Leonardo
Vol. 37, Issue 1 (2004)

ABSTRACT: Framing interstellar messages as art projects is a recent development. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI, has largely been conducted by scientists and engineers, with minimal input from the artistic community. The SETI Institute and Leonardo have initiated a series of workshops to encourage discussion among artists, scientists and technologists about interstellar message composition. This special section of Leonardo features extended abstracts of six of the 18 presentations given at the first workshop devoted specifically to the interface of art, science and technology in interstellar message design, held in Paris on 18 March 2002.

Douglas A. Vakoch, Interstellar Message Group Leader, SETI Institute, 2035 Landings Drive, Mountain View, CA 94043, U.S.A. E-mail: vakoch@seti.org

SETI Workshop Statements

The Process of Art in Interstellar Message Construction
by RICHARD CLAR

Constants of Art and Nature: The Rainbow Project
by STEVE DEIHL

Sound as Intercultural Communication: A Meta-Analysis of Music with Implications for SETI
by ANDREW KAISER

A Science-and-Art Interstellar Message: The Self-Similar Sierpinski Gasket
by LUI LAM

Large-Size Message Construction for ETI: Music in Lingua Cosmica
by ALEXANDER OLLONGREN

Are We Alone? The Search for Extraterrestrial Civilizations
by DAN WERTHIMER and MARY KATE MORRIS

General Article

ABSTRACT: Ever since 1819, when Theophile Laënnec first put a block of wood to a patient's chest in order to listen to her heartbeat, physicians have used auscultation to help diagnose cardiopulmonary disorders. Here the authors describe a novel diagnostic method based in music technology. Digital music-synthesis software is used to transform the sequence of time intervals between consecutive heartbeats into an electroacoustic soundtrack. The results show promise as a diagnostic tool and also provide the basis of an interesting musical soundscape.

Mark Ballora, School of Music, Pennsylvania State University, 233 Music Building, University Park, PA 16802-1901, U.S.A. E-mail: ballora@psu.edu.

Artist's Statement

Dedication to the Forest: Composition for the Sounds of Forest, Cluster of Trombones and Recorded Tape
by DANIUS VALIONIS

Abstract

Art, Fact and Artifact Production: Design Research and Multidisciplinary Collaboration
by LILY DÌAZ-KOMMONEN

Technical Notes

ABSTRACT: The author describes his development of a computer-based paper-marbling tool, based on a traditional Turkish art form in which marbled-paper figures and patterns are created on the surface of a liquid bath. Similar works can be obtained by simulating fluid flows on a computer, using the Navier-Stokes equations as the physical model of the fluid flows. The author has created an application program that includes marbling tools. Such a program must run in real time, so that hand-eye coordination is required of the user. Real-time simulation of fluid flows requires much processor power. The author has attempted to adapt this technique for use with a personal computer. To decrease the processing power required, the image size may be decreased, but the results may not be as satisfactory.

B. Tevfik Akgun, Communication Design Department, Faculty of Art and Design, Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey. E-mail: akgunbt@yildiz.edu.tr.

Multifractal Fingerprints in the Visual Arts
by J.R. MUREIKA, G.C. CUPCHIK and C.C. DYER

ABSTRACT: The similarity in fractal dimensions of paint "blobs" in samples of gestural expressionist art implies that these pigment structures are statistically indistinguishable from one another. This conclusion suggests that such dimensions cannot be used as a "fingerprint" for identifying the work of a single artist. To overcome this limitation, the authors have adopted the multifractal spectrum as an alternative tool for artwork analysis. For the pigment blobs, it is demonstrated that this spectrum can be used to isolate a construction paradigm or art style. Additionally, the fractal dimensions of edge structures created by luminance gradients on the canvas are analyzed, yielding a potential method for visual discrimination of fractally similar paintings.

J.R. Mureika, W.M. Keck Science Center, The Claremont Colleges, 925 N. Mills Avenue, Claremont, CA 91711-5916, U.S.A. E-mail: jmureika@jsd.claremont.edu.

Historical Perspective

ABSTRACT: This essay seeks to historicize the technological production of artistic virtual space, which is often misconstrued as having originated with contemporary new media art production. The author critically investigates Le Corbusier's Poème électronique, a 1958 automated multimedia performance commissioned by the Philips Corporation for its pavilion at the World's Fair in Belgium, as a paradigmatic example of much earlier attempts to create a spatialized, virtual experience in the spectator. The author argues that the highly disciplined spectatorship conditions of the Poème électronique have many suggestive parallels with those of contemporary artistic production in new media, thus offering a theoretical and historical foundation for art-historical discourse regarding the proliferation of immersive multimedia artworks in contemporary practice.

Katie Mondloch, Department of Art History, University of California at Los Angeles, 100 Dodd Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1417, U.S.A. E-mail: mondloch@humnet.ucla.edu.

Theoretical Perspective

ABSTRACT: The author has identified four fundamental organizational principles common to both organic form and the creation of visual composition. The author proposes that our perceptual system has evolved to respond to these principles (perceptual primitives) due to the necessity of recognizing the diversity of organic forms on which our survival depended during our earlier evolution. The evidence shows that these four principles occur widely throughout humankind's aesthetic expression in different cultures, epochs, art forms and media. Applying von Humboldt's principle, the author proposes that these limited means provide unlimited possibilities for developing student creativity if it were taught as a coherent grammar.

Peter D. Stebbing (teacher), Hochschule für Gestaltung, D-73525 Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany. E-mail: stebbing@hfg-gmuend.de.

Leonardo Reviews

Reviews by Roy R. Behrens, Luisa Paraguai Donati, Dene Grigar, Diane Gromala, Amy Ione, Michael R. Mosher, Maureen Nappi, Robert Pepperell, Aparna Sharma, Yvonne Spielmann, David Topper and Stefaan Van Ryssen.

Leonardo Network News

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