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Leonardo

Volume 34, Number 1

2001

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.

Available in print from the MIT Press. To ORDER.

Page 1--2

EDITORIAL

On the Need for More Rigorous Thinking about the Laws of Form
by KIRILL SOKOLOV

Page 3--10

GALLERY

The Fractalist Artist
curated by SUSAN CONDÉ

EDWARD BERKO: Cadmium Orange, L'ombre de la nuit, Yellow Spring

JEAN-PAUL AGOSTI: Orphée, Suite d'orphée "Le Passage," Jardin Hieroglyphique

CARLOS GINZBURG: The Neuronal Network of Social Culture, Homo Fractalus

SUSAN DERGES: The River Taw (Last Quarter Willow), The River Taw (New Moon, Ivy)

NABIL NAHAS: Color Blind, Don't Get Me Wrong, Shadow Passing Through

JIM LONG: Parade, The Revelations of St. John (Green Version), Heaven

Page 11-16

ARTISTS'ARTICLE

World Wide Simultaneous Dance: Dancing the Connection between "Cyberplace" and the Global Landscape
by LAURA KNOTT

ABSTRACT: The author describes World Wide Simultaneous Dance, a project combining live performances and digital connectivity, designed to give visual hints of an image that cannot yet be visualized: people dancing at the same time around the world, in varying conditions of light and at varying local times, the planet seeming for a moment to stand still as the performers locked on to each others' signals. Technical considerations and performances are described. The author also discusses the genealogy of this work and future work suggested by World Wide Simultaneous Dance.

Page17--18

ARTISTS' STATEMENTS

Electromagnetic Properties of Pictorial Circuits
by JASON FIERING

Gender and Computer Graphics Imaging: To Err May Be Salvation
by CLAUDIA HERBST

Page 19--20

GENERAL NOTE

Abbott H. Thayer's Anticipation of a Computer-Based Method of Working
by ROY R. BEHRENS

ABSTRACT: This article describes the practice of Abbott H. Thayer (1849--1921) of working on several copies of the same painting, taking each to a different conclusion. It compares that method to the current computer-based practice of using the SAVE AS command to create copies of a digital artwork or design, which can then also be taken to different conclusions.

Page 23--29

SPECIAL SECTION
ARTISTS AND WAR

Artists and War: Answers?
by MICHELE EMMER

Open Letter to Ray Bradbury
by BULAT GALEYEV

La beauté tragique: Mapping the Militarization of Spatial Cultural Consciousness
by JOSEPH NECHVATAL

ABSTRACT: The author investigates the militarization of immersive cultural consciousness, as initiated by the aerial bombardment of civilians at Guernica and during World War II. Parallel to this trend he observes an ambient-immersive impetus in post-war art, which he traces in the example of the Espace group, and in the currently developing technology of virtual reality.

Page 31--40

TECHNICAL NOTES

Brain Activities in a Skilled versus a Novice Artist: An fMRI Study
by ROBERT L SOLSO

ABSTRACT: Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scans of a skilled portrait artist and of a non-artist were made as each drew a series of faces. There was a discernible increase in blood flow in the right-posterior parietal region of the brain for both the artist and non-artist during the task, a site normally associated with facial perception and processing. However, the level of activation appeared lower in the expert than in the novice, suggesting that a skilled artist may process facial information more efficiently. In addition, the skilled artist showed greater activation in the right frontal area of the brain than did the novice, which the author posits indicates that such an artist uses "higher-order" cognitive functions, such as the formation of associations and planning motor movements, when viewing and drawing a face.

A Painter's Eye Movements: A Study of Eye and Hand Movement during Portrait Drawing
by R.C. MIALL and JOHN TCHALENKO

ABSTRACT: The mental processes that allow an artist to transform visual images---e.g. those of his model---into a picture on the canvas are not easily studied. The authors report work measuring the eye and hand movements of a single artist, chosen for his detailed and realistic portraits produced from life. His eye fixations when painting or drawing were of twice the duration of those when he was not painting and also quite different from those of novice artists. His eye-hand coordination pattern also showed differences from that of novices, being more temporally consistent. This preliminary work suggests that detailed and quantitative analysis of a working artist is feasible and will illuminate the process of artistic creation.

Page 41--44

NEW MEDIA DICTIONARY

Part II: Video
by LOUISE POISSANT

Page 47--71

SPECIAL SECTION
SYNESTHESIA AND INTERSENSES

Intersenses/Intermedia: A Theoretical Perspective
by JACK OX

Intermedia
by DICK HIGGINS with an Appendix by HANNAH HIGGINS

Intermedia in Electronic Images
by YVONNE SPIELMANN

ABSTRACT: The essay focuses on the processes of intermedia in visual media. The author's analysis of the merging of still, moving and computed images reveals that, in intermedia, images tend toward a spatial, rather than temporal, organizing principle. This shift becomes evident in particular in the moving images in such electronic films as Peter Greenaway's Prospero's Books. The limits of intermedia in the electronic medium are unfolded in the concept of the coherent image by Zbigniew Rybczynski. Another concept of compression and convergence is demonstrated by Clea T. Waite in her crossing two- and three-dimensionality in a video installation.

Music, Creativity and Scientific Thinking
by ROBERT S. ROOT-BERNSTEIN

ABSTRACT: Are music and science different types of intelligence (as posited in the context of Howard Gardnerês multiple intelligences), or are they two manifestations of common ways of thinking? By focusing on scientists who have been musicians and on the ways they have used their musical knowledge to inform their scientific work, the author argues in this article that music and science are two ways of using a common set of "tools for thinking" that unify all disciplines. He explores the notion that creative individuals are usually polymaths who think in trans-disciplinary ways.

Page 69--71

ENDNOTE

A Performer's Lexicon of Synesthesia (Abridged)
by DAVID MOSS

Page 72--74

LEONARDO WEB RESOURCES

Frank Malina, Artist and Scientist: Works 1936--1963
by FRANK POPPER

Page 75--85

LEONARDO REVIEWS

ROY R. BEHRENS, ANDREAS BROECKMANN, BULAT M. GALEYEV, RICHARD KADE, MICHAEL LEGGETT, KEVIN MURRAY, ALUN OWEN, SONYA RAPOPORT, ALLAN SHIELDS, EUGENY V. SINTZOV, DAVID TOPPER

Page 86

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