the representation of feelings. Intersubjectivity is a key concept in the discussion on *natya*. One of the unique features of *natya* is that the epistemological and the experiential, the theory and technique are coordinated to form a mutually benefiting factor of the whole. Equal importance is given to detailed and specific physical and mental factors involved, and each of their transcendences is specified, at the same time, broadening the scope of experience both for the actor and the spectator. This presentation will discuss some of these ideas and also some implications of these in understanding 'consciousness'. BIOGRAPHY Sangeetha Menon is a philosopher with a doctorate awarded for the thesis entitled "the concept of consciousness in the *Bhagavad Gita*". After graduating in zoology she took her postgraduate degree in philosophy from University of Kerala. A gold-medallist for postgraduate studies, she received a University Grants Commission fellowship for her doctoral studies for five years. She joined National Institute of Advanced Studies in 1996 and is currently a Fellow in the Unit of Culture, Cognition and Consciousness. Dr Menon has been working in the area of consciousness studies for over 10 years and has given numerous talks, lectures and presentations at various national and international fora. Recently, Journal of Transpersonal Psychology published an article on her research work (2002). She has a book co-authored with H H Swami Bodhananda entitled *Dialogues: Philosopher meets the Seer* (2003, Srshti Publishers) which is a set of nine dialogues on socio-cultural issues of contemporary importance. Her research interests include Indian ways of thinking in classical philosophical schools, Indian psychology and Indian dramaturgy in the context of current discussions on 'consciousness'. Dr Menon has edited three books: *Consciousness and Genetics* (NIAS, 2002), *Scientific and Philosophical Studies on Consciousness* (NIAS, 1999), and *Science and Beyond* (NIAS, 2004). She has also authored a few monographs on consciousness in the context of Indian thought and has also published in refereed journals. In 2002, the Indian Council of Philosophical Research garnered her with the "Young Philosopher Award" for her research work. She is also an avid photographer, artist and web designer. She occasionally writes poetry and has an interest in classical Indian dance. _____________________________ CONCEPTS, BOUNDARIES, AND WAYS OF KNOWING by Arnold G. Smith Associate Director Pari Center for New Learning Via Savonarola, 1 58040 Pari (GR) Italy Tel: +39 339 8179 108 Fax: +39 0564 908654 arnold [dot] smith [@] paricenter [dot] com arnold [dot] smith [@] gmail [dot] com KEYWORDS artificial intelligence, right brain, categories, language, knowing ABSTRACT Artificial intelligence has, in terms of its original goals, failed. And its failure can point to some deep and interesting lessons about how we humans see the world?how we function, what kinds of knowledge we pay attention to, and what kind of creatures we are. In this talk I look at some of the tacit assumptions that underlie not only the research enterprise of artificial intelligence, but science more generally, and even our culture as a whole. In its quest to create intelligent computers, and robots that replace human beings in many roles, artificial intelligence (AI) has looked primarily at cognition as the essential human faculty. More importantly, even when considering aspects of humanness that are not strictly cognitive, such as emotion and low-level perception, it has unconsciously adopted the stance of the whole of science ? to look at its subject from an abstract, conceptual perspective. But in doing so, so much of what it is to be human is missed that the resulting models and programs and robots fall far short of replicating human nature. It is certainly interesting that computers can now beat human grand masters at chess. But it is also important that there is much in the behavior of a two-year-old child that we cannot explain well enough to allow us to build machines that exhibit similar behavior. Key to the problem is the sophisticated categories that we have developed to explain the world to ourselves. We use language and facts to analyze and represent the world, labeling objects and relationships, drawing boundaries, and grouping things and people into types and nationalities. In doing so, we come to think that this process is completely natural and obvious, and that this story that we tell ourselves is what the world is really like. Although this habit has great advantages, and perhaps coincidentally gives us great power of a certain kind, we fail to notice that there is constant projection of what we have created in our minds back onto the world. While we consciously imagine that this world of clear objects and obvious relationships is what the world "out there" consists of, we actually rely all the time on a deeper, much more intuitive and richly-connected sense of what is there and what is going on. Somehow our conceptual models, including the ones that science provides us with, occupy centre stage in our consciousness, while our non-conceptual intuitive and embodied awareness, which is crucial for much of our survival and participation in the world, stays in the shadows and often escapes conscious notice. Only as we learn to pay attention to these other aspects of ourselves do we have any chance of seeing the larger picture. In the process we are likely to discover much that we did not know we were missing. We can begin to recover our own wholeness, and at the same time see why AI has experienced such difficulties and why science will tell us only some of the stories we need. We can begin to see how incomplete are the dominant stories of our culture. BIOGRAPHY Arnold Smith received his undergraduate degree in applied mathematics at Harvard and did his doctoral research in artificial intelligence (natural language processing) at the University of Sussex. For many years he worked as a research scientist in artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, and artificial life at the University of Sussex, at SRI International, and at the National Research Council o Canada. He is currently Associate Director of the Pari Center for New Learning, located in a small village not far from Siena in Italy. He is working these days on the challenges of exploring and articulating much broader and more comprehensive worldviews than the standard one offered by science, that can accommodate insights into the nature of reality from the mystical and shamanic traditions without relinquishing the achievements and open values of the scientific tradition. _____________________________ INTERSTELLAR ALTRUISM: SCIENCE, ART, AND COMMUNICATION WITH EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE by Douglas A. Vakoch Director of Interstellar Message Composition SETI Institute 515 North Whisman Road Mountain View, CA 94043 U.S.A. Tel: +1 650 960 4514 Fax: + 650 968 5830 vakoch [@] seti [dot] org http://www.seti.org/messages KEYWORDS interstellar communication, SETI, interstellar messages ABSTRACT If some day astronomers detect signals from intelligent life around distant stars, some of the most critical questions facing humankind will be "Should we reply?" and if so, "What should we say?" and "What /could/ we say that would be meaningful to an independently evolved civilization, separated from Earth by vast interstellar distances?" I will suggest that we may be able to communicate something about our science, our artistic sensibilities, and even what it is like to be human. This paper will examine some of the proposals for interstellar message composition being developed at the SETI Institute in conjunction with the Leonardo network, the International Academy of Astronautics, and the International Association of Semiotic Studies. I will focus on a way of viewing the relationship between art and science that reflects in part my own professional and cultural background as a psychologist from the United States. A dominant view in American psychology is that human actions can be explained in terms of basic scientific principles. I will review ways that the SETI Institute, in conjunction with an international group of artists, scientists, and other scholars from the humanities, is using this approach to create interstellar messages of the kind that may some day be transmitted by electromagnetic signals to other worlds. In brief, I will suggest that some basic scientific principles that might be shared by many technological civilizations may provide a foundation for describing human notions of aesthetics, human behavior, and even ethical ideals such as altruism. BIOGRAPHY Douglas Vakoch is the Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute. As the Deputy Chair of the International Academy of Astronautics Study Group on Interstellar Message Construction, Vakoch had led recent workshops in Croatia, France, Germany, and the United States. He serves on the Editorial Board of *Leonardo*, as well as the Space and the Arts Advisory Committee of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology. Vakoch is the editor of *Between Worlds: The Art and Science of Interstellar Message Composition*, a book to be published by The MIT Press in Spring 2006. As a member of the International Institute of Space Law, he examines international policy issues related to interstellar communication. In addition to being a clinical psychologist (Ph.D., State University of New York at Stony Brook), Vakoch has formal training in comparative religion (B.A., Carleton College) and the history and philosophy of science (M.A., University of Notre Dame). _____________________________ POETIC-CUBS by Raquel Paricio Media Artist, Spain and Ph.D candidate Technical University of Catalunya (UPC) Barcelona Spain Tel: +34 620 43 03 23 raquel [@] clonclon [dot] com http://www.poetictissue.org http://www.clonclon.com/raquelparicio and J. Manuel Moreno Arostegui Associate Professor Technical University of Catalunya (UPC) Department of Electronic Engineering Advanced Hardware Architectures Group Campus Nord, Building C4 c/Jordi Girona 1-3 08034 ? Barcelona Spain Tel: +34 93 401 56 91 Fax: +34 93 401 67 56 moreno [@] eel [dot] upc [dot] es http://www-eel.upc.es/aha/ KEYWORDS apperception, bioinspired technologies, multisensorial installation ABSTRACT Goals of the installation: The use of bio-inspired techniques in the development of POETIC-CUBS [1] responds to offer environments that help the exploration of the mind. Such environments help to feel new perceptions or a higher consciousness. The development of perception and awareness is the first step in the exploration of other mental spaces, and in expanding consciousness. Starting from a bio-inspired electronic tissue, based on the POETIC devices, the main goal will consist in the development of an application where technical/scientific and artistic features are to be demonstrated. POETIC-CUBS will be the outcome of this process. Ongoing work: POETIC-CUBS will be a physical installation, a sculptural setup, able to self-organise and to adapt its shape driven by the stimuli coming from its direct environment. The installation consists of nine autonomous robots constructed in the form of cubes with displays in five out of their six sides. The cubes are in a room, so that when the room is empty they are grouped together as a 3 x 3 array, constituting a cell. When a person or a group of people enter the room the cubes start to move and place themselves around the people (holding the same distance between them). Therefore, the cell divides itself and differentiates to create an organism. If the person or the group of people move in the room (or even if one person moves the arms) the cubes move and the colours that are depicted in the displays change. Therefore, in this installation the people can observe how their actions determine the physical aspect of the organism (constituted by the set of 9 cubes), i.e., the phenotype, being thus a clear illustration of the genotype to phenotype mapping process. Learning (epigenetic) mechanisms can also be demonstrated since the reaction of the cubes (i.e., their movement) can be modulated depending on the actions done by people. The cubes also determine autonomously the state of the battery, and upon detecting a low battery threshold they go to a specific place in the room where the battery may be charged. The POETIC electronic tissue: The use of the POETIC electronic devices in the installation is justified by their capabilities to provide adaptation to the environment and/or the user using evolutionary, learning, growth, self-repair and self-replication techniques. These features permit to produce an optimal response in dynamic environments or in the case this response has to be adapted to the requirements of a user or a group of users. The POETIC devices are structured around three basic subsystems: the environment subsystem, the organic subsystem and the system interface. The environment subsystem is in charge of managing the interaction of the electronic tissue with its direct environment. It also takes care of the artificial evolutionary processes. The organic subsystem is constituted by a bi-dimensional array of programmable cells, called molecules. The molecules can locally communicate with their 4 direct neighbours. By grouping molecules it is possible to construct cells with a complex functionality. On top of the molecular level the organic subsystem contains a routing level, permitting the communication between cells. One of the most salient features of the routing level consists in the possibility of establishing dynamic communications in real time between the cells that are implemented in the organic subsystem. REFERENCE 1. POETIC is the name used for the electronic devices that constitute the hardware substrate of the installation, and CUBS is the word in catalan language equivalent to CUBES in English. BIOGRAPHY RAQUEL PARICIO GARCIA, graduate in Fine Arts, and currently a Ph.D candidate at the Technical University of Catalunya (UPC) about Art, Science and Technology: Sensory interfaces and apperception. She has been teaching in different University schools of Barcelona (ESDI, ELISAVA, UB). She has participated in exhibitions held in Mendel Art Gallery Saskatoon, Fundacio Tapies, Media Festival Canarias, Digital Culture Festival, Festival at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Eliterature Festival, Primavera Sound, Barcelona, Agora Mobius and University of Valencia. Her research interests include body consciousness and expression, and multi-sensory environments and interfaces. DR. JUAN MANUEL MORENO AROSTEGUI, Ph.D in Telecommunications Engineering, currently holds and Associate Professor position at the Department of Electronic Engineering, Technical University of Catalunya (UPC), in Barcelona, Spain. He is the coordinator of the POETIC 1st project, and in the past he has participated in other projects funded by the EC in the area of programmable devices (RECONF2 and FIPSOC projects) and artificial neural networks models (ELENA project). His research interests include bio-inspired computing techniques, artificial neural networks models and architectures for programmable devices. _____________________________ CONVERGENCE BETWEEN ART AND SCIENCE. A DIGITAL ARTISTIC CREATION by Chu-Yin Chen Professor Departement Arts et Technologies de l'Image Universit? Paris 8 France KEYWORDS nature, Chinese thought, artificial life, animations ABSTRACT The relations between art and science take roots in the remote origin of civilizations and in their philosophy which models along centuries the attitude of the people about the physical and social phenomena in which they live. The Chinese thought conceives the universe as a great organization in which the state of each part depends on the others' one. To foresee and act, it is necessary to observe the phenomena of Nature while adapting oneself with flexibility and by respecting their properties so as to preserve a total balance. Impregnated with this belief, my first step towards knowledge and artistic creation is the observation of Nature. Following the scientists' wake, I probe the world deeply to understand the truth hidden into the messages of Nature. The mechanisms and the operation of the Life penetrated my digital artistic creation through the use of Artificial Life. This enabled me to seize certain processes of the living systems, and at the same time, to create Virtual Creatures endowed with intuitive and evolving moves. *Thanks to new technologies, I do not paint anymore the still life; I program some living nature*. The creatures that are animated on the computer's screen are virtual, potential and released by my innumerable software writing endeavors. Within this new dimension of the virtual space and time, the actions and the evolutions of this Artificial Life intermingle themselves. Driving all the elementary parts belonging to my creatures constitutes the origin of the intrinsic relations that we can watch into their animations. Consequently, these animations cannot be satisfied anymore with an interpolation between two positions fixed in advance, but permanently requires an extrapolation upon the future, unceasingly questioned by its own contents. Using behavioral animation, each virtual creature has its own genes and its own form of intelligence enabling it to adapt itself, to anticipate the variations of its environment, and to evolve consequently. Thus, the pictorial shapes are embodied into this Artificial Life. For me, to animate pictures mean to project their life in the future! On the "Convergence Arts and Sciences" program's basis, the organization "Centre Sciences" of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) offered me the opportunity to be an artist in residence in a biology research laboratory at the INRA of Tours (France). This enabled me to confront two forms of research, and to associate scientific creation, artistic creation and communication for a large audience. My film *Ephemere* based on 3D computer graphics animation is not an account or a scientific statement. This artwork exposes a lived track, the results of a contact between the vision of scientists and the vision of an artist. Science is always very present in our life and remains faithful to reality, while art always plays with its phantasms, each one according to its direction: Science advances, Art invents. As in Saint Exup?ry's book *Le Petit Prince*, the scientists try to draw a true sheep; the artists are satisfied with its box. The sheep enhances our knowledge; the box contains dreams! BIOGRAPHY Born in Taiwan in 1962, Chu-Yin Chen arrived in France in 1987 and received her diploma from the Beaux-Arts school of Paris in 1991. Then, she directed her research towards new technologies, and became Doctor in Aesthetics, Science and Technologies of Arts in 2001. Currently, she is a Professor in Departement Arts et Technologies de l'Image, Universit? Paris 8. Strong in her cultural origins, Chu-Yin Chen belongs to a very original current that lies at the crossroad of artistic creation, biology and Artificial Life. Her movies and her interactive installations result from programs based on the theory of complexity and on software technologies enabling to study the process of the living. _____________________________ BRIDGING CULTURES IN ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION. NEW MULTILITERACY MODELS FOR INTERACTION DESIGN by Patricia Search Professor Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Troy, New York 12180 U.S.A. Tel: +1 518 276 6467 Fax: +1 518 276 4092 patriciasearch [@] yahoo [dot] com KEYWORDS interaction design, cultural interface, intercultural grammar ABSTRACT Indigenous cultures have a spiritual foundation that is built on social-community interaction and intimate relationships with the physical environment. These interrelationships are defined by aural and visual communication techniques that represent pluralistic perspectives. Research has revealed similarities in the symbols of these early cultures that suggest similar mental models and logical structures across cultures. Psychology research has also indicated that these symbols transcend time and convey similar underlying meanings in contemporary cultures. With electronic communication it is possible to use digital media to create interactive spaces that simulate the social values and cognitive models of these early oral cultures. There is a great deal of talk about bridging the digital divide by making electronic hardware and software available to underdeveloped communities. Little focus, however, has been given to the need to develop computer interfaces that are appropriate for the diverse learning and communication styles in different cultures. Such interfaces need to reflect pluralistic, aural-visual, community-based communication styles that differ from Western perspectives of temporal sequencing, logical analysis, and fixed hierarchies. Just giving underdeveloped communities traditional computer hardware and software will not bridge the digital divide. The human-computer interface must reflect the user's cultural and social methods of interaction and communication. In my research I am developing new multiliteracy models for computer interface design. The interfaces use HyperGlyphs, design concepts derived from dynamic, time-based communication structures used in oral communication in Indigenous cultures. The research uses visual patterns to represent the changing semantic structures in an interactive information space where there are numerous networks of associations. These multiliteracy models integrate the semiotics of early oral cultures with the semiotics of modern electronic communication. The interface designs reflect the pluralistic, aural-visual, community-based communication styles of Indigenous cultures. This research will be incorporated into a collaborative project with two universities in Australia. For this project I am designing the computer interface for an online course in Indigenous studies. The course analyses the cultural interface between Indigenous and Western societies. Background information about my research is available in two papers at: http://www.rpi.edu/~searcp/HyperGlyphs.pdf http://www.rpi.edu/~searcp/Transformations.pdf BIOGRAPHY Patricia Search is a multimedia artist and professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. She was awarded a Fellowship in Computer Arts from the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a Fulbright scholar who received a grant to work with two universities in Australia. Her artwork has been featured in 22 solo exhibitions, over 150 group exhibitions, and several documentaries on electronic art. She received best paper awards for her research in interaction design from the International Visual Literacy Association and the World Conference on Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia. She served on the executive boards of the Inter-Society for Electronic Art and the International Visual Literacy Association. _____________________________ SPACESUIT: SPACE CRAFT by Bradley M. Pitts Massachusetts Institute of Technology Man-Vehicle Lab; Rm 37-219 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02139 U.S.A. bmpitts [@] mit [dot] edu http://www.space-craft.info http://www.mit.edu/~bmpitts/BMP.html KEYWORDS spacesuits, design, metaphysical objects ABSTRACT Often described as a "spacecraft for one", spacesuits exist as highly complex, technical systems. For the wearer of a spacesuit, it represents protection, a life-line extending into the depths of outer space, but for the public, who never see the spacesuit in person, it exists as a symbol embodying dreams and beliefs about who and what we are, and what we may become. It suggests our connections to our larger environment of earth, solar system, and universe. These concepts are not just projected onto the material spacesuit, but are contained in its physical construction. Designers are themselves individuals with their own notions of what the spacesuit is and what its function should be. These beliefs and philosophies are made material through the spacesuit's design and construction. Once in operation, the physical object projects these philosophies onto the world, literally shaping the reality of the individual inside the spacesuit. The spacesuit is a highly charged, metaphysical object. This presentation explores the concept of a spacesuit from many points along the spectrum of its existence from art, to engineering, to mathematics. Cultural explorations of the spacesuit, the body, and space have been performed, installed, written about, and documented as part of a masters thesis (MIT, 2003). These explorations have recontextualized the role of the spacesuit and the entire endeavour of human spaceflight, leading to alternative spacesuit concepts. Refining these concepts required engineering methods including mathematical modelling, model validation, and tests on the human body. In the end, a vision of a culturally invested Mechanical Counterpressure spacesuit is developed along with some of the design tools necessary for its realization. In this way, the spacesuit serves as an object of inquiry fostering thought about the connections between the internal and external universe. It is from this holistic exploration that new (or recontextualized) spiritualities emerge, moulding the foundation for future work. By approaching even the most technically demanding, life-threatening situations in this way, we enter into "space craft," an artistic mode of investigation and realization capable of producing artefacts for the cultural advancement of humanity. Due to the embodied beliefs and philosophies, these artefacts facilitate new possibilities for the people around (and in) them. Biographical note: http://www.space-craft.info _____________________________ SELF-REFLEXIVITY IN SCIENCE AND ARTS by Anna-Maria Christoph-Gaugusch Media Artist, Austria andanchr [@] indiana [dot] edu http://www.members.chello.at/andrea.g/philosophisches/philosophisches.htm KEYWORDS self-reflexivity, digital technologies, arts ABSTRACT To "observe" something scientifically usually means to observe something that exists "outside", independently of human conceptions. Scientists tend to ignore the world "inside" ? their conceptions, projections and presuppositions. Instead of overlooking already acquired concepts a self-reflexive mirror will be developed in order to observe how concepts are build up in the first place. This mirror will not merely reflect visible light, however. It does not even require our eyes but rather forces us to close them. A self-reflexive mirror requires to look "inside" and to observe how our mind-reflections i.e., our rule-guided thoughts, our sound- as well as taste-, smell- and touch-sensations arise and vanish. Digital technologies in combination with arts serve as a tool in order to virtually (re)construct a self-reflexive mirror of non-dualistic mindfulness/awareness. Once we are able to observe in a self-reflexive fashion how our concepts evolve, we may realize that the distinction between our concepts and our meaningfully formed reality is a concept in itself. A self-reflexive mirror may provide arguments for the view that subjects as well as objects arise hand in hand with linguistic concepts and rule-guided reciprocal actions, just as virtual realities require code as well as interaction with a user for their existence. BIOGRAPHY Dr. Andrea Gaugusch was born in 1977 and received her M.A. in Psychology (specializing in Music Psychology) in 2001, and her Ph.D. in Philosophy in 2003, from the University of Vienna, Austria. She was the recipient of the "Schr?dinger Scholarship" on the project "Non-Dualism and its Implications for Cognitive Science". She is currently pursuing Postdoctoral Research at Indiana University, Bloomington (U.S.A.), and is a postdoctoral fellow of the "Planetary Collegium" (CAiiA-STAR), University of Plymouth. _____________________________ LESSONS FROM THE PHILIPPINE TRIAD by Fatima Lasay Media Artist, Philippines College of Fine Arts University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City 1101 Philippines Tel: +632 920 53 01 to 99 local 7024 to 7026 Mobile : +(63) 0920 3616 220 fats [@] up [dot] edu [dot] ph http://www.digitalmedia.upd.edu.ph/digiteer/ KEYWORDS Philippine society, tripartite structure, art-science ABSTRACT In my practice as artist and educator of art motivated by technologies, I have found a place in a mythical way of thinking in and about technology. Eventually, this led me to a vivisection of binary oppositions that seemed always to make difficult the intersections between science and art. I found a powerful tool of vivisection in the tripartite structure of ancient Philippine society: the Datu, Blacksmith and Babaylan. The role of the Babaylan in this triad, which contemporary society has nearly completely bombed and "educated" into oblivion, is most crucial. In the binarism of the Datu and Blacksmith, it is the Babaylan who strikes the balance. Being a completely integrated individual, the Babaylan is traditionally endowed with the power to thread the physical, social, spiritual and psychological ties of a community in thinking, and eventually extricating, its people out of the oppressive relationship with a dangerously bi-polar world. In a culture where art has ritual value, recovering the Philippine triad is to recover art as a living ritual. It is a process of defining in cultural terms a deeply rooted meaning of both art and technology. This presentation is a visual/aural journey, through art, science and technology, to the recovery of the Philippine triad, and the difficult but crucial remembrance and practice of the ritual and philosophy of the Babaylan. BIOGRAPHY Fatima Lasay is an artist, educator and independent curator of digital media art. She obtained her degree in Industrial Design (1991) and Master of Fine Arts (2002) at the University of the Philippines, College of Fine Arts. In 1995, she was invited to develop and implement digital media courses for the studio arts department at the College. She is currently Assistant Professor of digital media at the University of the Philippines. Her artistic and research concerns include the intersection of technology-based art with Asian mythologies, Spanish colonial religious art, electronic literature and sound. _____________________________ AN ANOTHER READING OF THE GREEK MYTH OF ORPHEO WITH THROUGH NEW TECHNOLOGIES: POETIC PROPOSITION ABOUT ARTIFICIAL LIFE by Kiss Jocelyne SISAR-Universit? de Marne La Vall?e, France. University Marne La Vall?e 6 cours du Danube 77 700 Serris Tel: + 00 33 6 62 54 58 03 Fax: + 01 60 07 17 83 kissjocelyne [@] aol [dot] com http://www.pixelcreation.fr/news/news.asp?code=1724947516 http://www.clubopera.com/lesnews/index.php3?debut=20 http://www.zazieweb.fr/archives/2001/imprimer.php?num=16225 KEYWORDS computer music, virtual orphism theatre, interactive drama ABSTRACT This multimedia play rests on poetic and musical variations with settings, singers, real and virtual instrumentalists. This scenic device proposes an interpretation of the myth of Orpheo, around a reflection on the problems of the border between the life and virtuality, namely that we explore the oddness of this impression of reality produced by data-processing simulations, this sensory perception comparable with that which would create the entities, the processes or the environments real or imaginary which are simulated. This proposition of representation of one part of the story of Greek cosmology with through a virtual environment is held within interactive dramaturgy. The story begins with the moment where Orpheo goes down to the hells to try to save Eurydice and meets Cerbere, the dog with multiple heads, which keeps the door of the kingdom of the God Hades. This character is represented by a network of inter-connected computers whose each screen posts an animated head with a personality, and a speech decorated with declamation of onomatopoeical sentences, which have him clean and with almost human appearance. The plurality of these various natures constituting the character of Cerbere authorizes a kind of "interior" dialogue. This scenic principle is used here like a poetic metaphor of the principles of emergence and artificial life. Orphism and virtuality: Iannis Xenakis, was the first on who propose bringings together between the virtual one and the music. The exercise of formalization which constitutes the musical transcription thought of a thought formalized for data-processing application brought closer from its point of view of work of the Old Greeks. "When only states that spirit is deposed God, ektasis, (left oneself), can reveal its true nature. It is necessary to escape the wheel from the Birth by purifications (Karthamoi) and sacraments (orghia), instruments of the ektasis. The katharmoi are done by the music and medicine". One can foresee, here, a direct reference to orphism. This exit of self-orphic symbolizes for him the control of humans on nature, this universal gift of creation. It represents the field of possible which works with the raising of age of computer. It is the reason of the musical revival. We propose here a second reading of this myth in comparison with new technologies in order to give in debate an old question about the notion of the "alive" one. The myth of Orpheo poses the problems of existence of border between living and the "nonalive" one, enters animated and inanimated. In another words, it raises the following question can one know qualities prone alive compared to an object which is not, between what is natural and artificial. Or in other words to take again the problems of Jacques Monod: "Would it be in fact possible to define by objective criteria and Generals the characteristics of the artificial objects, produced conscious projective activity, in opposition to natural objects, resulting from the free play of the physical forces?". Without however answering these questions we present a metaphorical interpretation on this set of themes. The character of Cerb?re is the central character of the part, which will support in a brief way of these theses. It incarnates to some extent, problems. It represents at the same time the world of the gods, which in imaginary of orphic is symbolized by the paramount seed, being defined as an entity integrating a plurality of qualities. By opposition, human is just an individualization of these qualities; it is a degradation of this initial entity. Cerb?re constitutes here a whole of different personalities gathered in networks of computers each unit with a clean behavior, however it is released from the device of the emergent properties of the system making it possible to put in his work a unit within the network. This property constitutes here, a metaphor and represents that of the feeling and more precisely that of the feeling in love. It is thus, because Cerb?re is in love of Eurydice that this one will remain into the shadow. It thus achieves to solidify Eurydice in this space out of the lifetime, achieving a certain way him also phonographs (act which deprives of the life a being). Do the problems presented by the personification of the networks of computers by the character of cerb?re raise the question to know if an entity has gifted of action and of feeling which evolves in time, perhaps qualified the alive one? This part carried out in collaboration with the team of INREV directed by Monique Nahas and of CICEP directed by Philippe Tancelin of the University Paris 8 was presented at the European House Photography in Paris, at the time of the festival @rt outsiders organized by Jean Luc Soret. BIOGRAPHY A doctor in aesthetic, science and technology of Arts, Kiss is also a professor-assistant in computer music in the University of Marne La vallee and a researcher in the CNRS Aesthetic Institute of Contemporary Arts. She explores through various media the potentialities of the connexionist filters within interactive systems dedicated to numerical arts. In her publication *Musical Composition and Cognitive Sciences* she reports these process. ________________________________________________________________ BONUS SECTION ________________________________________________________________ REFLECTIONS FROM THE INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF CULTURES IN MELILLA by Judy Kupferman Theatre Department Tel Aviv University Israel Tel and Fax: + 972 3 528 3120 kupfer [@] post [dot] tau [dot] ac [dot] il The city of Melilla recently held its first International Festival of Cultures. This included a colloquium on Science and Art, which took place in Melilla on July 18-20, as well as an art exposition, and nightly concerts on the beach. It was sponsored by the City of Melilla together with Leonardo and the Al Andalus Foundation. Melilla is a surprising town. It is located on the north coast of Morocco but has belonged to Spain since 1497. It features the most spectacular display of modernist architecture outside Barcelona, along with an ancient fortress and a lovely seafront. Perhaps its main distinction is the fact that many cultures live there in harmony: Moslems, Jews, Christians, Hindu and Gypsies walk through its streets with no apparent tension. The conference reflected this diversity and was, therefore, unusual. In addition to the colloquium the festival featured an exposition of art and concerts on the beach, representing the various local cultures. The subject of the colloquium was science, art and Mediterranean culture. Participants varied accordingly; rarely have I seen such a variegated set of people, and the remarkable experience of the conference was in getting to know people from areas both geographic and professional with whom I would never otherwise have come into contact. In addition, we were from very different cultural and religious backgrounds, and thus meeting on neutral ground provided a rare opportunity to begin to understand the different cultures and world-pictures. After all, the main theme behind the varied subject matter was the world-picture, how we grasp the universe and our place in it, be it as scientists, artists, people of various faiths and disciplines. The moving spirits behind the conference were Mohammed Aziz Chafchaouni of Morocco; Roger Malina of Marseille, astrophysicist and editor of Leonardo; and Julien Knebusch of Leonardo/OLATS in Paris. Participants at the conference included scientists, artists, and scholars from India, France, Spain, the UK and the US, Jordan and Egypt. Our Israeli contingent was large as it was thought this would help in bridging between the cultures. It included Prof. Eshel Ben Jacob, physicist and President of the Israel Physical Society; Yael Katzir, former student who now works with bacterial art; Neora, digital artist; and I, a theatre lighting designer and physics student who have one foot in each world, so to speak. We did not know quite what to expect when we were invited, and were impressed and surprised by the experience. For us, as for many of the others, it was a rare opportunity to meet people from very different cultures and viewpoints. This situation involved a certain amount of strain at times and was not always an easy experience. However, the festival activities smoothed out this strain in many ways. Strolling together through the art exposition and listening together under the stars to a thrilling flamenco performance - all these helped in bridging barriers that were not at all trivial. The warm and special atmosphere of the city contributed a great deal. Melilla is a relaxed place. Drivers don't honk their horns. Women in full Moslem dress stroll side by side with girls in strapless tops, and nobody seems disturbed by this sight. People smile easily and are friendly to strangers. The conference included four sessions: The first dealt with the relationship between art and science, and the second with the role of computer software in future culture. The third focused on Islam, and on art and science within the Arabian-Spanish world. The fourth centered around the influence of cultural background on approaches to art and science. A few examples of the lectures may offer some idea of the content. This brief survey necessarily omits other interesting presentations, but I have tried to give some idea of the variety offered. Roger Malina's lecture dealt with the tension between the different cultures of art and science as well as those of engineering and technology, of different views and religions, and of regionalism. Other lecturers embraced technology as embodied by the internet: Mohammed Aziz Chafchaouni together with American Harold Brokaw described their "Virtual Geodesy", an interactive computer program which attempts to create relationships between scientific data and cultural content. Karla Schuch-Brunet of Brazil gave a survey of the use of the Internet as a vehicle for social reform in Brazil. Dr. Fathi Saleh of Egypt described the website he has set up of Egyptian heritage (http://www.cultnat.org). Some lectures focused on arts and literature. Leila Khalifa of France spoke of the concepts of time and space in the work of Ibn 'Arabi. Neora ( neora.com ) of Israel described her experimental theater production of "Medea_Ex." This piece used a virtual 3D mythological universe projected around the audience, and the audience, represented as the chorus, influenced the action using SMS messages. Dr. Sangeetha Menon of India spoke of consciousness research in light of Indian dance drama. Dr. Ahmed Moustafa, renowned Islamic researcher and artist, discussed the geometric form of Arabic script and its implicit significance. Dr. Moustafa's talk focused on the square shaped dot and its relationship with the shapes of letters. In accordance with the system of Arabic script devised by Abbasid Wazir Ibn Mugla in the 9th century, this reflects images of Islamic mystical thought. Dr. Moustafa also spoke of the cube, and, indeed, his own artwork, a multicolored structure of cubes on cubes, was on view in the exposition. Professor Eshel Ben Jacob's lecture involved a link between science and art. He described self-organization among bacteria, as evidenced by the beautiful artistic patterns they produce. This lecture had unexpected drama: The computer that was to project the Power Point presentation would not function, and Professor Ben Jacob finally decided not to wait for its repair, placed one slide that he had prepared in an overhead projector and improvised a beautifully clear presentation around the single slide, which may even have proved more effective than his original carefully prepared lecture. An interesting insight into the relationship of art and culture was provided on the last day. In the morning Indian physicist C.S. Unnikrishnan gave a talk which basically dealt with general relativity in terms accessible to the layman.. Professor Unnikrishnan's current work involves measurements of the Casimir effect. He prefaced his lecture with talk about his own background and the personal spiritual motivation behind his scientific career. I contrasted this with two lectures later in the day, which were given by western artists. Philippe Boissonnet of Montreal described his work with holograms in technical detail. (The lecture and pictures were interesting but it would have been nice to see the holograms themselves!) Roy Ascott, a British artist with an impressive record of academic positions who has spent years of work on digital art, spoke of the new vistas opening up to the artist inspired by biophysics and biophotonics. This talk too had a distinct analytic and technical flavor. In the two days preceding the event, there had been several comments about the opposition or dichotomy of art and science. These three lectures seemed to contradict that. I doubt very strongly whether Western scientists would have prefaced a description of their work with talk about their personal spiritual motivations, and yet clearly there is strong personal motivation behind any such work; otherwise one wouldn't engage in something so difficult! Similarly the Western background of the two artists probably contributed to the clearly articulated conceptual framework and methodology they described; yet surely few artists of any culture create without a conceptual framework and methodology. One could see that, in fact, art and science are not inherently different activities but that the cultural background of the speaker influences the way he describes his work to others. Many of the participants seemed to find new food for thought in the meeting with people of such different backgrounds and fields. Artists don't usually attend conferences together with scientists; Moslems don't often talk about the Qur'an with Jews. There was much private discussion of the various issues. I asked my Israeli companions their impressions of the conference and the festival. All agreed that a major part of the experience was the variety of people and ideas we met. This multiplicity of cultures and religions were reflected in the city of Melilla itself with its multicultural harmony, and lent significance to the choice of this particular venue for the conference. Eshel Ben Jacob pointed out that in most scientific conferences the audience outnumbers significantly the lecturers: Each session includes a few presentations before the public, followed by questions. In this case the participants of the conference were themselves the audience, and often were not of the same field as the lecturer. This situation provided an opportunity for widening horizons and for more immediate discussion than is usual in more formal public situations. It was thus possible to create a much stronger relationship between the various participants. In addition, the formal structure of the conference included much time together aside from the lecture sessions. The informal discussions at the two-hour mealtimes customary in that country provided a rare chance to get to know each other. The material presented at the conference was interesting and valuable, enabling a profound examination of values, of the relationship of art and science, and of man's place in the universe. But perhaps the most valuable and unusual aspect for all the participants, I think, was the opportunity to form relationships of friendship and respect with people from significantly different backgrounds and thus gain some insight into extremely different visions of our world. It must be stressed that this is just the beginning: This first Melilla conference has shown that such a meeting of different and even conflicting elements can succeed, and it seems of first importance to continue such events on an annual basis. BIOGRAPHY Judy Kupferman is a leading Israeli lighting designer. She has worked in hundreds of productions in theater, dance, opera, son-et-lumiere, exhibitions, outdoor spectaculars and more. She is on the faculty of the Theater Department at Tel Aviv University. Years of working with light led to insupportable curiosity about physics, and eventually to a BSc in physics at Tel Aviv University. She is now working towards an MSc, and trying to juggle this along with a lighting career and teaching. Though this is not easy she generally finds it to be a lot of fun. ________________________________________________________________ ONE FROM THE VAULT: FROM THE LEA ARCHIVES ________________________________________________________________ ESSAY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING First published: (LEA 3:8), August 1995 http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/TEXT/Vol_2/lea_v3_n08.txt by Eduardo Kac Assistant Professor of New Media University of Kentucky, Department of Art College of Fine Arts 207 Fine Arts Bldg. Lexington, KY 40506-0022 Department of Art Tel: (606) 257-8151 Department of Art Fax: (606) 257-3042 ekac1 [@] pop[dot] uky [dot] edu The title of this article refers not to Locke's philosophical work, but to the live, bi-directional, interactive, telematic, inter-species sonic installation I created with Ikuo Nakamura between Lexington (KY), and New York. This piece was presented publicly from October 21 to November 11, 1994, simultaneously at the Center for Contemporary Art, University of Kentucky, and the Science Hall, in New York. The installation is scheduled to be presented publicly again at the Susquehana Art Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in September of 1995. Ikuo, a New York-based Japanese artist and holographer, and I met very briefly in 1990, during the opening of my solo exhibition at the Museum of Holography, in New York. A common friend re-introduced us again online via e-mail in 1993, and since then we started to develop a very stimulating dialogue, primarily over e-mail. Ikuo and I discovered many interesting points in common. The most striking coincidence was that we were working independently on similar concepts for an interactive installation. He once described a piece in which two cactuses would exchange signals live over a modem connection. I told him about a piece I was working on in which two caged birds would have a live telephonic conversation. After we met again personally in 1994, during the Fifth International Symposium on Display Holography at Lake Forest College, Illinois, we decided to merge the two concepts and create a piece in which my canary dialogues over a regular phone line with his plant 2,000 miles away. Instead of the cactus, the plant of choice was the Philodendron. The piece was exhibited in the context of my show Dialogues, realized partially on the Internet, in connections with other museums and galleries, and in the Center for Contemporary Artat the University of Kentucky. [THIS TEXT CAN BE VIEWED IN ITS ENTIRETY BY LEA/LEONARDO SUBSCRIBERS AT: http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/archive.html] ________________________________________________________________ LEONARDO REVIEWS 2005.9 ________________________________________________________________ This month we are featuring three reviews chosen as much for their quality as diversity. Although the majority of our work at Leonardo Reviews deals with books and sometimes journals we do have a number of very active reviewers who focus their attention of CDs, websites and exhibitions. This is precisely the selection this month as we start with Richard Kade's review of *Encounter: Merce* is not so much a critique as a contextualization of the importance of the event staged at Stanford University in March this year. *Talking Drum* and *Rogue Wave* both by Chris Brown are reviewed collectively by Ren? van Peer, one of our active music experts. In a long review van Peer provides both background information and an informed and reasoned account, which, in itself, reads as though it is music. Finally Amy Ione, a familiar name to those who follow Leonardo Reviews, has written about the overview of an event which although now history can be revisited ? at least in a restricted way ? on the web. Her review of *Visionary Anatomies* at the National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC, 2004 also includes the url at which it is archived. As usual she has identified one of the important discussion currently going on our field and triangulates *Visionary Anatomies* in a wider fascination with the boundary between art and science. Among other reviews posted this month there is Yvonne Spielmann's review of the Venice Biennale. This is an event that she now covers regularly for us and as you will read, she feels raises some rather profound problems. All these reviews together with the archive can be found at http://www.leoanrdoreviews.mit.edu Michael Punt Editor-in-Chief Leonardo Reviews _____________________________ REVIEWS POSTED AUGUST 2005 Appropriating Technology: Vernacular Science and Social Power by Ron Eglash, Jennifer Croissant, Giovanna Di Chiro, and Rayvon Fouch?, Eds. Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen Artificial Life IX: Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems by Jordan Pollack, Mark Bedau, Phil Husbands, Takashi Ikegami and Richard A. Watson, Eds. Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen La Biennale di Venezia 51st International Art Exhibition Reviewed by Yvonne Spielmann Carnal Art: Orlan's Refacing by C. Jill O'Bryan Reviewed by Rob Harle (Australia) The Curvature of Spacetime: Newton, Einstein, and Gravitation by Harald Fritzsch; translated by Karin Heusch Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen Disruptive Pattern Material: An Encyclopedia of Camouflage by Hardy Blechman Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen Encounter: Merce Event website: http://encountermerce.stanford.edu. Reviewed by Richard Kade Hans Haacke by Walter Grasskamp Reviewed by Artur Golczewski Infinite Variety: The Life and Legend of the Marchesa Casati by Scot D. Ryersson and Michael Orlando Yaccarino Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen Leonora Carrington: Surrealism, Alchemy and Art by Susan L. Aberth Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens Proteus: A Nineteenth Century Vision by David Lebrun Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens Qatar Foundation Innovations in Education: the Art and Science Partnership Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher Shades of Black: Assembling Black Art in 1980s Britain by David A. Bailey, Ian Baucom & Sonia Boyce, Eds. Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher Symmetry 2000: Part 1 and Part 2 I. Hargittai & T.C. Laurent, Eds. Reviewed by Rob Harle (Australia) Talking Drum by Chris Brown and Rogue Wave by Chris Brown Reviewed by Ren? van Peer Technology as Experience by John McCarthy and Peter Wright Reviewed by John Knight Them: A Memoir of Parents by Francine du Plessix Gray Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens Visionary Anatomies by Harvey Fineberg, J.D.Talesk, and Michael Sappol Reviewed by Amy Ione _____________________________ ENCOUNTER: MERCE Stanford's interdisciplinary exploration through the arts, focusing on the life and art of Merce Cunningham, legendary choreographer, dance innovator, and artistic thinker Event website: http://encountermerce.stanford.edu. Reviewed by Richard Kade Ubiquitous Iconoclast - Xerox Corporation Stanford, CA 94305-6004 U.S.A. ubiq_icon [@] hotmail [dot] com Most of March 2005 at Stanford University was billed as "Merce Immersion," replete with the premiere performance of the newest ballet written especially for the occasion by the noted choreographer, Merce Cunningham. The celebration culminated in an unlikely collaboration between members of the school's dance, computer sciences, and medical departments in an outlandish attempt at disambiguating the so-called "vocabulary of 'traditional' ballet" as in contradistinction to that developed by Cunningham and his company over the course of the past quarter- to half-century. In much the same way Stravinsky could be said to be the "Picasso of music" (or, similarly, C. S. Forester observed Puccini to be the "Wagner of opera"), one could postulate plausibly that Cunningham has long been the "John Cage of dance" - were it not for the fact that these two had actually performed simultaneously on the same stages, in the same numbers, for a number of years. Use, twice, of the word "same" in the previous sentence might be misleading in the larger sense as one easily might conclude erroneously that some collaborative effort was under way. Yes, Cage and Cunningham often traversed the nation together in a beat-up VW van but, once on stage, any idea of planning a coherent work - where two art forms (music and ballet) were fused to convey any notion of a united aesthetic effort ? seemed an abhorrent violation of spontaneity. In fact, at the height of their performances together, the concept of freeform knew no limits. Cunningham decided that, in addition to Cage and himself, the lighting crew ought also to partake in the free-for-all. The most memorable, if not noteworthy, result of this stroke of "genius" was that, at a key point where Merce was at the apogee of one of his leaps, a bright spotlight temporarily blinded him causing his fall into the pit. Alas, this did not deter him from continuing his choreographic pursuits that persist to this day. While ample instances of the work of Merce Cunningham (old notes and the like) abound on this and other of the Stanford pages referenced on this site, the bottom line is simple. That which we humans regard as "classic" ? be it music, sculpture, poetry, gastronomy, painting, origami, folding photons, etc - is what we continue to return to because it ignites a spark within our soul. Such creativity is almost never a matter of happenstance. Even the most talented artists in the realm of jazz improvisation work within the context of an understood framework. To see how firmly rooted in vacuity the creations of Merce Cunningham are, and always have been, one need look no further than the works of Mark Morris (*Falling Down Stairs* or *Hard Nut*) or Michael Smuin (*Starshadows* or *Stabat Mater*). Unplug the virtual-reality sensors and forget the pretentious and nonsensical nano-analyses of every component of the work. As Yogi Berra so aptly put it, "You can see a lot by observing!" _____________________________ TALKING DRUM by Chris Brown Pogus Productions, New York, 2005 CD, P21034-2, $14.00 Distributor's website: http://www.pogus.com/. ROGUE WAVE by Chris Brown Tzadik, New York, 2005 CD, TZ 8014, $14.00 Distributor's website: http://www.tzadik.com/ Reviewed by Ren? van Peer Bachlaan 786 5011 BS Tilburg The Netherlands r [dot] vanpeer [@] wxs [dot] nl Chris Brown, pianist, computer music composer and co-director of the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College in Oakland, California, showed a special attention for rhythm and percussion in earlier works of his, such as *Lava* (released on the Tzadik label in 1995) and a series of collaborations that he compiled on the 1996 *Duets* album on Artifact Recordings. While he was completing the latter, he started developing an interactive spatial setup for linking drum machines with live percussion, which he called Talking Drum. He published a detailed technical description of this installation work in *Leonardo Music Journal* Vol. 9 (1999). On an album with the same title, Brown recently released recordings of a number of these installations, interspersed with location recordings he made in Bali, Cuba, Turkey and the Philippines. It is exactly the juxtaposition between the different types of situations that makes *Talking Drum* a wonderful listening experience. What all recordings share is a strong sense of informality and spatiality. On the other hand, there is a marked difference between the intentional character of improvisation in the installation recordings and the looser interaction in the other takes. The interplay of the musicians (percussionists as well as players of other instruments) with the computer driven percussion does sound intriguing, initially almost like a ball being hit back and forth in a game of tennis until players and machines start to interlock, or move apart into separate patterns that drift through each other but don't audibly get together into a superstructure. What is very clear to the ear (especially when listening through a headset) is how the sounds are distributed over the space and move through it. Still, these pieces somehow tend to sound restrained and forced, as if the musicians always need to be prepared for the unexpected, to pit their wits against the imperturbability of the systems they are facing. The location recordings are quite different in that respect. Several of these were made during dances and ceremonies, in which percussion plays a major role. The Cuban and Balinese tracks just bristle with musicians going at it full tilt, dancers and standers-by charging the atmosphere with their response. Here, too, the spatial quality of the recordings draws you into the action. Actually not all these environmental recordings are percussive. You can hear people milling about on a market, traffic in the background, sometimes passing by at close range. There are takes of frogs and birds. But because of being interspersed with the ostensibly percussive pieces, their rhythmical aspects are brought to the fore. One of the most enchanting recordings was done in the Hagia Sophia mosque, where you can hear the measured hammering of carpenters, amplified by the grand domed hall and shrouded in the thick veils of its reverb. What makes this album outstanding is how Brown has achieved in weaving these very different recordings together. He has created transitions that are remarkably smooth and logical, making one grow out of the other, often by using some rhythm pattern or timbre that they share, as a bridge. Thus this entire CD is a complex of interplay between all these various strands. Despite the contrastive quality of the various components Brown makes it work as one large-scale composition. The four recent and two older pieces on *Rogue Wave* show that characteristics apparent in *Talking Drum* are interests Brown has pursued throughout the years - the interaction between electronic systems and live musicians, the distribution of sounds around a space as part of his compositions and recordings, and his predilection for rhythm as a major driving force for his music. *Rogue Wave* does, however, present a far broader sampling of Chris Brown's multifaceted work. It includes computer network music, which he pioneered with his colleagues of The Hub; his piano playing; his work with self-built and adapted instruments; collaborations with other musicians and composers, such as the virtuoso percussionist William Winant who is featured on three of the tracks; and even a piece of symphonic instrumentation, scaled down by necessity, but impressive nonetheless. Called *Alternating Currents*, it was commissioned by Kent Nagano for the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra in 1983. This piece seems to foreshadow Lava being likewise scored for percussion, brass and live electronics. Written over twenty years ago it already shows Brown's use of complex and irregular rhythms (which may expand and contract) as central to his compositional work. sEven more spectacular is the most recent piece, after which the CD was called. The dense buzz of a bull-roarer serves as a ground layer on which Brown, Winant and turntable player DJ Eddie Def throw percussive sounds from the various sources in their respective domains ? electronic, acoustic and vinyl. The intensity of the patterns mounts and subsides. Trying to follow in detail what is going on you stand a serious chance of getting swept off your feet by the powerful density of the texture, which does indeed feel as if a wave of sound is crashing into you. Brown himself performs in all the pieces on the *Rogue Wave* album, mostly doing live electronics. Apart from the *Rogue Wave* piece he is most perceptibly present in *Transmission Tenderloin* and *Retroscan*. The former was taken from a live broadcast, which is part of an ongoing series of collaborations between Brown and Guillermo Galindo, in which their electronic music improvisations are broadcast over different frequencies, to be picked up by people in an outdoor audience on receivers they bring with them. This turns the environment into one large performance space full of moving sound. On *Retroscan* Brown plays the piano that is in its entirety a source of the sounds generated and then transformed by an interactive computer program. The music bounces back and forth between the playing and the modifications - the program responding to the input of sound, and Brown responding to what comes out of the system. On the one hand there is a continuous dialog that resembles a conversation, in which new views are introduced into the thoughts that develop. On the other hand, the electronic sounds become a layer separating itself from the acoustic sounds, turning into a changeable blanket of drones and riffs on which Brown drops single tones, snatches of melody and resonant bangs and taps on the frame. These two CDs complement each other beautifully, one focusing on this interactive electronic installation that Brown developed, which is presented as a large composition; the other compiling different aspects of his work. Together they are a showcase of his versatility as a composer and player of electronic music, and of his capability to set up musical dialogs through intelligently and sensitively designed electronic systems. _____________________________ VISIONARY ANATOMIES by Harvey Fineberg, J.D.Talesk, and Michael Sappol National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC, 2004 40 pp., illus. $N/C Exhibition website: http://www7.nationalacademies.org/arts/Visionary_Anatomies.html Reviewed by Amy Ione The Diatrope Institute ione [@] diatrope [dot] com One of the best-kept secrets in Washington D.C. is the National Academy of Sciences gallery space, where exhibitions that explore relationships among the arts and sciences, engineering, and medicine are regularly mounted. Given my enthusiasm for this venue, I was excited to learn a small catalogue accompanied their recent exhibition Visionary Anatomies. Excellent, and yet concise, this 40-page overview is a treasure. It includes full color reproductions of each artist (or collaborative team), brief statements about the printed works, and introductory essays that place current fashions within the history of art and anatomy. As a whole, the book brings to mind several recent exhibitions (Dream Anatomy at the National Library of Medicine, 2002', The Hayward Gallery, London's Spectacular Bodies, 2000-2001: and Revealing Bodies at the San Francisco Exploratorium, 2000). These exhibitions similarly highlighted how artists have translated the collective advancements in medicine, anatomy and technology into their own projects. Indeed, J. D. Talesek acknowledges that "Visionary Anatomies" is a part of the dialogue begun in these earlier venues. Talesek also reminds us the dialogue between artists and scientists has an extended history. Some of the details of this history are outlined in Michael Sappol's contribution: "Visionary Anatomies and the Great Divide: Art, Science and the Changing Conventions of Anatomical Representation 1500-2003." Sappol, a Curator-Historian with the National Library of Medicine, introduces a series of long-standing issues in the history of anatomical representation that include the conventions that govern collaborations among artists and anatomists. He speaks of both the boundaries and dialogue between them. Beginning with the assertion that we think of ourselves as anatomical beings, Sappol then moves to how the subject of anatomical representation, like the placement of "boundaries" between art and science, is not purely academic. It also has reference to our own experience. What I liked most about these short essays was the chronology it provided. Also of great interest were the engravings included to illustrate the text. For example, although I am acquainted with the history from Galen through Vesalius, the Scottish anatomist John Bell, and contemporary imaging technologies, I had never clearly delineated how the uses of anatomical representations shifted as artistic/scientific conventions, meanings, and audiences altered their perspective on the world. Whereas Vesalius' bodies are often placed in a scene, and other illustrations cited (or parodied) iconic traditions and subjects, by the eighteenth century conventions had changed. The essay further explains that by the end of this century Bell truculently denounced "the vitious practice of drawing from the imagination, " instead of "truly from the anatomical table." The plates of the artwork convinced me that this is an excellent exhibition, while reminding me of how much is lost when we look at reproductions rather than the works themselves. Some of the art worked better in the small format than others. I loved the sinewy quality and the way the light/dark contrast accentuated it in Mike and Doug Starn's Blot out the Sun #1, which used a combination of techniques found in both the history of photographic processes as well as tools of today's digital age. Katherine du Tiel's Inside/outside series also effectively translated despite the small format. Images reproduced include a Spine/Back and Muscle/Hand that were printed so that it is difficult to separate the within from the without. Each confuses the lines between anatomy and physical reality, and combines an elegant aesthetic with a subdued whimsy. The limitations of seeing art through a publication were more obvious in Stefanie B?rkle's Panorama Paris Lambda print. It was immediately evident that her work follows in the epic style that has become associated with contemporary German photographers (e.g., Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff, and Candida Hofer). This piece contrasts the Mus?e National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris with a terminal in Charles de Gaulle airport. B?rkle places an anatomical model of a man standing on his head in the museum room, which is stacked full of encased creatures, objects of natural history. Visually the juxtaposition is intended to prompt a comparison between cultural and social values in the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. Impressive as I assume it is in the physical space, the contrast was primarily in my mind when pondering it in the catalogue. The reduction of a 31.5x78 inch piece to a two-page spread that measured 13" across mitigated its power. Similarly, Richard Yorde's piece looked impressive, but it was too large to read in the small size provided. I was particularly grateful that contributors included statements about each work. As someone who enjoys knowing the process and how the artist "sees" the project, I found this information helped round out the book as well as my understanding of what I was actually looking at when viewing the flat reproductions. For example, (art)n's contribution Pet Study 2 (Lung Cancer): Man Ray/Picabia Imitating Balzac is a virtual sculpture modeled on a photograph of the painter Francis Picabia taken by Man Ray. I would not have conceptualized the image at all without the statement that explained that when it is viewed through a backlit barrier screen the assembled images are perceived by the viewer to exist in three dimensions. The statement also explains that similarity exists between the way that (art) builds up the multiple layers of the virtual sculpture and the way that contemporary medical scanning technologies deconstruct the body in a series of planes. In closing, the "Visionary Anatomies" catalogue is a splendid overview of contemporary work that references the body. It is available in its entirety at http://www.nationalacademies.org/arts/Visionary_Anatomies.html. I highly recommend it, with the footnote that those who can visit the show will no doubt find the actual works offer more when seen full size in the physical world. Although no longer showing at the NAS, the show will be on display at the Monmouth Museum in Lincroft, New Jersey from 17 September ? 27 November 2005. ________________________________________________________________ LEONARDO JOURNAL ________________________________________________________________ LEONARDO, VOL. 38, NO. 5 (OCTOBER 2005) ? TABLE OF CONTENTS AND SELECTED ABSTRACTS EDITORIAL < Jean Gagnon and Alain Depocas: Documentation and Conservation of the Media Arts Heritage > SPECIAL SECTION < Space: Science, Technology and the Arts Workshop > < Annick Bureaud: Did You Say Space Art? Leonardo's Commitment to Space Art, 35 Years On > < Daniel E. Goods: Revelations: An Artist in Residence at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory > < Adam Nieman: *Welcome to the Neighbourhood*: Belonging to the Universe > < Andreas Vogler and Jesper J?rgensen: Windows to the World, Doors to Space: The Psychology of Space Architecture > COLOR PLATES ARTIST'S STATEMENT < Liliane Lijn: *Starslide*: A Symbiosis of Form and Function > SPECIAL SECTION < California Art Association 2004 Conference Papers > < Sara Diamond: Degrees of Freedom: Models of Corporate Relationships > < Edward A. Shanken: Artists in Industry and the Academy: Collaborative Research, Interdisciplinary Scholarship and the Creation and Interpretation of Hybrid Forms > THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE < Bojana Kunst: Liberation or Control: Disobedient Connections in Contemporary Works > LEONARDO REVIEWS Reviews by Peter Anders, Wilfred Niels Arnold, Jan Baetens, Roy R. Behrens, Martha Blassnigg, Andrea Dahlberg, Maia Engeli, George Gessert, Dene Grigar, Rob Harle, Craig Hilton, Nisar Keshvani, Martha Patricia Ni?o Mojica, Aparna Sharma, Eugene Thacker, Stefaan Van Ryssen LEONARDO NETWORK NEWS _____________________________ LEONARDO 38:5 - ABSTRACTS _____________________________ SPECIAL SECTION DEGREES OF FREEDOM: MODELS OF CORPORATE RELATIONSHIPS by Sara Diamond The author discusses three models of corporate partnership that support the creation of new-media art: directed altruism, skunk works (product development), and regulated self-interest. Similar activities can occur across these models, but expectations, criteria for assessment and final outcomes may differ. Clarifying the rules of engagement for arts organizations and artists when they work with corporations is critical to success for both artists and companies. This essay provides a framework and examples for each model from Canada, Finland, the United Kingdom and the United States. It evaluates failures as well as successes. _____________________________ SPECIAL SECTION REVELATIONS: AN ARTIST IN RESIDENCE AT THE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY by Daniel E. Goods The author's two years as an artist in residence at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have led him to an appreciation of how similar his thinking and work process are to those of the laboratory's engineers and scientists. For both, certain ideas and processes at first appear crazy and impracticable, but vision and persistence bring them to realization. The three installations described in this article pertain to a future mission that, if successful, will locate a planet similar to earth and once again change humanity's understanding of its position in the universe. _____________________________ THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE LIBERATION OR CONTROL: DISOBEDIENT CONNECTIONS IN CONTEMPORARY WORKS by Bojana Kunst The concept of connection has assumed a very ambivalent status today. Being connected exposes the liberating potential of connected public participation, which has changed our understanding of political and intimate life. At the same time there is also a strong fear at work that this very potential could result in a more rigid form of contemporary life. Connection, as understood in this article, is something procedural that can at the same time be disobedient to its own procedure. This disobedience can be concretely observed in certain contemporary artistic works, for example in the project *wPack* from Intima Virtual Base. _____________________________ SPECIAL SECTION *WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBOURHOOD*: BELONGING TO THE UNIVERSE by Adam Nieman Space travel could be an experience available to everyone. This paper describes *Welcome to the Neighbourhood*, a combination of sculpture and multimedia designed to help people inhabit the solar system (without leaving the earth). The project aims to empower astronomers and non-astronomers alike to form an authentic conception of their place in the cosmos. The author discusses the sculptures that inspired the idea for the project, including the largest known kinetic sculpture ever built (60 light-years across), and then outlines *Welcome to the Neighbourhood* in the context of a broader discussion of public engagement with science and the role of space art in transforming people's experience of "being in the universe." _____________________________ SPECIAL SECTION ARTISTS IN INDUSTRY AND THE ACADEMY: COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH, INTERDISCIPLINARY SCHOLARSHIP AND THE CREATION AND INTERPRETATION OF HYBRID FORMS by Edward E. Shanken The author surveys contemporary artist-engineer-scientist collaborations in industry and the academy and considers a variety of theoretical and practical issues pertaining to them. Given the increasing dedication of cultural resources to engage artists and designers in science and technology research, the author concludes that more scholarship must analyze case studies, identify best practices and working methods, and propose models for evaluating both the hybrid products resulting from these endeavors and the contributions of the individuals engaged in them. _____________________________ SPECIAL SECTION WINDOWS TO THE WORLD, DOORS TO SPACE: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPACE ARCHITECTURE by Andreas Vogler And Jesper J?rgensen Living in a confined environment with minimal external stimuli available, such as a space habitat, is a strain on normal human life and puts great pressure on groups and individuals. Designers working on a space habitat not only must work on its functional role, but also must integrate functionality with mental representation and symbolic meaning. Space-connection interfaces such as doors and windows act as "sensory organs" of a building. They allow inside-out communication, but also allow the user to control the flow of light and air, which in a direct or indirect way are communication mediums. In this paper the authors advocate a closer connection among architecture, anthropology and psychology in designing space habitats as part of a new concept of environmental design strategy in space architecture. ________________________________________________________________ LEONARDO NETWORK NEWS ________________________________________________________________ NEW CHAIRS ELECTED FOR LEONARDO EDUCATION FORUM Three new chairs and co-chairs have been elected to lead the Leonardo Education Forum through the next three College Art Association conferences. Yianni Yessios was elected for a 1-year term and will chair the group for the 2006 conference in Boston, MA; Amy Ione was elected for a 2-year term and will chair the group for the 2007 conference in New York, NY; and Eddie Shanken was elected for a 3-year term and will chair the group for the 2008 conference in Dallas, TX. The Leonardo Education Forum consists of artists, scientists, engineers and scholars who belong both to the Leonardo Network and to the College Art Association. The purpose of the Leonardo Education Forum is to develop joint actions between the two organizations, such as promoting the work of artists and art historians in the art-science and art-technology interdisciplinary fields. The working group will develop, among other things, proposals for sessions at the CAA meetings and mentoring programs for students in the field. Information about the Leonardo Education Forum and activities including information about the 2005 CAA conference in Atlanta, GA, can be found on the Leonardo web site at: http://www.leonardo.info/isast/events/leonardocaa.html. Students, faculty and professionals working in the art/science/technology field are encouraged to join the working group to help build the activities of this dynamic community. To join the working group, visit the discussion list at: http://webexhibits.org/about/leocaa.html. The discussion list is open to any person both a member of CAA and of Leonardo/ISAST. _____________________________ *LMJ* EDITOR-IN-CHIEF NICOLAS COLLINS EXTENDS CONTRACT Leonardo/ISAST is pleased to report that Nic Collins has agreed to extend his contract as editor-in-chief of *Leonardo Music Journal* (LMJ) through 2007. New York-born (1954) and -raised, Collins studied composition with Alvin Lucier at Wesleyan University, worked for many years with David Tudor and has collaborated with numerous soloists and ensembles around the world. As a composer he helped pioneer the use of microcomputers in live performance and has made extensive use of "home-made" electronic circuitry, radio, found sound material and transformed musical instruments. From 1992 to 1995 he was Visiting Artistic Director of Stichting at STEIM in Amsterdam and in 1996-1997 a DAAD composer in residence in Berlin. In September 1999, he joined the faculty of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as the chair of the sound department. Collins has long been active as a curator of concerts and sound installations (The Kitchen, PS1, the Clocktower, Podewil). His recordings are available on the Lovely Music, Nonesuch, Trace Elements, PlateLunch and Periplum record labels. Collins began serving as *LMJ* editor-in-chief beginning with Volume 8 in 1998. Collins expects to see evolutionary change in both form and content in *LMJ* in the coming years. The appointment of features editors will broaden the purview of the journal while providing continuity from issue to issue. An active web component whereby all authors would be invited to incorporate audio (MP3) and video (MPEG) illustrations, as well as active web links, in their submissions is planned. Closer integration between *LMJ* and the other Leonardo publications - *Leonardo*, *Leonardo Electronic Almanac* and the Leonardo Book Series - is also currently under exploration. Forthcoming volumes of *LMJ* include *The Word: Voice, Language and Technology* (2005) and *Noises Off: Sound beyond Music* (2006). *LMJ* is published annually by the MIT Press. *LMJ* is devoted to aesthetic and technical issues in contemporary music and the sonic arts. Each thematic issue features artists/writers from around the world, representing a wide range of stylistic viewpoints and fostering connections between the contemporary arts, sciences and new technologies. *LMJ* provides a scholarly, international, peer-reviewed forum for musicians, composers, sound artists, scientists, researchers, theoreticians, technicians and instrument builders to discuss and present their work in a context of mutual influence and exchange. Each volume of *LMJ* is accompanied by an independently curated audio or multimedia CD. For more information, visit http://www.lmj.mit.edu or contact Nic Collins at ncollins [@] artic [dot] edu. LEONARDO NETWORK NEWS COORDINATOR: Kathleen Quillian isast [@] leonardo [dot] info _____________________________ THE PACIFIC RIM NEW MEDIA SUMMIT (PRNMS) A PRE-SYMPOSIUM TO ISEA2006 7-8 August 2006, San Jose, California The ISEA2006 Symposium is being held in conjunction with the first biennial ZeroOne San Jose Global Festival for Art on the Edge in San Jose, California, 5--13 August 2006. As part of the ISEA2006 Symposium, the CADRE Laboratory for New Media at San Jose State University will host a 2-day pre-symposium entitled the *Pacific Rim New Media Summit*, co-sponsored by Leonardo. With a purview encompassing all states and nations that border the Pacific Ocean, the Pacific Rim New Media Summit is intended to explore and build interpretive bridges between institutional, corporate, social and cultural enterprises, with an emphasis on the emergence of new media arts programs. In preparation for the summit, seven working groups are currently laying the groundwork for the main areas of investigation to be pursued in depth at the summit: Creative Community, Curatorial, Education, Directory, Eco-Social Activism, Mobile Computing and Urbanity, and Latin American-Pacific/Asia New Media. Following is another statement from one of the working group chairs, in the continuation of our ongoing series as a build-up to the conference. _____________________________ PRNMS WORKING GROUP ON PLACE, GROUND AND PRACTICE by Danny Butt, Place, Ground and Practice Chair danny [@] dannybutt [dot] net The Place, Ground and Practice Working Group undertakes cultural and artistic investigations at the limits of collaborative practice. Central to the Working Group is an interest in the critique of imperial power and innovative practices that foster progressive change in the new media environment. Recognition of indigenous practices and cultural politics suggest alternative ways of thinking about location-specific new media work, and influence our understanding of the Pacific Rim as a geographical formation with a rich pre-European history of cultural exchange. Through curatorial, artistic, media and residency activities, the Working Group draws inspiration from this history to propose alternative visions of dominant new media themes (global culture, intellectual properties, disembodied knowledge), with a commitment to politics that is critical, progressive, and reflexive, while maintaining a vision of optimism and enjoyment. GROUP MEMBERS Danny Butt - danny [@] dannybutt [dot] net Danny Butt is an independent consultant and researcher in the new media, arts and education fields. Previously, he was founding Director of the Creative Industries Research Centre at the Waikato Institute of Technology, Hamilton, where he also lectured in digital media and established the Digital Media Design program. His research interests centre on the social impact of new media technologies; colonization and settler culture; and the development of the creative industries sector in the Asia-Pacific region. For more information: http://www.dannybutt.net Ashok Mathur - http://www.amathur.ca Ashok is a Canada Research Chair in Cultural and Artistic Inquiry (Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada). He is a novelist, poet, publisher, and cultural organizer. Candice Hopkins Candice (Me'tis, Tlingit) is the curatorial fellow at the Walter Phillips Gallery. She has an MA from The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, NY. Her recent curatorial project, Every Stone Tells a Story: The Performance Work of David Hammons and Jimmie Durham, opened at the Berrie Center Art Galleries, Ramapo College, NJ in November 2004. Her writing is featured in http://www.horizonzero.ca, FUSE Magazine and in the books Transference, Tradition, Technology: Native New Media Exploring Visual and Digital Culture, and Making a Noise! Aboriginal Perspectives on Art, Art History, Critical Writing and Community, both published by the Walter Phillips Gallery. Hopkins has presented on her practice at Tate Britain, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland, UK, Dak'Art_Lab, Senegal and in Canada at the Alberta College of Art and Design. Cheryl L'Hirondelle - http://www.ndnnrkey.net Halfbreed (metis, cree, german, polish) interdisciplinary artist (musician, net.artist, performance artist, storyteller) and educator currently residing in Vancouver B.C. Jason De Santolo - http://www.jumbunna.uts.edu.au Jason is a descendent of the Barunggam and Garawa peoples. He works in the legal-policy and creative research realms and has collaborated on various projects with Indigenous peoples in Australia, Aotearoa and more recently the U.S. Jason is currently a research fellow within Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at University of Technology, Sydney. Jenny Fraser - http://www.fineartforum.org/Gallery/cybertribe/ Jenny was born in Far North Queensland and her family hails from the Yugambeh and Munuljahli of the Bundjalung Nation in South East Queensland and the Clans Fraser and McNamara on her other side. Because of the diverse creative mediums Jenny uses, much of her work defies categorization. More recently her work takes iconic and everyday symbols of Australian life and places them into a context that questions the values they represent. With a laconic sense of humor she picks away at the fabric of our society, exposing contradictions, absurdities, and denial. Jenny founded and curates cyberTribe, an Indigenous online Gallery that aims to encourage the production and exhibition of Indigenous Art with a focus on the digital. Her commitment to spreading the word about new media arts and its potential as an expressive medium for Indigenous artists is reflected in the development of this website Blackout, that showcases and promotes the work of participants to the world. Jenny's work on this site has seen it evolve into an important resource for people interested in Indigenous new media practitioners in Australia. Rachel O'Reilly Rachel currently works as a curator of film, video and new media at the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia, home of the Asia Pacific Triennial. Prior to this she was involved in the independent media and arts festival *This Is Not Art* (Newcastle, Australia) as a festival manager, and as a program manager of the independent National Student Media Conference. She writes for the Australian new media arts publication, *RealTime*, and was also managing editor of the Australia Council's *How To Where To* guide to independent arts project management for early career artists and cultural workers. She has a background in comparative literature and cultural studies, and an ongoing critical interest in cross-cultural and sub-cultural curatorial and programming initiatives, and emerging artforms. Lisa Reihana - http://www.lisareihana.com Lisa is a Maori artist who has played a leading role in the development of film and multimedia art in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Her work demonstrates a keen interest to communicate complex ideas about indigenous identity and bi-cultural living, and a desire to address and engage with contemporary experience through diverse media. Her installations are collages drawn from eclectic sources. Her examination of cultural histories uses photography; sculpture and time-based arts. _____________________________ ISEA2006 PACIFIC RIM DIRECTORY, ORGANIZATIONS AND RESIDENCIES WORKING GROUP MEETING Artists' Week/Media State, Adelaide Festival of Arts 2006, South Australia 3 ?19 March 2006 The biennial Adelaide Festival of Arts is Australia's leading multi-arts festival. Artists' Week is the major visual arts component of the Festival and features a program of free artist talks, panel discussions and workshops. Media State is a special initiative that will focus on new media projects and collaborations. In the lead-up to the ISEA2006 Pacific Rim New Media Summit (San Jose, California, August 2006), members of the Directory, Organizations and Residencies Working Group will meet in Adelaide as part of the Artists' Week/Media State program and provide a public platform to introduce the Pacific Rim New Media Summit and Working Group initiatives. ________________________________________________________________ BYTES ________________________________________________________________ ***** CALL FOR PAPERS ***** LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL 16 (2006) NOISES OFF - SOUND BEYOND MUSIC These days sound is more than just music. Museums, galleries and artists' studios are getting noisier: it's not that there is so much more "Sound Art," but rather that so much more art has sound. Cellphone ringtones generated four billion dollars in sales worldwide in 2004. Incoming email and outgoing popcorn announce themselves with plops and gongs and boops and beeps - the emerging field of "sonification" addresses this proliferation of all these "earcons" and other representational uses of sound. Sound design is a vital part of Hollywood films and computer games. While CD sales shrink with the proliferation of peer-to-peer file exchange, the creative use of sound is expanding in almost every other part of our lives. For the next issue of Leonardo Music Journal we invite papers on the expanded role of sound in art, science, business and everyday life. Topics could include (but are not limited to): audio art, radio art, phonography; sound design for video, film, and gaming; the role of sound in performance art, theatre, dance; sonificitation; architectural acoustics; instrument design. DEADLINES 15 October 2005 - Rough proposals, queries 1 January 2006 - Submission of finished article Address inquiries to Nicolas Collins, Editor-in-Chief, at: ncollins [@] artic [dot] edu. Finished articles should be sent to the LMJ Editorial Office at lmj [@] leonardo [dot] info. Editorial guidelines and information for authors can be found on our Information for Authors page. Note: LMJ is a peer-reviewed journal. All manuscripts are reviewed by LMJ editors, editorial board members and/or members of the LMJ community prior to acceptance. _____________________________ SCHOOL OF ART INSTITUTE CHICAGO FACULTY POSITION IN FILM, VIDEO AND NEW MEDIA The Department of Film, Video, and New Media at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago invites applications from artists working in video to teach and expand an innovative curriculum in moving image media. We are looking for artists who work with various applications of video/digital media, experimental narrative and non-fiction forms, installation, video performance, interactive environments and web-based work. Candidates should have a strong conceptual and historical grasp of contemporary issues in the intersecting worlds of independent video production, experimental filmmaking, and new media. The department is committed to alternative forms and practices that emphasize experimentation, innovation, and the hybridization of existing media and modes of presentation. Candidates should demonstrate the ability and desire to participate in curricular initiatives; should be able to work with undergraduate and graduate students in an interdisciplinary, fine arts context; and should have advanced proficiency in one or more areas of the media arts. Applicants must have an active professional creative practice. Teaching experience preferred. The position is full-time, tenure-track and begins in the fall of 2006. Rank and salary are commensurate with experience. Please send a letter of application, curriculum vitae, artist's statement, teaching philosophy, portfolio samples which may include CD-Rom, DVD, VHS, mini-DV, and/or website URLs, names and contact information for three references, and an SASE (if you wish to have the materials returned) by November 15, 2005 for priority consideration to: FVNM Search/LEA School of the Art Institute of Chicago Office of Deans and Division Chairs 37 South Wabash Avenue Chicago, IL 60603 For more information on the School and its programs, available faculty positions, and details regarding application, consult http://www.artic.edu/saic/public/jobs. For additional assistance, questions may be directed to Shanna Linn at slinn [@] artic [dot] edu, 312.899-7472. _____________________________ CHAIRPERSON, DEPARTMENT OF ART, MUSIC & TECHNOLOGY Applications and nominations are requested for the position of Chairperson in the Department of Art, Music, & Technology at Stevens Institute of Technology. The department has two newly developed programs: Art & Technology and Music & Technology. The Chair will be responsible for working with the Directors of the Music and Art Programs in matters of curriculum development, policy, and fundraising. The applicant must have a substantial international or national presence in the art or music community beyond the Institute. The position will start as soon as the candidate is available. Deadline to apply is December 15, 2005, but applicants will be considered sooner. For further information about the department, see http://www.hum.stevens.edu/ArtMusicTechnology/. Nominations and letters of application should be sent to Dean Erich Kunhardt, Imperatore School of Sciences and Art, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ 07030, U.S.A. _____________________________ NEW MEDIA/INTERMEDIA Purdue University. Entry level Assistant Professor. Tenure track. Begins August 14, 2006. Applicant must be practicing New Media/Intermedia artist with strong theoretical basis. M.F.A. or equivalent professional experience required. Professional experience and university teaching preferred. Teach cross-disciplinary courses and develop curriculum in New Media/Inter-media across four divisions (Art & Design, Dance, Music, and Theatre) of Patti and Rusty Rueff Department of Visual and Performing Arts http://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/vpa/ and Envision Center http://www.envision.purdue.edu. Continue professional work in creative endeavors and/or research beyond Purdue University and participate in usual departmental activities. Send letter of introduction, resume of professional and academic experience, digital portfolio of representative work, copies of reviews of art works, statement of teaching interests and previous teaching experience, three names and contact information of current references, and SASE for the return of visual materials to Star Brown, Pao Hall, 552 West Wood Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2002, U.S.A. Purdue University is an Equal Opportunity/Equal Access/Affirmative Action employer. Women and minority candidates are especially encouraged to apply. (preferential): 1/31/06 or until filled. _____________________________ DIRECTOR, SCHOOL OF FILM AND DIGITAL MEDIA University of Central Florida The School of Film and Digital Media at the University of Central Florida seeks a visionary Director to lead its growth into an internationally prominent center for creative innovation and scholarship in film and digital media. The Ph.D., M.F.A. or comparable industry experience is required. The successful candidate must have a record of either scholarship or professional creative activity consistent with the standards for appointment as a tenured associate or full professor. A significant record of accomplishment as a successful cinema or media professional, or in a related academic field, is required. The Director must have demonstrated leadership skills, a clear understanding of the potential of the field and the ability to work effectively with the important constituencies of the university, community and industry. The School of Film and Digital Media consists of the Film and Digital Media Divisions, the Center for Research and Education in the Arts, Technology and Entertainment (CREATE) and the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA). The Director would oversee all of these components. The University of Central Florida is a growing metropolitan research university in Orlando, enrolling nearly 45,000 students. The School of Film and Digital Media has more than 1,200 students and 37 faculty members with facilities on the main campus in East Orlando as well as a new graduate and professional center in downtown Orlando where CREATE and FIEA are housed. There is also a Downtown Media Arts Center. Bachelor of Arts degrees in Cinema Studies and World Cinema, a B.F.A. in Film (including Production and Screenwriting) and a B.A. and B.S. in digital Media (Visual Language, Internet and Interactive Systems) are offered. A graduate program beginning Fall 2005 offers the M.F.A. in Entrepreneurial Digital Cinema and the M.A. in Visual Language and Interactive Media. The M.S. in Interactive Entertainment will be offered pending approval. Applicants for the position should submit: 1) a letter of application, 2) a complete vita and 3) the names and contact information for three references. Applications should be sent to Dr. Mary Alice Shaver, Chair, Director Search, School of Film and Digital Media, P.O. Box 163120, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816-3120, U.S.A. Review of applications will begin on October 4 and continue until the position is filled. UCF is a culturally diverse university and an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. Search documents may be viewed by the public upon request, in accordance with Florida statute. ________________________________________________________________ ___________________ | | | | | CREDITS | | | |___________________| Nisar Keshvani: LEA Editor-in-Chief Natra Haniff: LEA 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, Craig Harris, Fatima Lasay, Michael Naimark, Julianne Pierce Gallery Advisory Board: Mark Amerika, Paul Brown, Choy Kok Kee, Steve Dietz, Kim Machan fAf-LEA Corresponding Editors: Lee Weng Choy, Ricardo Dal Farra, Elga Ferreira, Young Hae- Chang, Fatima Lasay, Jose-Carlos Mariategui, Marcus Neustetter, Elaine Ng, Marc Voge ________________________________________________________________ _________________ | LEA | | PUBLISHING | | INFORMATION | |_________________| Editorial Address: Leonardo Electronic Almanac PO Box 850 Robinson Road Singapore 901650 lea [@] mitpress [dot] mit [dot] edu ________________________________________________________________ Copyright (2005), 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 2005 subscription year. The rate for Non-Leonardo individual subscribers is $35.00, and for Non-Leonardo institutional subscribers the rate is $77.00. 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URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/leaauthors/attachments/20051007/338687ab/attachment.htm From leoalmanac at gmail.com Thu Oct 6 19:38:27 2005 From: leoalmanac at gmail.com (Leonardo Electronic Almanac) Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 01:38:27 +0200 Subject: [LEAuthors] Leonardo Electronic Almanac Volume 13, Number 8, August 2005 Message-ID: <5d60ab0c0510061638x44a0d93eyc8b4888b3e5701d1@mail.gmail.com> [image: The MIT Press] _______________________________________________________________ Leonardo Electronic Almanac Volume 13, Number 8, August 2005 http://lea.mit.edu ________________________________________________________________ ISSN #1071-4391 ____________ | | | CONTENTS | |____________| ________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION ------------ EDITORIAL --------- A Colloquium on Art/Science/Spirituality Reconnections Within Emerging Planetary Cultures @ Melilla 2004, by Roger Malina > A NOTE FROM THE GUEST EDITOR ---------------------------- Organizing a Symposium, by Julien Knebush> ABSTRACTS --------- Introductory address by Mohammed Aziz Chafchaouni, Symposium Director > Foundations for a Culture of Peace and Justice based on Intertradition Cooperation, by Lama Denys > Approaches of the Planetary Dimension in Media Art, by Julien Knebusch > Useful Tension Between C.P. Snow's Two Cultures Debate and the Emergence of a Context of Five Cultures in the Planetary Context, by Roger Malina > Imagination as a Space of Life and of Resistance to Mercantile Logic, by Mohammed Taleb > Marks and Images of Reality in Media Reasoning, by Hashim Cabrera > Burdens (and Gifts) of Cinema on Experimental Video - the Idea of Experimentation and Resistance in Cairo, by Samirah Al- Kasim > Network Projects in Brazil. Gente (online) Que Faz, by Karla Schuch-Brunet > ME DEA EX: Intertwining Virtual and Real World to Form Immersive/Interactive Theatre, by Neora > The Interpresence Project, by Arthur Matuck > GATES - Beyond Net-Art: Real Things Across Cyberspace, by Caterina Davinio > Mediterranean Maps, by Paolo Atzori and Nicole Leghissa > Mapping a Thesis in Systems Theory in New Media Art, by Jane Cole Forrester Winne > A Universal Mother Tongue, by Celestino Soddu and Enrica Colabella > The Religious Models of Globalism, by Harry Rand > The Ubiquitous Dot in Cosmic Justice, by Ahmad Mostafa > La Metafora Andalusi: La Utopia Necesaria, by Emilio Gonzalez Ferrin > Los conceptos del tiempo y del espacio en el lenguaje de Ibn 'Arabi: un enfoque ling??stico, by Leila Khalifa > Pensamiento lineal y conocimiento: un proceso alqu?mico, by Francesca Del Carmen Sanchez > BONUS SECTION ------------- An Open Letter to the Melilla Conference Participants, from Chris Alexander > ONE FROM THE VAULT: FROM THE LEA ARCHIVES ----------------------------------------- Cinematic Thresholds - Instrumentality, Time and Memory In The Virtual, by Ed Keller > LEONARDO REVIEWS ---------------- Dream Bridges - Traumbr?cken, reviewed by Rob Harle > Psychosomatic: Feminism and the Neurological Body, reviewed by Rob Harle > Television After TV: Essays on a Medium in Transition, reviewed by Kathleen Quillian > The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution, and the Untimely, reviewed by Rob Harle > Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma and Contemporary Art, reviewed by Alex Rotas In Senghor's Shadow: Art, Politics and the Avant-Garde in Senegal, 1960-1995, reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher > ISAST NEWS ---------- Lynne Carstarphen Named Coordinating Editor of *Leonardo* > *Leonardo* Launches Yasmin Discussion List > Spector and Larson Join Governing Board > *Leonardo* Book Series Activities > *Leonardo*/OLATS and Space Study > *Leonardo* Reaches Out to Educational Community > *Leonardo* Educators Forum > The Pacific Rim New Media Summit: A Pre-Symposium to ISEA2006 > PRNMS Working Group On Container Culture > BYTES ----- CFP - Leonardo Music Journal 16 (2006) > SCHOOL OF ART INSTITUTE CHICAGO - FACULTY POSITION IN FILM, VIDEO AND NEW MEDIA > ________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION ________________________________________________________________ LEA's August issue is the first of a double digest, guest edited by Julien Knebush, which re-lives a Colloquium on Art/Science/Spirituality Reconnections Within Emerging Planetary Cultures. This global event was hosted by the 1st International Festival of Cultures. It took place in Melilla, Spain from 18-20 July 2004, and was co-sponsored by Al Andalus Foundation, UNESCO DIGIARTS, Leonardo/OLATS, Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation. In our journey into the past, One From the Vault relives Ed Keller's *Cinematic Thresholds - Instrumentality, Time and Memory in the Virtual*, which first appeared in LEA in July 1995. Leonardo Reviews features one of its newer reviewers, Rob Harle, whose prolific output and particular combination of interest in biomedicine and architecture, consciousness and culture, situate him at the core of recent publications in our field. He reviews two books: *Dream Bridges - Traumbr?cken* and *Psychosomatic: Feminism and the Neurological Body*. Also included is Kathleen Quillian's first review: *Television After TV: Essays on a Medium in Transition*. Although a newcomer as a reviewer, Kathleen has been a colleague working in the San Francisco office and a great supporter and help. An inundation of news on *Leonardo* awaits in the ISAST news section, and our ongoing series on *The Pacific Rim New Media Summit: A Pre-Symposium to ISEA2006* features yet another working group, this time on container culture. Finally, Bytes features a call for paper for Leonardo Music Journal's next issue. Also, find out more about the availability of a full-time faculty position. ________________________________________________________________ EDITORIAL ________________________________________________________________ A COLLOQUIUM ON ART/SCIENCE/SPIRITUALITY RECONNECTIONS WITHIN EMERGING PLANETARY CULTURES @ MELILLA, SPAIN, JULY 2004 by Roger Malina Astrophysician Editor, Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille, France c/o Leonardo, SFAI, 800 Chestnut Street San Francisco, CA 94133 U.S.A. rmalina [@] ssl [dot] berkeley [dot] edu / rmalina [@] alum [dot] mit [dot] edu http://www.astrsp-mrs.fr/www/mal.html Modern cosmology and physics emphasize the interdependence of complex systems on scales from the microscopic to the macroscopic. Contemporary genetics reveal the underlying shared genetic identity not only of all human beings, but the genetic relatedness of all life on earth. Current scientific discoveries reconnect science to a number of philosophical and spiritual traditions. These reconnections offer the promise of the development of new philosophical and value systems appropriate to new emerging linked planetary cultures. This promise must face a number of dangers of globalization including: Accentuation of the inequalities within global development, negative aspects of the digital divide, cultural homogenization, over and unsustainable consumption, hyper- specialization, local isolation. The technologies of the Information Society offer tools to counterbalance some of these dangers through the potential of global dissemination of information and knowledge, new models for distance learning, the emergence of a planetary consciousness based on the shared genetic heritage of all human life. But beside these particular dangers how "to be and become" in this world undergoing profound changes? Can we adapt to these changes? How? Artists and scientists have been at the forefront of the use of these new systems to build life enhancing cultural developments in linked planetary contexts. This colloquium, with 20 participating artists, scientists and philosophers, was intended to be a listening post, an opportunity for inter-cultural dialogue and a specific step towards magnifying and amplifying emerging new emerging planetary cultural developments. Speakers presented specific scientific and artistic work, and made visible the cultural/philosophical/religions contexts that set a priori conditions and constraints on the speakers approaches and specific work. The choice of the city of Melilla as host was not an accident. Melilla has a millennial history of multi-cultural, multi- lingual synergy and dialogue within the Mediterranean context. The city offered itself as a podium to communicate outcomes of this first colloquium: To make real the opportunities for the reconnection of art, science and spirituality for the building of new 21st century planetary cultures. The Colloquium was divided into four different sessions articulated around the more general question of relationships between art, science, technology, and spirituality by creation/reinvention of patterns, symbols and integrated practices. In the initial instalment of our two-part digest, we focus on the first two sessions. The other two sessions will be published in the following LEA edition. BIOGRAPHY Roger Malina is an astrophysicist at the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille CNRS in France and Executive Editor of the Leonardo publications circulated by MIT Press. As a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's Space Science Laboratory, he is currently a co-investigator for the Supernova Acceleration Probe Consortium that seeks to build a new space observatory to help understand the nature of dark energy and dark matter in the universe. Collaborating amongst the science team for the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, Malina employs his expertise to help map the sky in the far ultra void to understand the evolution of galaxies. Malina also serves as Chairman of the Board of Leonardo, The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology, and President of the Observatoire Leonardo des Arts et Technosciences in Paris. He is Co-chair of the International Advisory Board of the Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts, a member of the International Academy of Astronautics, and is currently an Osher Fellow at the Exploratorium. He is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics and co-chair of their Committee on Space Activities and Society. Since 1982 he has served as Executive Editor of the journal Leonardo. He writes on the relationship between the arts, sciences and technology. ________________________________________________________________ A NOTE FROM THE GUEST EDITOR ________________________________________________________________ ORGANIZING A SYMPOSIUM by Julien Knebusch Assistant Editor Leonardo, France 22, rue Caulaincourt 75018 Paris France jknebusch [@] noos [dot] fr / julien_knebusch [@] yahoo [dot] fr http://www.olats.org Organizing this event was much of a challenge, regarding the topic addressed and the location of the symposium. We gathered scholars, scientists, and artists from very different areas and met in a place completely unknown for international dialogue: Melilla, one of the Spanish cities (enclaves) still existing in Morocco. The city is encircled by a militarized wall, reminiscent of the Israeli wall. Melilla is one of the "doors" to the European Union and astonishing because of the different cultural groups living within the city (Jews, Spaniards, Moroccans, Tziganes, and Indians). The city created a festival entitled the "5 Cultures" within our symposium. We discovered this unusual, complex, and politically sensitive context very late, more or less when we arrived there last summer. As organizers, we came from "outside", but worked together with the Director of the Symposium, Aziz Chafchaouni, who was living in Melilla. It was really a challenge to work with Aziz Chafchaouni in Melilla, Douglas Vakoch in California, Roger Malina in Marseille, Sangeetha Menon in Bangalore (I live in Paris). Together we constituted the organizing committee. During the organization of the symposium (which took six months) and the arrival in the City of Melilla (last summer), I always felt in the middle of a situation where it was very difficult to find one's way around. But this precisely made the whole event very interesting to me. I learned that organizing is always a very delicate issue because of our intervention in a preexisting context of political oppositions, prejudices and given world views. I learned also that there is a true value to a very "open" definition of a symposium - I was very hesitant at the beginning - because our discussions could take unforeseen directions. Certainly our symposium lacked coherence. But, I will keep a very special feeling of our interactions, which were very dense and continuous during the three days we spent in Melilla. Today, I feel deeply influenced by the organization of this event. Beside the intellectual interest of the symposium, this event, the arrival in the city, and the various unforeseen interactions and encounters with the participants constitutes a profound experience for me. I learned that I needed to lose control over the world (predicting what and how something would happen) in order to belong to it. BIOGRAPHY Julien Knebusch was born in Munich (Germany) and now lives in Paris. He obtained a Master's degree in history and politics (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales) and also in cultural management (University Paris-IX-Dauphine). He is currently project leader at Leonardo/OLATS (http://www.olats.org) for the editorial program "Fondements Culturels de la Mondialisation" (Cultural Roots of Globalization). ________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACTS ________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS by Mohammed Aziz Chafchaouni Symposium Director Al Andalus Foundation Avenida Reyes Catolicos 10 3er Iz 52 002 Melilla chaf_aziz [@] hotmail [dot] com As we move into the 21st century, humankind has acquired the tools to embark upon a journey toward a new phase of human capacity, toward a universal and holistic understanding of the universe and ourselves. The conference brought together some 25 scientists, international philosophers, and artists, in order to establish the bases of a new hybrid dialogue between art, science and spirituality. The colloquium showed the veracity and the accuracy of the set of themes approached. Indeed, during the last decades, we were accustomed to see emerging binary dialogues among Art/Science, Science/Spirituality, or Art/Spirituality. Multiple international institutions were born from this intellectual ideal and the effort to establish footbridges between the various fields of knowledge and human experience. For the first time in the universal history of ideas, and precisely in response to the era of the globalization, a conference emerges which establishes a "multidimensional" dialogue between the three most essential fields of the human endeavor. During the last centuries, human culture and knowledge domains have become increasingly atomized and specialized, each specialization requiring years of training. With new methods and tools of visualization and communication, humans can achieve an intuitive grasp of planetary cultures and scientific information, while evolving away from isolation and fear, and moving toward responsive appreciation and sharing. While the information necessary to achieve this potential is available through new media and the Internet, there are currently many difficulties in exploring the vast streams of knowledge. Human society is moving deeply into limiting trends of homogenous culture. This is accentuated by the paradox of the current tendency towards drowning in torrents of data. An alternative is to create a universal methodology based upon the breadth of human experience. This paradigm should arise from a deep understanding of our common universal heritage, as embedded in the wisdom and knowledge of cultures East and West. This paradigm will help us filter and organize the ever- expanding cyber universe. In the process, it is possible to utilize the precise data gathered within the scientific domain, as the structural basis for the visualization of information. This will bring the Buckminster Fuller conception of "doing more with less" into the realm of knowledge acquisition. Eventually computer users could be navigating through tridimensional animated highways of interactive content organised according to principles of scientific knowledge. In this way, knowledge can be, in a broad sense, made user friendly, understandable and within reach. Al Andalus Foundation seeks to create new universal tools for Humanity to grasp and experience, in a better and cohesive way, holistic understanding. This conference was conceived to move us closer to this vision. _____________________________ INTRODUCTION TO SESSION 1 The theme of Session 1 was Art/Science/Spirituality relations within planetary cultures and features 14 abstracts. This session dealt with worldwide phenomenon: 1) Creation of a single world which encompasses the planet and 2) of worldwide dissemination of worlds (2). We have planetary cultures emerging today (culture defined by a worldwide extension). The terminology "planetary culture" has been introduced in order to avoid the more common and difficult concept of "globalisation". The session aimed to explore art/science/spirituality reconnections within the context of globalization. _____________________________ FOUNDATIONS FOR A CULTURE OF PEACE AND JUSTICE BASED ON INTERTRADITION COOPERATION by Lama Denys Congr?gation Dachang Rimay, France Hameau de St Hugon 73110 Arvillard France lamadenys[@] rimay [dot] net http://www.karmaling.org KEYWORDS unity, diversity, ethics ABSTRACT The Teaching of the Buddha (Dharma) is an art of living based on a spiritual science. In its inspiration I would suggest first to make evident the ethical and spiritual common ground of all peace and justice, wholesome, traditions. Concerning spirituality, the common ground could be summarized as the absolute (God or Nature) experienced before mental representations, names and forms, or in the "know yourself" injunction. Concerning ethics, all wholesome traditions share the altruistic, selfless, love and compassion summarized by the Golden Rule. Awareness of this common and universal ground generates a vision of intertradition unity in diversity. Unity in the fundamental experience, whether ethical or spiritual, and diversity in its expressions and ways of realization. This paradigm of ethical and spiritual unity in diversity, as developed in the "Manifesto for ethical and spiritual unity in diversity", is the heart of an education to religious pluralism and cooperation needed for a global harmonization in a culture of peace and justice. BIOGRAPHY Lama Denys is the spiritual heir of Kyabdje Kalou Rinpoche (1904-1989), one of the greatest contemporary Buddhist Tibetan masters. Since 1980 he teaches in various countries and is the spiritual guide of Rimay Sangha International, a network of Buddhist centers. For more than 20 years, Lama Denys has been very active in intertradition and transdisciplinary dialogue. He is Honorary President of the European Buddhist Union, a participant of the World Council of Religious Leaders, and a member of the former International Interreligious Advisory Committee of UNESCO. He is also co-founder of the United Traditions Network, developing the vision of unity in diversity of all authentic traditions. Inspired by the activity of His Holiness the Dala? Lama, he supports many initiatives for a culture of peace, justice and non-violence. _____________________________ APPROACHES OF THE PLANETARY DIMENSION IN MEDIA ART by Julien Knebusch Assistant Editor Leonardo, France 22, rue Caulaincourt 75018 Paris France jknebusch [@] noos [dot] fr / julien_knebusch [@] yahoo [dot] fr http://www.olats.org KEYWORDS phenomenology, planetary dimension, media artists ABSTRACT This presentation is about the description of a certain sensitivity, which can be found in contemporary Media Art and further the development of a phenomenology of the global. Contemporary philosophy has considered globalization as an ontological event or issue (Jean-Luc Nancy and Peter Sloterdijk for example). We will ask in this presentation how contemporary media artists, from the last 20 years, became aware of globalization, and developed ways of appropriation of this phenomenon. We will outsketch two important approaches of the planetary becoming of one's/our world: 1) an approach centered on the relationship of the individual to entities/notions as otherness or humanity and 2) an approach centered more on the artist's relationship to earth. Within the first group, the global has been experienced differently a) as an autonomous and creative entity (through networks by Roy Ascott in La Plissure du texte, 1984, for example) b) as a wave coming from an expanding center (the global is experienced from a peripheral position, for example in the video of Peter Callas Night's High Noon: An Anti-Terrain, 1988) and c) a component of locality (the global considered as an extension of the horizon of locality, for example by Knowbotik Research in Mental immigration). Within the second group, artists experimented a planetary dimension through the sensing of geophysical processes by using earth science data in a creative manner. The planetary dimension has been: a) seen through an extension of human's vision (visualization of planetary processes by Gloria Brown-Simmons in Oceannet, started in 1997); sensed physically (the body of the planet sensed by the human body as illustrated by the Japanese group Sensorium in Breathing Earth, 1998-2000); sensed physically through one's desire of horizontal extension (for example by Stephan Barron in Traits, 1989). These descriptions could help develop a phenomenology of the Planetary Dimension, which has been initiated in contemporary philosophy (Peter Sloterdijk for example) and sociology (Samuel Bordreuil for example). BIOGRAPHY Julien Knebusch was born in Munich (Germany) and now lives in Paris. He obtained a Master's degree in history and politics (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales) and also in cultural management (University Paris-IX-Dauphine). He is currently project leader at Leonardo/OLATS (http://www.olats.org) for the editorial program "Fondements Culturels de la Mondialisation" (Cultural Roots of Globalization). _____________________________ USEFUL TENSION BETWEEN C.P. SNOW'S TWO CULTURES DEBATE AND THE EMERGENCE OF A CONTEXT OF FIVE CULTURES IN THE PLANETARY CONTEXT by Roger Malina Astrophysician Editor, Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille, France c/o Leonardo SFAI 800 Chestnut Street San Francisco, CA 94133 U.S.A. rmalina [@] ssl [dot] berkeley [dot] edu / rmalina [@] alum [dot] mit [dot] edu http://www.astrsp-mrs.fr/www/mal.html KEYWORDS PLANETARY CONTEXT, DEVELOPMENT, NETWORKS ABSTRACT C.P.Snow and his colleagues framed a discussion 40 years ago on the need to reconnect the arts and sciences and to help provide the intellectual coherence to drive planet wide development within the context of global inequities and unequal development. However, as the planet has become interconnected, both by the means of transportation and communication, an interesting tension between "holistic" approaches to reconnecting art and science versus "useful differentiation" is appearing as new planetary cultures emerge. I define the "five cultures" as the "art, design and entertainment culture", "the science and government culture", "the engineering and corporate R and D culture", "distributed planet wide world views and value systems", and "new regionalisms and the importance of locality and personal situation". Individuals working within planetary context become used to working in multiple personal situations where projects connect in different ways with the five cultures. Rather than insisting on reunification of dualities, as has been prevalent in western art-science discourse, I wish to emphasize a network model of entry points into problem solving. I will discuss how as an astrophysicist working also within a number of distributed planetary art communities this tension between "holism" and "useful differentiation" can be articulated. BIOGRAPHY Roger Malina is an astrophysicist at the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille CNRS in France and Executive Editor of the Leonardo publications circulated by MIT Press. As a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's Space Science Laboratory, he is currently a co-investigator for the Supernova Acceleration Probe Consortium that seeks to build a new space observatory to help understand the nature of dark energy and dark matter in the universe. Collaborating amongst the science team for the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, Malina employs his expertise to help map the sky in the far ultra void to understand the evolution of galaxies. Malina also serves as Chairman of the Board of Leonardo, The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology, and President of the Observatoire Leonardo des Arts et Technosciences in Paris. He is Co-chair of the International Advisory Board of the Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts, a member of the International Academy of Astronautics, and is currently an Osher Fellow at the Exploratorium. He is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics and co-chair of their Committee on Space Activities and Society. Since 1982 he has served as Executive Editor of the journal Leonardo. He writes on the relationship between the arts, sciences and technology. _____________________________ IMAGINATION AS A SPACE OF LIFE AND OF RESISTANCE TO MERCANTILE LOGIC by Mohammed Taleb Philosopher Director Interdisciplinary Arab University (Paris) France KEYWORDS neoliberal globalization, cultural standardization ABSTRACT The explanation of the philosophical vision introduced by neoliberal globalization is a necessary task, as the latter cannot be reduced to an economic process. The neo-liberalisation of the economic sphere (deregulation, financing) only acquires its true meaning when it is considered in a wider spectre that some researchers call mercantile objectivation. This makes us return to the essence, to the very heart of the "capitalist economy" (Immanuel Wallerstein). Objectivation defines the transformation into inert objects of all that exists in the universe, separate and distinguishable: Women, men, nations and nature. What is happening in present day globalization (which has its roots in colonial expansion in Latin-Indian, America, Africa, Asia and in the Arab world) is the intensification of this nihilistic and mortiferous process. Together with economic neoliberation, "Violence of the Imagination" (to take the title of the book of the ex-Guinea Minister of Culture, Animata Traor? as an example) shows the other side of globalization. Cultural biodiversity, linguistic pluralism, imagination, know-how, and the multiplicity of spiritual horizons, represent obstacles for mercantile objectivation. This violation, which makes uniform the cultural identities and standardizes historic personages, is seen as a real attack against the anthropological foundation from which the human adventure is initiated in history. We shall never tire of saying to what extent the human figure that triumphs with globalization is the "unidimensional man" (Herbert Marcuse). This man is disfigured, mutilated and restricted because he is transformed in object. Said another way, it is proclaimed the triumph of the "homo economicus" (Louis Dumont). The General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT) (which is a treaty of the World Trade Organization (WTO) that entered into effect in 1995) is one of the judicial-political instruments of this mercantile objectivation-westernization-globalization. Its reason for being is to make a contribution to the progressive global disappearance of Culture and Nature from the public arena. Agn?s Bertrand and Laurence Kalafatid?s, in "WTO, the Invisible Power", have demonstrated that the WTO and GATT aimed at the privatization of the entrails of the earth. There is, therefore, danger in delay. However, as the words of Holderlin, the romanticist, say, "Where there is danger there is also salvation". _____________________________ MARKS AND IMAGES OF REALITY IN MEDIA REASONING by Hashim Cabrera Painter and writer, Spain Fuen Real Alto Camino de Alisn? s/n Almod?var del R?o 14720 C?rdoba, Spain hashim [@] webislam [dot] com http://www.webislam.com KEYWORDS imaginary world, tawhid, tracks ABSTRACT Art in the media is not a separate art from life nor unaware of science or spirituality. It is more a reasoning that allows the interplay and the meeting and at the same time tends to break the myth, by exhaustion, of the sacred nature of texts and images. The procedures and artistic disciplines find an apt field for their spreading and global reproduction. But the mediation becomes in many cases so powerful that the contents turn into a subsidiary and reference material, inside inexhaustible lots of possibilities. The nature laws and the rules of art join and share the same support. The recurrence of images underlie between the dream of video and the presence of digital pictures, the building of an endless allegory of history and cultures, and that digital environment is lived as an experience of shapeless melancholy, according to what Professor Arnheim said in the 70s of the last century. From the live experience of reality we walk to a relative and consensual reality, that is to say, virtual. We face the dissolution of the subject, the fiction of the I, in a world of images but poor of signs, in a crossroad, like carrier pigeons that stopped in the air for a while to remember their destiny. Contrary to what happens when we contemplate the landscape of nature, when we lean out to the digital one we can get away from the effort of retaining it in our memory, because we know that it can be instantaneous and unlimitedly played. The digital image is kept, protected from oblivion and spoiling, in that same cavern where Plato placed the ideas, in the image world (alam al mithal) where Ibn Arabi discovered his independent and autonomous kind, like a pure spiritual being. The mass media change vertiginously and they bind us to a constant learning of new languages. The field where communication happens now is the net, an open structure, which connects individual nodes, as well as others where group tasks gather. The key of this new way of knowledge and expression is not so much instrumental as something related to identity. The homogeneity of the net and the autonomy of nodes are placating the appearance of a new form of spontaneous organization that collides strongly with the traditional, hierarchic and centralized power structures. We go along from close identities to an open and global identity, from the fragmentary exclusion to the unifying inclusion, from analysis to the integrative experience of the tawhid. BIOGRAPHY Hashim Cabrera was born in 1954. He opted to multidiscipline from 1973, and has since dabbled in analysis of forms in the Superior Technical School of Architecture of Seville, philosophy in the Faculty of Letters of Cordoba, Spanish literature in the Complutense University of Madrid and as a plastic artist and writer. He has also produced works of investigation and artistic pieces around nature/culture, tradition/modernity, thought/vanguard in collaboration with the University of Cordoba, group of investigation TIEDPAAN. Hashim is also the publisher and co-founder of the magazine of information and analysis *Verde Islam* and of the web site www.webislam.com Other projects include the investigation on systems of forms and visual thought with the Museum of contemporary art of Shimewaru, Kyusyu, Japan. He is also a member of the Ras al Hanut Project of Mediterranean intercultural development group, Euromed. _____________________________ BURDENS (AND GIFTS) OF CINEMA ON EXPERIMENTAL VIDEO - THE IDEA OF EXPERIMENTATION AND RESISTANCE IN CAIRO by Samirah Al-Kasim Assistant Professor of Film Department of Performing & Visual Arts American University in Cairo, Egypt 113 Kasr el Aini Street P.O. Box 2511 Cairo, Egypt 11511 salkasim [@] aucegypt [dot] edu KEYWORDS experimental video, discursive formations, in Cairo ABSTRACT There are a series of questions surrounding the possibilities and problems of doing experimental video work in Egypt, most of the latter of which are socio-economically and culturally determined. In this paper I will contextualize the current situation of experimental video-makers in Egypt, for whom there is very little funding and state-sponsorship, and where there is a serious economic recession that impacts the production of art. I will refer to texts on the post-colonial subject in cinema by Robert Stam and Ellah Shohat; different notions of "the global" and culture by Arjun Appadurai; and the "dehumanization of art" by Ortega Y Gasset, among other sources, in describing the context of this techno-cultural scene within the larger context of the aims of this colloquium. I speculate that the reason why there is experimentation happening at all in video, in Egypt, which for simplicity's sake we can consider to be Cairo, while there is very little discussion about aesthetics and practices within the medium, is on the simplest level due to Cairo's timeless cultural diversity. But there is another reason born of the positive and negative effects of globalization: The proliferation of counter- images from the new Arab satellite channels thrown into the generally complex mix of poorly-managed development programs and government corruption, with their impact on every strata of social life. Out of all this springs the artist, who, without my wishing to attribute too great a supernatural power to him/her, is able to more easily confront and possibly transcend borders and lines of law (than the average citizen) and who often belongs to the middle classes and above. Of further impact is the general milieu of the cinema "crisis" with its effects on independent cinema and video-makers; and the seemingly imminent rupture of the "law of order" if the economic situation worsens and if the political "balance" shifts from the hegemony of the corrupt national Democratic Party to an Islamic Brotherhood rulership. But transparent rigidity eventually breeds its own demise - like other moments and experiences where rigid social/cultural/religious and political systems have bred generations of dissident voices (and eyes). Where does the role of spirit come into this? Artists are using electronic means to engage in their relationships to the city and notions of identity and authority, both of which in this particular situation are fragmented and reconsolidated. I speculate that there is spirit enough in these connections, practices and works, to affirm the role of the spirit in artistic production, especially in these times of impending, though perhaps slow-moving, change. BIOGRAPHY Samirah Alkassim is a professor of film studies teaching at the American University in Cairo in the Department of Performing & Visual Arts. She has written about Egyptian cinema (Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film, Thomson & Gale), and Egyptian video art (*Cracking the Monolith: Film and Video Art in Cairo*, New Cinemas Journal of Contemporary Cinema, UK: Intellect); and recently produced a 35-minute experimental documentary *from here to there* (which takes a boy's imaginary space shuttle as an allegory for the idea of technology in Cairo). She is currently making a documentary about Palestinian identity in Jordan. _____________________________ NETWORK PROJECTS IN BRAZIL. GENTE (ONLINE) QUE FAZ by Karla Schuch-Brunet Photographer, Brazil and Ph.D candidate University Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain), Brazil email [@] karlabrunet [dot] com http://www.karlabrunet.com/cv_english.htm KEYWORDS network projects, social issues ABSTRACT Faced many times with a lack of knowledge, by foreigners and even Brazilians, about the projects involving technology and social issues in Brazil, I felt the necessity of writing a paper on network projects in the country. It seems that information from the North hemisphere reaches the South but it does not happen often the other way around. So, the intention here is to show abroad some projects done in Brazil. The title, *Gente (online) que faz*, comes from short documentary films showed on TV in Brazil called *Gente que faz* (people that do). Every program presented someone, who, on their own initiative, started any sort of project, had success and helped others generate jobs or community work. The phrase "Gente que faz" became an idiomatic expression that got popular with the general public. It was accepted and used by everybody to describe someone doing something better. The expression was used many times as an opposition to people that say. In Brazil, a lot of people say too much (especially those in politics) and do little. "Gente que faz" were people who said little and did much. They were the anonymous heroes of the neighborhoods and villages. Here "Gente (online) que faz" are projects on the net by people from different backgrounds; they are getting together to generate different work. They are trying to use the net positively. It is what Jim Walch in *In the Net. An Internet Guide to Activists* would term 'better use' of technology. Or what Michael Heim in *The Cyberspace Dialectic* would call virtual realism, a middle path between na?ve realism and network idealism. There is a selection of some social and political network projects. It has taken in consideration works that involve collaboration, cooperation and participation above all. I searched how people get together to construct something in the net. How they come up with simple ideas to solve everyday problems. The projects are simple, they don't have the intention of 'changing the world', they are sometimes rethinking the way we see and use media. Some of these works can be thought as examples of Tactical Media. They are using the media in a critical and oppositional way. "Recicle 1 Pol?tico" can be an example of that, as many others. "Gente (online) que faz" is about networking, about people working together and contributing to produce something. It is telepresence; it is getting assistance and collaboration of people from other places. It is critical, it is opposition and it is also about 'making'. These are the ideas that "Re-combo", "Rede viva favela", "LigaN?is", "VivaSP", "Autolabs" among others, are working on. See a compilation of the projects in htp://www.networkbr.tk Rede viva favela http://www.redevivafavela.com.br/ VivaSP http://www.vivasp.com/conteudo.asp?sid=3 Re:combo http://www.recombo.art.br/ Rizoma http://www.rizoma.net/hp6.htm Met?fora http://www.projetometafora.org/ LigaN?is http://www.liganois.com.br/ Autolabs http://www.midiatatica.org/autolabs.htm CHD - Coletivo de Hist?rias Digitais http://chd.memelab.org/ Ajuda Brasil http://www.ajudabrasil.com.br/ CMI- Centro de M?dia Independente http://www.brasil.indymedia.org/ BIOGRAPHY Karla Schuch Brunet was born in Brazil in 1972. She has a degree in Social Communication and another in Language. After university, she got a grant to take her MFA (Master in Fine Arts) in San Francisco, U.S.A., where she studied and worked in digital imaging for three years. Back in Brazil she participated in diverse projects involving photography and the Internet. She also worked for a few years doing commercial work on the web. Parallel to that, she exhibited works such as "Aspire, Strive, Attain", "Corpo Estranho", "Pessoas e Com?rcio no Centro de S?o Paulo", "Errante", in San Francisco, S?o Paulo and Santa Maria. When in S?o Paulo she taught multimedia students in Universidade Anhembi Morumbi and ESPM (Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing). Now, with another scholarship from the Brazilian government, she lives in Spain where she is writing her thesis on network projects. _____________________________ ME DEA EX: INTERTWINING VIRTUAL AND REAL WORLD. TO FORM IMMERSIVE/INTERACTIVE THEATRE by Neora Cyberculture explorer and VR worlds creator 16 Usishkin St Tel-Aviv 62591 Israel neoradotcom [@] gmail [dot] com http://www.neora.com KEYWORDS interactive 3D, theatre, virtual reality ABSTRACT The intertwining of science, technology and art results in the experience of the spirit (webster: the intelligent, immaterial and immortal part of man). Thus, inspiration and spirituality, in my approach, define the state of mind, the spirit, achieved by interlacing the virtual and real worlds, to form some new experience of knowledge and understanding. Such experience may be complex/confusing; hence the way to reach clarity depends on our willingness to abandon or redesign our traditional solid grounds. MEDEAEX is an adaptation of the classic Myth of Medea, projected cross-culture wise on: - The Middle-East Reality (Medea = Palestinian, Jason = Israeli officer, Chorus = audience). - The CyberSpace Virtual Reality (Medea is a hacker trying to debug and redesign the script). The MEDEAEX universe is a 3D environment that resides on the Internet and is projected during the performance in 360 degrees around the audience. It is a proactive environment, whereas Medea is a live actress (Khaula ElHadj-Dibsi) all the other characters are pre-programmed bot avatars, and the audience (e.g. the global village) can interact and influence the flow and ambience of the show, using SMS from their cellular phones. The script is fully hyper-textual, based on the original texts by Euripides, Heiner Muller and Seneca. It is written and performed in English, Hebrew and Arabic, and so is the background music cross-cultural and cross-lingual. The exposition to each scene is the actual Middle East News (Medea - betrayed, evicted, exiled, and after all sacrifices her children by sending them as suicide bombers to Jerusalem). The chorus lines are performed with text-to-speech mechanism, allowing online and real time audience to add to their digital singing data bank. The MEDEAEX project has been performed in Schiller Festival Germany, and Acco Festival in Israel in 2003. The technology and mechanisms are now tested as environment for VR studies programs and interactive storytelling projects, in Shenkar College and other installations. It is fully documented (including technical notes, images, critics, full script, video) in http://www.medeaex.org. BIOGRAPHY Neora is the designer and producer of several advanced interfaces for museum sites, academic and commercial web sites. She is the creator of *Ayuni* - telepresence in Nablus, *NYSE*- VR 3D interactive simulation of the trading floor, and of *Medea_ex* (http://www.medeaex.org) - immersive/interactive theatre play, which was performed in the Schiller Festival in Manheim, Germany and Acco Theatre Festival 2003, Israel. Since then, she's been experimenting with online worlds for remote learning, and pro-active projected "cave-like installations" for large audiences. Neora teaches cyberculture in Tel-aviv University, and VR in Shenkar College of Engineering & Design. Neora is involved with the open source movement in Israel, and is the organizer of the first two hackers conferences in Israel (http://www.y2hack4.org). In April 2000, Neora was chosen as one of the 10 most influential people on the Israeli Internet (published in Yediot Aharonot newspaper. The other nine figures were tie/suited distinguished men). She got this title for the insights in her novel, web works, several publications and teachings - all of which were way ahead of her time. In the last millenium, Neora was a UNIX programmer and PC support team leader in Dec Ltd and CDC Ltd for several years, and co-founder/co-developer in SGH, a startup in 1994, for multi- user games. She's the author of *Digital Affair*(Hakibutz Hameuchad Publishing, 1993), journalist, editor and columnist in a few professional magazines and newspapers over the years. _____________________________ THE INTERPRESENCE PROJECT by Arthur Matuck Professor Ph.D MFA School of Communications and Arts University of S?o Paulo (USP) S?o Paulo, SP, CEP 05508-900 Brazil arturmatuck [@] terra [dot] com [dot] br KEYWORDS telepresence, experience, intercommunication ABSTRACT RESEARCH PROJECT FOR TELEACTIVE HUMAN LANGUAGE Interpresence exercises the language of mediatecture to propose planetary coalescence through cyberspace. It favours worldwide integration allowing for interactive television and the experience of telebrations between distant cities. Interpresence is defined as mutually sensed human telepresence. As a project Interpresence merges telecommunication, architecture, design, media arts, performance, television, and programming, with implications for cultural studies, anthropology, contemporary theory, epistemology and psychoanalysis. Its curatorial concept purports the telepresential encounter providing for the valorization of the Other through mutual knowledge and co-authored aesthetic propositions. The envisioned systems would enable local participants to interact with remote audiences, they would see and be seen, listen and be listened, experiencing interpresence. THE INTERPRESENCE VISION Interpresence represents an alternative global television. It introduces a political proposition, claiming a right to communicate through technologies that only have to be reconfigured to provide for interpresential experiences. The long-term social design involves the gradual creation of a worldwide network of community or university-operated telesystems. Design and implementation will be carried out through web-based property-free interchange triggering continuous co-evolution. MEDIATECTURE FOR TELEACTIVITY Mediatectural projects for terminals should permit diverse modes of long distance interaction. They were conceived for bilateral and multilateral intercommunication. Teleperformance terminals consist of interpresential units integrating distributed screens with video cameras. A vertical system allows for conversational interactions, while a horizontal one enables table mode interactions. Multiple- connection terminals provide interaction with many remote locations. Specially conceived audience spaces enable remote audioviewing of interactions occuring at teleperformance spaces. MEDIA DESIGN FOR CO-EVOLUTIONARY TELEACTIVITY An intercreative process will be gradually extended through net- collaboration. Concepts, designs, projects, propositions will be available as released information, as common property, providing for a worldwide collective planning, a linux-like co- evolutionary development of the project design. A permanent webpresence would enable long-term quality interaction between participating artists and institutions. Propositions for projects, programs, events and performances will trigger long-distance interconnections. Intervisions, teleactions and videologues would result from community and artistic initiatives supported by institutional agreements. Subsequent coordinated planning and networking would entail a diversity of increasingly creative long-distance human encounters. Those connections will form an invisible web of creative collaboration, and mutual responsibility providing the human structure needed for the unfolding of quality projects and events. The network should entail the co-creation of scripts, technology evaluation, co-planning and finally the actualization of teleactivities. RESEARCH FOR INTERCOMMUNICATION Research for interpresence will be centered upon alternative intercommunication. Proposals for computer-supported systems enabling understanding between speakers of different languages will be encouraged. Software and media design can also be articulated to program intertranslations between different sign systems allowing, for instance, tactile stimuli to be remotely sensed as heat formations varying in form and intensity. Research can also take a different direction. Specially designed software could morph human traces indicating the possibility of artificiality, not only of realism, in the experience of telepresence. BIOGRAPHY Artur Matuck has been an assistant professor at the School of Communications and Arts at the University of S?o Paulo since 1984. In S?o Paulo, Brazil, Europe and North America, he has worked as teacher, researcher, writer, visual artist, video producer, performer and more recently as a designer of teleart events and interactive sites. Since 1977, Mr. Matuck has been delivering conferences and workshops on New Media Arts, Interactive Television, Telecommunication Arts, Performance project Art, Computer-Generated Writing, and Intellectual Property issues. In 1990, he was awarded a prize in the video- art category from the S?o Paulo Art Critics Association. At the same year, he completed a comprehensive study on the history of video art and interactive television which resulted in a doctoral thesis: "The Dialogical Potential of Television". During 1991, as research fellow at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, he produced Reflux, a worldwide Telecommunication Arts, one of the very first artistic experiments to call for collaborative networking activities. In 1995, as post graduate fellow at the University of Florida, he starts experimenting with text-reprocessing programming. Landscript, a web-based tool for person-computer co-authored textual creation was selected to participate in the 25th edition of the Biennial International of S?o Paulo, in 2002, in the category of net-art. Artur Matuck is the creator of Semion - an international symbol for released information, a theoretical and conceptual contribution to the on- going debates on intellectual property rights and information dissemination in the electronic age. His most recent endeavours involves planning videocommunication and web-based multicultural exchanges between artists, researchers and individuals from different countries and cultures. _____________________________ GATES - BEYOND NET-ART: REAL THINGS ACROSS CYBERSPACE by Caterina Davinio Media Artist, Italy Via Sassi 10 23900 LECCO (LC) Italy davinio [@] tin [dot] it http://www.xoomer.virgilio.it/cprezi/caterinadav.html KEYWORDS Communic/Action, network, poetry ABSTRACT I have been working with new media in Italy since the early 90s, focusing on relationship among word, writing, and new media. Since 1998 my work appeared in the Internet with collaborative projects: *Karenina.it*, still in course, *Parallel Action - Bunker*, online poetry event done for the 49th Biennale di Venezia, *Paint from Nature*, *Global Poetry*, both created in 2002, and the last project, *GATES Beyond Net-Art*, in 2003, dedicated to Pierre Restany. In all these projects there is an increasing relationship between one or more *real* events, and a virtual event online made of e-communication. The reality coefficient has grown progressively in these collaborative works, in polemic against net art as use of software for creating spectacular web pages and net-objects. In my works net-art is network, performance in network of connected artists, poets, critics, theoreticians. *Gates*, as *Global Poetry* in 2002, is a planetary performance that happened contemporaneously in numerous places of the world, in collaboration with experimental artists, who were in the spirit of this totally new experimental adventure, something that was never realized before. These artists created a node of the project in their countries, using also exchange and circulation of materials among the nodes; the circulated materials were poems, digital art, photos and video of real events, but also discourses, theories, critical interventions. Every node was a node of the performance, but also a performance and a meeting in itself: this means that to everybody in this collaborative action, we asked to involve other persons. I have been going in this direction of art as communic-action and relationship since my first net project: *Karenina.it- Poetry in Phatic Function* - the first Italian website dedicated to experimental poetry - described with a definition by Jakobson, that calls phatic the use of the language that has the finality to maintain open and operative the communication channel between the interlocutors. The idea was to open every limit between word and visual art, critic, theories of art, and art, by creating a space of meeting among artists. This space was at the beginning virtual, as it was at that time still new to consider a web page a "space" to explore, where to be present and act. By becoming, during the 90s, this conception normal, acquired, net-art was progressively in the consideration of many artists a run to the up to date software, for creating spectacular websites and pages. For this reason it was important to clarify the original sense of net art as art in network, with its central aspects of communic-action. *Karenina.it* uses ready made found in the world wide web and some techniques of visual poetry, and Futurism, but also focuses on the matter of an art piece in the web, that is deeply linguistic, because digital or digitalized, and because made of data transfer. To these aspects of digital art as linguistic art, net-art adds the one of communication and network, typical of the Internet. This is the idea on which projects such as *Global Poetry* and *GATES* are based on. The Italian node of GATES was at D'Ars Gallery on 18 December 2003. Other nodes were in Chile, Spain, Brazil, United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Lebanon, Turkey, Morocco, Greece, Venezuela, and in other countries. Exploring the concept of remote presence and action, and continuous passage form real to virtual and vice versa, using the surface between real and virtual as sensible semiotic area, in the context of relational art, e-Fluxus, Situationism. The call was directed to experimental artists and poets, critics, *e-post-Fluxus- casseurs, post-post duchampists* BIOGRAPHY Caterina Davinio, Italian techno-artist and writer, experiments on non-conventional solutions in computer art, net-art, video, digital visual poetry, Internet-performance, video-performance, and also involves herself in computer printings exhibitions, paintings, and artist's books, using writing and digital techniques. Among the pioneers of Italian digital art, she is experienced in curatorial and consultant activity in international festivals. Her works have been presented in more than 80 exhibitions worldwide; we recall the participation in the Venice Biennial in 1997, 1999, 2001, in the context of new media art and experimental poetry festivals, and in net and Fluxus events of the 50th Venice Biennial. Author of the essay *Techno-Poetry and Virtual Realities* (Mantoa, IT, 2002), first Italian book on this topic, and of the novel *Color Color* (Pasian di Prato, UD, IT, 1998), she has published articles, poems, and digital works in international magazines and journals of the avant-garde. Since 1998 her work has appeared on the Internet with collaborative net-art/poetry projects and events, among them "Karenina.it ", a point of reference for the avant-garde, *Global Poetry* (UNESCO, 2002), and *GATES*(2003). For a more detailed biobibliography: http://space.tin.it/arte/cprezi/caterinadav.html _____________________________ MEDITERRANEAN MAPS by Paolo Atzori Communication architect and video-stage designer and Nicole Leghissa Filmmaker and director, Italy atzorman [@] tiscali [dot] it KEYWORDS contemporary Mediterranean Rim, mapping, networks ABSTRACT In this particular historical moment it is fundamental to overcome stereotypes and misunderstandings that characterize the mutual relationship between the Islamic and Western worlds, mainly breaking the reciprocal cultural isolation. A consistent way to approach the problem is to create communication and shared knowledge channels between these cultural realities, taking a clear position against the ideological conflict between West and Islam, North and South of the world, and reaffirming the values of mutual respect and diversities' confrontation. *Mediterranean Maps* consists of a multicultural and interdisciplinary grouping of scientific and cultural institutions of the South and North of the Mediterranean, aimed to research and give expression to a mutual knowledge space: A multicultural, hyper-textual and dynamic Atlas of the contemporary Mediterranean rim that could be continuously updated and freely consultable on line. The group will include artists, scientists and cultural operators, whose mission is to bridge the knowledge gap between North and South of the Mediterranean area. Each partner will propose a specific research/action plan creating a sub-network in different locations and promote the formation of multimedia teams of young professionals, located in every major area covered by the action. During the development of the researches/actions, all individuals and institutions belonging to the different sub- networks will communicate online in a transversal way through the "collaborative platform" specifically designed for this project to archive different kind of documents: Texts, notes, graphics, pictures, interviews, short video reports, graphics, maps, archive images, sounds, etc. MAP-MAKING Until a few years ago, cartography representation has been exclusively static. The project *Mediterranean Maps* envisions a cartographic model that could integrate dynamic processes and automatic sampling by the application of information technology to the data patterns relative to geographical and cultural representation. The maps represent a contemporary view of the Mediterranean area visualized by a digital interface that will enable access and supply indications on possible knowledge courses on a digital sea, navigable in linear and transversal ways. THE LABORATORY BOAT A geographical route on the Mediterranean basin will be drawn to represent the physical link among the different researchers and participating countries. Significant ports will represent the local attractors, where specific actions and special public events will take place at the landing of the boat. The boat, equipped with advanced communication technologies, will host a crew of multimedia and communication experts, scientists and artists, writer and poets, and will originate the map-making process of the Mediterranean Sea. The journey is an exploration, a re-discovery of this region. The travel itself will be a source of data coming from observations of the natural environment, concerning, for example, biology, fluid dynamics, ecology, but also social relationship on a mobile micro-environment. The boat will perform a transversal data collection, traveling along a course unifying all participating Mediterranean ports. This lab-boat, besides being a creative and research forge, is a logistic support to install the public telematic stations (or lighthouses) in the ports. These stations will become the material places from where to launch the data on lines and where to freely join the net global information. TELEMATIC LIGHTHOUSE It is a public wireless interzone for global networking communication implemented on a transportable architecture, planned with environmentally conscious design that minimizes sustenance or resource consumption. Its main purpose is to give shape to the process of communication characteristic of the information age, where communication equals transportation of the mind, establishing dedicated channels of the "MED MAP" network. Its equipment and architecture will be used also for displaying the public event. _____________________________ MAPPING A THESIS IN SYSTEMS THEORY IN NEW MEDIA ART by Jane Cole Forrester Winne Independent MLS Program University of Maine, Orono, USA Owen Smith Chair Jane_Forrester [@] umit [dot] maine [dot] edu ABSTRACT My thesis is in Systems Theory, and this particular presentation displayed through power point, one project in my studies that utilized intuitive and cognitive thought to "map" areas of study in my thesis as mixed media art. The visuals represent interdisciplinary areas of research covering time and space of self directed inquiry as maps. Artworks of my own creation, giving 'voice' to the "mapping out" of my thesis, alone or incorporated with images that depict "maps" represented systems of interest in varying degrees. Accompanying this presentation was a book created for the project to hold text and scans of the full compliment of art works. The presentation was also a collaborative, incorporating work from two undergraduate students, one concerned with musical sound and one performing spoken word of her own writing. I am concerned with exploring the form of systems to discover structure, in part, that may reveal patterns that seem to support the life force. I am looking for what are called in some disciplines 'emergent properties', in others, 'evolutionary' traits, and still others protective or conserving strategies in cultures. I have a wide topical range, including the Ayurvedic and Iching systems, post modern artists/philosophers (fluxus, and Henri Bergson) Ancient cultures spanning from the British Isles to northern China, India to the Mediterranean. Ecological systems theory, the Internet, its history, directions, and alternative economies. _____________________________ A UNIVERSAL MOTHER TONGUE by Celestino Soddu and Enrica Colabella Director of Generative Design Lab Chair of annual international Generative Art Conference Coordinator of EC program "Euro-China Exchange: Technology and Culture of Generative Design Approach" DiAP, Politecnico di Milano University, Italy DIAP, Politecnico di Milano University Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32 20133 Milano Italy celestino [dot] soddu [@] polimi [dot] it http://www.celestinosoddu.com http://www.generativeart.com http://www.generativedesign.com KEYWORDS generative art, codes of harmony, universal language ABSTRACT IDENTITY RISES FROM A SOUNDLESS SITE, BECAUSE BIRDS HAVE NO TEARS A universal language talks as a mother tongue. Generative Design is the idea realized as a genetic Code of artificial events. This generative project is a concept-software that works producing three-dimensional unique and unrepeatable scenarios as infinite expressions of an idea that rises from a subjective visionary world. This approach opens a new era in design: The challenge of a new Natural science of Artificial ware like mirror of human uniqueness. Once more man imitates Nature, as in the act of making Art. This is like a universal language. As DNA in Nature the genetic code of artificial ware identifies a species of objects. So we can design the idea able of generating infinite variations. ARS SINE SCIENTIA NIHIL EST This was an enthusiastically creative operation discovering the cultural approach of Renaissance, able to combine Science and Art. We define a process as a code of Harmony that identifies a representation of our subjective vision of a possible world. The code of Harmony, like all codes, contains some rules that trace certain forms of behaviors. Therefore it is not only a sequence, a database of events, of forms, but a transforming patterns definition: the performing from what exists into the complexity of visionary becoming. The design act changes from forming to transforming, because each form is only one of possible parallel results of the same idea. RUN, LITTLE BOY, FIND THE RIVER IN YOUR MIND This design challenge started up in 1987 with the realization of Generative Projects of architecture, historical cities, industrial design and visions of Art from Piranesi, Picasso and Van Gogh. Today these projects are upgraded as extremely complex and directly operative as interfaces with intelligent productive systems. After 200 years of the industrial era of mass cloned objects, the "unique" object becomes a new answer to the human needs to live in a world where each artificial object can mirror the uniqueness of every person. A mother tongue can generate a universal code. By working in advanced technological fields such as non-linear dynamic systems, artificial life and artificial intelligence, the Generative Design finds again the notions of a new aesthetic and ethical pleasure of rediscovering the processes and characters of Nature in an epoch marked by repeated attempts at the cloning of natural beings. BIOGRAPHY Celestino Soddu, 1945, registered architect, is tenure Architectural Design professor and director of Generative Design Lab at Politecnico di Milano University, Honorary professor at Xi'an University and Shanghai University, Chair of Generative Art International Annual Conference. His architectural projects, realized like AI/AL generative tools, can generate endless different 3D models of architectures/environments characterized by the same artificial DNA. His generative design projects are a useful tool to manage the new intelligent industrial production of each-one-different objects by automatic reprogramming of robots. He has presented his generative works in books, articles, exhibitions and conferences all over the world. _____________________________ THE RELIGIOUS MODELS OF GLOBALISM by Harry Rand Senior Curator, Cultural History National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, USA AHB 4100, MRC 616 Smithsonian Institution PO Box 37012 Washington DC 20013-7012 U.S.A. RandH [@] nmah [dot] si [dot] edu KEYWORDS globalism, art-science, religion ABSTRACT The Church pioneered so many aspects of modern globalism that we should heed the reactions of earlier peoples faced with challenges to their values - challenges every bit as monumental as confrontations with modern globalism. The Church first understood the potency of: brand name, trademark, distinctive architecture and presentation imposed on indigenous cultures, a franchisor's location analysis and local market demographics for a franchise outlet (the diocesan system), a mixed formula of buy- in costs that balance local capital with distant management and oversight, the value of uniforms and scripted exchanges with clients, quality control from a centralized headquarters, and profit-sharing; all of this is now associated with commercial globalization. The Church's aesthetic position aimed to link the planet into a network of identical communities. The cultural reaction to this system's rise is still producing a dialogue across cultures about the multiple contexts of commercial and religious globalization, which is a discussion of value. The Church's franchising did not first arise from commercial globalization that overspread national boundaries to create supranational loyalties. The idea of a planetary consciousness and cultural homogenization did not arise from the urge toward a universal empire of assembled landmasses - Mongol, Roman, British, etc., in which subject peoples were encouraged to maximize productivity. The move toward the omni-pervasive (now found in Islam as a kind of corporate globalism) derived from a Christian worldview that dared call itself, in its very infancy, "catholic", universal. No Shinto, Jew, Jain, or pagan had ever thought this way. Globalism is cultural not economic. Before science could arise, one presupposition distinguished it from the technologies found in every high civilization: that the world was governed by a unified field of forces unrelated to the caprices of multiple deities: theology. Theology is not universal, although technology is (beginning with language as an amelioration of the environment); the Church's unintentional gift of theology allowed science to arise, to de-throne the Church. While theology was a precondition for science, the two have long since ceased to engage in constructive debate as artists and scientists strive to build the life-enhancing cultural developments that link, becoming a planetary context. The franchising Church continues to diffuse a unified world without warring gods, divine whimsy, or fate; this (inadvertently) uniformitarian hypothesis is the predicate upon which modern physics developed its radical cosmology that must reconcile the micro to the macroscopic. The conjoining of "art, science, and spirituality" assumes they are sundered. Contemporary science does not need to "reconnect" to spirituality, as they were never disconnected, despite appearances. The present challenge transcends organized religion to regain the generative emotions of awe, curiosity, respect, and diligence that initiated and permeate modern egalitarian society. The religious (distinguished from organized religion) never abandoned science, and still promises a planet-wide ideology resembling classically optimistic and ambitious modernism. BIOGRAPHY Trained as an art historian, Harry Rand has explored long-term patterns of human behavior as evidenced in the ways that art, science, folklore, and religion exchange ideas and shape each other. His publications in this pursuit include threescore museum catalogues, over a dozen books (author or co-author) and over fifty articles or published letters. _____________________________ INTRODUCTION TO SESSION 2 In Session 2, the theme was Art/Science/Spirituality relations: The heritage of the Arabian-Spanish world. We feature four abstracts from this session, which looked at the following questions: How did these cultures consider these relationships? Does the triad make sense in these cultures? How did they integrate these relations? _____________________________ THE UBIQUITOUS DOT IN COSMIC JUSTICE by Ahmad Mostafa Artist, U.K. Fe-Noon Ahmed Moustafa (UK) Ltd 5-9 Creekside Deptford London SE8 4SA fenoon [@] btinternet [dot] com http://www.fenoon.com KEYWORDS geometry, Islam, spirituality ABSTRACT The motto adopted in 500 BC or thereabouts by the Pythagorean brotherhood, which translates roughly as 'a diagram and a step higher, not a diagram and a penny', tells us that the Pythagoreans viewed geometrical diagrams as embodying truthful knowledge capable of sustaining man's spiritual nourishment and showing him the way to rectitude. By the same token the early Muslim scholars believed that geometry is a divine language articulating the coercive laws, which govern all aspects of existence, hence they were motivated to translate most if not all the Pythagorean legacy into Arabic. It is this legacy, which inspired the Abbasid Wazir Ibn Muqla (866-940 AD/ 272-328 AH) to devise the theory of proportional script, an epoch-making system which made it possible for the Arabic script to assume its rightful role as the prime means of expression in the visual arts of Islam. Yet there is no detailed study of this topic existing in print so far, and scholarly attempts at developing a full grasp of the principles involved have for a long time remained inconclusive. I have been extremely fortunate in uncovering the true nature of Ibn Muqla's theory after 14 years of research, which resulted in a doctoral thesis entitled 'The Scientific Foundation of Arabic Lettershapes'. Since time is too short for an exhaustive and comprehensive analysis of Ibn Muqla's theory my presentation will focus on the square-shaped dot, the basic unit of measurement in Ibn Muqla's system. It firstly requires the nib of the pen to be cut at an exact angle and conditions the correct manner of holding the pen. Secondly, it determines the surface area and proportions of the individual letter-shapes with respect to each other. Yet the significance of this dot exceeds its role as a measuring device in both 2- and 3-dimensional space. At a conceptual level, the relationship between dot and letter-shapes in Ibn Muqla's system appears intended to mirror that between unity and multiplicity in divine creation, an image taken up and fully explored in later Islamic mystical thought. Indeed, the nature of the dot can be seen as instrumental in explaining further the inner meaning of concepts such as 'Justice', 'Infinity', 'Harmony', and 'Oneness', which reside at the confluence of the rational and the spiritual. It will thereby be shown that Ibn Muqla's achievement of constructing the Arabic script in accordance with certain geometrical rules makes an implicit statement about the metaphysical nature and function of writing, which came to be of abiding significance for the entire artistic tradition of Islam. It will thus become evident that Ibn Muqla's theory, once fully understood, has the potential of clarifying the manner in which the Arabic alphabet came to represent what may be identified as The Structural Morphology in the Artistry of Islam. BIOGRAPHY Ahmed Moustafa is an artist and scholar of international repute and a leading authority on Arabic art and design. Born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1943, he was initially trained as an artist in the neoclassical European tradition. Drawing his inspiration primarily from Renaissance masters, he subsequently rediscovered his lslamic roots, and his work is now almost exclusively devoted to abstract compositions inspired by texts from the Holy Qur'an. Ahmed Moustafa gained a BA in Fine Arts with Highest National Distinction in 1966 from the University of Alexandria, where he remained as a lecturer in painting and stage design in the Faculty of Fine Arts until 1973. In 1974, he was awarded a scholarship to pursue advanced studies in printmaking at the Central School of Art and Design in London, where he obtained his MA with Distinction in 1978, and where he lectured in Arabic calligraphy from 1980 to 1982. In 1989, he was awarded a Ph.D by the Council for National Academic Awards for his work on the Scientific Foundation of Arabic Lettershapes, undertaken at the Central School of Art and Design in collaboration with the British Museum. This painstaking research over 11 years has illuminated the geometric principles underpinning the visual harmony of all Islamic art and architecture. Ahmed Moustafa has lived and worked in London since 1974 and directs the "Fe-Noon Ahmed Moustafa - Research Centre for Arab Art and Design", which he established in 1983. He has taught and lectured in many parts of the world, and is currently a visiting professor at the Prince of Wales' Institute of Architecture, London, the University of Westminster, London, and the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Alexandria, Egypt. Ahmed Moustafa is a consultant in Islamic art and design on many private projects throughout the Middle East. These have included tapestries for the Royal Pavilion, King Abdul Aziz Airport in Jeddah, and the Royal Reception at King Khald Airport in Riyadh. He has also designed several new Arabic typefaces as well as corporate identity programmes and logotypes for numerous organizations. _____________________________ LA METAFORA ANDALUSI: LA UTOPIA NECESARIA by Emilio Gonzalez Ferrin Professor of Islamic Sociology, University of Seville, Spain KEYWORDS Al-Andalus, Islam, cultural transfer ABSTRACT There is Julian the traitor, and there is Julian the vindicator. They are two previous nametags. Two visions of a same process, from the same inevitable essence: the passage and importance of a part of History. However, these two visions cannot be combined or eliminated, at times they blow this way and that, subject to the burdens of time and circumstance. Both visions refer back to a specific event: the irrefutable existence of an entity called Al-Andalus. The above-mentioned Julian, traitor or vindicator, was supposedly an important person in the Ceuta of 711, the year of the Islamic invasion of Visigothic Spain. According to the chronicles, he paved the way for the invasion. From here on, the significance of what happened is usually eclipsed by its symbolic value and contemporary standing. The History of Spain is not revised with every wave of Colombian, Peruvian and Ecuatorian immigration, but it is with regard to North Africa. Geography becomes earth-based, ideologies become Africanised. However what is more striking is that the symbolic eclipse is not only a product of the present day. The narrow vision of the Andalus reality, its Alleged presences or absences, has converted it into one of the most interesting interpretations of the Andalus and Spanish historical evolution in general. The Spanish Ballads describe it in plain language: the Sarracens came and gave us a beating. God help the bad when they are more numerous than the good. This idea of us being the good does not usually dominate the description of previous invasions like those of the Romans, the Carthaginians or Visigoths, or the Phoenician, Celtic or Byzantinian settlements. Not that our journey through the routes of Islam in Andalucia will lack certain interpretations. This is because there is an interesting game of differing opinions which rarely coincide and that convert the studies on Al-Andalus in an arena of varying positions. This is normally incompatible with science, but curiously does generate an enormous amount of scientific studies. Al-Andalus represented more than the geographical half of the Iberian Peninsula during a large part of what we know as the Middle Ages. In fact, it records to a large extent the dating and classification of the ages in Spanish History. On the other hand, it occupied the total of present day Andalucia, to which it gave its name. If we pay heed to the treatment of present day processes, and even of some fairly recent in time, we can see how the memory or reminders of Al-Andalus does not leave the same kind of trace as that of similar "civilising" groups. As we have already deducted an induced nostalgia exists - probably merciful - that sees it like a blissful dream, which is more or less in disagreement with present day opinion. And, on the other hand, there also exists a selective austere pride that denies we could have been any other way - in reality, we are different. A people's history is its DNA chain. At this point, the purpose of our journey along the routes of Islam in Andalucia becomes clear, from a comfortably distant point of view. The load, as we said, is quite light: historical processes do not end in a moral or with some kind of warning to navigators. They are simply included, make the present possible, and mediatize the future among other numerous conditions. However, given that this future is ramified, faced with uncertainty we tend to dwell too long upon determined elements from former times between dreams nourished from the past. And what is worse, it causes us to try to establish canons: to purge and trim a preferred line of thought, which we want to be continuous. In reality, all we are achieving is to undo the future, with the impoverishing counterweight of denying that we are all that we were and that - as the perfect crime does not exist - all that is buried in the past prepares its revenge. No historic event of the past failed, died, or triumphed entirely. The elements are submerged and are included in subsequent events. Is this not the paragraph that should cover, for example, the way in which Thomas of Aquino translated Aristoteles from the Christian point of view, in what today is known as Italy using the texts of an Andalusian - Averroes - to which he had access through Islamic Sicily? But the example adapts itself to that idea, of the possible cultural impoverishment in the biased analysis: is it scientific, intellectually valid, or humanly acceptable to believe in a Thomas of Aquino in succeeding generations? Is it not clearer to see History as a permanent logical crisis of adaptation to the environment submerged in the circumstances that give rise to the present day, built on the remains of the past? BIOGRAPHY Emilio Gonz?lez Ferrin is a Full Profesor of Islamic Sociology at the University of Seville. He is currently heading a research project for the Centra Foundation (Council of Andalucia) on Al- Andalus, halfway between East and West, which is essential material for the objectives of the foundation which has just been created and which he chairs: Gordion (East and West). He has a Ph.D in Euro-Arab dialogue. He has had numerous articles and six books published on the subject of cultural cooperation with the Arab world, with titles including *Di?logo Euro-Arabe* (1997), (Euro-Arab Dialogue), *Salvaciones Orientales* (1999), (Eastern Salvations), and *La palabra descendida* (The word handed down), an intellectual reading of the Koran that was awarded the "Premio Internacional de Ensayo Jovellanos 2002" (The International Jovellanos Essay Award). He has been a visiting researcher at the universities of Louvain, London, Amman, Damascus and Cairo. He is a jury member for Arts for the Prince of Asturias Awards, and in the last edition he defended the candidacy of the Moroccan writer F?tima Mernissi, who achieved the award together with Susan Sontag. _____________________________ LOS CONCEPTOS DEL TIEMPO Y DEL ESPACIO EN EL LENGUAJE DE IBN ' ARABI: UN ENFOQUE LING??STICO by Leila Khalifa Doctor en historia y civilizaci?n de la Escuela de Estudios Superiores en Ciencias Sociales (Par?s). Miembro del laboratorio "Estudio y edici?n de textos de la Edad Media Secci?n - Arte y Literatura de Occidente-Oriente" (UPRESA 8092) del CNRS y de la Universidad de Par?s IV-Sorbonne, France KEYWORDS Ibn 'Arabi, Islam, spirituality ABSTRACT Ibn 'Arabi se sit?a indiscutiblemente en el coraz?n del rencuentro entre la ciencia, la espiritualidad y lo imaginario, en tierra del Islam. La exploraci?n de su concepto del mundo puede revelarse fecunda. Nuestra exposici?n consta de tres partes. En la primera, presentamos la figura de Ibn ' Arabi, al cheik al-akbar, su vida y su obra, as? como las grandes l?neas de su doctrina (en particular sobre la problem?tica de la unicidad divina, ahadiyya y wahdaniyya). Mostraremos, igualmente, la influencia de su ense?anza en el mundo musulm?n, en Europa, en Jap?n y en Estados Unidos. En la segunda parte, procederemos al an?lisis ling??stico del vocabulario de la temporalidad (waqt, zaman, 'asr, dahr) y de la espacialidad (makan, hayyiz, mawdi', mawqa'). Profundizaremos en el uso de algunos de estos t?rminos interesantes (miqat, por ejemplo, significa a la vez el espacio, el tiempo y el acto). En la tercera parte, examinaremos este rico vocabulario en el contexto propio del lenguaje y de la perspectiva akbariana, esencialmente a trav?s del futuhat al-makkiyya. BIOGRAPHY Doctor en historia y civilizaci?n de la Escuela de Estudios Superiores en Ciencias Sociales (Par?s). Miembro del laboratorio "Estudio y edici?n de textos de la Edad Media Secci?n - Arte y Literatura de Occidente-Oriente" (UPRESA 8092) del CNRS y de la Universidad de Par?s IV-Sorbonne. Present? y defendi? una tesis sobre Ibn 'Arabi en el 2000, publicada con el t?tulo *Ibn Arabi. L'Initation ? la Futuwwa* (ed.Albouraq, Paris, 2001). Continu? sus estudios de psicolog?a y de historia en la Universidad de Jordania (Aman) y en la Universidad de Nottingham (Gran Breta?a). _____________________________ PENSAMIENTO LINEAL Y CONOCIMIENTO: UN PROCESO ALQUIMICO by Francesca Del Carmen Sanchez Anthropologist, Spain Apartado de Correos 3030 C.P.: 04006 Almer?a, Spain rasul [@] cajamar [dot] es KEYWORDS Sufism, history, Al-Andalus ABSTRACT The origins go back to the doctrines of DulNun the Egyptian, taken to the peninsula by Ibn Masarra, influenced by al Gazel the Persian, renewed by Ibn al Arif from Almeria and brought back again to East by Ibn Arabi from Murcia. We find the clearest symptom of the continuity of the spirit of Ibn Masarra in the bosom of the peninsular Sufism, in the huge influence made by the esoteric, mystical cultural focus of the School of Almeria. This city, inheritor of the School of Pechina, turned to be a seedbed of heterodox Sufism of masarri filiation. At the beginnings of the 12th century under the rule of Almoravides, Almeria becomes the spiritual metropolis of the peninsula. Here it was where the first and only shout of collective protest was heard against the burning of the books of al Gazel the Persian, which were described as godless by the Alfaquies of Cordoba. During the lifetime of this author his main works Makacid and Tehafort were burnt by an official decree of 1109, enacted by the Almoravid Sultan Yusuf ben Taxufin. The Alfaquies of Almeria, led by el Berchi from Berja, drafted a fatwa of protest, which blamed the behaviour of Aben Hamin, Cadi of Cordoba. This mystic flowing returned, in the 13th century (four centuries after the arrival of Ibn Masarra) with Ibn Arabi from Murcia to East where it came from, but modified in the batini sense. The germs of Sufi Pantheism of Ibn al Arif spread in this way to the furthest countries of Islam (Turkey, Persia and India) contributing to the spreading of "Ixraquuuies" in East Islam. This has been the most plentiful source of inspiration where all philosophers, especially the Persian ones, have gone to slake their thirst of religious ideals, who longed for an explanation of cosmos. Therefore nowadays the voluminous books of Ibn Arabi, inspired by the School of Almeria of Ibn al Arif are reissued constantly in Cairo, Constantinople and Mumbay. The fundamental principles of this school and the symbols of the language are used nowadays in Sufi vocabulary. Even more, the orders and guilds of East are still being inspired in the original rules of the School of Almeria. The last great known master of this school is Abu Isaac Ibrahim ibn al Havy from Almeria. He was born in Velefique (Almeria) in 1158 and passed away in Marrakesh in 1219. He was a first rate mystic poet. His great great grandson Abu I Barakat says that some masters told him that Abu Isaac managed to join 40000 disciples and opened a hall with this invocation: "Lord, make us look for shelter in You and be our most beautiful friendship until the day You send us death. Hidden, concealed, satisfied with your blessing, we will run to You the day we go to meet You". This invocation was the destiny of this school, to perpetuate until today stealthily in these Andalusian lands, overcoming obstacles and changes, covering the language and the apparently easiest customs: food, clothes, words, songs, children?s games. ________________________________________________________________ BONUS SECTION ________________________________________________________________ AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MELILLA CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS by Chris Alexander I was extremely happy when I first heard about this conference, from Roger, and was excitedly looking forward to the discussions. I am profoundly sorry that ill health and stress, caused by the final countdown of production on the four books of *The Nature of Order*, now finally completed, has prevented me from joining you at our conference. I am especially sorry, too, that I shall miss the rich union of many cultures, a subject in itself dear to my heart for decades, and which I was so much looking forward to. I thought, at least I could give you a summary of the remarks I would have made, and that these few pages might be distributed to all of you, in the hope that through this method I can at least join you in the dialogue. For nearly 30 years, now, I have been working on *The Nature of Order*, - an attempt to bring a fusion of the scientific world view, with an adequate view of art and architecture - not merely a theoretical view, or the kind of thing an analytical or critical thinker might produce, but rather something that directly affects the life and day-to-day work of a working artist, like myself - yet simultaneously is clearly expressed in terms that physicists and biologists can appreciate, benefit from - so that in some way our picture of the universe can be altered by this new picture. Above all, none of this can work unless it is seen in a context, which admits God - unrestricted wholeness - as the underpinning of all that is seen and experienced. I certainly do not mean, by this, adherence to any particular religion or religious tradition - but rather, it means that the life of objects and buildings and places, and our inner experience of self, all of which we experience in art, can be understood both in terms congruent with science as we presently know it, and also, that it makes sense in personal terms which touch us in our hearts and activates our hearts. The view of science that provides the underpinning to all four books relies on relatively small number of observations, and a small number, also, of new concepts which define living structure and the processes which generate living structure in objective terms. These include: an attempt to identify wholeness as an objective structure, existing in some degree, in all material systems: a method of observation which allows impartial observers to measure the degree of life in different structures according to their own inner state when in the presence of these structures; an attempt to see all evolution and development in physical systems, in living systems, and in the creation of works of art, as defined by a sequence of structure preserving transformations which take some existing wholeness as point of origin and define a new structure as a new wholeness which is reached from a previous one by structure-preserving transformations. The new way of thinking thus provides a vision of reality in which all events come about as transformations of the existing whole. It takes some effort, and above all study of and creation of worked examples, to understand this theoretical scheme. What is most important, is that all this is not merely a theoretical scheme, but rather a way of thinking, and a set of tools, which first teach the artist to make things, and show the way to making things - paintings, works of sculpture, buildings, and the many manifold possible structures which must appear in buildings at a huge range of scales. The buildings and public spaces which can be reached by these methods are entirely different from those typically created in the 20th century, and point the way to a humane world in the future, and a cogent, and sharable way for people to reach this humane world together. It is no small thing to have attempted a fusion of science and art, in a hard nosed fashion, compatible with scientific thinking, yet inspired and nourished by concern for the well- springs of human experience and in the origin of the human self. I could never have managed even this first step without the range of cultures and civilizations that I have paid attention to, visited, and been part of, during my life. For, the material in these books is largely culture- independent. By that I do not mean that different cultures should be somehow absorbed in some general mass culture of the future. Quite the opposite. It turns out that the criteria of life in artifacts, has the same deep substrate, in all cultures and civilizations, and the work in these four books draws on these hugely different cultures, and shows what is common to them, doing it in a way which honors and respects the art and building traditions of these world wide range of civilizations. In particular, I have benefited from my life long association with Islamic culture and my love of ancient Turkish and Persian carpets, and my long association and friendship with Japan and Japanese people and the projects I have built for them. India, Latin America, Russia, the art of the Pacific, many European nations, Moorish Spain, North Africa, and China have all played a significant role in helping me to understand the phenomena with which I have been concerned. The unification of cultures, and the exchange of profound respect from culture to culture, is vital to the proper understanding of artistic phenomena, and to the practice of individual art, and individual building, in various local cultures today. All this, may find inspiration and support from the studies to which I have dedicated my life. During the last two centuries, art and science were strongly separated. The thought which made sense in science made little sense in art; and vice versa. This has been most uncomfortable. It made both - both art and science in their separate ways - seem less valid, since it was obvious that neither one of them had much claim to an authentic view of reality, able to encompass the strength of human intellect and the stretch of human passion. I think you will find that the world picture I have painted, suggests that there is a single view of matter, the universe, and mind, which stretches wide enough to encompass both. If that is true, we shall all be very much the richer for it, in the future. I hope you will read *The Nature of Order*. It is not bombast that makes me say this, rather the hope that all of you - members of a group dedicated to finding a way forward, in which art and science, and multicultural humanity are fused, made one - may find some basis in the work presented in these books, that allows you to go forward in your own way, and in a way which leaves the schisms of the past and of the present behind. I hope, very much, one day to have the privilege of meeting some of you in person, and invite you, most warmly, to visit me in England, at my house in the country. Please do come if you have the chance, and at the very least I can offer you tea and refreshments, and we may have a chance to continue this dialogue. I am much looking forward to seeing the summaries of the contributions which all of you make to the conference. Here the titles of the four books: Book 1: The Phenomenon of Life Book 2: The Process of Creating Life Book 3: A Vision of a Living World Book 4: The Luminous Ground You may visit the website of the publisher, Center for Environmental Structure Publishing, and preview the books, at http://www.natureoforder.com. Sample chapters from each of the four books, in PDF format, are available for downloading, free of charge, from the website. ________________________________________________________________ ONE FROM THE VAULT: FROM THE LEA ARCHIVES ________________________________________________________________ CINEMATIC THRESHOLDS - INSTRUMENTALITY, TIME AND MEMORY IN THE VIRTUAL First published: (LEA 3:7), July 1995 http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/TEXT/Vol_2/lea_v3_n07.txt by Ed Keller 133 Mulberry #6N NYC 10013 U.S.A. Tel/Fax: 212 431 5705 mantis [@] basilisk [dot] com http://swerve.basilisk.com/C/CineThressH_966.html [Editor's Note: The article presented here is Section 1 of a longer article, the full text of which can be found on the author's web page listed above. It is published here by permission of the author]. THE VIRTUAL I would like to begin with a mise en abyme, a meditation on the nature of the virtual which will throw this essay through its entire trajectory and deposit us in a place where a more detailed development of each of these concepts can occur. As a starting point I find the formulation of the virtual that Deleuze gives us via Proust fascinating: 'Real without being actual, ideal without being abstract.' p96, Bergsonism This understanding of the virtual insists upon its operative nature; moreover, the operative nature of something that is not, most likely, visible. It is used by Deleuze within the context of the performance of memory as a force that conditions our perception ineluctably and shapes us as subjects. In Deleuze's investigation of the subject through Bergson's idea of memory, virtuality is the key realm within which memory locates itself. [THIS TEXT CAN BE VIEWED IN ITS ENTIRETY BY LEA/LEONARDO SUBSCRIBERS AT: http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e- journals/LEA/archive.html] ________________________________________________________________ LEONARDO REVIEWS 2005.8 ________________________________________________________________ June's editorial for Leonardo Reviews features one of our newer reviewers Rob Harle. As you can see from the reviews published below and in the Leonardo Reviews archive, Rob's research has a particular transdiciplinarity, which makes him a great asset to our project. His prolific output and particular combination of interest in biomedicine and architecture, consciousness and culture, situate him at the core of recent publications in our field. Also included in this month's feature is Kathleen Quillian's first review for us. Although a newcomer as a reviewer, Kathleen has been a colleague working in the San Francisco office and a great supporter and help. We are delighted that she has found the additional energy to publish a review with us. In July's edition, the difficulty one has in imposing a thematic structure on the contributions included in Leonardo Reviews testifies to the extraordinary diversity of the panellists and materials reviewed. Perhaps the consistency lies in the way the copy reflects the complexity and increasing cross- disciplinarity of contemporary scholarly discourse. As ever, certain areas such as film and experimental music are well covered. Jan Baetens scrutinizes a major and timely exposition of Jean-Luc Godard's work, Mike Mosher views the Japanese documentary, *A Visit to Ogawa Productions*, Stefaan van Ryssen assesses Peter Cusak's *Baikal Ice*, and Mike Mosher considers three innovative releases from the prolific Cuneiform Records. Also represented is the growth in literature and events that seek to illuminate the relationship between mind and art using insights from science. Ian Verstegen's review of a book by Lucia Pizzo Russo, *Le Arti e la Psicologia*, shows the value of a Continental perspective on a topic so often dominated by Anglo- American approaches, while Martha Blassnigg's report from the *Light/Image/Illusion* forum on Austria is further evidence of the growing cross-disciplinary activity between the arts and the sciences. Included in July's Leonard Electronic Almanac are Rob Harle's piece on Elizabeth Grosz's book, *The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution and the Uncanny*, which uses Darwin, Nietzsche and Bergson to generate a new philosophical analysis of time, Alex Rotas' review of Jill Bennett's work on trauma and contemporary art, and in the current political climate of concern with African issues Mike Mosher's review of Elizabeth Harney's work on art and avant-gardism in Senegal. All these can be read on-line at http://leonardoreviews.mit.edu Michael Punt (June) Editor-in-Chief Leonardo Reviews and Robert Pepperell (July) Associate Editor Leonardo Reviews _____________________________ REVIEWS POSTED JUNE AND JULY 2005 Art Inquiry: Recherches Sur Les Arts, Volume V (XIV) Cyberarts, Cybercultures, Cybersocieties Published by The Scientific Society in Lodz Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher Arte Telem?tica. Dos interc?mbios pontuais aos ambientes virtuais multiusu?rio Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen Barricade 3 by ZNR Reviewed by Ren? van Peer Bauhaus: Less Is More by Eliseo Alvarez and Dessau's Bauhaus by Frederic Compain Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens Caging the Beast: A Theory of Sensory Consciousness _ Advances in Consciousness Research by Paula Droege Reviewed by Rob Harle Charlotte: Life or Theater? by Richard Dindo Reviewed by Artur Golczewski Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art by Grant Kester Reviewed by Andrea Dahlberg Dream Bridges-Traumbr?cken by Wolfdietrich Ziesel Reviewed by Rob Harle (Australia) D-B. A: Digital-Botanic Architecture by Dennis Dollens Reviewed by Rob Harle Film and Cinema Spectatorship: Melodrama and Mimesis by Jan Campbell Reviewed by Jan Baetens The Future Is Not What It Used To Be by Mika Taanila Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen Hokusai by Gian Carlo Calza, with additional essays by others Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens Keeping It Real by Sunny Bergman Reviewed by Artur Golczewski Music Query: Methods, Models, and User Studies by Walter B. Hewlett and Eleanor Selfridge-Field, Eds. Reviewed by Joao Pedro Martins, Marcelo Gimenes and Qijun Zhang Pop Trickster Fool: Warhol Performs Naivet? by Kelly M. Cresap Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher Pork Chop Blue Around The Rind by Fast 'n' Bulbous Reviewed by Ren? van Peer Psychosomatic: Feminism and the Neurological Body by Elizabeth A. Wilson Reviewed by Rob Harle (Australia) The Subject of Documentary by Michael Renov Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher Television After TV: Essays on a Medium in Transition Lynn Spigel, Ed. Reviewed by Kathleen Quillian What the Body Cost: Desire, History, and Performance by Jane Blocker Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen William Roberts: An English Cubist by Andrew Gibbon Williams Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens Le arti e la psicologia by Lucia Pizzo Russo Reviewed by Ian Verstegen Baikal Ice by Peter Cusack Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma and Contemporary Art by Jill Bennett Reviewed by Alex Rotas For Ever Godard by Michael Temple, James S. Williams and Michael Witt, Eds. Reviewed by Jan Baetens Innovation and Its Discontents: How Our Broken Patent System Is Endangering Innovation and Progress, and What to Do About It by Adam B. Jaffe and Josh Lerner Reviewed by Zainub Verjee Leap Second Neutral by Machine and the Synergetic Nuts and Pork Chop Blue Around The Rind by Fast n' Bulbous and Emissaries by Radio Massacre International Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher Light/Image/Illusion??The Aegina Academy A Forum for Art and Science Organized by C3 Center for Culture & Communication and Nederlands Filmmuseum Reviewed by Martha Blassnigg Masterworks of Technology: The Story of Creative Engineering, Architecture, and Design by E.E. Lewis Reviewed by Rob Harle (Australia) The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution, and the Untimely by Elizabeth Grosz Reviewed by Rob Harle (Australia) The Other Side of Nowhere. Jazz, Improvisation, and Communities in Dialogue by Daniel Fischlin and Ajay Heble, Eds., with introduction by Ingrid Monson Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen In Senghor's Shadow: Art, Politics and the Avant-Garde in Senegal, 1960-1995 by Elizabeth Harney Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher Text and the City: Essays on Japanese Modernity by Maeda Ai Reviewed by Andrea Dahlberg Unsorted: An A to Z for SonicActsX by Arie Altena et al, with an introduction by Taco Stolk Reviewed by Ren? Beekman VAS: An Opera in Flatland by Steve Tomasula; art and design by Stephen Farrell Reviewed by Eugene Thacker A Visit to Ogawa Productions by Oshige Jun' Ichiro, Director; produced by Yasui Yoshio Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher Vocals by Ian Breakwell Reviewed by Mike Leggett Walter Benjamin and Art by Andrew Benjamin, Ed. Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher _____________________________ DREAM BRIDGES - TRAUMBR?CKEN by Wolfdietrich Ziesel Springer-Verlag, Wien, New York, NY, 2004 247 pp., illus. Trade, ?36,45 ISBN: 3-211-21269-8. Reviewed by Rob Harle Australia harle [@] dodo [dot] com [dot] au This book is both inspiring and delightful. All text is written in both English and German. "A voice crying in the wilderness" is a phrase used to describe the passion and vision of Wolfdietrich Ziesel. The wilderness alluded to is the impoverished emptiness of postmodernism driven by "turbo- capitalism". Whilst the subject of the book is bridges, the book is really about dreams, ". . . it is a compilation of thoughts about desires and dreams relating to bridges" (p. 9). It is about the state of the built environment and the *quality* of life associated with, and in turn influenced by, the *integrity* of architects, engineers, planners, and construction company executives. Ziesel argues (p. 12) as does J?rg Schlaich (p. 54- 59) that this integrity leaves much to be desired in our contemporary society. Schlaich also stresses, quite forcefully, that the dramatic increase in technologies, which should engender innovation and an exquisitely built environment, has done just the opposite. Technology, especially computer design applications, has the potential to liberate or enslave a designer's imagination. The elimination of the engagement of extreme creative efforts, by allowing computer software to take over, as it were, is a recipe for a bland, uninspired soul-less built environment. *Dream Bridges* is lavishly illustrated with sketches, engineering drawings and photographs, both colour, and black and white. There are six essays, including one by Ziesel himself; all are inspiring and challenging. The first essay - *Dreaming about Bridges - Dream Bridges* by Ziesel explains his attitude to design, and his passion for all things bridges, both metaphorically and literally. Wolfdietrich Ziesel is Professor and Director of the Institute for Statics and Theory of Structures at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. G?nter Feuerstein's essay, *What is Truth?*, discusses the notion of truth to materials and truth of appearances. He believes Ziesel's work, ". . . stands for a new truth, a new beauty, and therefore a new transcendence in building, without his being doctrinaire or puritanical" (p. 23). Schlaich in *Wolfdietrich Ziesel - A Voice Crying in the Wilderness*, as already mentioned, challenges contemporary architects and engineers and the way they are trained, suggesting alternative methods. Monika Gentner's essay, *Somewhere over the Rainbow* uses examples from literature to help us understand the importance of bridges, not so much in their literal structural sense but in their metaphorical imaginative power. The architects Brell, Cokcan in *Pedestrian Bridge of the Golden Horn* discuss the favorable influence of Ziesel's teaching, "He taught us not just to dream our architecture, but to live it" (p. 184). Finally, Otto Kapfinger's essay, *The Art of Civil Engineering - An Unknown Species in Austria?* comments quite critically on the state of the built environment in Austria, including historical examples and architecture's relationship with technology. The book is mostly set in Austria, Ziesel's homeland, and most of the structures are from this part of Europe. When I started the book, I wondered if this visionary and globally aware designer/engineer would mention the Harbour Bridge in Sydney, Australia - arguably one of the greatest, creative engineering feats of the 20th century. And, yes, indeed on page 16 there is a mention of our beloved "Coathanger" as we Ozzies like to call it. Many of the great landmark bridges around the world are mentioned throughout the course of the book, giving considerable credibility to Ziesel's authority as a leading innovative engineer. The book has an excellent graphic layout and would be at home on any coffee table, though the book is far more serious than just a "nice" production. There is no bibliography, which I think would have been useful for students and researchers. Some of the essays could have been longer and perhaps a little more in-depth, especially concerning a bridge's relationship to the two locations it connects. Although, this aspect of the book is covered, to a certain extent, in the text accompanying the 20 or so "case studies" that intersperse the essays. This book is essential reading for all built environment design students and those professional architects and engineers in practice at present who have the responsibility of further despoiling our visual urban landscape or perhaps *improving* it. It puts such designers "on notice" to leave their egos at the office/studio door and work co-operatively with each other and the hapless public that has to endure and use their creations. _____________________________ PSYCHOSOMATIC: FEMINISM AND THE NEUROLOGICAL BODY by Elizabeth A. Wilson Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 2004 136 pp., illus. 5 b/w. Trade, $64.95; paper, $18.95 ISBN: 0-8223-3356-2; ISBN: 0-8223-3365-1. Reviewed by Rob Harle Australia harle [@] dodo [dot] com [dot] au This book is about trying to put "humpty dumpty" back together again. Humpty Dumpty is no less than the *whole* human being. The neurological body, that Wilson rescues from the myopic extremes of second-wave feminism, is bought back to life in a carefully argued and well-written work. Wilson's rescue mission attempts to bring into balance cultural, social and political theories of the body, specifically those of feminism, and biological/neurophysiological theories. "Fierce antibiologism marked the emergence of second-wave feminism" (p. 13). This *fierce* unholistic approach has been as equally unproductive and unbalanced as the extreme scientific reductionism (biological determinism) that feminist critique attempts to expose. *Psychosomatic: Feminism and the Neurological Body* seems very much to be a book that transcends the extremes of reductionism regardless of discipline. This is in keeping with a "new wave" of avant garde thinkers and writers who have rediscovered the holistic nature of existence. This is evident in research areas as disparate as quantum physics, environmental ecology, medicine, mathematics and architecture. The book has five chapters together with an informative introduction, good bibliography and index. Throughout the chapters Wilson, ". . . moves between the central and peripheral nervous systems and among the cognitive, the affective, and the unknowing, in an attempt to build a critically empathic alliance with neurology" (p. 29). Chapter one, *Freud, Prozac and Melancholic Neurology*, looks at neurological determinism, some of Freud's neurological work, and Kramer's *Listening To Prozac*. The quote from Kramer on page 26, in a sense sums up the nature of Wilson's quest, "Spending time with patients who responded to Prozac had transformed my views about what *makes* people the way they are [my emphasis]." Chapter two, *The Brain in the Gut* discusses neurogastroenterology and psychoanalysis and argues that, ". . . the nervous system extends well beyond the skull, and as it so travels through the body it takes the psyche with it" (p. 47). Chapter three, *Hypothalamic Preference: LeVay's Study of Sexual Orientation* looks at LeVay's study of the hypothalamus, carefully and non-hysterically, and what implications this organ has for the development of gay men, hence the participation of neurology as a role in personality development. Chapter four, *Trembling, Blushing: Darwin's Nervous System* highlights the benefits of assessing some of Darwin's work as an aid to critical neurological thinking. Special attention is giving to the unique human trait of blushing. Chapter five, *Emotional Lizards: Evolution and the Reptilian Brain* discusses various aspects of evolution, the triune brain and how evolutionary theory may be employed to expand ". . . feminist theories of psyche and soma" (p. 95). This chapter also discusses how Oliver Sacks' approach to motor function in reptiles helps us understand neurological modification and development in human beings. My only criticism of this book apart from being rather slim (126 pages) is that developmental psychology and the work of researchers, such as Andy Clark, *Being There: Putting Brain, Body and World Together Again*, are not given enough consideration. Clark's "feedback loops" from brain to peripheral nervous system, for example, seem to me to be especially relevant to Wilson's thesis. Yet some of Freud's questionable, outdated theories are given perhaps too much discussion. As an example, Freud's notion of excessive masturbation and/or *coitus interruptus* being implicated in "neurasthenic melancholia" and "somatic weakness" does nothing to help Wilson's argument. A reference to Oriental medicine and the vast experience of the Chinese in this regard could have been a worthwhile inclusion. This is an important book because it moves positively towards bringing about a balance between the extremist views of the antibiologist ranting of certain second-wave feminist theories and the myopic view of absolute biological determinism. _____________________________ TELEVISION AFTER TV: ESSAYS ON A MEDIUM IN TRANSITION by Lynn Spigel, Ed. Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 2005. 480 pp., illus. Paper. ISBN: 0-8223-3393-7. Reviewed by Kathleen Quillian kathleen [@] dprojx [dot] org Undoubtedly the Internet has changed the nature of mass communication from a centralized one-way model to a de- centralized multi-directional model. How this will affect the industry of broadcast media has yet to be fully decided. While producers are falling over themselves to try to figure out how to successfully negotiate the media landscape in the age of the Internet, scholars are building upon their cache of expertise to develop a new dialogue of communications studies. In an attempt to give this new era some kind of identifiable form, Lynn Spigel has brought together the perspectives of several leading television scholars in *Television After TV: Essays on a Medium in Transition*. It seems that while the dialogue is still developing around the new nature of mass communication, so too is the language. Throughout the collection, no less than a dozen different terms are given in the attempt to identify the scope of contemporary media communications - terms ranging from "omnimedia" (Martha Stewart's term for her own media empire) to "post-broadcasting" to "the neo-network era." The book is divided into four sections which, broadly speaking, focus on: changes in the television industry in the age of the Internet, television's social context in the larger scope of culture, how television defines or re- defines community and the educational potential of television studies. Aside from two essays devoted specifically to European television (lifestyle programming in Britain and the introduction of television in Sweden, respectively) and a look at the development of Hong Kong as a media capital, the majority of the book is devoted to the many ways that the industry of (U.S.) commercial television has evolved and how it influences, or is influenced by, the Internet. To those of us who cannot conceive of life without the all-pervasive influence of commercial television, this collection of essays certainly gives one pause to think as we work our way through the next generation of mass media. One of the more interesting angles on this is given in *Flexible Microcasting: Gender, Generation, and Television- Internet Convergence* by Lisa Parks, in which the author surmises how the rise and popularity of television game shows foreshadowed the interactivity of the Internet. She then goes on to address how certain forward-thinking big-budget television producers have successfully (or unsuccessfully) negotiated the territory between television and the Internet with programs designed to encourage the involvement of women and youth while still maintaining the dominant ideologies perpetuated by commercial television. The "flow" of the book (referencing a term coined by early television scholar Raymond Williams - mentioned consistently throughout this collection of essays) moves from a rather focused look at new forms of marketing in the television industry to a broader look at the influence of television on culture and society. Two notable contributions presented toward the latter end of the flow are by Anna McCarthy and Lynn Spigel whose respective essays give two very different spins on power and broadcast media. In *The Rhythms of the Reception Area: Crisis, Capitalism, and the Waiting Room TV* Anna McCarthy discusses how the market of closed-circuit television programs both manifests and perpetuates certain social and economic strata in relation to the measurement of time in public waiting areas. Spigel's own contribution to this collection *Television, the Housewife, and the Museum of Modern Art* chronicles a lesser-known and otherwise short-lived era in the early days of television when the Museum of Modern Art experimented with the potential gains offered by the new, avant-garde medium. In this essay, Spigel weaves an interesting narrative around leisure time, niche marketing and the clash between "high" and "low" culture in post- war America. An image of Barbara Streisand posing while singing in the museum gallery, wearing a designer gown similar to the modernist paintings on the wall next to her, illustrates this essay quite well. In the attempt to position so many ideas in one conversation however, inevitably, some parts of the discussion get left out. In this case, it seems that while much thought is developed around the industry of commercial television and the social consequences of the medium in the age of the Internet, the roles of journalists and media activists - those individuals who negotiate and shape the media landscape on a daily basis - were overlooked altogether. The few times the news media is given attention in this collection is only in terms of its absence. Anna Everett's essay *Double Click: The Million Woman March on Television and the Internet* describes how the organizers of the Million Woman March utilized the resources of the Internet to fill in the gaps that were left in the coverage of this event by mainstream media. Similarly, in *Pocho.com : Reimagining Television on the Internet*, Priscilla Pena Ovalle discusses the lack of media attention directed towards the Hispanic community and how one website in particular succeeds in shaping an alternative community by subverting mainstream media. The discussion of television in the age of the Internet would greatly benefit from a focused look at independent media organizations such as the Independent Media Center, Democracy Now! and MoveOn.org who are forced to find their way through and around the tightly-regulated confines of broadcast media to bring alternative perspectives to the table. These organizations largely rely on the power of the Internet as well as what little room is left in public access and public-sponsored media channels to develop dialogues which are sorely lacking in corporate-controlled, mainstream media. We could learn a thing or two from their experiences of communicating through new and alternative avenues in broadcast media. This collection of essays comes at a critical time, when we are looking at not just a change in media, but a change in form, practice and consequence. Whether television producers succeed in steering the market in their favor, governments succeed in maintaining the hegemony through regulation, or citizens succeed in claiming their rightful territory within the new terrain of mass communications really only comes down to who figures things out first. By revisiting the history of television in terms of the new media landscape, we may be able to pick up some valuable clues as to how to go about shaping some kind of acceptable future for broadcast communications. _____________________________ THE NICK OF TIME: POLITICS, EVOLUTION, AND THE UNTIMELY by Elizabeth Grosz Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 2004 336 pp. Trade, $79.95; paper, $22.95 ISBN: 0-8223-3400-3; ISBN: 0-8223-3397-x. Reviewed by Rob Harle Australia Harle [@] dodo [dot] com [dot] au It is a brave philosopher that dares to go where many other philosophers have feared to tread. In her latest book - *The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution and the Untimely*, Elizabeth Grosz not only tackles the illusive concept of time head-on but does so with scholarly rigor and an engaging confidence. The book is well written, meticulously researched and like Elizabeth Wilson's recent book - *Psychosomatic: Feminism and the Neurological Body* (see Leonardo Reviews, June 2005) is like a breath of fresh air in the areas of cultural and feminist studies. Both these books recognize the importance of corporeality to feminist critique and attempt to regain some sort of holistic balance; Wilson through neurology and biology - Grosz through evolution, temporality and corporeality, "?we need to turn again, with careful discernment, to those discourses, once rejected by feminists and political activists, that place the body in the larger cosmological and biological orders in which it always finds itself" (p. 3). Grosz's work outlines a new theory of becoming, "?to replace the prevailing ontologies of being in social, political and biological discourse". What makes this book all the more daring and provocative is her analysis of three of the seemingly strangest bedfellows - Darwin, Nietzsche and Bergson. The relationship of these three major thinkers is not as disparate as one may first think. Grosz brings to life some of the more obscure and little appreciated aspects of their philosophies and discusses these, drawing on the work of Luce Irigaray and Gilles Deleuze. The book has an Introduction, Three Parts (each with three chapters), Conclusion, Notes, and an excellent Bibliography and Index. Part I - Darwin and Evolution looks at Life, Force and Change; Biological Difference; and Evolution of Sex and Race. Part II - Nietzsche and Overcoming discusses Nietzsche's concerns about Darwinism; History and the Untimely; and the Eternal Return and The Overman. Part III - Bergson and Becoming analyzes Bergsonian Difference; The Philosophy of Life; and Intuition and the Virtual. Grosz insists that this work is "?very much an initial exploration" and whilst the body is integral to her discussion, the object of investigation is "?time: its modalities, its forms, its effects on both inorganic and organic materiality" (p. 4). To her credit, Grosz admits in previous work she underestimated the importance of the biological body. "Without some reconfigured concept of the biological body, models of subject-inscription, production, or constitution lack material force; paradoxically, they lack corporeality" (p. 4). This book is very much a critique and analysis of time from a Western philosophical perspective or position. That is, time, whilst not seen perhaps as strictly linear, still "moves forward" (p. 247) from past to present to future. There is no detailed consideration of the Eastern philosophical notion of time being literally "cyclic". This is an important omission because it directly relates to the seemingly teleological aspect of Darwinian evolution (which Darwin himself did not endorse). Whilst material evolution seems to move from simple to ever more complex forms this is an illusion of time itself. And further, it is our human construction of time in the first place that creates the illusion. Grosz discusses the concepts of past, present and future quite extensively but fails to mention what the Eastern philosophers discovered a millennium ago, that the only time that exists or is real is the "eternal present". Time, that is, an elapsed period from one state to another, is very much a condition of mind. Our contemporary Western notion of time is heavily influenced by the introduction of the Town Clock, invented by monks in the Middle Ages. Whilst I believe a discussion of time as cyclic would have enhanced and added balance to Grosz's reappraisal of time, the body and evolution, it does not detract from the importance of her work, especially as it relates to feminist critique and cultural/political investigation. This is an important book, written in a lively, vibrant style, unusual in such complex philosophical discourse. I recommend it as essential reading for all interested in philosophy, feminist critique and the new wave of holistic humanities studies. _____________________________ EMPATHIC VISION: AFFECT, TRAUMA AND CONTEMPORARY ART by Jill Bennett Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 2005 208 pp., illus. 23 b/w. Trade, $49.50; paper, $19.95 ISBN: 0-8047-5074-2; ISBN: 0-8047-5171-4. Reviewed by Alex Rotas Bristol, UK alex [dot] rotas [@] bluyeonder [dot] co [dot] uk This is an insightful, timely book. The common notion that the particular experience of looking at art provides access to broader truths is a vague adage that doesn't take us very far. It needs opening up; just how does this leap from an embodied, aesthetic experience to thought occur? Bennett describes this as the link between affect and cognition in the visual arts, and this is the issue she explores. Art, she argues (drawing from Deleuze), has "unique capacities" to trigger an empathic response from the viewer which, far from being an end in itself, ideally leads to thought and critical enquiry. The affective power of the visual is particularly demonstrated in the case of art that draws from trauma, which as she observes, is traditionally defined as being beyond both language and representation. Nonetheless, traumatic experience such as child sexual abuse, the tyrannies of war, civil war and political oppression, the Holocaust, and the events of "9/11" have provided artists with opportunities to engage visually and conceptually in difficult and painful arenas. In particular, she charts the emergence of the thematic category of 'trauma art' since the late 1990s. Interweaving theory drawn from trauma studies, literary studies, art history, visual culture and cultural studies with detailed case-histories, she examines how contemporary art can "engage trauma in a way that respects and contributes to its politics." Her interest, however, is more than with a specific grouping of works and with a particular politics. Her illuminating treatment of the artworks that form her case-studies are already reason enough to buy the book but Bennett has a more ambitious aim. As a contemporary art historian, she sees her remit not as writing about the artworks that form the focus of her inquiry or with demonstrating what they mean, or what trauma is depicted. It is how they work that interests her. How does the particular 'affective imagery' of art drawn from trauma engage us, she asks, and where does it take us? Unlike narrative film, visual art doesn't draw us into an emotional response with a traumatized subject. Equally, it does not elicit a specific 'moral' response, although there are plenty of worthy artworks around that, in telling us what to think, certainly set out to do just that. Yet it is art's affective component, she argues, that paradoxically leads to critical thought just as it is through relinquishing any moral position that a particular piece can enable ethical inquiry. This is a book aimed at a theoretically fluent constituency. Bennett's analysis embraces theoretical discussions of memory, testimony, subjectivity, pain, trauma, and loss plus victim and stranger discourses as well as more art-related issues of representation and the relationship between visual and cognitive processes. It will, therefore, delight a broad, if sophisticated, readership. Nonetheless its primary audience will be readers from art-theory/visual culture/cultural studies backgrounds together with those interested in trauma studies or post-colonial theory. Innovative, courageous and unashamedly attempting to push "the analysis of culture onto new ground", Bennett makes a powerful case for her central thesis that visual arts practice is generative rather than representative. Theory, she sets out to demonstrate, can be derived from visual domains and not just applied to them. The ambitious remit of the book, however, is both its strength and its weakness. It is indeed, as the back-cover proclaims, "written at the highest level" but this implies a readership that can keep up with dense yet often economically argued prose. Bennett covers a lot of ground in this slim volume. Rather surprisingly, the central notion of 'affect' is never defined (or even discussed) and we are left wondering if the 'affective experience' is synonymous with the 'aesthetic experience', as Bennett herself implies towards the end. If so, of course, what exactly does this mean? And though keen to emphasize the open- ended nature of the empathic response, she does assume that when she enjoys the affective element in an artwork, we all will; with the gloriously named Gordon Bennett's work, for example, much as I was fascinated by her analysis, it just didn't happen for me (poor illustrations didn't help). Nonetheless, these are quibbles. This is an exciting read that more than repays the efforts that Bennett demands. Thought- provoking and at times startling, Empathic Vision opens up new ideas that stay with you long after you have closed its covers. And it deals with issues that are now relevant to us all; as Bennett observes, since "9/11", trauma has become a globalized phenomenon. _____________________________ IN SENGHOR'S SHADOW: ART, POLITICS AND THE AVANT-GARDE IN SENEGAL, 1960-1995 by Elizabeth Harney Duke University Press, Durham NC, 2004 344 pp., illus. 78 b/w, 14 col. Paper, $26.95 ISBN: 9-8223-3395-3. Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher Saginaw Valley State University Mosher [@] svsu [dot] edu Among the former French colonies of West Africa, Senegal had the advantage that the French colonial government assiduously trained a managerial and governing class before independence. Yet Senegal was also unique in that the new nation had an aesthetic vision behind it. A post-colonial artistic modernism was proposed and promoted by L?opold S?dar Senghor (1905-2001), independent Senegal's first president, in power from 1960 until 1980. Negritude, a call and strategy for black artists from European colonies to celebrate their blackness, was first articulated in the 1930s by the poet Aim? C?saire of Martinique. Like Senghor, C?saire had studied in the Paris of the 1920s and 1930s where Caribbean, African, Asian and African American students all met. C?saire noted the city's enthusiasm for black artistry, as African artworks and motifs were influencing European artists, poets, dancers and composers (much as the Harlem Renaissance invigorated culture in New York). Senghor, an accomplished poet, was a major theorist of Negritude but with an African variant; his Africanit? looked to the African continent's past more than C?saire did. While the Caribbean cosmopolite celebrated the diversity of black people, their experiences and creativity, the Senegalese African romanticized the essentialism of their unique "emotive" and "rhythmic" souls to contrast to dry European Cartesianism and the West. Upon independence, this Africanist aesthetic served a nationalist function, energizing local artists and intellectuals, promoting unity and establishing a relationship between the new nation and the colonialist powers that were the capitals of the art market. The new nation offered support for artists, and president Senghor devoted 25-percent of the state budget to culture. He established art schools, a national museum, festivals and touring exhibitions. Africanit? was agreeable to Pan-Africanism, and in 1966 the World Festival of Black Arts was held in Senegal's capital city Dakar. At the new ?cole de Dakar, professor Iba N'Diaye emphasized technical training and was skeptical that emphasis on Africanness wouldn't lead to dismissal of African artists as "noble savages". His colleague Papa Ibra Tall, though himself Paris-educated, discouraged all European influences on his students. Tall founded Senegal's national tapestry school, where works were produced by Badara Camara, Moussa Samb, Ibou Diouf, Samba Balde, Bakary Dieme, Amadou D?d? and Modou Niang. Senghor's aesthetic philosophy also had its critics, including celebrated filmmaker Osumane Sembene (who also criticized his repression of political opponents). Some artists disliked the president's patronizing attitude - he called artists his cher enfants - as he bestowed patronage. Younger artists chafed under Senghor's definitions of acceptable art and found them reactionary. In the 1970s meetings among actors and artists at Dakar's Caf? Terrasse birthed the Laboratoire Agit-Art. Its leader, Issa Ramangelissa Samb, favored mixed media sculptures assemblages, studied and adopted ideas by Europeans Georgi Plekhanov and Anonin Artaud, and cited political events in Southeast Asia and Latin America beyond Mother Africa. The Laboratoire Agit-Art deconstructed and restaged one epic Senghor poem as a comedy, as well as a C?saire work. They favored a street-level pop sensibility, works created with trash and commercial packing materials or bottle caps found in the marketplace. This American reviewer is reminded of New Yorkers, Claes Oldenburg and his Store in the early 1960s, and Jean- Michel Basquiat in the 1980s. Among Samb's graffiti-like painting was a Che Guevara portrait evincing black bloodlines and a confused expression. El Hadji Moussa Babacar Sy often sold his paintings like stage backdrops on jute sacking material for the price of a full sack of rice. Sy created painted figurate "Skites" kites. Sy used his own footprint as a painting motif, much as did California painter Mike Henderson. To compare the Senegalese artists to American ones is not to say they are unfavorably derivative: It is to acknowledge that the Africans became full participants in a global dialogue. Sy and his friends, sculptor Aly Traor? and painter Moussa Tine, squatted in an abandoned military camp in downtown Dakar in 1977. Soon joined by actors and other performers, musicians, photographers, they named the camp Village des Arts. Sy established a gallery and meeting place there and called it TENQ, the Wolof word for articulation. Suspicious government officials began visiting in preparation for reclaiming the base, offering an unsuitable building in a suburb Colobane where some artists had settled. In September 1983 the Village des Arts was attacked by troops in tanks, the residents were evicted and many artworks and the Village archives destroyed. Under president Diop the World Bank imposed strictures in the early 1980s that caused Senegal to cut support of health care, education, and street cleaning, diminishing the quality of life for most of the citizenry. Inspired by Youssou N'Dour's song *Set*, and a Wolof word for clean and proper, an urban mural squad called *Set Setal* flourished in 1988 and 1989. Many of their painted walls resemble urban murals in the United States in the 1960s and early 1970s, imagery of power and resistance to slaveries, whether economic or spiritual. *Set Setal* murals depicted nationalist or historic content (including the slave trade at Gor?e), civic campaigns combatting AIDS, diarrhoea, dysentery and malaria, and portraits of Senghor or the second president Abdou Diouf. They also painted Mao and Lenin, religious figure Cheikh Amadou Bamba, prizefighters Assane Diouf and Manga 11, and Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, Mickey Mouse and Tintin. Critics of Senghor's cultural policies saw *Set Setal* murals as evidence that the younger generation were happy to incorporate world influences with African ones. The French Cultural Center, where Sy has painted a mural, was another enthusiastic supporter of *Set Setal*. In the 1990s there have been impressive sculptures in wood and metal by Gubril Andr? Diop (whose treelike *Ecology Sculpture* of 1995 employed recycled beverage cans) and Moustapha Dim?, who reconciles Islam with figuration in his studio in Gor?e. There have been mixed media works by Djibril N'Diaye, figurative paintings by Sedou Barry and Ousmane Faye, and non- representational paintings of Kan Si and Viy? Diba. Alpha Wouallid Diallo created history paintings from photographs of battles and events in the founding of the nation of Senegal. Pre- independence traditions of sous-verr? glass painting have been revived by Germaine Anta Gaye. She has combined glass painting with wood or gold leaf, and used it to boldly celebrate signares, African women who had intercourse (business or sexual) with Portuguese traders in the 15th century. International notice came early to Senegal's artists, and in the 1960s France's Minister of Culture Andr? Malraux said the best of them "match the greatest European artists for stature". Mor Faye, a painter who died at 37 in 1984, was celebrated by New York critics as the great outsider, "a poor black Picasso," "a solitary medicine man". Sy, Samb and Souleyman Keita showed in London in 1995. Dak'Art, the international art bienniale, has been held in Dakar for over a decade. This reviewer studied with the Africanist Perkins Foss (the first grad student of Robert Farris Thompson) and hungers for more investigations of contemporary African culture. *In Senghor's Shadow* is a subtle exploration of Senegal's artists, their motivations and their relations to the government's cultural policies. Elizabeth Harney presents the political contradictions inherent in national cultural policy, between encouragement of raw and provincial local talent versus rigorous training to world-class standards designed for the discourse of the world's cultural capitals. The book deals with the question of authenticity in a globalist age, the contradictions of the artists' support system, both private patronage and that of the former colonizer. The author has provided us with a satisfying study of one nation's cultural aims and artistic achievements. ________________________________________________________________ ISAST NEWS ________________________________________________________________ LYNNE CARSTARPHEN NAMED COORDINATING EDITOR OF *LEONARDO* Lynne Carstarphen has been promoted to Coordinating Editor of *Leonardo*. In her new capacity she will be taking over from Managing Editor Pamela Grant-Ryan much of the responsibility for coordinating and editing manuscripts for the print journal. Lynne has been involved with *Leonardo* since September 2002, first as Editorial Assistant, then as Associate Editor. She has a background in art history and Internet cataloging, and holds a master's degree in writing. _____________________________ *LEONARDO* LAUNCHES YASMIN DISCUSSION LIST *Leonardo* and the YASMIN Group are pleased to announce the launching of the YASMIN mailing and discussion list, hosted by the University of Athens. It is a collaborative project by a consortium of organizations and individuals around the Mediterranean Rim and region. YASMIN is a network of artists, scientists, engineers, theoreticians and institutions promoting communication and collaboration in art, science and technology around the Mediterranean Rim. YASMIN welcomes information on events, artists' works and organizations' programs, projects and initiatives as well as discussions and critical analysis. YASMIN aims to identify the players and to facilitate cooperation within the Mediterranean Rim. All postings should be relevant to the YASMIN mandate. The official language of the YASMIN list is English. However, posts in the other languages mastered by the moderators are allowed as long as a summary of the post in English is provided. Those languages are currently: Arabic, Catalan, French, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. We welcome everyone to subscribe to the list at: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin/. The list is currently moderated by the following team: Julien Knebusch, Samirah Alkassim, Ahmed Hassouna, Pau Alsina, Dimitris Charitos, Neora Berger and Nina Czegledy. They form the YASMIN Group, together with Roger Malina, Jaco Du Toit, Annick Bureaud and Andreas Giannakoulopoulos. The YASMIN mailing list, co-sponsored by the DigiArts Programme of UNESCO, was made possible thanks to the Internet Society (ISOC), the Rockefeller Foundation, Leonardo/OLATS, The University of Athens, Artnodes-UOC Barcelona and all the coordinators of the YASMIN Group. _____________________________ SPECTOR AND LARSON JOIN GOVERNING BOARD The Leonardo/ISAST Governing Board of Directors welcomes Tami Spector and Larry Larson as two of its newest members. Tami Spector is a professor of organic chemistry at the University of San Francisco. She received her B.A. from Bard College and her Ph.D. from Dartmouth College and was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota. She is trained as a physical organic chemist; her experimental research interests are focused on the transformations of strained ring organics, the design and synthesis of organic selective ion transport systems, and spectroscopic analysis of intramolecular hydrogen bonding. In addition, she has published in the field of computational chemistry with an emphasis on molecular dynamics and free energy calculations of biomolecular systems. She also has a strong interest in aesthetics and chemistry and has published and presented work on the molecular aesthetics of disease, John Dalton and the aesthetics of molecular representation, and the visual image of chemistry. Larry R. Larson, principal of Larry Larson and Associates, is a consultant working with arts organizations seeking to use technology to create new ways of reaching and serving audiences. He has specialized in helping these groups use databases and dynamic web sites to realize ambitious programmatic and administrative goals. Larson's current or recent clients include Laurie Anderson, Minnesota Public Radio, Nonesuch Records, the John Cage Trust and the American Music Center. Notably, Larson and his associates recently completed and launched MusicVista.org, a joint web/database development project for a consortium of major American music service organizations. Prior to launching his consulting practice, Larson was Director of Grant Programs for the California Arts Council and was a member of the original National Endowment for the Arts National Information Systems Project (NISP), the first such project of its type. He has also served in senior administrative positions at the San Francisco and Houston symphonies, and has been an advisor on musical and technical matters to the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and many others. Larson also serves on the boards of the Kronos Quartet and the American Music Center. For more information about the Leonardo/ISAST Governing Board, see www.leonardo.info > _____________________________ LEONARDO BOOK SERIES ACTIVITIES The past year found the Leonardo Book Series brimming with activity. We are pleased to announce the publication of five new titles in the series: *At A Distance: Precursors to Art and Activism on the Internet*, edited by Annmarie Chandler and Norie Neumark; *Visual Mind II*, edited by Michele Emmer; *CODE: Collaborative Ownership and the Digital Economy*, edited by Rishab Aiyer Ghosh; *The Global Genome: Biotechnology, Politics and Culture* by Eugene Thacker; and *Media Ecologies: Materialist Energies in Art and Technoculture* by Matthew Fuller - with several more soon to be released. In May 2005, the Math Science Research Institute, Berkeley, CA, hosted a book-signing party for Michele Emmer to celebrate the release of *Visual Mind II*. Visit http://www.lbs.mit.edu for more information. Leonardo/ISAST members receive a 20% discount on Leonardo Books; visit http:www.leonardo.info/members.htmlfor more information. _____________________________ LEONARDO/OLATS AND SPACE STUDY The European Space Agency has awarded a consortium led by the Arts Catalyst, and which includes Leonardo/OLATS, a contract to carry out a 6-month study of possible cultural utilization of the International Space Station. The European Space Agency is interested in opening the Space Station to a new community of artistic and cultural users. The study sets out to focus the interest of the cultural world on the Space Station, to generate a policy for involving cultural users in the Space Station program in the longer term, and to develop a representative set of ready-to-implement demonstrator projects in arts, culture and media. Under the lead of the Arts Catalyst (London, U.K.), the study team includes Leonardo/OLATS (Paris, France), Delta Utec (Leiden, Netherlands) and the MIR Network, a group of European arts organizations in Slovenia, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, U.K. and France. Artists and cultural practitioners across Europe are being consulted on features of the Space Station and its ground-based support facilities - including launch sites, astronaut training facilities and national user support centers. To become involved or receive further information about this study, e-mail the study leader, Nicola Triscott, at iss [@] artscatalyst [dot] org. The European Space Agency press release about the study can be found at: http://www.esa.int/esaCP/Pr_p_EN.html. The German and French translations can also be accessed from this URL. _____________________________ LEONARDO REACHES OUT TO EDUCATIONAL COMMUNITY As part of an ongoing effort to reach out to the educational community, Leonardo/ISAST has instituted several initiatives under the Leonardo Educators and Students Program. These include participation in the annual College Art Association (CAA) Conference, Leonardo Abstracts Service (LABS), the Leonardo International Faculty Alerts list (LIFA) and special discounts on student memberships. Students working in or interested in art, science and engineering are invited to join the Leonardo community with an annual associate membership to Leonardo/ISAST at the special student rate of $48. Benefits include associate membership in the organization, discounts on books and invitations to join us at conferences and symposia, including the College Art Association Conference, SIGGRAPH and the 2006 Pacific Rim New Media Summit and ISEA 2006 Festival and Symposium. Leonardo/ISAST is also interested in connecting with educational organizations and organizations with similar goals and interests through the Leonardo Organizational Membership Program, which was initiated in 2004. Through the program, Leonardo/ISAST connects members of the Leonardo network and organizations, faculty and students who are working at the confluence of art, science and technology. Leonardo/ISAST is pleased to include Intel, the San Francisco Art Institute, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Rhode Island School of Design, the University of Texas and the University of Plymouth among the current members in the organizational membership program. For more information about student or organizational memberships, please visit the members page of Leonardo On-Line http://www.leonardo.info/members.html _____________________________ LEONARDO EDUCATORS FORUM The Leonardo Educators Forum (formerly known as the Leonardo/CAA Working Group) is soliciting input from students about their interests and needs to help develop programs and activities that could benefit their professional development. One of the focuses of the Leonardo Educators Forum is to provide opportunities and resources in a mentoring capacity for students and emerging professionals in areas relating to the intersection of art, science and technology. Current activities include a mentorship panel at the CAA annual meeting and ongoing mentorship resources provided on the Leonardo On-Line web site and through the Leonardo Educators Forum listserv and blog http://www.leocaa.blogspot.com. Students and emerging professionals are encouraged to offer their ideas and comments about how the Leonardo Educators Forum can assist them in the development of the next generation of art/science/technology researchers and practitioners. Some of the many areas to address include: writing across the disciplines; collaboration between artists/scientists/technologists; essential connections/historical considerations; negotiating the job market; and teaching art/science/technology: working inside and outside of academia. Please submit comments or questions to gharp [@] umich [dot] edu. LEONARDO NETWORK NEWS COORDINATOR: Kathleen Quillian isast [@] leonardo [dot] info _____________________________ THE PACIFIC RIM NEW MEDIA SUMMIT (PRNMS) A PRE-SYMPOSIUM TO ISEA2006 7-8 August 2006, San Jose, California The ISEA2006 Symposium is being held in conjunction with the first biennial ZeroOne San Jose Global Festival for Art on the Edge in San Jose, California, 5--13 August 2006. As part of the ISEA2006 Symposium, the CADRE Laboratory for New Media at San Jose State University will host a 2-day pre-symposium entitled the *Pacific Rim New Media Summit*, co-sponsored by Leonardo. With a purview encompassing all states and nations that border the Pacific Ocean, the Pacific Rim New Media Summit is intended to explore and build interpretive bridges between institutional, corporate, social and cultural enterprises, with an emphasis on the emergence of new media arts programs. In preparation for the summit, seven working groups are currently laying the groundwork for the main areas of investigation to be pursued in depth at the summit: Creative Community, Curatorial, Education, Directory, Eco-Social Activism, Mobile Computing and Urbanity, and Latin American- Pacific/Asia New Media. Following is another statement from one of the working group chairs, in the continuation of our ongoing series as a build-up to the conference. _____________________________ PRNMS WORKING GROUP ON CONTAINER CULTURE SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES The Pacific Rim Curatorial Workgroup is developing a pan- Pacific Rim exhibition, *Container Culture*, as part of the overarching Pacific Rim New Media Summit for the ISEA2006 Symposium in San Jose, California, August 5-13, 2006. The exhibition will feature work by artists in the "catch basin" of the port city where the curator is located or working. It will use standardized shipping containers for presentation of this work. The shipping container is an index of the economic relationships that exist among otherwise culturally diverse Pacific Rim countries and will become a temporary zone of quotidian "white cube" galleries for unstable media placed in the very public context of the central Plaza Cesar Chavez in San Jose. GROUP MEMBERS Steve Dietz (San Jose) stevedietz [@] yproductions [dot] com ZeroOne, co-chair Zhang Ga (Shanghai/New York) z [@] apiece [dot] net Alice Ming Wai Jim (Vancouver) alice [dot] jim [@] centrea [dot] org Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art (Centre A) Deborah Lawler-Dormer (Auckland) deborah [@] mic [dot] org [dot] nz Centre for Moving Image Guna Nadarajan (Singapore) pups2320 [@] pacific [dot] net [dot] sg Co-chair Ellen Pau (Hong Kong) ellenpau [@] hkstar [dot] com Videotaage Johan Pijnappel (Mumbai) pijnappel [@] hotmail [dot] com Indian Video Archive ________________________________________________________________ BYTES ________________________________________________________________ ***** CALL FOR PAPERS ***** LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL 16 (2006) NOISES OFF - SOUND BEYOND MUSIC These days sound is more than just music. Museums, galleries and artists' studios are getting noisier: it's not that there is so much more "Sound Art," but rather that so much more art has sound. Cellphone ringtones generated four billion dollars in sales worldwide in 2004. Incoming email and outgoing popcorn announce themselves with plops and gongs and boops and beeps - the emerging field of "sonification" addresses this proliferation of all these "earcons" and other representational uses of sound. Sound design is a vital part of Hollywood films and computer games. While CD sales shrink with the proliferation of peer-to-peer file exchange, the creative use of sound is expanding in almost every other part of our lives. For the next issue of Leonardo Music Journal we invite papers on the expanded role of sound in art, science, business and everyday life. Topics could include (but are not limited to): audio art, radio art, phonography; sound design for video, film, and gaming; the role of sound in performance art, theatre, dance; sonificitation; architectural acoustics; instrument design. DEADLINES 15 October 2005 - Rough proposals, queries 1 January 2006 - Submission of finished article Address inquiries to Nicolas Collins, Editor-in-Chief, at: ncollins [@] artic [dot] edu. Finished articles should be sent to the LMJ Editorial Office at lmj [@] leonardo [dot] info. Editorial guidelines and information for authors can be found on our Information for Authors page. Note: LMJ is a peer-reviewed journal. All manuscripts are reviewed by LMJ editors, editorial board members and/or members of the LMJ community prior to acceptance. _____________________________ SCHOOL OF ART INSTITUTE CHICAGO FACULTY POSITION IN FILM, VIDEO AND NEW MEDIA The Department of Film, Video, and New Media at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago invites applications from artists working in video to teach and expand an innovative curriculum in moving image media. We are looking for artists who work with various applications of video/digital media, experimental narrative and non-fiction forms, installation, video performance, interactive environments and web-based work. Candidates should have a strong conceptual and historical grasp of contemporary issues in the intersecting worlds of independent video production, experimental filmmaking, and new media. The department is committed to alternative forms and practices that emphasize experimentation, innovation, and the hybridization of existing media and modes of presentation. Candidates should demonstrate the ability and desire to participate in curricular initiatives; should be able to work with undergraduate and graduate students in an interdisciplinary, fine arts context; and should have advanced proficiency in one or more areas of the media arts. Applicants must have an active professional creative practice. Teaching experience preferred. The position is full- time, tenure-track and begins in the fall of 2006. Rank and salary are commensurate with experience. Please send a letter of application, curriculum vitae, artist's statement, teaching philosophy, portfolio samples which may include CD-Rom, DVD, VHS, mini-DV, and/or website URLs, names and contact information for three references, and an SASE (if you wish to have the materials returned) by November 15, 2005 for priority consideration to: FVNM Search/LEA School of the Art Institute of Chicago Office of Deans and Division Chairs 37 South Wabash Avenue Chicago, IL 60603 For more information on the School and its programs, available faculty positions, and details regarding application, consult www.artic.edu/saic/public/jobs . For additional assistance, questions may be directed to Shanna Linn at slinn at artic.edu, 312.899-7472. ________________________________________________________________ ___________________ | | | | | CREDITS | | | |___________________| Nisar Keshvani: LEA Editor-in-Chief Natra Haniff: LEA 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, Craig Harris, Fatima Lasay, Michael Naimark, Julianne Pierce Gallery Advisory Board: Mark Amerika, Paul Brown, Choy Kok Kee, Steve Dietz, Kim Machan fAf-LEA Corresponding Editors: Lee Weng Choy, Ricardo Dal Farra, Elga Ferreira, Young Hae- Chang, Fatima Lasay, Jose-Carlos Mariategui, Marcus Neustetter, Elaine Ng, Marc Voge ________________________________________________________________ _________________ | LEA | | PUBLISHING | | INFORMATION | |_________________| Editorial Address: Leonardo Electronic Almanac PO Box 850 Robinson Road Singapore 901650 lea [@] mitpress [dot] mit [dot] edu ________________________________________________________________ Copyright (2005), 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 2005 subscription year. The rate for Non-Leonardo individual subscribers is $35.00, and for Non-Leonardo institutional subscribers the rate is $77.00. 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Fax: (415) 391 1110 E-mail: isast [@] leonardo [dot] 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 13 (08) > ________________________________________________________________ *About This E-Mail* You received this email because you requested updates from the MIT Press. To sign up for other newsletters, cancel delivery, change delivery options or your e-mail address, click here . Your suggestions and feedback are welcome at comments at mail-mitpress.mit.edu. Thank you for your interest in Leonardo Electronic Almanac Monthly E-mail. 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