Leonardo On-Line
 Order  Index/Search  Home  About Us  Whats New

Leonardo

Volume 28, No. 4 (1994)

Issue Contents
August/September 1994

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

EDITORIAL: Art Is Long. . . .

by ERNST GOMBRICH

THE LEONARDO GALLERY

by ANNA CAMPBELL BLISS, Curator; ROMAN VEROSTKO, SARA GARDEN ARMSTRONG, DALE ELDRED

WORDS ON WORKS

by LAURA L. CLEMONS, ANN POWERS, MARTINA M. SHENAL, JOSEPH WILSON, SARAH JACKSON, LUCIA GROSSBERGER-MORALES

ARTIST'S ARTICLE:
Artist-Sorceress: Photography and Digital Metamorphosis

by MARILYN WALIGORE

ABSTRACT
This article explores the negative stereotype of the witch. The artist uses high-end computer-imaging technology to alter large format photographic images on the computer screen. She discusses the process of working in still-life photography---and specifically the tradition of the Vanitas---with computer montage techniques. A particular emphasis is placed upon the potential of computer compositing for fusing image and text, experimenting with image metamorphosis and promoting visual illusion. The artist develops a model for the witch/sorceress as a reaction against cultural stereotypes.

GENERAL ARTICLE:
A Simultaneous View of History: The Creation of a Hypermedia Database

by LILY DIAZ

ABSTRACT
This paper describes the creation of the hypermedia application A Simultaneous View of History, a compilation of sources related to the practice of visualization by European explorers in sixteenth-century Latin America. The overlapping layers of data that can be constructed through hypermedia design are compared to a palimpsest. Both the palimpsest and hypermedia can present a simultaneous view of different discourses. The artist discusses her idea of presenting a "palimpsest view" of history by using hypermedia to juxtapose historical materials and thus point to differing versions of historical events. She discusses the research involved in the creation of the application and reconstructs some of the techniques that European explorers used to gather data in Latin America. She compares the sixteenth-century European practice of compiling and presenting data from foreign lands to modern scientific visualization, which uses the computer to present images of otherwise imperceptible data.

GENERAL ARTICLE:
Reading/Writing Hyperfictions: The Psychodrama of Interactivity

by CHRISTIANE PAUL

ABSTRACT
This article explores the aesthetic implications of reading and writing hyperfiction. Text written for an interactive medium creates a radically different reading environment. The process of reading hyperfiction is inner-directed rather than other-directed. Since it is the reader who assembles the text, the boundaries between reader and text collapse, and the text is not necessarily perceived as an otherness. According to Baudrillard, the absence of otherness leads to psychodrama, an artificial dramaturgy simulating and dramatizing the absence of the other; in this dramaturgy, the subject becomes interactive, a candidate for all possible connections and combinations. The author addresses questions concerning narrative closure/causality/logic and time raised by the openness to connections and combinations required in navigating through a nonsequential text.

GENERAL ARTICLE: Dutch Holographic Laboratory

by WALTER SPIERINGS with ANA BARRETO

ABSTRACT
The author discusses his early work in holography, including the testing and development of the "Pyrochrome" process, as well as the founding of his company, Dutch Holographic Laboratory, its growth and current research in computer-generated, full-color holography and new production techniques.

GENERAL NOTE: Color-Music Fountains and Installations of the Erebuni Group

by ABRAM ALEXANDROVICH ABRAMYAN

ABSTRACT
The author describes some of the color-music fountains and other installations developed by the Erebuni group of Yerevan, Armenia. In the republics of the former Soviet Union, the Erebuni group has designed groupings of fountains whose operations are synchronized with colored lights and music. These works are multichannel engineering constructions of decorative art. The installations use audiovisual effects to create colorful, picturesque scenes that appeal to the emotions.

SPECIAL SECTION:

The Fourth International Symposium on Electronic Art (FISEA) Symposium Papers


Selected Papers from FISEA: The Art Factor

by ROMAN VEROSTKO


ISEA: An Introduction

by WIM VAN DER PLAS


Aesthetics of a Virtual World

by CAROL GIGLIOTTI

ABSTRACT
The author explores the emerging aesthetics of interactive technologies---such as virtual reality, multimedia and telecommunication---and the inherent commitment artists must assume in accepting responsibility for the impact of these aesthetics. By examining connections between ethics and aesthetics throughout Western history, the author attempts to transform the aesthetics of virtual worlds to impact ethical thought. She lists six factors integral to responsible aesthetics in virtual systems: interface, content, environment, perception, performance and plasticity.


Granular Synthesis of Sounds by Means of a Cellular Automaton

by EDUARDO RECK MIRANDA

ABSTRACT
Chaosynth is a new sound synthesis system being developed by the author and others working at Edinburgh University. Chaosynth functions by generating a large amount of short sonic events, or particles, in order to form larger, complex sound events. This synthesis technique is inspired by granular synthesis. Most granular synthesis techniques, however, use stochastic methods to control the formation of sound events, while Chaosynth uses a cellular automaton. Following an introduction to the basics of granular synthesis, the author explains how Chaosynth's technique works. He then introduces the basics of cellular automata and presents ChaOs, the cellular automaton used in Chaosynth. The article concludes with some final remarks and suggestions for further work.


Interactive Journeys: Making Room to Move in the Cultural Territories of Interactivity

by NORIE NEUMARK

ABSTRACT
This paper explores the aesthetics and politics of popular cultural computer imagery in games, television and film. The author aims to map a ground for criticism of computer graphics and interactive works---by excavating cultural meanings underlying the dominant aesthetics in these images and asking what they do for their producers and users. Do the metallic bodies armor the user/producer for the fear (delight) of a machine world, producing fear (delight) in the process? Is morphing a technique to evade, or explore, the identity crisis precipitated by awareness of cultural difference? What desires produce and are produced by the gravity-less perspective and movement of three-dimensional animation? The author's theoretical project explores how popular cultural computer aesthetics and techniques express and (re)produce subjectivity in postmodern culture. These ideas are examined through everyday aesthetic experiences, representational practices and techniques, and the accompanying changes in perception.


Brain Wave Rider: A Human-Machine Interface

by KEISUKE OKI

ABSTRACT
Brain Wave Rider (BWR) is an interactive artwork produced by Digital Therapy Institute, an electronic-art group based in Tokyo. The author presents a brief description of the mechanics and ideas behind BWR. He then discusses various influences and related concepts, citing ethnographic accounts of religious rituals and postmodern theoretical writings.


The Semiotics of the Digital Image

by PATRICIA SEARCH

ABSTRACT
Western formalism and postmodernist theory do not provide an adequate framework for interpreting many forms of digital art. Using artwork from the 1950s to the present, the author shows how the semiotic structure of the digital image defines a new visual aesthetic in which symbols become interpretations of symbols, and multiple levels of graphic encoding take on discursive characteristics similar to linguistic syntax. The author examines the semiotics of the digital image within the context of philosophical developments in mathematics and science.


Qualitative, Dialectical and Experiential Domains of Electronic Art

by REJANE SPITZ

SOLART GLOBAL NETWORK

The Future of Solar Energy

by CESARE SILVI


Architectonic Studies for a Post--Fossil Fuels Culture

by JOEL H. GOODMAN


Rainbow Man: An Interactive Light and Dance Performance

by SETH RISKIN


Homage to Dale Eldred

by JURGEN CLAUS

DOCUMENT: Volumes: Holograms of Books

by MICHAEL WENYON and SUSAN GAMBLE

ABSTRACT
The authors discuss two of their projects: Bibliography, an installation consisting of 54 holograms of books, and Scroll, a work on paper with holograms. The contexts in which these works were created as well as sources of inspiration are explored.

ARTISTS' STATEMENTS

Anubis Studies Genetic Engineering

by FLASHLIGHT


Fractal Milkshakes and Infinite Archery

by CLIFFORD PICKOVER


Projections from Actuality

by QUENTIN WILLIAMS

EXTENDED ABSTRACT: Veni Redemptor: The Metallic Masks of God

by CARMEN HERMOSILLO

REVIEWS

by SIMON PENNY, PAUL HERTZ, STEPHEN WILSON, FRANK DAVIDSON, SONYA RAPOPORT

ENDNOTE: Virtual Realities and the Future of the Arts

by IVAN DRYER







Leonardo On-Line © 1999 ISAST http://leonardo.info

send comments to isast@leonardo.info