[LEAuthors] Leonardo Electronic Almanac vol.12 no.4 April 2004
MIT Press
lea at mail-mitpress.mit.edu
Sun Apr 4 09:52:43 EDT 2004
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Leonardo Electronic Almanac volume 12, number 4, April 2004
http://lea.mit.edu
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ISSN #1071-4391
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| CONTENTS |
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INTRODUCTION
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FEATURE
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< 10 Years Ago in LEA - Metavirtue and Subreality or "The
Involuntary Walker as Virtuous Subject Yet Only Semi-Intelligent
Agent" or "Birds or No-Ledge to Stand On", by David Blair >
LEONARDO REVIEWS
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< Animal, Vegetable, Video, reviewed by Luisa Paraguai Donati >
< Sex, Time and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human
Evolution, reviewed by Dene Grigar >
< Painted Love: Prostitution in French Art of the Impressionist
Era, reviewed by Wilfred Niels Arnold >
< Windows and Mirrors: Interaction Design, Digital Art, and the
Myth of Transparency, reviewed by Rob Harle >
LEONARDO JOURNAL
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< LEONARDO table of contents and selected abstracts -
Vol. 37, No. 3 (June 2004) >
LEONARDO ABSTRACTS SERVICE
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< A Procedural Model for the Integration of Physical and
Cyberspaces in Architecture, by Peter Anders >
OPPORTUNITIES
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< RE:SEARCHING OUR ORIGINS: Critical and Archival
Histories of the Electronic Arts >
< Critiquing Regional Strategies for Digital Arts and
Electronic Music in Asia and the Pacific >
< From the Extraordinary to the Uncanny:
the persistence of a parallel universe >
< New Media Designer: School of the Art Institute of Chicago >
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| INTRODUCTION |
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In this issue of the Leonardo Electronic Almanac, we delve into
our archives to present an excerpt from an article first
published 10 years ago in LEA.
The text, by David Blair, explores the effects of navigating in
immersive environments, a subject still relevant to readers
today.
Also in this issue, readers will find the complete index of
articles published in LEA last year. We continue encouraging
authors to
submit abstracts, articles and artist statements to our upcoming
special issues on digital histories in the electronic arts,
critiquing Asia Pacific strategies in the digital arts and from
the extraordinary to the uncanny. Check out the opportunities
section for details.
In Leonardo Reviews, we feature Michael Punt's selection of
four reviews: "Animal, Vegetable, Video" is reviewed by Luisa
Paraguai Donati, Dene Grigar reviews "Sex, Time and Power: How
Women's sexuality Shaped Human Evolution", Wilfred Niels Arnold
looks at "Painted Love: Prostitution in French Art of the
Impressionist Era" and "Windows and Mirrors: Interaction Design,
Digital Art, and the Myth of Transparency is reviewed by Rob
Harle.
In the Leonardo Abstracts Service, read about Peter Anders'
thesis: "A Procedural Model for the Integration of Physical and
Cyberspaces in Architecture", and a taste of things to come in
the *Leonardo* Journal, Vol. 37, No. 3.
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| FEATURE |
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ONE FROM THE VAULT - 10 YEARS AGO IN LEA
This month, we introduce a new LEA feature (although
technically speaking, it is really an old feature!).
>From this issue, LEA subscribers can easily access backissues
in our recently modified archives section which dates back to
the inaugural September 1993 issue.
To give you a sense of what is available online, we are
reprinting partial text of an article published in the Leonardo
Electronic Almanac Vol.2 No.4 (April 1994) issue, when LEA was in
its infancy: "Metavirtue and Subreality" or "The Involuntary
Walker as Virtuous Subject Yet Only Semi-Intelligent Agent" or
"Birds or No-Ledge to Stand on," by David Blair.
The full article, as well as many others, can be viewed in its
entirety at: http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/archive.html
METAVIRTUE AND SUBREALITY OR "THE INVOLUNTARY WALKER AS
VIRTUOUS SUBJECT YET ONLY SEMI-INTELLIGENT AGENT" OR
"BIRDS OR NO-LEDGE TO STAND ON"
by David Blair, New York, U.S.A.
1 DISNEYLAND
It's 9:45 PM, and I'm walking through New Orleans Square at
Disneyland-Anaheim. The water show is in full swing, with
miraculous sudden set changes... the giant pirate boat with 50
actors has turned and completely hidden behind a corner too
small for it and multiple 30-foot evil magic-mirror faces hang
on mist screens above the water. I decide to take a sudden turn
myself, to visit the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. A few feet
down the path, the crowd is gone, and the water show almost
inaudible. The ride is a narrow water way with flat bottom boats
inexorably driven forwards through the artificial landscape by a
fearsome chain and gear mechanism hidden by the water. I'm in my
seat, and 20 seconds later we are underground, on a river in a
cave system somewhere beneath Disneyland, somewhere in the
Caribbean, probably near the storage space of that missing water-
show pirate ship. And, simultaneous with all this, I am almost
back in the Carlsbad Caverns National Monument, true wonder of
the underworld, alone, after midnight, during the production of
my film "WAX or the discovery of television among the bees".
Floating on a boat attached by bottom chains to an artificial
underground Disney- Caribbean river is not that much different
from walking alone, at midnight, through the unbelievable
underground and path-determined space of Carlsbad Caverns,
moving in half-light among giant rock forms. That afternoon,
deeper in the cave, I'd had a beekeeper's suit on and been
standing around the corner of the one-way path from a cameraman,
almost leaning on a fractionally detailed limestone formation.
On the cameraman's cue, I was supposed to suddenly create a
material wipe by walking around the corner, but we had to keep
delaying the shot as tourists kept appearing behind me on the
one-way path... surprising me, but not themselves. I was just
part of the landscape, and several even said: "The Moon, huh?",
before turning the next corner and finding the camera. I was
part of their ride, but they knew I was also a thousand feet
underneath the moon, maybe somewhere in France on the set of a
Melies movie, or perhaps back at Disneyland, back at Pirates of
the Caribbean.
An interesting and vital part of navigation in immersive
environments is the effect of sudden mode change.... often,
turning a corner, you are instantly in another environment, as
if you had just passed through the spatial equivalent of a soft-
edged wipe. What is shocking is that these mode changes can
often take you to an environment which contradicts the one you
just came from, both in appearance, and in meaning and use...
like turning a smooth corner at the base of the Matterhorn at
Disneyland, and ending up at the end of a row of urinals.
The first effect of this spatial mode change, I believe, is
that one becomes more susceptible to association. In other
words, free navigation in an immersive environment leads to mode
changes, and mode changes lead to an increase in association. ..
sometimes internal, and sometimes external. The latter we call
coincidence.
[THIS TEXT CAN BE VIEWED IN ITS ENTIRETY BY LEA/LEONARDO
SUBSCRIBERS AT:
http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/archive.html]
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| LEONARDO ELECTRONIC ALMANAC |
| CONTENT INDEX 2003 |
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JANUARY 2003 - VOL. 11, NO. 1
SPECIAL ISSUE - *LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL*, VOL. 12
Editorial
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Nicolas Collins (Chicago, U.S.A.)
Not Necessarily "English" Music: Britain's Second Golden Age
Articles
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Nicolas Collins (Chicago)
Thoughtful Pleasures
Introduction to Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 12
Christian Scheib (Vienna, Austria)
Pleasure from Gdansk till Dawn (LMJ CD Companion)
Abstracts
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Ricardo Arias (Jersey City, NJ, U.S.A.)
I Know It's Only Noise but I Like It: Scattered Notes on
the Pleasures of Experimental Improvised Music
Frieder Butzmann (Berlin, Germany)
That's Comish Music! Mutant Sounds
David Byrne (New York, NY, U.S.A.)
Machines of Joy: I Have Seen the Future and It Is Squiggly
Arthur Elsenaar and Remko Scha (Groningen, Netherlands)
Electric Body Manipulation as Performance Art:
A Historical Perspective
Reinhold Friedl (Berlin, Germany)
Some Sadomasochistic Aspects of Musical Pleasure
Ben Neill (New York, NY, U.S.A.)
Pleasure Beats: Rhythm and the Aesthetics of
Current Electronic Music
Bob Ostertag (San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.)
Human Bodies, Computer Music
Leonardo Peusner (Argentina)
A Graph Topological Representation of Melody Scores
Dave Soldier (New York, NY, U.S.A.)
Eine Kleine Naughtmusik: How Nefarious Nonartists
Cleverly Imitate Music
Gil Weinberg (Cambridge, MA, U.S.A.)
Playpens, Fireflies and Squeezables: New Musical
Instruments for Bridging the Thoughtful and the Joyful
FEBRUARY 2003 - VOL. 11, NO. 2
SPECIAL ISSUE - ART, SCIENCE AND CONSCIOUSNESS
Editorial
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Patrick Lambelet (Pisa, Italy)
Art, Science and the Contemplative Study of Consciousness
Articles
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Kok Kee Choy (Singapore)
Project *Amala*: An Artistic Vision of Consciousness in Buddhism
Nina Czegledy
On Audience Awareness: The "Empathy Factor" in the
Work of Nell Tenhaaf
William Magee (U.S.A.)
Materialism and the Immaterial Mind in the Ge-luk
Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism
Robert C. Morgan (New York, NY, U.S.A.)
Samadhi: The Contemplation of Space
B. Alan Wallace (Santa Barbara, CA, U.S.A.)
The Scientific and Contemplative Exploration of Consciousness
MARCH 2003 - VOL. 11, NO. 3
Editorial
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Douglas A. Vakoch (Mountain View, CA, U.S.A.)
Language, Art and Science in Interstellar Communication
Articles
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Oliver Grau (London, U.K.)
Introduction to *Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion*
Geert Lovink (London, U.K.)
Introduction to *Uncanny Networks: Dialogues with
the Virtual Intelligentsia*
APRIL 2003 - VOL. 11, NO. 4
SPECIAL ISSUE - THE ART AND SCIENCE OF INTERSTELLAR
MESSAGE COMPOSITION (PART I)
Abstracts
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Mauro Annunziato (Rome, Italy)
Hybrid Ecosystems: Searching for a Language
John B. Campbell (Queensland, Australia)
Archaeology of Symbolic Communication: Antiquity and Evidence
for Altruism
Vladimir Ivkovic (Zagreb, Croatia)
Cybernetic Models and Interstellar Message Composition:
Sociobiology of Altruism Revisited
Colin Johnson (Canterbury, U.K.)
Altruism, the Evolution of Language and Interstellar
Communication
Dominique Lestel (Paris, France)
Animal Communications and SETI: Are Humans Universal Locutors?
Sundar Sarukkai (Bangalore, India)
Universality, Emotion and Communication in Mathematics
Diana Slattery (New York, NY, U.S.A.)
The Glide Model: Communicating Intention through
Gestural Language
Dan Werthimer (San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.) and
Mary Kate Morris(San Francisco)
Are We Alone? The Search for Extraterrestrial Civilizations
Article
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Istvan Hargittai (Budapest, Hungary)
Something Has Doubled: The 15th Anniversary of the
Discovery of DNA
MAY 2003 - VOL. 11, NO. 5
Article
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Brett Stalbaum (San Jose, CA, U.S.A.)
Software Development Platforms for Large Datasets:
Artists at the API
JUNE 2003 - VOL. 11, NO. 6
Article
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Jean-Louis Lhermitte (Paris, France)
Sculpting Ionized Plasma
Abstract
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Bill Seaman (Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A.)
OULIPO |VS |Recombinant Poetics
JULY 2003 - VOL. 11, NO. 7
SPECIAL ISSUE - THE ART AND SCIENCE OF INTERSTELLAR
MESSAGE COMPOSITION (PART II)
Editorial
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Douglas A. Vakoch (Mountain View, CA, U.S.A.)
Intention, Interaction and Communication with
Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Abstracts
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William H. Edmondson (Birmingham, U.K.)
Constraints on Message Construction for Communication
with Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Tomislav Janovic (Zagreb, Croatia)
Communicative Intention and Interstellar Message Composition
Michael P. Matessa (U.S.A.)
Modeling Reciprocal Altruism and Forgiveness in
Interstellar Messages: A Population-Based Approach
Brian S. McConnell (San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.)
Algorithmic Communication with ETI and Mixed-Media
Message Composition
David Rosenboom (Santa Clarita, CA, U.S.A.)
The Imperative of Co-Creation in Interstellar Communication:
Lessons from Experimental Music
AUGUST 2003 - VOL. 11, NO. 8
Article
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Sundar Sarukkai (Bangalore, India)
Praying to Machines
SEPTEMBER 2003 - VOL. 11, NO. 9
SPECIAL ISSUE - ART AND WEIGHTLESSNESS
Editorial
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Annick Bureaud (Paris, France)
Art and Weightlessness: The MIR Campaign 2003 in Star City
Articles
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Alex Adriaansens (Rotterdam, Netherlands)
May the Force Be with You
Marcel.li Antunez Roca (Barcelona, Spain)
Transpermia - Dedalo Project
Annick Bureaud (Paris, France)
Art Critic in Microgravity
Ewen Chardronnet
Open Sky and Microgravity
Richard Couzins (London, U.K.)
Filming in Microgravity
Kodwo Eshun, Richard Couzins, Anjalika Sagar (London, U.K.)
Initial Report on the Pilot Study on the Military and
Behavioral Preconditions for Permanent Habitation in
Microgravity
Vadim Fishkin, Livia P·ldi (Ljubljana, Slovenia)
Kaplegraf 0g (Drops Orbits)
Stefan Gec (Yorkshire, England)
The Celestial Vault
Rob LaFrenais (London, U.K.)
An Artist in Space - An Achievable Goal?
Roger Malina (Marseille, France)
Contextualizing Zero-Gravity Art
Marko Peljhan (U.S.A.)
Projekt Atol Flight Operations and the MIR Network
Nicola Triscott (London, U.K.)
The Multidisciplinary Research Laboratory
OCTOBER 2003, VOL. 11, NO. 10
SPECIAL ISSUE - TECHNOLOGY AND DIFFERENCE (PART I)
Editorial
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Irina Aristarkhova (Singapore)
Technology and Difference
Articles
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Robert Bodle (Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A.)
Online Activist Media Collectives in Los Angeles:
An Argument against the Dematerialization View of Cyberspace
Diana Mccarty (Berlin, Germany)
Resonant Culture
Gunalan Nadarajan (Singapore)
Phytodynamics and Plant Difference
Keith Obadike (Hamden, CT, U.S.A.)
Blackness for Sale
Mendi Obadike (Hamden, CT, U.S.A.)
Keeping up Appearances
Mendi Obadike and Keith Obadike (Hamden, CT, U.S.A.)
The Interaction of Coloreds
Faith Wilding (Chicago, IL, U.S.A.)
Biotech Bodies/Difference/Resistance
NOVEMBER 2003, VOL. 11, NO. 11
SPECIAL ISSUE - TECHNOLOGY AND DIFFERENCE (PART II)
Editorial
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Irina Aristarkhova (Singapore)
Technology and Difference II
Articles
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Radhika Gajjala (Bowling Green, OH, U.S.A.)
Traveling along Data's Highway: Who Gets Mapped Out?
Seda Gyrses (Berlin, Germany)
Exploring the Question of Race in Feminist Critique of
Computing at the FiNuT
RAQS Media Collective (New Delhi, India)
Machines Made to Measure: On the Technologies of Identity
and the Manufacture of Difference
Eugene Thacker (Atlanta, GA, U.S.A.)
Genetic Difference in the Global Genome
DECEMBER 2003, VOL. 11, NO. 12
SPECIAL ISSUE: WOMEN, ART AND TECHNOLOGY
Editorial
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Judy Malloy (San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.)
Women, Art and Technology
Articles
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Jennifer Hall and Blyth Hazen
Laboratory for Ephemeral Investigations -
Interactive Robotic Sculptures
Kathy Rae Huffman (Manchester, U.K.)
Face Settings: An International Co-cooking and
Communication Project
Nancy Paterson (Toronto, Canada)
Stock Market Skirt and New Directions
Valerie Soe (San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.)
Video Arte Povera: Lo-Fi Rules!
Dawn Stoppiello and Mark Coniglio (U.S.A.)
FleshMotor
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| LEONARDO REVIEWS |
| 2004.04 |
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This month, Leonardo Reviews has slipped back into synch with
the LEA publishing cycle and offers ten reviews of books,
websites and exhibitions. We are particularly pleased to welcome
a new reviewer, John Knight, who is a designer working on issues
of usability of websites, among other things. It seems
appropriate then that this month we also have another review
from Luisa Paraguai Donati of Sam Easterson's website. We also
welcome contributions from our loyal supporters, Roy R. Behrens,
Wilfred Niels Arnold and Rick Mitchell. To compliment these,
Aparna Sharma reviews an interesting publishing project from
India and Rob Harle takes a look at Jay David Bolter and Diane
Gromala's new book from MIT Press. Finally a special thanks this
month to Dene Grigar, who has not only filed a fascinating
review but has also managed a new team of interns to produce
"camera-ready" copy for the website.
These reviews and our archive can be found at
http://leonardoreviews.mit.edu.
Michael Punt
Editor-in-Chief
Leonardo Reviews
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Reviews Posted April 2004:
Animal, Vegetable, Video, by Sam Easterson
Reviewed by Luisa Paraguai Donati
The Art of Looking Sideways, by Alan Fletcher and Beware Wet
Paint, by Alan Fletcher
Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens
Emotional Design: Why We Love (Or Hate) Everyday Things, by
Donald Norman
Reviewed by John Knight
Mehmet G„lery„z. Forty Years of Drawing: Retrospective Drawing
Exhibition 1963-2003, by Nihal Elvan, Ed.
Reviewed by Aaris Sherin
Painted Love: Prostitution in French Art of the Impressionist
Era, by Hollis Clayson
Reviewed by Wilfred Niels Arnold
The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity, by
Slavoj Zizek
Reviewed by Rick Mitchell
Sarai Reader 03: Shaping Technologies, by Ravi Vasudevan, Ravi
Sundaram, Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula, Shuddhabrata, Sengupta
[Sarai], Geert Lovink, Marleen Stikker [Waag], Eds.
Reviewed by Aparna Sharma
Science, Not Art: Ten Scientists' Diaries, Jon Turney, Ed.
Reviewed by Rob Harle
Sex, Time and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human
Evolution, by Leonard Shlain
Reviewed by Dene Grigar
Windows and Mirrors: Interaction Design, Digital Art, and the
Myth of Transparency, by Jay David Bolter and Diane Gromala
Reviewed by Rob Harle
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ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, VIDEO
Website by Sam Easterson, http://www.anivegvideo.com/
Reviewed by Luisa Paraguai Donati, Department of Multimedia,
Institute of Arts, Unicamp, Brazil
luisa at iar.unicamp.br
http://wawrwt.iar.unicamp.br
This website is part of a larger project called *Animal,
Vegetable, Video*, on which video artist Sam Easterson has been
working for the last five years. In 1988, he was commissioned by
the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis to create a new video
project. For that project, he outfitted a flock of sheep with a
helmet-mounted video camera. Since then, he has been designing
such cameras to be attached to animals and plants of all kinds.
Micro video cameras are also placed deep inside the animals and
plant habitats showing how they live, behave and move in their
own environments. Therefore, the project has produced an
extensive collection of video footage and created a network of
artists and scientists by developing video exhibitions for art
centers and working with researchers in different scientific
institutions.
The web design is simple, clean and entirely based on screens
and windows with an animated movement of colored squares on a
white background to aesthetically formalize the idea of these
video experiments. Web users can easily browse to get
information and video footage by clicking on the names of
animals or choosing specific habitats.
Watching some of the videos, it is clear that the author is
interested in "looking and in the process of looking" in
conducting his process of creation. The viewer can get different
references of the environment according to each animal and its
characteristic rhythm, body movement and sounds, such as a
scorpion, an alligator or a wolf. The perspective of captured
images creates a specific visual experience by linking the
perceiver and different views, the individual and the landscape.
The viewer is thus not only an observer of the scene but also
the first person in the video narrative.
By thinking about new technologies and the possibility of
having different perspectives to approach the world, we can
mention another concept here - that of "mediated presence" [1],
in which it is possible for participants to phenomenologically
experience the "sense of being there." In some way, the
participants' presence can be projected, extended into a
physical remote space through other spatial references.
According to the interface used, the participants can provoke,
more or less, interferences with it.
Another interesting point to me personally in this project is
the use of head-mounted technology inserted in the animal's body
spatiality. This reminds me of the idea of the wearable computer
and its use for specific tasks [2], by which the "wearer"
becomes capable of enhancing physical activities and/or bodily
limits. The technological mediation in the communication process
has increasingly allowed a redefinition of the limits of our
action and perception and a (re) modeling of the realities of
our body.
NOTES
1. Marvin Minsky mentioned the term "telepresence" for the
first time in 1980, inspired by Robert Heinlein's novel,
*Waldo*. He thought of "remote presence" as those occurrences
when participants can influence the form and/or content of the
mediated presentation or experience as in definition. Since
then, the concept of mediated presence has been extensively
discussed and for Biocca (1997) can be briefly presented as
consisting of two interrelated phenomena: "telepresence - the
phenomenal sense of 'being there' and mental models of mediated
spaces that create the illusion, and social presence - the sense
of 'being together with another' and mental models of 'other
intelligences' that help us simulate 'other minds.'"
2. Bass (1997) suggests five characteristics in defining a
wearable computer: "it may be used while the wearer is in
motion; it may be used while one or both hands are free, or
occupied with other tasks; it exists within the corporeal
envelope of the user, i.e., it should be not merely attached to
the body but becomes an integral part of the person's clothing;
it must allow the user to maintain control; it must exhibit
constancy, in the sense that it should be constantly available."
BIBLIOGRAPHY
F. Biocca, "The Cyborg's Dilemma: Progressive Embodiment in
Virtual Environments," in *Journal of Computer-Mediated
Communication*, Vol.3, No. 2.
M. Minsky, "Telepresence," in *OMNI* Magazine (May 1980) pp. 45-
52.
L. Bass, Conveners report of CHI '97 Workshop on Wearable
Computers, Personal communication to attendees (1997).
L. Santaella, "Culturas e artes do pæs-humano, da cultura das
mðdias " cibercultura" (S"o Paulo: Editora Paulus, 2003).
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SEX, TIME AND POWER: HOW WOMEN'S SEXUALITY SHAPED HUMAN EVOLUTION
by Leonard Shlain, Viking Press, New York, 2003. 420 pp.,
illus. 41 b/w. Trade, $25.95. ISBN: 0-67003-233-6.
Reviewed by Dene Grigar, Texas Woman's University.
dgrigar at twu.edu
When encountering a book concerning a subject like the
anthropology of sexual attraction and social evolution published
by a non-academic press and written by an author with no
discernible training in the field, an educated reader knows to
approach the ideas advanced in that book as interesting if
fanciful. When the publisher in question is a large popular
press with a vast marketing department and the author appears to
be a charming and fascinating story-teller, then it is likely
that some readers may allow themselves to be seduced by the
flight of fancy and be taken on a wild goose chase - and end up
the goose.
This is precisely the problem with *Sex, Time, and Power: How
Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution*, by Leonard Shlain. A
cursory search on the Web reveals the extent of the damage such
whimsy can produce. From "Why Your Wife Won't Have Sex With You"
to a delineation of the brain power of Biblical characters in
"Time, Menses, Left Brain" to "promoting intimacy and other-
centered sexuality" among a group called "Liberated Christians,"
this book does not merely strike a chord with its readers; it
verifies all of the preconceived notions of gender difference
some readers could ever hope to come across for pushing their
own political, social and religious agendas.
Let us be clear: *Sex, Time, and Power* is neither hard science
nor is it anthropology. It is, instead, mythology. And because
the narrative is highly engaging, it can be, on the surface,
amusing mythology at that.
The book was generated from a question the author had pondered
when he was a young medical student - "Why do women menstruate?"
- and has as its premise the idea that women's need for iron
drove many, if not all, of "human cultural innovations" (p.
xii), in particular the knowledge of time, which ultimately
resulted in the loss of her power. With this idea in mind,
Shlain looks at such issues as incest, homosexuality, courting
practices, marriage and death, to name a few. Along the way he
gives us dialogues with Adam, Eve and members of their tribe;
recountings of schemes made by campfires in 40,000 BC; and a
worldview organized in a recognizable dualism (man, left-
brained, sex-crazed; woman, right-brained, uses sex to get what
she wants from man). He tells us in the preface that the book is
meant for "both generalists and specialists" and that he avoids
the "standard academic practice of citing the pedigree of a
particular idea" (p. xiii). Lucky thing, too, since some of his
logic would never pass the review process of a reputable science
journal or scientific board of an academic press. This reviewer
counted no less than 39 instances where faulty logic and gross
generalizations were used to make a point.
Some of the most pernicious of these include the idea that
early homo sapiens women, "after a lifetime of lovemaking ...
would have spent hours discussing the sexual idiosyncrasies of
their diverse male partners and comparing their experiences." He
then comes to the conclusion that these women would have been
responsible for promoting male circumcision as a way of delaying
their lovers' orgasms (p. 93) - an interesting idea that flies
in the face of the fact that circumcision rites are performed by
older men upon younger ones. Another is his adopted view of the
relations between genders that reduces men's value to their
ability to provide meat and women's to their ability to give sex
(p. 113). While some may look around at today's couples and
agree with this assertion, this theory disregards man's need to
satisfy his own hunger and woman's interest in her own orgasm
that could have also shaped our social development. And hadn't
he claimed that circumcision came about because women wanted
better sex?
But truly the most awful claims remain in his discussions about
rape and pornography. In terms of the former, he asserts that
"speech affords a woman the chance to determine in advance . . .
whether her suitor has the predisposition or intention to harm
her" (p. 205). How many women who have been date-raped would
agree that they could have known their suitors had darker
intentions in mind by simply talking to these men? In the
latter, he tells us that "pornography would disappear tomorrow
if women were as eager to have sex and behaved sexually as
indiscriminately as men" (p. 352). From that standpoint,
pornography is women's fault. Rest assured, there are 35 more of
these jewels in this tome, and these do not address the major
problem with his chronology: that all of these innovations
regarding sex, time and power occurred in 40,000 BC, an idea
that stands against the discoveries of birth goddess artifacts
by Marija Gimbutas and others.
Anyone who seeks to end misogyny and who questions the
inequities of power between the genders rates our attention. And
as stated previously, when that person has a gift for story-
telling, we may not even mind wading through the mire of
misinterpretation of data to hear out the teller. But in the
end, the most discriminating of readers should realize that the
stories told are simply that, stories. The problem lies in that
they are presented as The Truth. This is the point where the
stories cease to be amusing and become insidious and we can say
that the book is seriously flawed.
_____________________________
PAINTED LOVE: PROSTITUTION IN FRENCH ART OF THE IMPRESSIONIST ERA
by Hollis Clayson, Getty Trust Publications, Los Angeles, 2003.
202 pp., illus. 64 b/w, 29 col. Trade, $24.95; paper
(Yale, 1991). ISBN: 0-89236-729-6.
Reviewed by Wilfred Niels Arnold
warnold at kumc.edu
The sketchbooks of visual artists are often of considerable
interest in revealing evolutions into final drawings or
paintings. They may also expose more spontaneous sides, date
novel views and offer clues to individual professional
developments. The same is true for preliminary paintings,
unfinished works and things that fall behind the piano. But some
of us worry a bit about the extent of posthumous interpretation
that these artists would have wished for and, given the
opportunity, whether they would have preferred tossing out
immature or unsuccessful creations. Not so Hollis Clayson, who
seems to have assembled under one cover everything she found -
she gives Degas, Cezanne and Manet particularly exotic trips.
In several cases the themes and goals behind the art are more
ambiguous than *Painted Love* would have us believe. For
example, the story behind Cezanne's *A Modern Olympia*, his
attempt to impress Dr. Paul Gachet by whipping off a match to
Manet's *Olympia*, is not properly developed. I was disappointed
in the lack of definition of the title subjects and came away
wondering if some of the images were really of prostitution, as
claimed, or rather of something more flirtatious and less
commercial. Readers who might reasonably expect some comparisons
(visual or narrative) with "wholesome painted love" (from the
same era in Paris, or from London) will search in vain.
Although the title gives great weight to the impressionists,
the book's coverage is not restricted to this less than
homogeneous group or to their era. Manet, for instance, who is
featured on the cover, has a special relationship to the
impressionists that is not properly explained. Likewise, the
post-impressionists should at least have been identified as
such. Including Pablo Picasso is a bit much, especially since
Toulouse-Lautrec is mentioned en passant as early as page 3, but
never illustrated.
In general, the paper and print quality are quite reasonable
although the number of color plates is a bit mean and some
editorial decisions such as a black and white reproduction for
Manet's *Olympia* are hard to fathom. The index concentrates on
names and neglects subjects - a quick survey found many
omissions. This is a picture book with a titillating title that
will find its way to more coffee tables than desks.
_____________________________
WINDOWS AND MIRRORS: INTERACTION DESIGN, DIGITAL ART, AND THE
MYTH OF TRANSPARENCY
by Jay David Bolter and Diane Gromala,
MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 2003.
208 pp., 59 illus. Trade, $29.95. ISBN: 0-262-02545-0.
Reviewed by Rob Harle, Australia
recluse at lis.net.au
Is your computer simply a tool that allows you to create a
document or graphic image and, in so doing, remains transparent
(a window) to the creation? Or is the digital environment,
including peripherals, the medium (a mirror) itself? This
excellent book critically analyzes this concept. It is most
timely as computer technologies, like many other things we
humans do, we do without any planning. Computers and associated
software and networks have in a sense evolved in a higgledy-
piggledy fashion with little critical comprehensive planning.
*Windows and Mirrors* challenges the predominant view, espoused
by computer engineers and programmers, that this marvelous
digital tool should be transparent to the information it
processes and displays. As an example, these engineers, who
Bolter and Gromala call the "structuralists," believe that web
pages should convey information in the most straightforward and
clear manner possible. "Bell and whistle" creations, using
programs such as Flash, are at best wasteful and at worst
actually distort the real purpose of communication.
In contrast to the "structuralists'" view that, "computers are
information appliances" (p. 2), the "interaction designers"
would argue that if a person is not attracted to the medium
through well-designed graphic interfaces in the first place,
they will never get to the information anyway: "I believe design
drives the user's experience" (p. 4). The book provides a well-
presented and thoughtful treatment of this challenging debate.
Whilst the book is specifically about digital art, it says that
"it is written for digital designers and technologists in
general: Web designers, educational technologists, graphic
designers working with and in digital forms, interface designers
and human-computer interaction (HCI) experts" (p. 2).
*Windows and Mirrors* looks specifically at the SIGGRAPH 2000
Art Show. This "carnival for the twenty-first century" (p. 10)
is an academic conference as well as trade show, with the latest
releases of software packages such as Photoshop and OpenGL.
Perhaps most importantly, it presents the very latest creations
of digital art featuring the work of 60 leading digital artists.
A selection of their work is included and discussed throughout
the book, together with black-and-white photographs. I found the
work, "Wooden Mirror" (p. 32) especially fascinating.
Chapter 9 starts with the following statement: "Designers
cannot afford to ignore the need for transparency, but they can
show the Structuralists how sites can be reflective as well as
transparent" (p. 151). It appears that a compromise between the
"byte wasting" of visual designers and the deadly dull "pure
content" in one boring typeface of the "Structuralists" may be
happening.
It annoys me somewhat that these extreme dichotomist views
waste so much unnecessary time and energy, like the so-called
"mind-body" problem in philosophy. The problem only exists
because of the incorrect way of posing the question. Similarly,
there really should be no need for a book such as this because
in essence there can be no absolute structuralist or designer
position; it is only a question of how much design and
interaction is the optimum for a total user experience and this
is a question especially relevant to psychological
investigation. Even the staunchest structuralist philosophy
still uses fonts and text layout dictated by ASCII standards.
For those that are old enough to remember, the artistically
inclined amongst us developed clever graphic images using only
ASCII characters to communicate visually - like the dog banner
of FidoNet. This demonstrates in a small way the intrinsic need
for an artistic component in all things we create, from bridges
to kitchen sinks to clothes.
This book goes a long way in helping to bridge this unnecessary
tension that has shades of the architectural "form versus
function" dichotomy. Having done this successfully, it then
provides inspiring examples, especially through the SIGGRAPH
art, for all concerned in extending or implementing our digital
future.
________________________________________________________________
______________________________
| |
| LEONARDO JOURNAL |
|______________________________|
________________________________________________________________
LEONARDO, VOL. 37, NO. 3 (JUNE 2004) - TABLE OF CONTENTS AND
SELECTED ABSTRACTS
_____________________________
EDITORIAL
< Sundar Sarukkai: Beauty in the Beast >
< After Midnight >
< Phil Ross: SFO: It's All Good >
ARTIST'S NOTE
< Sonya Rapoport: *Smell Your Destiny*: Web Interaction with
the Fifth Sense >
STATEMENTS
< Nikolaus Bezruczko and Ambra Borgognoni Vimercati: Advances
in Measuring Artistic Judgment Aptitude >
< Brian Carroll: The Electromagnetic Internetwork >
< *Herland Elias*: Net Work on Network >
< J.W. Fost: Toward the Glass Bead Game: A Rhetorical Invention >
SPECIAL SECTION: ISEA 2002
< Peter Anders: Introduction: ISEA 2002: Orai: At the
Crossroads of Meaning >
< Roy Ascott: *Orai*, or How the Text Got Pleated: A Genealogy
of *La Plissure du Texte: A Planetary Fairytale* >
< Michael Punt: *Orai* and the Transdisciplinary *Wunderkammer* >
< Anne-Sarah Le Meur: *Into the Hollow of Darkness*: Realizing
a 3D Interactive Environment >
< Nancy Nisbet: Resisting Surveillance: Identity and
Implantable Microchips >
GENERAL ARTICLES
< Loe Feijs: Divisions of the Plane by Computer: Another Way of
Looking at Mondrian's Nonfigurative Compositions >
< Diogo Queiros-Conde: The Turbulent Structure of *Sfumato*
within *Mona Lisa* >
< Oded Ben-Tal and Jonathan Berger: Creative Aspects of
Sonification >
< Alice V. James, David A. James and Loukas N. Kalisperis: A
Unique Art Form: The Friezes of Pirgð >
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE
< Marc-Williams Debono: From Perception to Consciousness: An
Epistemic Vision of Evolutionary Processes >
LEONARDO REVIEWS
LEONARDO NETWORK NEWS
_____________________________
LEONARDO 37:3 - ABSTRACTS
_____________________________
*SMELL YOUR DESTINY*: WEB INTERACTION WITH THE FIFTH SENSE
by Sonya Rapoport
*Smell Your Destiny* is a fishy tale that parodies the quest
for success exhibited in the 21st-century cyber-personality.
This article is adapted from the author's web project, where
traits formerly considered undesirable and now considered
desirable for achieving success are administered to the populace
by means of aromatherapy. Play-on-word medications, derived from
the names of actual pharmaceuticals, are prescribed in pill form
for ingestion by fish that swim in community gene pools. The
pills induce curative fish fragrances that are exuded by the
fish into the environment. Trait changes occur when residents
breathe in the fumes, which are prescribed to accommodate
current societal values. URLs and links within the work provide
access to virtual smelling sites.
_____________________________
*ORAI*, OR HOW THE TEXT GOT PLEATED: A GENEALOGY OF *LA
PLISSURE DU TEXTE: A PLANETARY FAIRYTALE*
by Roy Ascott
This paper is an attempt to make sense of the Japanese word
orai and to consider in what way the author's own "comings and
goings" across artistic, literary and esoteric pathways led to
the formulation of his practice, later to be theorized as
telematic art and to be understood as a form of associative
connectivism. The paper focuses on La Plissure du Texte, his
first project involving distributed authorship.
_____________________________
*ORAI* AND THE TRANSDISCIPLINARY *WUNDERKAMMER*
by Michael Punt
The inevitable realization in scientific circles that the
reality of the imagined has an equivalent epistemological
significance to the material raises fascinating questions, as it
invites a skeptical reconsideration of the essential basis of
knowledge. While this dramatic shift provides a moment of
profound satisfaction for those artists, designers and
scientists who have long argued for a transdisciplinary
worldview, it also provides a moment of the greatest challenge
as we begin to consider how knowledge might be extended,
codified and distributed in a multiverse of collaborative
realities.
_____________________________
*INTO THE HOLLOW OF DARKNESS*: REALIZING A 3D INTERACTIVE
ENVIRONMENT
by Anne-Sarah Le Meur
The author considers the meaning of interactivity and the
potentials of virtual environments, in particular in the
exploration of the total visual field and its periphery. She
presents her artistic project, the aim of which is to cause
viewers to become more sensitive to their own perceptions,
respecting images and indistinct sensations that may arise.
_____________________________
RESISTING SURVEILLANCE: IDENTITY AND IMPLANTABLE MICROCHIPS
by Nancy Nisbet
Surveillance technologies and centralized databases are
threatening personal privacy and freedom. Radio Frequency
Identification (RFID) microchip technology is one of several
potential human tracking and authentication systems. The
author's interactive art installation, *Pop! Goes the Weasel*,
aims to explore opportunities for resisting surveillance by
altering underlying assumptions concerning identity. Viewers are
encouraged to experiment with resistance by avoiding access
control, intervening in the database and subverting notions of a
stable or single identity. The author is planning a future
project to develop an interface between the author's two
implanted microchips and her computer in order to track her
computer usage as it relates to her technology-induced shifting
sense of self.
_____________________________
DIVISIONS OF THE PLANE BY COMPUTER: ANOTHER WAY OF LOOKING AT
MONDRIAN'S NONFIGURATIVE COMPOSITIONS
by Loe Feijs
The article discusses a novel way of looking at Mondrian's
nonfigurative paintings. Different periods of Mondrian's life
correspond to distinct types of nonfigurative compositions, but
can the distinction be formalized? How many bits or numbers are
needed to characterize a typical composition? Can the rules of a
composition type be expressed in the language of the computer?
If distinct composition types require different computer
programs, can these be based on a common framework, a mechanism,
perhaps? The findings presented here are only tentative, but it
is interesting to note that some characteristics can be modeled
reasonably well, whereas others still resist formalization in
the presented framework. The author's approach borrows
principles from genetic programming. Employing a built-in random
number generator, it can be used to explore a large space of
"compositions."
_____________________________
THE TURBULENT STRUCTURE OF *SFUMATO* WITHIN *MONA LISA*
by Diogo Queiros-Conde
The author describes a particular way of looking at the *Mona
Lisa* whereby evidence of a turbulent structure (based on
underlying *sfumato*) that reveals an infinity of hidden faces
behind the famous figure can be seen. When light is
progressively reduced by a "squinting process," the effect is
especially striking in the last face on the edge of the
painting's dark areas. The author interprets this visual
phenomenon in the context of *entropic skins geometry*, which he
has developed to describe the geometry and statistics of
turbulent flows. Finally, the author argues that the form just
under Mona Lisa's left shoulder can be interpreted as a human
skull anamorphosis, as a kind of ironic signature by Leonardo.
_____________________________
CREATIVE ASPECTS OF SONIFICATION
by Oded Ben-Tal and Jonathan Berger
A goal of sonification research is the intuitive audio
representation of complex, multidimensional data. The authors
present two facets of this research that may provide insight
into the creative process. First, they discuss aspects of
categorical perception in nonverbal auditory scene analysis and
propose that these characteristics are simplified models of
creative engagement with sound. Second, they describe the use of
sonified data in musical compositions by each of the authors and
observe aspects of the creative process in the purely aesthetic
use of sonified statistical data.
_____________________________
A UNIQUE ART FORM: THE FRIEZES OF PIRG
by Alice V. James, David A. James and Loukas N. Kalisperis
In the village of Pirgð on the Greek island of Chios, the
faÞades of hundreds of buildings are completely covered with
gray and white friezes. Circles, squares, triangles and
rhomboids are used to create a lively geometry, ranging from the
straightforward to the complex, to give each house its
distinctive identity, its own unique face to display to the
world. While analyzing the frieze designs, the authors
discovered that the frieze artists intuitively obey a unique set
of color-reversing rules. The goal of the project was to explain
this powerful art form and to discover the essential
mathematical structure underlying these color-reversing friezes.
_____________________________
FROM PERCEPTION TO CONSCIOUSNESS: AN EPISTEMIC VISION OF
EVOLUTIONARY PROCESSES
by Marc-Williams Debono
The concept of plasticity provides a unifying hypothesis to
account for the natural properties of living systems as well as
the different levels of perception and information associated
with these systems. Are the metadynamics of evolutionary
processes able to describe the nature of consciousness as a
whole? The close study of the link between the coherence of
emerging objects and the way we think they appear allows us to
use the metaphor of a discontinuous bridge linking primitive
perceptions to consciousness just as brain plasticity is linked
to art.
________________________________________________________________
______________________________
| |
| LEONARDO ABSTRACTS |
| SERVICE |
|______________________________|
________________________________________________________________
The Leonardo Abstracts Service (LABS) is a listing of Masters
and Ph.D. theses in the art/science/technology field, for the
benefit of scholars and practitioners.
LEA also maintains a discussion list open only to faculty in
the field. Students interested in contributing and faculty
wishing to join this list should contact lea at mitpress.mit.edu
_____________________________
AUTHOR
Peter Anders
ptr at mindspace.net
LANGUAGES FAMILIAR TO THE AUTHOR
English and German
THESIS TITLE
A Procedural Model for the Integration of Physical and
Cyberspaces in Architecture
ABSTRACT
Research suggests that environments which hybridize
technologies call for a conception of space as information, as a
tool for and product of cognition. This moots the differences
between *real* and *virtual* experience. The thesis proposes a
model whereby architecture may employ this concept of space in
the creation of hybrids that integrate physical and cyberspaces.
Further, it articulates opportunities offered by architectural
computation, in particular the digital simulation of space known
as virtual reality (VR) and its networked, social variant
cyberspace.
The dissertation presents important developments in
architectural computation that disclose concepts and values that
contrast with orthodox practice. Virtual reality and cyberspace,
the foci of this inquiry, are seen to embody the more
problematic aspects of these developments. They also raise a
question of redundancy: If a simulation is good enough, do we
still need to build? As technology matures and simulations
become more realistic the challenge posed by VR/cyberspace to
architecture only becomes more pressing. If the case for virtual
idealism seems only to be strengthened by technological and
cultural trends, it would seem that a virtual architecture
should have been well established in the decade since its
introduction.
After reviewing the history of design computation the
dissertation pursues an assessment that reveals latent, accepted
virtualities in design methodologies, instrumentation, and the
notations of architectural practices. Of special importance is a
spatial database that now pervades the design and construction
processes. The unity of this database, effectively a project's
cyberspace, and its material counterpart is the subject of the
remainder of the dissertation. Such compositions of physical and
cyberspaces are herein called *cybrids*. The dissertation
examines current technologies that cybridize architecture and
information technology, and proposes their integration within
cybrid wholes. The concept of cybrids is articulated in seven
principles that are applied in a case study for the design for
the Planetary Collegium. The project is presented and critiqued
on the basis of these seven principles. The dissertation
concludes with a discussion of possible effects of cybrids upon
architecture and contemporary culture.
KEYWORDS
cyberspace, virtual reality, mixed reality, cybrid,
architecture, design, hybrid, Planetary Collegium, design
computing, CAD, CAAD
YEAR PUBLISHED/EXAMINED
2004
URL
http://mindspace.net
ORIGINAL LANGUAGE OF THESIS
English
COPYRIGHT OWNERSHIP
Peter Anders
THESIS SUPERVISOR
Roy Ascott, University of Plymouth
Computing/CaiiA-STAR(Planetary Collegium)
roy.ascott at btinternet.com
INSTITUTION WHERE DEGREE WAS GRANTED
University of Plymouth
INSTITUTION URL:
http://www.plymouth.ac.uk
INSTITUTION CONTACT DETAILS
The University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth, Devon PL4
8AA, United Kingdom
Tel: +44(0)1752 232 786; Fax: +44(0)1752 232 155
graduateschool at plymouth.ac.uk.
THESIS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST
Contact author or University of Plymouth
________________________________________________________________
______________________________
| |
| OPPORTUNITY |
|_________________________________|
________________________________________________________________
RE:SEARCHING OUR ORIGINS: Critical and Archival
Histories of the Electronic Arts
Guest Editors: Paul Brown <Paul at paul-brown.com> and
Catherine Mason <cs.mason at hart.bbk.ac.uk>
The mid- to late 20th Century has become a popular topic for
humanities research in recent years. Many projects are
attempting to re-discover and re-contextualise the somewhat
neglected field of history of art and technology. International
histories of electronic and digital arts are now beginning to be
written and voice given to the pioneers of these artforms.
Additionally, with contemporary 'new media' artforms such as
video and net art enjoying high prominence at present, much
discussion is taking place about the foundations of current
practice and about reception of electronic arts in cultural
institutions, including curatorial practice as well as archiving
and conservation issues.
This special issue of LEA seeks to report on international
projects and initiatives working to recover, document or
construct critical and historical contexts for the electronic
arts.
Topics of interest might include (but are not limited to):
* Origins of electronic and digital arts
* Key transition points, for example - from analogue to digital
* Art and technology collaborations
* Educational/access initiatives
* Critical analyses
* Cultural analyses
* Acquisition and conservation issues
* EtcÖ
For the LEA February 2005 issue, we invite contributions from
artists, practitioners, curators, theorists and historians that
engage with histories of the electronic/digital arts and
art/science/technology collaborations. These can include:
- full papers
- works in progress
- artists' statements
- museum and gallery initiatives
- etcÖ
Under three levels of submission:
- Fully refereed papers
- Shorter work that may be sent to peer review and
- Personal reminiscences and experiences that may be
editorially selected and not peer reviewed.
The guest editors are members of CACHe: Computer Arts,
Contexts, Histories, etcÖ a major research and archiving project
based in the School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media at
Birkbeck, University of London and funded by the UK Government's
Arts and Humanities Research Board. CACHe is documenting and
contextualising the early days of computer arts in the UK from
its origins in the 1960s to 1980, when the first "User Friendly"
systems began to appear. http://www.bbk.ac.uk/hafvm/cache/
LEA encourages international artists / academics / researchers
/ students to submit their proposals for consideration. We
particularly encourage authors outside North America and Europe
to send proposals for articles/gallery/artists statements.
Proposals should include:
- 200 - 300 word abstract / synopsis
- A brief author biography
- Any related URLs
- Contact details
Timeline
1 May 2004 - submission of abstracts
31 May 2004 - short-listed candidates informed
31 Sept 2004 - Contributors to submit full papers for peer review
Deadline for abstracts: 1 May 2004
Please send proposals or queries to:
Paul Brown <Paul at paul-brown.com> or
Catherine Mason <cs.mason at hart.bbk.ac.uk>
and
Nisar Keshvani
LEA Editor-in-Chief
lea at mitpress.mit.edu
_____________________________
>From the Extraordinary to the Uncanny:
the persistence of a parallel universe
Guest Editor: Michael Punt
< extraordinaryconnections at uk2.net >
We are seeking submissions of papers and other works from
artists historians, and theorists interested in this topic. In
particular we are calling for short papers (±2500 words) or
artists statements and image essays on:
* para-science and para-art
* spirit photography
* magic, conjuring and performance
* consciousness, precognition and the uncanny subject
* coincidence, narrative and psychoanalysis
* history and the inexplicable event
* sub-cellular phenomena and a macro reality
* toward a theory of unstable realities
* accident, memory and amnesia
LEA encourages international artists / academics / researchers
/ students to submit their proposals for consideration. We
particularly encourage young authors outside North America and
Europe to send proposals for articles/gallery/artists statements.
Expressions of interest and outline should include:
- 300 word abstract / synopsis
- A brief author biography
- Any related URLs
- Contact details
Deadline for expressions of interest: 30 April 2004
Deadline for accepted proposals: 10 September 2004.
Please send proposals or queries to:
Michael Punt
extraordinaryconnections at uk2.net
or
Nisar Keshvani
LEA Editor-in-Chief
lea at mitpress.mit.edu
_____________________________
Network Leaps, Bounds and Misses: Critiquing Regional
Strategies for Digital Arts and Electronic Music
in Asia and the Pacific
Guest Editor: Fatima Lasay <fats at up.edu.ph>
Under the UNESCO Digi-Arts Knowledge Portal for technology-
based arts and music, an international colloquium took place on
4-5 December, 2003 at the Sarai Center for Study of Developing
Societies in Delhi, India. The meeting, entitled "Old
pathways/New travelers: new media, electronic music and digital
art practices in the Asia Pacific region", sought to launch a
media arts and electronic music initiative sponsored by UNESCO
Digi-Arts and Sarai, to promote and develop research,
networking, mutual cooperation, training and knowledge in these
fields within the region. The meeting also aimed to point out
the role and place of media and technology in a social, cultural
and economic landscape inscribed by ancient histories of contact
and paths that internally connect the landmass of Asia and the
island cultures of the Pacific regions, its impact on young
people and its potential as a unique tool to promote cultural
diversity.
As critical and engaging discussions of such a network of
associations are underway, what do our past and current national
and regional practices reveal about the limits of localization,
proximity and regional reification? What lies beneath or within
concepts of media and technology as instruments for promoting
cultural diversity? Is media and technology a result or cause of
culture? What is the position of media, art and technology in
the ontological divide between regionalization and
globalization? In which aspects do we need to transcend the
regional level in the regional network building efforts? What is
the significance of local ontologies within the process of
building a regional network?
Can asymmetrical local and regional development and promotion
of digital arts in the region be addressed by mere institutional
and conventional proximity? If geographic proximity is
insuficient, then which conceptual spaces might provide a more
solid basis for cooperative development? What critical and
realistic approaches have been and can be made, in both
imagination and actualization, to move in opposite directions
and still meet together, across the globe, in building that
strong and balanced support structure for digital arts in the
region?
For the June issue of LEA, we invite contributions from
artists, musicians, practitioners, curators and critics that
address regional networking competence problems and realities in
the field of digital arts and electronic music in the Asia
Pacific cultures.
LEA encourages international artists / academics / researchers
/ students to submit their proposals for consideration. We
particularly encourage authors outside North America and Europe
to send proposals for articles/gallery/artists statements.
Proposals should include:
- 300 word abstract / synopsis
- A brief author biography
- Any related URLs
- Contact details
Deadline for proposals: Extended to 15 April 2004
Please send proposals or queries to:
Fatima Lasay
fats at up.edu.ph
or
Nisar Keshvani
LEA Editor-in-Chief
lea at mitpress.mit.edu
_____________________________
New Media Designer
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
New Media Designer: The Department of Visual Communication
seeks a full-time faculty member with expertise in web- or video-
based communication design and/or interactive media, to teach
graphic design within an interdisciplinary context. Core
Curricular topics include theories, strategies and methodologies
of navigation, interpretation, content configuration and digital
production. Related competencies might include typographic
structure and expression; hybrid environments; planning and
production of motion graphics for television and film; research
and development of cultural and environmental issues; and /or
contemporary visual cultural criticism.
The successful candidate will play a lead role in the
coordination and continued development of the new media track in
Visual Communication. Teaching experience and a erminal degree
in visual communication, design or other relevant area
preferred. Applicants should have an active design and/or art
practice.
The position is full-time, tenure-track, rank and salary
commensurate with experience and begins the fall of 2004.
Application curriculum vitae, course syllabi, artist statement
and teaching philosophy, and design work in the form of slides,
CD-ROM, DVD, VHS, or Website.
New Media Designer Search Committee/LEO
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Dean's Office
37 S Wabash Ave
Chicago, IL 60603
Preferred Deadline April 1, 2004
Application materials will be accepted until the position is
filled.
About School of the Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a leading
professional school of art and design, operates with the museum
of the Art Institute of Chicago at the center of one of the
country's most exciting and diverse cultural communities. The
School is comprised of 13 studio departments and a first year
program, 7 academic departments and 3 certificate programs and
offers the BFA with Emphasis in Art History: BFA with Emphasis
in Art Education; BA in Visual Studies; Master of Fine
Arts degrees in studio and writing, and Master of Art degrees
in Arts Administration, Art Education, Art History/Theory and
Criticism, Art Therapy and Master of Science in Historic
Preservation, as well as post baccalaureate certificates and
continuing studies programs. The School of the Art Institute
believes that all persons are entitled to equal employment
opportunities, and does not discriminate against its employees
because of race, religion, color, national origin, age, gender
or any other bases prohibited by law, provided they are
qualified and meet the requirements established for the job.
Women, minorities and international applicants are encouraged to
apply. The School currently enrolls 2,280 FTE students and
employs 125 full-time faculty and 342 part-time faculty, 297
full and part-time staff.
________________________________________________________________
___________________
| |
| |
| CREDITS |
| |
|___________________|
Nisar Keshvani: LEA Editor-in-Chief
Patrick Lambelet: LEA Managing Editor
Michael Punt: LR Editor-in-Chief
Andre Ho: Web Concept and Design Consultant
Roger Malina: Leonardo Executive Editor
Stephen Wilson: Chair, Leonardo/ISAST Web Committee
Craig Harris: LEA Founding Editor
Editorial Advisory Board:
Irina Aristarkhova, Roy Ascott, Fatima Lasay, Michael Naimark,
Craig Harris, Julianne Pierce
Gallery Advisory Board:
Mark Amerika, Paul Brown, Choy Kok Kee, Steve Dietz, Kim Machan
fAf-LEA Corresponding Editors:
Ricardo Dal Farra, Elga Ferreira, Young Hae-Chang, Fatima
Lasay, Lee Weng Choy, Jose-Carlos Mariategui, Marcus Neustetter,
Elaine Ng, Marc Voge
________________________________________________________________
___________________
| |
| LEA |
| WORLD WIDE WEB |
| ACCESS |
|___________________|
For over a decade, Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA) has thrived
as an international peer-reviewed electronic journal and web
archive, covering the interaction of the arts, sciences and
technology. LEA emphasizes rapid publication of recent work and
critical discussion on topics of current excitement. Many
contributors are younger scholars and artists, and there is a
slant towards shorter, less academic texts.
Contents include Leonardo Reviews, edited by Michael Punt,
Leonardo Research Abstracts of recent Ph.D. and Masters theses,
curated Galleries of current new media artwork, and special
issues on topics ranging from Artists and Scientists in times of
War, to Zero Gravity Art, to the History of New Media.
LEA is accessible using the following URL: http://lea.mit.edu
________________________________________________________________
_________________
| LEA |
| PUBLISHING |
| INFORMATION |
|_________________|
Editorial Address:
Leonardo Electronic Almanac
Studio 3a, 35 Place du Bourg-de-four
1204 Geneva, Switzerland
E-mail: lea at mitpress.mit.edu
________________________________________________________________
Copyright (2004), Leonardo, the International Society for the
Arts, Sciences and Technology
All Rights Reserved.
Leonardo Electronic Almanac is published by:
The MIT Press Journals, Five Cambridge Center,
Cambridge, MA 02142
U.S.A.
Re-posting of the content of this journal is prohibited without
permission of Leonardo/ISAST, except for the posting of news and
events listings which have been independently received.
Leonardo/ISAST and the MIT Press give institutions permission to
offer access to LEA within the organization through such
resources as restricted local gopher and mosaic services. Open
access to other individuals and organizations is not permitted.
________________________________________________________________
< Ordering Information >
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=4&tid=27&
mode=p
Leonardo Electronic Almanac is free to Leonardo/ISAST members and
to subscribers to the journal Leonardo for the 2004 subscription
year. The rate for Non-Leonardo individual subscribers is $35.00,
and for Non-Leonardo institutional subscribers the rate is
$77.00. All subscriptions are entered for the calendar year only.
All orders must be prepaid by check (must be drawn against a U.S.
bank in U.S. funds), money order, MasterCard, VISA, or American
Express. Where student subscription rates are available, a
verification of matriculant status is required.
Note: In order to place orders electronically, you must be using
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the security features necessary to use this interface. Please use
the addresses below to submit your order. Address all orders and
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TEL: (617) 253-2889 (M-F, 9-5)
FAX: (617) 577-1545 (24 hours)
For questions contact:
journals-orders at mit.edu (subscriptions)
________________________________________________________________
________________
| |
| ADVERTISING |
|________________|
Leonardo Electronic Almanac is published monthly -- individuals
and institutions interested in advertising in LEA, either in the
distributed text version or on the World Wide Web site should
contact:
Leonardo Advertising Department
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Tel: (415)-405-3335
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More Info: http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-
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________________________________________________________________
____________________
| |
| ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS |
|____________________|
LEA acknowledges with thanks the Rockefeller and Ford
Foundations for their support to Leonardo/ISAST and its projects.
________________________________________________________________
< End of Leonardo Electronic Almanac 12 (04) >
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