TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editorial

Cybernetic, Technoetic, Syncretic: The Prospect for Art

by Roy Ascott

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Artist's Statement

Wave Pillow

by Elmar Trefz

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General Article

Robots with Bad Accents: Living with Synthetic Speech

by Marc Böhlen

ABSTRACT: Synthetic speech technologies have a profound impact on how we think about and interact with computers. This text discusses parts I and II of the "Make Language Project," a trilogy on the cultural fallout of machine generated speech as a conduit for reconsidering prejudices in synthetic speech production and humanoid robot design.

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Historical Perspective

A Cultural History of the Hologram

by Sean F. Johnston

ABSTRACT: The hologram, the novel imaging medium conceived in 1947, underwent a series of technical mutations over the following 50 years. Those successive adaptations altered the form of the medium, broadened its imaging capabilities and promoted wider perceptions of its functions and possibilities. Appropriated by disparate technical communities and presented to varied audiences, the hologram and its cultural meanings eveolved dramatically. This paper relates the fluidity of the form, function and meaning of the hologram to its distinct creators and users.

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Special Section: The Physics of Aesthetics

Physics of Aesthetics: A Meeting of Science, Art and Thought in Barcelona

by Josep Perelló and Vicenç Altaió

ABSTRACT: The Physics of Aesthetics conference in Barcelona introduced the paradigms of the liveliest aspects of physics. One hundred years after Einstein's annus mirabilis, physics continues making progress, and the authors participated with internationally well-known scientists in drawing the outline of its more attractive face. Universal questions naturally arose, relating to the limits of our perception, the design of matter and the narrative of the complexity surrounding us. Local non-scientist personalities helped to distill aesthetics from the contemporary tendencies of this scientific discipline.

Models of Randomness and Complexity, from Turbulence to Stock Markets

by Jean-Philippe Bouchaud

ABSTRACT: Inspired by the increasing complexity of statistical models for turbulence and stock markets, the author presents some reflections on the very notion of a model and illustrates some relations between physics and aesthetics. He argues that aesthetic emotions arise from a delicate balance between regularity and surprise.

Riddles in Fundamental Physics

by Luis Álvarez Gaumé

ABSTRACT: Scientific understanding of natural phenomena should be a legitimate part of aesthetic theory, as this understanding involves the beauty of insight into the inner workings of nature. This insight is not always easy to communicate. Despite the huge progress made during the 20th century, fundamental physics now faces puzzles and paradoxes involving the infinitely small (the frontier of high energies) and the infinitely large (the overall structure of the observed universe). Working in basic science is fascinating but difficult. Discoveries happen not in a linear manner but just as they do in the creation of a work of art.

On Networks and Monsters: The Possible and the Actual in Complex Systems

by Ricard Solé

ABSTRACT: Complex systems pervade our real world, from social systems to genome dynamics. All these systems are characterized by the presence of emergent phenomena: New properties emerge from the interactions of simpler units and are not reducible to the properties of the latter. The natural description of complex systems involves a network view, where each system is represented by means of a web. Such graphs have been shown to share surprisingly universal patterns of organization, indicating the fundamental laws of organization also pervade complexity at multiple scales.

Nanotechnology: The Endgame of Materialism

by James Gimzewski

ABSTRACT: Imagine that one could arrange atoms in any form one wanted: What would one create? What kind of mind would it take to change the world through this metamorphosis of rearrangement and design? The ultimate endgame of our current technological capabililty to make material things is determined by our own creativity. The author examines how technological interfaces join the human mind to objects of experience from the nanometric to the planetary scale and theorizes the impact this perceptual condition will have on the personal and collective psyche.

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Special Section: ArtScience: The Essential Connection

Art Can Bring Out the Best in Science

by Harry Rubin

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Special Section: Leonardo Celebrates Leonardo da Vinci

The Colors of Leonardo's Shadows

by Francesca Fiorani

ABSTRACT: The author examines Leonardo da Vinci's lifelong interest in the depiction of blurred, colored shadows from the point of view of painting technique and optics. She analyzes Leonardo's refinement of the oil technique to capture the instability of colored shadows from the early Annunciation of 1472--1473 and examines the artist's theoretical writings on shadows from the 1490s onward. The author shows how Leonardo analyzed the blurred edges of colored shadows with the geometric rigor that earlier authors afforded only to the cleear-cut edges of astronomical shadows. She argues that the very kind of shadows that captured Leonardo's attention indicates his underlying pictorial concerns, despite the fact that his instructions often seemed directed toward teaching a way of seeing rather than a way of painting.

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From the Leonardo Archive

Introduction

by John Hearst

The Next Evolutionary Step in the Ascent of Man in the Cosmos

by Jonas Salk

ABSTRACT: Physician-scientist Jonas Salk comments on the concerns about humanity's future and the values he shared with Jacob Bronowski. The author outlines his own view of evolution and acknowledges Bronowski's contributions to our further understanding of this process in which humans are participants as well as products. Like Bronowski, the author believes the human race has the power to influence its future, whether by creating disaster or by saving itself through conscious choice. He envisions as the next evolutionary step the creative interaction and convergence of the various cultures, including the "two cultures" of science and humanism examined by Bronowski. The author suggests that our "evolutionary instinct" will guide us in this direction, and he challenges us to prepare for a future without catastrophe.

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Transactions

Holographic Chiaroscuro: Figures in Virtual and Pseudoscopic Space

by Paula Dawson

Eye-Balls: Cheap and Cheerful Interactive Performance

by Joe Marshall, Steve Benford and Tony Pridmore

Mario's Furniture: A Wireless Interactive Video Installation and Game

by Hillary Mushkin and S.E. Barnet

Metazoa Ludens: Mixed Reality Interactions and Play for Small Pets and Humans

by Roger Thomas K.C. Tan et al.

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Leonardo Reviews

New Reviews by: Jan Baetens, Roy Behrens, Dene Grigar, Rob Harle, Amy Ione, Michael R. Mosher, Eugene Thacker, Stefaan Van Ryssen and Jonathan Zilberg.

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