Leonardo
Volume 31, Number 4
Contents
August/September 1998
Leonardo is a print journal, edited by Leonardo/the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology, and published by the MIT Press. Subscriptions and individual issues can be ordered from the MIT Press.
TO ORDER.
Page 243
ISAST News
Pages 245-246
Editorial
John Lansdown: Why Not More Algorithmic Art?
Pages 247-262
Artists' Article
Mario Ramiro: Between Form and Force: Connecting Architectonic, Telematic and Thermal Spaces
This article is part of the Leonardo special project entitled A Radical Intervention: The Brazilian Contribution to the International Electronic Art Movement, guest-edited by Eduardo Kac. The project consists of a wealth of information in the form of a gallery, chronologies and a series of articles published in various issues of Leonardo and/or on the Leonardo World Wide Web Site.
ABSTRACT
The author surveys his work from the late 1970s in Brazil to the present in Germany, describing specific pieces and discussing key ideas and metaphors. He started working with public spaces in São Paulo, modifying the architectural environment in collaborative projects called Urban Interventions. These works led to experimentation with photocopiers and later to work with telecommunications---radio, telephones, television, answering machines, videotex, slow-scan TV and fax. Since the early 1980s he has created levitational sculptures (three-dimensional forms that are literally suspended in the air) and thermal sculptures with invisible volumes. His continuous exploration of thermal space has taken new forms through the use of Schlieren photography, an imaging technique that results in photographs that reveal invisible phenomena occurring in the atmosphere around warm bodies or objects, evoking the power of life and death forces.
Pages 263-282
Special Section: The Leonardo Art and Biology Project
A 30th-Anniversary Project
The Leonardo Gallery
ART+BIO
Curated by David C. Stairs
Artists: Suzanne Anker, Ben Potter, Ted Purves, Sonya Rapoport, Gail Wight, Martin Zet
Artist's Article
Sonya Rapoport: The Transgenic Bagel: The Transformation of Computer-Based Artwork
ABSTRACT
The Transgenic Bagel, a parody on recombinant gene-slicing, is an interactive art project that has evolved from a computer-based to a World Wide Web--based artwork. Its parodic content hypothesizes that Noah's Ark comprised the first gene pool and was the first experiment in gene technology. In this work, mythical animals residing in Noah's virtual ark carry the Noahsomal DNA of biblical characters. Interactive options are provided for viewers to select desired traits of persons depicted in the Book of Genesis. Once selected, these trait genes are transferred to the participant via state-of-the-art bagel technology. The author describes the evolution of the project through several electronic presentation formats and discusses how the different formats affected the stages of the work
Artists' Statements
- Bruce Damer: The Nerve Garden: Plant a Seed in Cyberspace
- David S. Goodsell: Molecules into Cells: Depicting the Cellular Mesoscale
- Julie Harrison and Joe Elliott: If It Rained Here
- Clifford A. Pickover: Algorithmic Fabergé Eggs via Residue Analysis
Pages 283-292
Special Section: Planetary Collegium
Lily Díaz: Digital Archeology: Design Research and Education---Connecting Historical Narratives and Digital Environments
ABSTRACT
The author describes Digital Archeology, a design/research discipline being developed at the Media Laboratory of the University of Art and Design, Helsinki, Finland. Digital Archeology stresses the critical contribution of the artist to the development of information environments intended to reconstruct and make previously inaccessible cultural artifacts available to as wide an audience as possible. Issues of access and preservation, research and intellectual inquiry, and the metaphoric nature of technology are presented as the cornerstones of this endeavor.
Allegra Fuller Snyder with Victoria Vesna: Education Automation on Spaceship Earth: Buckminster Fuller's Vision---More Relevant than Ever
ABSTRACT
R. Buckminster Fuller is perhaps best known for his inventions of the geodesic dome and the Dymaxion car; his inventive ideas and approach to education have mostly been ignored. He was passionate about teaching and lectured widely. This aspect of Buckminster Fuller is discussed by someone intimately familiar with the multifaceted man---his daughter, Allegra Fuller Snyder---in an interview with artist/educator Victoria Vesna. Currently, Fuller Snyder is chairperson of the Buckminster Fuller Institute, an organization that acts as a central repository for an enormous collection of artifacts, manuscripts and media documenting the life and work of Buckminster Fuller.
Pages 293-298
Words on Works
- Marjorie Franklin: Digital Blood
- John Maxwell Hobbs: Towards Hypermusic
- Ian Pollock and Janet Silk: Local 411: Private Conversations in Public Space
- Eric Dymond: The Doorway
Pages 299-304
Historical Perspective on the Arts, Sciences and Technology
Roy R. Behrens: Art, Design and Gestalt Theory
ABSTRACT
Gestalt psychology was founded in 1910 by three German psychologists, Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kõhler. The author discusses gestalt theory's influence on modern art and design, describes its resemblance to Japanese-inspired theories of aesthetics and finds evidence of a mutual, if limited, interest between the gestalt psychologists and certain artists.
Pages 305-312
Design Languages
Terry W. Knight: Infinite Patterns and their Symmetries
This article is part of the Leonardo special project entitled "Design Languages," guest-edited by Raymond Lauzzana. The Design Languages special project is devoted to research in formal languages and their use for the synthesis of words, images, sounds and movement. Formal design theory, generative grammars, shape grammars, computational musicology and computational aesthetics are central to the subjects covered in this section.
ABSTRACT
Some ambiguities and curiosities that arise in the representation, construction, and symmetry classification of infinite patterns are examined. The discussion focuses on frieze patterns, a simple kind of infinite pattern. The examination of these patterns from a generative perspective---that is, in terms of rules that apply to construct them---reveals unusual characteristics of friezes.
Pages 313-319
Space Art
Douglas A. Vakoch: Signs of Life beyond Earth: A Semiotic Analysis of Interstellar Messages
This paper is based on an earlier version published as "An Iconic Approach to Communicating Chemical Concepts to Extraterrestrials" in the Proceedings of the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) 2704 (1996) pp. 140--149. Another version of this paper was published as "Pictorial Messages to Extraterrestrials," SETIQuest 4 (First Quarter, 1998) pp. 8-10; and "Pictorial Messages to Extraterrestrials," SETIQuest 4 (Second Quarter, 1998).
ABSTRACT
Previous proposals for communicating with extraterrestrials have relied heavily on pictorial messages, regardless of whether communication is via electromagnetic radiation or by spacecraft-borne messages. Pictorial messages can be categorized according to whether the pictures can be shown directly or whether they must first be formatted. The author discusses the advantages of direct representations and critiques the universality of pictorial representation. He proposes an alternative to the use of pictures to communicate, drawing on semiotic distinctions. With the author's approach, iconic representations---in which the sign bears a physical similarity to that which it represents---are shown directly, rather than in a format that must be reconstructed or decoded. This method of communication is illustrated with messages based on quantum-mechanical phenomena. The advantages of having the content of a message reflected in the form of the message are detailed.
Pages 320-324
Art/Science Forum
- Mark Beam: New Media Minds Forum
- Mark Tribe: Rhizome Internet
- Lydia Kavina, Alexander S. Belonenko, Mikhail S. Zalivadny and Irina Kanechkina: Theremin Jubilee Events, October--December 1996
Page 325
Leonardo On-Line Bibliographies
Pages 327-331
Reviews
Kasey Asberry, Roy R. Behrens, Sabine Fabo, Bulat M. Galeyev, István Hargittai, David Topper
