Leonardo
Volume 28, No. 1 (1995)
Issue Contents
January/February 1995
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
by ROGER F. MALINA
THE LEONARDO GALLERY
by MICHAEL DASHKIN, KATHLEEN H. RUIZ, MECHTHILD SCHMIDT, MADELINE SCHWARTZMAN, LEAH SIEGEL, KENT
ROLLINS, ANNETTE WEINTRAUB, KATHRYN GREENE, KENNETH SEAN GOLDEN, KEVIN CRAWFORD
ARTIST'S NOTE:
My Love Affair with Art: Video and Installation Work
by STEINA VASULKA
ABSTRACT
The author, a video art pioneer, discusses some of her works and the contexts in which they have been
created. Her discussion ranges from the early days of video art in New York in the late 1960s to her most recent works.
ARTIST'S ARTICLE:
The Demon's Face: An Artist's
Discovery of the Metaphors of Child Abuse
by STEVENS SEABERG
ABSTRACT
The author discusses his discovery of the influence his experience as a child of an alcoholic family has played in his art. Beginning with two exhibitions
of art by himself and other Atlanta artists from abusive backgrounds and using examples from his own work, including drawings, prints, paintings, constructions and performances, he
shows how his imagery is related to his childhood experiences and feelings. These relations can be understood as visual analogues of the original abuse, its accompanying objects and gestures and the feelings stemming from it.
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE:
The Artist and Advanced Technology
by FRANK POPPER
ABSTRACT
Positing that an artist is someone who chooses and pursues with perseverance an aesthetic goal, the author discusses various artists using advanced technologies. He holds that their use facilitates both the strengthening of their creative powers and their social integration. He concludes that belonging to an artistic trend
linked to the ideas of the time is indispensable
both for being recognized and for defining oneself as an artist.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE:
The Work of Italian Artist Pietro Grossi: From Early Electronic Music to Computer Art
by FRANCESCO GIOMI
ABSTRACT
The author narrates the artistic life of the experimental music pioneer Pietro Grossi, following all the stages of his career---from
his early activities as a cellist and instrumental composer to his later work as a computer artist. Grossi's main experiments in electronic and computer music---from the 1950s to the present---are described. Grossi has performed, recorded and taught music. He has founded
musical associations and promoted the institution of conservatory courses in electronic music. His
contributions to the development of new technological musical instruments and to the creation of software packages for music-processing design have been fundamental. In recent years, he has been working on new forms of artistic production oriented toward the use of personal computers in the visual arts.
GENERAL ARTICLE:
Tessellations in Islamic Calligraphy
by MANGHO AHUJA
ABSTRACT
The authors provide a brief history of the art of calligraphy in Muslim cultures,
highlighting examples of tessellations of
words. The underlying principles for designing a word tessellation inscribed in a hexagon are discussed, and a test for determining which words can be tessellated is provided. The authors
demonstrate their attempts at tessellating the word "Ali."
DOCUMENT: Yestermorrow: A Feasting of Thoughts, A Banqueting of Words
by RAY BRADBURY
SPECIAL SECTION
Light from an Extinct Star: Music and Technology in the Former Soviet Union
by BULAT M. GALEYEV
Polyphony in the Paintings of M. K. Ciurlionis
by VLADIMIR M. FEDOTOV
ABSTRACT
The author discusses the work of M. K. Ciurlionis, a
Lithuanian musical composer and painter who lived in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Although historians recognize that music influenced some of the composer's paintings,
the author argues that all of Ciurlionis's work is based on or influenced by elements of classical musical composition.
Color-Thermal Associations in Music
by LEVON A. GRIGORYAN
ABSTRACT
The author describes his experimental attempts to organically synthesize color and light with the contents of a musical work. His experiments have led him to conclude that (1) the interaction of the auditory and the optic analyzers is possible only in the case that the parameters of the synthesis are adequate, and (2) the only parameters of the synthesis that yield an adequate parallelism
are the musical mode and the thermal tone of the color.
The ANS Synthesizer: Composing on a Photoelectric Instrument
by STANISLAV KREICHI
ABSTRACT
The author describes the history and design of the ANS synthesizer and discusses his work composing music
with the help of this photoelectronic instrument.
Project FORMUS: Sonoric Space-Time and the Artistic Synthesis of Sound Russian Bibliography
by VICTOR ULIANICH
ABSTRACT
The author describes Project FORMUS, a
computer audio processing system for professional composers that he developed on the basis of his creative principles. He considers problems involving the synthesis of complex music
matter and the maintenance of close contact between the creator and the creative materials. He presents his concept of artistic sound
synthesis and provides concrete examples from his own compositions.
ABSTRACTS
Nuvo Japonica
by LAWRENCE M. GARTEL
The Talking Chair: Notes on a Sound Sculpture
by IAIN MOTT
Artistic Creation and Scientific Discovery: One Practitioner's Experience
by MAKEPEACE TSAO
REVIEWS
by
DAVID CARRIER, ROGER F. MALINA, STEPHEN WILSON, RUDOLF ARNHEIM, SONYA RAPOPORT, BULAT M. GALEYEV
COMMENTARY
by
JOHN F. KALBEN
