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CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY TO ISAST AND NOT TO BE SHARED OR DISCUSSED OUTSIDE LEONARDO/ISAST BOARD

MINUTES OF REGULAR MEETING OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF LEONARDO/ISAST


March 7, 2004

 

Present: Roger Malina, chair, presiding; Marty Anderson; Penny Finnie; Michael Joachim Grey; Greg Niemeyer; Sonya Rapoport; Beverly Reiser; Joel Slayton; Steve Wilson.

Guests: Hisham Bizri, Nic Collins.

Staff: Pam Grant-Ryan, Melinda Klayman.

Absent: Ed Payne, Anne Pfister, Darlene Tong.

  1. Welcome Board. Welcome guests.

  2. Approval of minutes of November 9, 2003 meeting. Approved by acclamation.

  3. Approval/Modifications of Agenda. Approved by acclamation.

  4. General news — Roger Malina

    1. Roger showed latest issue of Leonardo and Protocol of LBS.

    2. CAA Report — 2 panels were held at CAA conference in Seattle in February, provoking excellent response. Next CAA president is Ellen Levy who is very supportive of Leonardo’s goals. Leonardo will hold 2 panels at 2005 CAA conference in Atlanta, and hopes to hold 2 affiliated society panels plus an additional scholarly panel at 2006 session in New York.

    3. Office Eviction — SFSU is evicting Leonardo from its present office space, to be vacated by April 30. Staff is investigating possibilities, working with real estate agent and also networking with institutional affiliations. Must decide how long of a lease to sign. Current thought to sign one-year lease for commercial space while using that year to secure institutional affiliation.

  5. Committee Reports:

    1. Nominations — Sonya Rapoport

      1. Formally ratify elections

        1. Marty Anderson, Penny Finnie, Beverly Reiser re-election to Governing Board. Email ballot unanimously re-elected. Marty moved to formally ratify election. Roger 2nd. Unanimous.

      2. Nominations for Secretary. Roger approached Ed Payne as potential nominee. Not present to accept position, but no one objects. Secretary does 2 duties: edits minutes and approves corporate records in Leonardo office.

      3. Looking for 1 new member by the next meeting. Sonya mentioned Denise Caruso as likely candidate. Jane Metcalf another possibility, but very busy and controversial. Christian Allan Simm and Meredith Trumbull suggested by Greg, both of whom approached him with interest. Melinda suggested David Chavez. Current priorities are people who can make majority of meetings (either local or willing to travel for meetings). IAB enables people who cannot make all meetings to participate as well. Other priorities include science and engineering, corporate contacts, someone who will donate money, someone attuned to publication and web, multicultural background. Over next few weeks Nominations Committee will mull over list and ask for nominees. Melinda will send email request to entire Board to submit nominations to Nominations Committee. Sonya is willing to continue as Chair of Nominations Committee.

    2. Journals Report

      1. LMJ — Nic Collins.

        1. Introduced himself and background. Has one year remaining on LMJ contract as Editor in Chief. Latest LMJ was "Groove, Pit, and Wave." Next issue is on David Tudor, which is partially a collaboration with the Getty although they haven’t provided satisfactory financial assistance. Following issue on "The Word."

        2. Annual journal is tough to sell on subscription basis. Would like to see it transformed into more of a book-like product, along the lines of Granta. Also would like to see modern art museums to stock it as potential single sale venues.

        3. Nic Collins synopsized issues. LMJ loses money. Not enough sold to offset cost of making it. Questions: should it go to online format and cease print version? General response is that the peer reviewed print journal is too highly valued to stop. What is our market and authors? Both very small pools, perhaps there is not a great number of potential new audience. No obvious conclusion among the people Nic has interviewed. Another possibility to rethink the product as a cd with text rather than a journal with cd — may have limited audience or may create greater response. May also add to push toward on line product rather than print journal.

        4. Proposals: circulate questionnaire to subscribers/authors asking what is the value of the journal? Consider alternate plans: kill LMJ as stand-alone journal; have thematic section within Leonardo throughout year; replace LMJ through themed books within LBS; online publishing in a more creative use of web environment, creating peer-reviewed journal on line. Joel says that Sound and Music is an area that LBS has not yet effectively addressed. Difficult issue of having timely publication in book schedule. MIT Press is not confident that they can sell to music audience. Less interested in compendium collections of essays, although they do occasionally do such projects. Needs to be packaged & justified in terms of marketing.

        5. Nic requests Board decision on direction of LMJ by Summer 2004.

        6. Further suggestions: Look into outside forms of support, such as Nonesuch Records, who might be interested in supporting LMJ. Nic had unsatisfactory relationship with record companies such as Nonesuch because they tend to not find value in compendiums. Looking for unified albums that aren’t easily redistributed. Another possibility is asking artists directly, such as Thomas Buckner. Many of these are one-shot deals, and don’t solve systemic problem.

      2. Experimental Issue — Pam Grant-Ryan. Pacific Rim Summit has offered a potential subject to use for Experimental Issue. Tie in with Global Crossings, new media, other issues that have been raised as possibilities for this project. Experimental Issue has been on the agenda for some time, but earliest it could be published is 2006, in conjunction with Pacific Rim. In discussion about format & content. Perhaps the directory will identify new media venues that could participate in production of publication. MIT Press will distribute questionnaire to Leonardo audience as to their opinions about value and desires for Leonardo. Will be sent to peer review outside field and to network within Leonardo, to determine why we are not reaching larger audience. Hoping feedback will play into the results of the Experimental Publication; i.e. whether it should include DVD component or other ideas. Funding options might include sharing the cost among several new media departments or foundation support. Option to produce 2007 issue with results from Pacific Rim Summit. Nic suggests that we re-read Rich Gold’s paper about Leonardo. Experimental Publication Committee: Steve, Beverly, Joel, Ed, Pam.

      3. Recent changes to Leonardo have been implemented from the impetus of Greg. The first few incremental changes have already been implemented: full-bleed images to introduce articles; cover layout; and a new section called "After Midnight," which describes cultural landscape from different regions, looking at metropolitan globalism — first one features San Francisco. Editorial page is now masthead. Cover is now relevant to an article inside. Other ideas include redesign table of contents, including thumbnail images, redesigning editorials to single page, etc.

      4. Back cover ads. Selling corporate memberships $1000 gives back cover ad and pays for full-color cover. Intel has signed on as our first corporate member. Nic mentioned that he will push for Getty to sign on for LMJ.

    3. Advisory Board report — Beverly Reiser.

      1. New Members. Hisham Bizri is the newest member of the Advisory Board. Present at the Board meeting, he introduced himself and described his background. Mark Resch and Lynn Hershman have left the Governing board and joined the Advisory Board.

      2. Collaborations. Collaborating with Harvestworks, endorsing their upcoming conference in New York and linking to them on our website. Nic Collins will be speaking at that event. Gregory Bateson event in Santa Clara has also requested Leonardo endorsement. Endorsement of 040404’s conference Plasmatica. All of these organizations who request Leonardo endorsement should be asked in return to subscribe to Leonardo or advertising space. Advisory Board will discuss that option.

      3. ISEA 2006/Pacific Rim Summit — Joel Slayton described developments. San Jose has made art & technology one of its top 5 priorities for the city. Has given a building to initiate a center for new media under the San Jose Museum of Art. Steve Dietz is Director of this new venue. An integral aspect of this priority is the ISEA 2006 conference to be held in San Jose. Steve Dietz will direct ISEA 2006; Joel will direct the academic conference within ISEA 2006. The Pacific Rim Summit will be held before the conference, and co-organized by Leonardo. Summit will contain working groups that will present their findings at the conference. Roger will co-chair International Screening Committee for Summit to find working group chairs and set program. Relationship with Leonardo Experimental Publishing Program as a topic for publication. Leonardo intern Shirin Behnia is working on meta-directory of Pacific Rim organizations. Honorary Committee is being formed. Local Organizing committee is arranging details. Board should consider if there is a working group topic that Leonardo would like to set up. Question how to integrate overlapping areas of Global Crossings project funded by Rockefeller with the Pacific Rim Summit. Hisham expresses concern that the topics aren’t focused enough; too broad range of topics. Joel states that the steering committee will choose the working groups who will really steer the topics. What is seen right now is a broad approach to the possibilities available to this project. Greg thinks that it’s a big leap to jump into this commitment, but is willing to support the project. Steve suggests that the notion of new media as a globalizing effect is problematic. Marty believes this is a manageable project along with all of Leonardo’s other projects. Marty moves; Steve 2nds: Leonardo endorses the prospectus on this event.

    4. Finance & Compensation Committee Report — Marty Anderson

      1. Benefits & policies. Health care policy needs update; will be determined at Finance & Compensation committee meeting next week. Wording of policy is valid per legal advisor. 20-year benefit was also approved by legal advisor. Lawyer in process of reviewing other policies, bylaws, and contracts. Committee is reviewing all benefits package contents at meeting this week. Benefits package will be retroactive to January 1, 2004.

      2. 2003 End-of-Year financial report. Problems: no accounting for bridging loans from Roger to Leonardo; they should be reflected in statement even though they result in a net zero figure. Work at home costs not reflected in budget.

      3. Stock holdings. Advised to sell a stock that had performed well and re-invest in other stocks.

      4. 2004 Budget. Draft budget distributed, contains guesses that need to be finalized.

    5. Prize and Awards —

      1. Award for Excellence — awarded to Elsenaar & Scha for their article in LMJ.

    6. Web — Steve Wilson.

      1. Website now has free tracker on all its pages.

      2. Search on Art & Technology in Google results in Leonardo as the 11th hit.

      3. Beyond Productivity report. Strong statement that arts & media are very important to culture. Good document for use in grants, etc.

    7. Leonardo Book Series — Joel Slayton. Recent releases: Protocol; Women, Art, & Technology; Windows and Mirrors. Book series is selling very well; MIT Press is happy with our performance.

  6. New Business/Other

    1. OLATS Project Information — Roger Malina. Working with UNESCO. Organizing workshop in Melilla on Art, Science, and Spirituality, including people from West, Asia, and Arab world.

    2. Art History Conference — Roger Malina. Preliminary announcement went out for conference to be held at Banff in August 2005. Oliver Grau is chairing the Program Committee. Coincides with 10th anniversary of Banff. Difficulty funding this conference.

    3. Vision Statement — Penny Finnie. Mission statement says what we are trying to do. Vision statement says why we’re doing it. The Board gave comments. Penny will present her third revised version at the next Board meeting.

      1. Vision statement discussed at meeting: "Science and Technology dominate our current landscape, emerging with an intensity and velocity never before experienced. This intense intellectual creativity needs to be integrated with the humanizing activity of creating art, to bring balance to how we experience our current existence and imagine our futures. Over the course of history, art has been both an organizing and integrating role with our emotional and intellectual lives. Art serves as a means of presenting, questioning, understanding, and creating order out of chaos and change. Imagination often leads the way of discovery in science. Innovation of art, science and technology will allow for new ideas that may be important economically and socially. Leonardo/ISAST serves as the organization that nurtures and fosters this alliance between the arts and sciences, proactively bringing these social networks together leading to greater creativity and social change in both areas."

    4. Board members news

      1. Steve has searchbot running now, a piece at SFSU, a series of games using search terms.

      2. Greg working on Organum, a voice box simulation; and a multiplayer singing game. Recently received funding to do planetarium movie.

      3. Roger convinced an organization to provide a grant to bring an English scholar to study in Berkeley.

      4. Hisham editing two new Polyvision films and writing first feature film.

      5. Sonya working on archives and web piece about communicating with aliens.

      6. Penny is opening a chocolate café in Oakland.

      7. Pam is going back to school to study homeopathy in Fall.

      8. Michael is reorganizing Eyebeam in New York.

      9. Joel is working on landscape mapping project; just returned from New Zealand with an attempt to climb Mount Cook, thwarted by weather.

      10. Marty’s kids have gone to college & has too much free time. His jazz band is going to China.

      11. Beverly is working on a piece called Well of Desire.

  7. Next meeting date: May, date to be determined.

  8. Adjourn