Leonardo

Volume 29 Number 3 (1996)


June/July 1996

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.

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ISSUE CONTENTS


Editorial

HARRY RAND: For Some Things, "You Just Had To Be There:" The Net and Art

Artists' Articles

KATHLEEN LAZIZA: Laziza Videodance and Lumia Project: The Intersection of Dance, Technology and Performance Art
ABSTRACT
The author chronicles the development of the Laziza Videodance and Lumia Project (LVLP), an experimental multiple-media theater that she founded with William Laziza in 1980. Descriptions of 14 movement-theater works detail LVLP's uses of special-effect lighting, video installation and production, optics and computers, as well as scientific and mathematical principles. The author discusses the intricacies of collaboration between technicians, art handlers, dancers and actors involved in multiple-media production.


TERESA WENNBERG: Through the Electronic Labyrinth: The Meanderings of a Visual Artist

ABSTRACT
The author describes the path that has taken her from the classic medium of oil on canvas to the world of sound, video and computer-graphic animation. She describes several of her large-scale installations in detail and discusses aspects of art based on new technologies.

General Notes

CHARLES R. GAROIAN AND JOHN D. MATHEWS: A Common Impulse in Art and Science
ABSTRACT
Meanings, processes and values associated with art and science are explored with the intention of finding the similarities and differences in the origins and intellectual products of these areas of human endeavor. The authors argue that the most important reason for the present separation of these areas has been a cultural and philosophical failure to recognize the common human origins and goals of each. They hypothesize that art and science both contribute new "words" to our cultural lexicon and thus conclude that these areas are the same in a formal lexical sense.


ANN PIZZORUSSO: Leonardo's Geology: The Authenticity of the Virgin of the Rocks

Technical Article

 VLADIMIR M. PETROV: Quantitative Estimates of Left- and Right-Hemispherical Dominance in Art
ABSTRACT
In order to determine their relationships to creativity, features of functional brain asymmetry were studied by means of analyzing the work of visual artists and composers from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, both in Western Europe and in Russia. To measure these features an iterative procedure was derived, permitting the researchers to use experts as specific "instruments." The results are objective, despite the subjectivity of the primary data, and indicate a degree of dominance of left- or right-hemispherical processes in the work of each painter and composer studied.

Theoretical Perspectives

J. YELLOWLEES DOUGLAS: Virtual Intimacy and the Male Gaze Cubed: Interacting with Narratives on CD-ROM
ABSTRACT
Interactive narratives on CD-ROM have the potential to make us feel more a part of the stories we experience than do either film or print. Yet, as some early offerings in this fledgling genre reveal, the use of subjective camera and the constraints on the user's interaction with the narrative can conspire to make some readers feel straitjacketed by the text, rather than transported by it. The author analyzes one of these early offerings in depth and presents some alternative possibilities for this new genre.


IVAN HYBS: Beyond the Interface: A Phenomenological View of Computer Systems Design
ABSTRACT
This article analyzes human-technology-world relations---namely, embodiment, hermeneutic and alterity relations---as a means of examining computer technology. Our understanding of computers and human-computer interaction is investigated in detail. In conclusion, the author indicates some flaws in current understanding of computer technology and of the technology's position within the human-technology-world continuum.

Document

ARLINDO MACHADO: Video Art: The Brazilian Adventure

Artists' Statements

STEPHEN AUGER: The Harmonic Nature of Perceptual Color As a Technique of Painting

RAYMOND ROHNER: Pigvision

Reviews

ROGER F. MALINA, TATYANA SHULGA

Special Section:
 A Conference on Intellectual Property Rights and the Arts: The Impact of New Technologies
PART I

Foreword

MAXWELL L. ANDERSON: The Byte-Sized Collections of Art Museums

IVAN G. SEIDENBERG: Protecting Intellectual Property: New Technologies---New Paradigms

JEFFREY P. CUNARD: Past as Precedent: Some Thoughts on Novel Approaches to the Nexus of Digital Technologies and the Arts

ERNEST L. BOYER: New Technologies and the Public Interest

JOEL DE ROSNAY: Protection of Intellectual Property Interests

About the Cover

Paul Brown, Ceiling Detail from the House of Signs, digital image, 1996. This image continues a study into tiling patterns that the artist began 25 years ago. The image is composed from a single, simple square tile that is permutated in a five-by-five matrix. The title takes its name from a work in progress called The House of Signs, which is a virtual environment that can be decoded and explored via signs embedded in the decorative features of rooms encountered by the participant. This is a ceiling panel from the entrance lobby. Its design was influenced by stamped metal ceiling decorations that are common in Australian colonial architecture.






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