Notes on Leonardo 40th Anniversary Meeting
Swissnex
June 19, 2007

In attendance: John Hearst, Sonya Rapoport, Beverly Reiser, Christian Simm, Darlene Tong, Meredith Tromble, Stephen Wilson

Presenting: Mark Resch

**This is not a word-for-word report but an attempt to get the key points.**

Mark Resch opened with an outline of his experience which can presumably be gathered from his resume. The most current info is that he was until recently the CEO of Creative Commons and has been working with the Banff Center and several start-ups and is currently involved with a start-up in the social networking space. He is "Interested in tidepool where business & technology come together."

Resch then delivered a "vision talk" with slides. "Technology is not a destination any more. It's a medium." People are making things that fit them rather than making them fit it (example of Palm Pilot given as something you had to fit.

His goal for the conference: "Prepare us for the next 40 years, this culture of making, that lets us take our roots -- the notion of art, science, and technology, and graft onto it what we need for the future." NOT recreate ISEA, Siggraph...not all our friends...put Leonardo on the map with a new group of people.

Tong: Who will it draw?

Resch: People will come if we put together a program that's valuable, not the same arts-ish conferences looking at the world. They're interested in TED meets the Santa Fe Institute with Nobel Laureates or clear thinkers from around the world in the sciences and disparate fields that give us a handle on the markers to look for in the next 40 years. Esp. interesting to current set of grad students but many peole seem interested.

Reiser: Will there be an art show?

Resch: Yes. I would love to have 40 masterpieces .... Paik, Shaw's Legible City, maybe another show of work that's being done now. I had a proposal from someone who wants to do works by women artists.

• second week in October 2008 (UNM is on fall break that week)

• verbal commitment from Intel to give support

• City of Albuquerque will subsidize professional fundraiser, $20,000

• Somebody (?) Bolles will write funding from state into budget

• 16 months away. Resch believes this is plenty of time.

• Stanford has offered to continue to support effort with "ignition events" for small advisory group -- they will figure out themes

• Banff would also host an ignition event; perhaps something could also be done at Prague

• Need to maintain awareness of ISEA/Singapore and Zero One, differentiation

• has spoken with Joan Shikegawa of Rockefeller Foundation, Piero Scarluffi, Bronac Ferran, Sarah Diamond, looking for Europeans, Africans, and Asians...would like to get this group together in next few weeks. Contribute on strategic level

• Wed. night, Thurs/Fri, close Sat am

Wilson: 40 masterpieces has never been done. People might need help to mount their pieces. it would be costly.

Resch:

• Several national labs have expressed interest.

• Planetarium called Lodestar has cleared that week for us to program.

• Public TV wants to do some programming -- record speakers. They would seek their own funding

General brainstorming on topics:

- neurobiology -- the way people are changing their minds about how to study problems like this

- aging

- sustainability/global warming

- project in Switzerland funded by Paul Allen to model brain

- genome project

- lo-tech/vulnerability of electric grid/how does technology, networking, operate in places where infrastructure is falling apart/war zones/refugee camps

Resch: Points for development:

- need to raise money

- need to formalize agreements

- wants to make Website through which communication re: project can take place

General brainstorming on format:

- colloquium-like -- send papers out before hand [will people read them? perhaps could be a summary or questions....] musical chairs, making people move around...physical activity leads to mental activity

- participants come not just to listen and absorb but discuss and contribute

- have a lab to analyze DNA and report on relationship to ancient groups

- needs to be dynamic -- criticism of Pacific Rim Summit as a good effort that didn't catch fire

Resch:

- Will have descriptive document useful for fund raising ready in next few weeks

- looking for nonlinear emergent results from all this

Presented slides with outline of properties of emergent system and "how" steps (perhaps Mark can post these to Wiki discussion of project)

Wilson: something from conference should appear in the journal

Resch: Everyone who attends should become a subscriber

As the denouement Sonya gave John authority to invite key people at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to the event in Malibu.

Meeting adjourned at 8:00PM

posted 27 June 2007