Leonardo
Vol. 36, Issue 5 (2003)

Leonardo is a print journal, published five times a year. Leonardo is edited by Leonardo/the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology, and published by the MIT Press.

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Special Section: The Art of Burning Man

Introduction: Desert Weirdness Introduces a New Era of Art

Curator's Overview: The Outsider Art of Burning Man

ABSTRACT: The author describes art installations featured at the annual Burning Man event at Black Rock City, Nevada. Burning Man is community based, collaborative and interactive and attracts a unique community of artists, performers and free spirits. The goal of the event is to remove the artist from the world of commerce and competition, emphasizing instead collaboration, cooperation and shared experience.

Artists' Statements

Mobile Installations

The Voice of the Nebulous Entity
by Aaron Wolf Baum

The Flaming Metal Dragon
by Lisa Nigro

The Futura Deluxe Bubble Fountain & Porta-Temple
by Steven Raspa

Dr. Megavolt
by Austin Richards

Sculpture

Interactive Installations

The Cradle
by Deidre DeFranceaux and Jann Nunn

The Ammonite Project
by Hendrik Hackl

Firefall
by Cynthia "Kiki" Pettit

The Myth of Sisyphus
by Kal Spelletich

The Ribcage
by Jenne Giles and Philip Bonham

The One Tree
by Dan Das Mann

The Golden Tower Project
by Susan Robb

The Plastic Chapel
by Finley Fryer

Light Sculptures

L2K Ring Project and Ship to Ship
by Tim Black

The Lily Pond
by Jeremy Lutes

Spin
by Christopher Schardt

Beaming Man
by Russell Wilcox

Special Section: Global Crossings: The Cultural Roots of Globalization

Introduction

Uncomfortable Proximity: The Tate Invites Mongrel to Hack the Tate's Own Web Site

ABSTRACT: Uncomfortable Proximity is a critical web hack of the Tate Gallery's web site, created by Graham Harwood, a member of the Mongrel collective. Commissioned by Tate National Programmes, it mirrors the Tate's own web site, but offers new images and ideas, collaged from HarwoodÍs own experiences, his readings of Tate works and publicity materials and his interest in the Tate Britain site. A related critical text by Matthew Fuller provides wider cultural context.

The Crying Post Project: A Multi-Part, Multi-Media Artwork to Memorialize Global Sites of Pain

ABSTRACT: The author describes The Crying Post Project, an artwork consisting primarily of wood staffs with solar-powered "cry generators" placed at different sites throughout the globe, at locations of environmental and/or social damage. Its two other components include an interactive 3D web site, which has been created as an alternative, data-rich venue for the project, and a series of digitally created photographic prints designed to capture the artistÍs emotional response to the sites. The artist also discusses how this artwork has been inspired by his research on the cross-cultural symbolism of trees, the indigenous Australian worldview, mapping theory and the relationship between language extinction and environmental destruction.

Historical Perspective

The Dilemma of Media Art: Cybernetic Serendipity at the ICA London

ABSTRACT: One year after the 1967 Summer of Love and at a time of considerable political unrest throughout the United States and Europe, Cybernetic Serendipity---The Computer and the Arts opened at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London to much critical and popular acclaim. This paper outlines the conceptual framework of this seminal exhibition and looks at some of the accompanying press reception in order to address a key question: how media art deals with its own historicity and the underlying socioeconomic forces that render it possible. Presented 35 years ago and still paradigmatic for the ever-shifting boundaries between art, technology, commerce and entertainment, Cybernetic Serendipity epitomizes some of the complicated dynamics that delineate the gamut of media art today.

Commentaries

by Herbert Franke, Eduardo Kac

Leonardo Reviews

Reviews by Claire Barliant, Roy R. Behrens, Chris Cobb, Sean Cubitt, Luisa Paraguai Donati, Dene Grigar, Amy Ione, Michael R. Mosher, Jack Ox, Robert Pepperell, Soh Yeong Roh, George Shortess, Stefaan Van Ryssen

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