Episode 08: Electronic & elemental art in [anti]disciplinary topographies | Leonardo/ISAST

Episode 08: Electronic & elemental art in [anti]disciplinary topographies

By Erica Hruby

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EPISODE NOTES

We talk Ars Electronica, an annual festival for art, technology and society in Linz, Austria. In a collaboration with Ars Leonardocast, Kenneth Azurin and Dawn Faelnar interview Dutch fashion and textile designer Hellen van Rees about her projects at Ars 2018. Leonardo’s Vanessa Chang introduces [Anti]disciplinary Topographies for Ars 2021. The first winner of the Prix Ars Electronica, Brian Reffin Smith, reviews Lead in Modern and Contemporary Art edited by Sharon Hecker and Silvia Bottinelli.

Ars Leonardocast is a project by Kenneth A. Azurin. Episodes can be found at https://anchor.fm/ars-leocast.
"Tactile Tech Style" was first published on 30 July 2019. Episode notes:

We spoke with Dutch fashion and textile designer Hellen van Rees about some of her cross-disciplinary projects on display at Ars Electronica!
Guest: Hellen van Rees
Cohost: Dawn Faelnar
Textile Reflexes: https://www.hellenvanrees.com/projects/textile-reflexes-posture-coach
Breathing Trainer: https://www.hellenvanrees.com/projects/textile-reflexes-breathing-trainer
Other projects: https://www.hellenvanrees.com/projects
TEDxZwolle Talk - Artisanal Intelligence: https://youtu.be/VYq5s6MBaEE 

Leonardo LASER Garden gathers our global network of artists, scientists, humanists and technologists together in a series of hybrid formats addressing the world’s most pressing issues for the Ars Electronica 2021 festival. Animated by the theme of a “new digital deal” and grounded in the UN Sustainability Goals, Leonardo LASER Garden cultivates our values of equity and inclusion by elevating underrepresented voices in a wide-ranging exploration of global challenges, digital communities and placemaking, space, networks and systems, the digital divide - and the impact of interdisciplinary art, science and technology discourse and collaboration. Discover [Anti]Disciplinary Topographies, at https://www.leonardo.info/ars-2021.

Find Ars Electronica online at https://ars.electronica.art/news/en and register for the 2021 festival at https://ars.electronica.art/newdigitaldeal/en/tickets.

Leonardo Reviews is a scholarly review service published since 1968 by Leonardo/ISAST. It is the work of a dedicated team of editors led by editor-in-chief Michael Punt. Reviews are posted monthly at www.leonardo.info/reviews. Brian Reffin Smith's review of Lead in Modern and Contemporary Art can be read at https://www.leonardo.info/review/2021/08/lead-in-modern-and-contemporary-art.

Host: Erica Hruby
Production: Tinatswe Mhaka
Theme music: Wyatt Keusch is a musician living in British Columbia, Canada. His work can be explored in detail at jazz.fish.

Find all episodes of Between Art and Science at www.leonardo.info/podcast.

CONTRIBUTORS

Kenneth Arias Azurin was born on July 7th, 1984 in Los Angeles, California.With a bachelor’s degree in English focusing on Humanities and Law from the University of California, Irvine, he’s contributed his writing to companies such as CJ Consulting, Inc., Pointy Shoe Productions, V/S Communications and the reinvented Ask.com.While writing is his craft, it isn’t the only thing Kenneth is passionate about. Illustration, graphic design, travel and photography have long been cornerstones of his creative drive. The resulting work-in-progress is a uniquely talented professional who might best be described as a Literary Cartographer. 
https://www.th1nkblender.com/kenneth

Dawn Faelnar is a transmedia designer, artscientist, creative director, and advocate of multi/cross/inter/transdisciplinary collaborations and STEAM education. As co-founder of the interdisciplinary collective TH1NKBLENDER and former creative director at the UCLA Art|Sci Center, her research and practice often involve collaborations with engineers, filmmakers, scientists, musicians, educators, and nonprofit organizations. Through diverse mixed-media work, Dawn explores the relationship between artistic and scientific innovation, and how they can be made accessible through design, as they converge within the coexisting physical and extraterrestrial worlds. 
https://dawnfaelnar.com

Hellen van Rees is a Dutch fashion/textile designer and researcher. Hellen founded her company in 2012, and through the years discovered her unique position between fashion, art and science. Since 2016 Hellen is also involved in research and the development of prototypes, by taking part in mostly collaborative projects. E.g. a Wearable Breathing Trainer for children with asthma & breathing disorders, conceptual pieces showing future visions on sustainability and design for repurposing, integration of OPV modules (solar panels) and textiles that respond to humidity.
https://www.hellenvanrees.com

As a curator, writer and educator, Vanessa Chang builds communities and conversations about art, technology and human bodies. She is Senior Program Manager at Leonardo/ISAST. She holds a Ph.D. in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University, and teaches at California College of the Arts. Most recently, she curated Recoding CripTech at SOMArts Cultural Center, Intersections at Fort Mason Center for the Arts, and Artobots. She has appeared on NPR’s On the Media and State of the Art and her curatorial work has been profiled in Art in America and KQED Arts. Her writing has been published in WiredSlateLos Angeles Review of Books and Noema Magazine, among other venues.
http://www.vanessa-chang.com

Brian Reffin Smith is a British (and since 2020 also German) artist, writer and musician with degrees and backgrounds in both science and art. He lives in Berlin. The first-ever winner of the Prix Art Electronica in Linz, Austria, in 1987, he used computers in art since the late 1960s. He also works in areas of Zombie theory, cybernetics and ‘Pataphysics, all applied to art, performance, writing and music. Smith advocates the retrieval of ideas from the past of computer based arts, arguing that these have not been fully explored and can still be revolutionary, and contribute to contemporary, especially conceptual, art. His artworks are shown internationally. He became a Zombie in 1998.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Reffin_Smith

TRANSCRIPT by Otter.ai

Erica Hruby  00:13

You have found the space between art and science. I'm your host, Erica Hruby. In today's episode, we talk about Ars Electronica, an annual festival for art, Technology and Society in Linz, Austria. First, we present an episode of Ars Leonardocast, a podcast born of the 2018 Festival hosted by Kenneth Azurin. In Tactile Tech Style Kenneth and Dawn Faelnar talk about wicked fabrics and interviewed Dutch fashion and textile designer Hellen van Rees about some of her cross disciplinary projects on display at Ars 2018. Later, Leonardo's Vanessa Chang introduces the Leonardo garden antidisciplinary topographies at the upcoming Ars Electronica festival in September 2021. Finally, the first ever winner of the Prix Ars Electronica, Brian Reffin Smith, reviews lead in modern and contemporary art, a recent title edited by Sharon Hecker and Sylvia Bottinelli, here is Kenneth Azurin, with RS Leonardo cast.

Kenneth Azurin  01:14

Hey, everyone, welcome back to Ars Leonardocast. This is the fourth edition. I'm joined by Dawn Faelnar. She's a familiar voice if you listened to our past episode where we interviewed Sarah petkus and Mark Koch. Say hello,

Dawn Faelnar  01:29

hi.

Kenneth Azurin  01:32

So in this episode, we're focusing on E textiles, wearables wearable tech, what is this other term that you wanted to toss in there

Dawn Faelnar  01:41

wicked fabrics? That's a synonymous term that people in this industry are starting to use,

Kenneth Azurin  01:47

right? It's a newer term?

Dawn Faelnar  01:49

Yeah, they wanted to use wicked fabrics, instead of E textiles and wearables or wearable tech to kind of just have a stronger, a stronger allusion to the fabric itself in the textile itself, rather than having it be focused primarily on electronics and tech.

Kenneth Azurin  02:08

Very cool, very cool. Maybe Maybe we'll drop a definition in the Show page description. But that's the first time I'm learning about this term. But I'll make sure it's to learn more about it or teach myself more,

Dawn Faelnar  02:22

it's a pretty interesting term to kind of just get other people involved, or at least interested in this industry, or in this in this world, for people who are sort of more, or they kind of tend to lean away from the terms IE textile and wearables. So this is just another way to bring other people in that may not be interested, primarily because of the terminology, which is pretty great.

Kenneth Azurin  02:50

Yeah, absolutely. You know, looking fabrics makes me think of the costume department at the wicked musical for some reason. But anyway, let's roll into the interview. During Ars Electronica 2018, we were walking the festival floor and ran into Hellen van Rees, who is a Dutch fashion and textile designer. And she had a really cool setup. I remember we came up on her table. And we're immediately drawn by the kind of fabrics and designs that she had on display that were very versatile and modular.

Dawn Faelnar  03:36

Yeah, I think I think part of the reason why it was so alluring was because it wasn't just textile. I mean, it wasn't just like plain fabric or anything. It they actually she and her collaborators, they actually came up with ways to make certain fabrics like felt or something that is usually a little bit more solid, and, and hard and not as flexible. They found ways to create patterns out of them so that they do become flexible. Yeah. And so cool. Yeah, I mean, we should probably drop a link to show like exactly what we were talking about. Because this is something that is sort of indescribable, unless we know exactly what the process is that goes into it.

Kenneth Azurin  04:19

Right, right. But I mean, off the top of my head, I remember like geometric shapes that weren't that weren't set in stone, you can kind of they were very malleable, you can move them around. And so which

Dawn Faelnar  04:30

is really useful in this world of wearables, because if you want to create functions within these patterns, then that that actually really helps. Like if you stretch a fabric and have a function and happening while it's stretched or while it's contracted, then

Kenneth Azurin  04:48

yeah, I remember she was showing showing us a demo of how her fabrics were stretching and, and compressing us all very cool. It seemed very organic.

Dawn Faelnar  04:58

Yeah, and then another Another thing that really drew me in personally was their whole focus on sustainability. Because the fashion industry is actually one of the largest polluting industries out there. That's true. Yeah. Because of just because of the materials that the fashion world is sort of forced to create with, right? Yeah. So the fact that they specifically addressed to this address sustainability and the reusability of fabrics is, I think, really, really relevant to the new rising world of E textiles and wearable tech. All right, enjoy the interview.

Hellen van Rees  06:02

I'm Hellen van Rees. And I'm an independent fashion and textile designer. And for this project, I work together with two researchers at the University of Twente, that's Angelika Mader and Geke Ludden. Angelika is creative technologist and Geke is interaction designer. So together, we have different skills that really compliment

Kenneth Azurin  06:19

Yeah, it seems like, you know, just the Dream Team.

Hellen van Rees  06:23

Yes. so far. It's really yeah, it's really nice to work in this team. Definitely.

Kenneth Azurin  06:27

Awesome. Yeah. So tell me tell me more about what we're looking at here.

Hellen van Rees  06:33

Right. This is our textile reflexes project, which as it says, is about textiles. And we use textiles as a way of giving feedback to the user. So we have a flexible textile here that changes shapes, so it becomes bigger and smaller. And it's made out of separate squares that are connected to each other. Yeah, by becoming smaller, it can give a push to the user. That's a really like a friendly nudge. And we want to use that as a way of giving feedback to train.

Kenneth Azurin  07:01

So it's all it's all about the feedback.

Hellen van Rees  07:04

That's all about the feedback, but also about the application of the feedback , you need applications to be able to test feedback,

Kenneth Azurin  07:10

of course, of course, so so you have samples here. One of them is a posture coach and the other a breathing coach, can you dive more into some maybe how that works,

Hellen van Rees  07:20

okay. So for example, the posture coach, it works this way, it's the vest that you can wear over your normal clothing. It has two accelerometers at the back, one at the upper back behind the neck, and then one halfway. And it measures when someone is slouching, detects a slouch. It's a signal to two motors that pull actually the textile back together. So the textiles at the back, where is the problem?So you get a little push in the back a little nudge to remind remind yourself to sit back up, right.

Kenneth Azurin  07:50

That's great. I would definitely benefit from something like that. Yeah,

Hellen van Rees  07:54

big problem. Especially a lot of people work behind laptop all day.

Kenneth Azurin  07:58

Yeah, totally. And then the breathing coach, same idea,

Hellen van Rees  08:01

same idea, different applications, that feedback with that, in the context of children with asthma, or breathing disorders that can benefit from training, a low and calm form of deep breathing.

Kenneth Azurin  08:12

Very cool. Very cool. Um, I guess the next question would be what inspired this? Is it something personal? Or do you know anyone with kind of bad posture or irregular breathing? Or is it just something that kind of hit you?

Hellen van Rees  08:26

It's really funny, organic process, because as a fashion and textile designer I work on like fashion garments. Yeah. And I want to use organic materials. So I came across this felt that's on the table. That's a recycled post consumer textile. Yeah, yes. So they they shred old textiles that are not usable anymore. And make it into a felt that's usually used for low value invisible applications, such as isolation. But I wanted to give it a visible and high end application, because it's actually quite nice. You can see different colors and specs into it. That makes it an interesting surface.

Kenneth Azurin  09:00

Yeah, it looks I wonderful

Hellen van Rees  09:01

make garments out of it, but it's too stiff to use it for garments, I see it. So I wanted to make a solution for that. That's how I come up with this, this flexible textile, this squares, yeah. and applied it in a fashion context,

Kenneth Azurin  09:14

right. So it's more malleable, more, more. It's

Hellen van Rees  09:17

adjustable, it's passive material, but you can respond to your body shape. So if it's in the waist, where it needs less space, the squares are closer to each other, in the hips, for example, where it needs more space to open up more.

Kenneth Azurin  09:30

Excellent.

Hellen van Rees  09:31

After I developed that, I thought, well, actually once if we could actuate this, this fabric so it moved by itself, we can do so much more with it. Yes. And that's how this project started.

Dawn Faelnar  09:41

This is really fascinating to me,

Hellen van Rees  09:43

because I've been an independent designer for six years now. And while studying for years as well, I really dived into what also the material side of design. So my idea was start with a textile and then comes to the application. So for me the whole process So this is very important.

Dawn Faelnar  10:01

Yeah, I love this. So you guys take it from the dryer or how do you get the

Hellen van Rees  10:08

this material? This is developed by a research center in Okay, so this material, we don't make this material. Yeah. But then we make it into that material. Okay, this is what's used in isolation and all that kind of stuff. But then we may have different

Kenneth Azurin  10:26

interesting notion though. Imagine, like just being able to grab lint, and then eventually, after a certain refinement process,

Dawn Faelnar  10:33

it looks like that

Hellen van Rees  10:35

it's also similar fibers that they used to make recycled. For example, that vest is made out of recycled denim. Okay, so same principle old jeans are shredded. Yeah. Then made into new yarns.

Dawn Faelnar  10:50

Yeah. Because that's one of the biggest problems I think of the fashion world. Yeah, yeah,

Dawn Faelnar  10:56

it's a huge waste. Really? Yeah, I mean, especially when you use the washer and not not so much the dryer but the washer, and the little particles, especially if it ends up static waters. Yeah, it's important. And so this is really great.

Kenneth Azurin  11:12

That's wonderful. Thanks so much for your time. We look forward to you know, looking more into your projects and maybe future endeavors. So let's keep in touch. Thank you.

Vanessa Chang  11:29

In 2021, the Ars Electronica festival, well once again become a worldwide anchor point, and will take place physically, not only in Linz, Austria, but in hybrid sites all over the world. From September 8 through 12th, Leonardo will be a critical node in the Ars Electronica gardens, a virtual map that stretches across the planet. Expanding the launch of laser lince Leonardo laser garden can also be experienced via the internet as an asynchronous multi platform consisting of talks, performances and online exhibitions. Our garden anti disciplinary topographies will host a transnational program gathering our network of artists, scientists, humanists and technologists from five continents and over 47 cities worldwide. In the annatto laser garden, we take up ours electronic is called to foster a new digital deal. Adam illogically deal comes from divide and distribute, recognizing the profoundly uneven impact of digitization on our world. How the digital deck is stacked. A new deal means redistributing the cards our world has and continues to be transformed by digital technologies. What began as a tool technology has long become a cultural technology, mediating our relationships with ourselves, each other, our societies and our environments. digital tools and technologies do not exist in a vacuum. Their incarnation demands drawing on even extracting material, natural human and cultural resources. architecting a new digital deal requires examining the limits and potentials of our existing social, economic and political frameworks and seizing the reins on redefining our digital realities. The festival for art Technology and Society, Ars Electronica aims to redefine and remake the future. Rather than accepting that for seen in the tech companies crystal ball, invited to co create a community platform for addressing this responsibility of our time. Leonardo Lazar garden hopes to ignite visionary approaches to social activation and empowerment, and serve as a source of analytical, corrective and alternative thought and action. Animated by this commitment to a new digital deal, and grounded in the UN sustainability goals. Leonardo Lazar garden cultivates our values of equity and inclusion by elevating underrepresented voices in a wide ranging exploration of global challenges, digital communities and placemaking space networks and systems the digital divide and the impact of interdisciplinary art, science and technology discourse and collaboration by transcending disciplinary boundaries, our garden anti disciplinary topographies uses concepts and imagery of landscape architecture and infrastructure to remap terrain for transnational collaboration. In 2008, the laser program was born in San Francisco out of the belief that an interdisciplinary education provides a deeper understanding of human civilization and helps us engineer a better future by democratizing interdisciplinary discussion between artists, scientists, philosophers, historians, engineers who The minutes and wider public's the laser program builds urgently needed creative infrastructure for addressing some of our world's most intractable problems. The pandemic compelled the laser program like many others to reconsider its engagement with the local and global as well as the potential and limitations of virtual platforms for our own new digital deal. The transition from physical to digital spaces provided new perspectives, ways of relating to an interconnecting with our global audiences, and engaging with new communities resulting in the expansion of our network. Simultaneously, we've had to confront what it means to reach out to those communities and cultivate new pathways of access. Anti disciplinary typography is cultivates the international spirit of Leonardo and the laser program in five conceptual strands. Our program fosters transnational dialogue and celebrates the creativity of a region's cultural environment, marshaling these crucial energies to address issues critical to the long term viability of our communities and planet ranging presenters from Sao Paolo to Vienna. The program performing new infrastructures, traverses landscapes from the microscope to the rain forest. Through play and experimentation. These Sonic visual and embodied performances transformed sites of crisis into imaginary items of human and non human coexistence, including presenters from Helsinki to Mexico City. The program, inter being between complex systems provokes reflection on the complex web of species, agents and other beings that comprise our living world. How are humans and nonhumans connected? These speculative dialogues, exhibitions and explorations seek to reimagine the field of interspecies communication at a time of great environmental urgency.

Vanessa Chang  16:58

encompassing Auckland, St. Petersburg, New York City and other locales, the program architecting global communities is a series of conversations and stories rooted in interdisciplinary collaboration, transnational communication, and Planetary citizenship. In a spirit of hemispheric transcendence. They aim to develop and fortify planetary communities grounded in social justice. Building on the anti disciplinary terrain map by our vibrant community, the program future casting shifts its focus to a new creativity agenda. At a moment of profound need, we issue a call to action to speculatively design for change and vision, global futures and humanize digital culture. Finally, the garden gazebo marks the launch of laser lense hosted by the interface cultures department of the University of Art and Design mints. This inaugural event will explore artistic and scientific developments for a climate modern future. Leonardo Lazar garden is a collaboration between Leonardo ISS and the global network of laser hosts in partnership with the interface culture department, Institute for media, University of Art and Design lens. All anti disciplinary topographies programs will be available during and after the festival on the Leonardo website. Find out more about our program, this year's Ars Electronica and how to register at WWW dot Leonardo dot info slash AR S dash 2021

Erica Hruby  18:41

Thanks so much to Kenneth Azurin and Vanessa Chang. For that look back and forward at Ars Electronica. Please check out other episodes of Ars Leonardocast from the 2018 Festival. You can find a link in the expanded episode notes at Leonardo dot info slash podcast. for Leonardo reviews, here is Brian Reffin Smith.

Brian Reffin Smith  19:07

lead in modern and contemporary art, edited by Sharon Hecker and Sylvia Bottinelli, reviewed by Brian Reffin Smith.

Brian Reffin Smith  19:20

If we match in an extremely light artwork, in fact, one with no mass at all, such as an electromagnetic wave going through a gallery, whose presence can only be sensed via a suitable receiver. And juxtapose that to a lead metal sculpture. along what dimensions might we distinguish them? We know that even the densest matter in the universe is not really matter at all. That size doesn't matter. And that life, the universe and everything and mysteries all the way down to the Planck constant. Of course, you can fold lead, so perhaps not mass but presence made vivid by the contradictory softness playability, malleability, able to be hammered into shape. ductility well, allegedly may be compared with a stone, it means able to be drawn out for something to why, and good luck doing that with lead. It's the only really heavy metal most of us encounter gold far heavier than it always looks in bank robbers. But we don't usually have kilos of it to carry. Anyway, noble metals aren't all they're cracked up to be. I've worked with ruthenium and it's a nasty ugly metal which makes lead look angelic. Since I'm rather childish. I also enjoyed playing with the ambiguities of the word lead itself. I can almost guarantee that after reading the book, you'll be stuck to spell correctly the past participle of the verb to lead in the sense of going first, rather than the application of lead sheets to a church roof. Which latter would of course be leaded? What does a leader look like when your brain is consumed by the metal lead? The panic title of Richard Deacon and Bill woodrose 2004 exhibition of wooden led sculptures called led astray leapt falsely out of the excellent index as lead ashtray and I thought Now, why not? An actual Led Zeppelin would surely collapse under its own weight, or would it? Well known search engine records the 1977 competition for helium filled lead balloon, like which bad jokes go down, you know, where one rolled up a tree and drifted into commercial airspace. I suppose the art world could be divided into those who prefer to read a book about golden heart and those more attracted to one about lead and you can count me in the latter group. Of those two poles of the old chemical spectrum lead is surely the more interesting bits materiality is evident, hidden by no economic or or meretricious veil, it doesn't shine for long either. At least a British eyes lead is the color of solid weather of old pipes. Here the spelling checker suggested all Pope's which is clearly lead and magic at work, and it goes on church roofs. Gold is just laying and surface and fool's gold. Even if that design varieties. Lead is Anselm Kiefer gold is maybe Jeff Koons, but poor old plumbum no alchemists would try to change gold into it though perhaps an artists would. Everyone knows how poisonous it is kids licking lead based paint or artists, their brushes and so on. But that isn't the metal itself rather molecules containing it. it exerts an alchemical influence it's mysterious, and its density seems to suck you in. Lead is its own metaphor. Again, not wait but something else that comes with the free gift. Gift in German means poisoned by the way, which is after it drags with it and interestingly charged political and social as well as metallurgical baggage less superficial than Damien Hirst's diamonds on the skull for example. This could be said of many metals, but lead in particular seems that once been now, special. My earliest encounter with the metal was as an eight year old angler using small LED shot as weights to keep the line vertically underwater. The shot was partially split open to take the nylon line like little Pac persons, and then squeeze close by biting them. I then experimented with melting them over a Bunsen burner and tossing the liquid metal into water, where it formed fantastic shapes, utilitarian, exotic, toxic as hell able to flower into aesthetic forms. It was all there. There are many different approaches to lead in this eclectic look at the processes psychology, material and conceptual acceptances and rejections even of what the metal has to offer. There might have been a section by physical metallic just putting lead into a wider scientific context. But aspects of this emerge in various of the chapters anyway, especially that on LEDs historic transformations by spike book low. Marin, our Sullivan's chapter on the ultimate fallibility of lead as a vehicle for a new American formal language for sculpture opened my eyes to the mid 20th century work of Herbert Ferber and Seymour Lipton, both dentists turned sculptors, they abandoned led to some material because it wasn't strong enough, turning to steel instead, as did 20 years or so later, Richard Serra and Carl Andre. were later artists work was influenced by the material, Ferber insisted that his ideas influenced the material Have a suspicion that perhaps lead to soft said Ferber wasn't in the end quite American enough for some artists. One might also ask if their dental activities had any influence on forbids and Seymour's work. They had hardly any contact with each other have no dental practice together, though they both received degrees in dentistry from Columbia. And actually, the book is full of such pointers to potentially rich side tracks. And this is one of its values. Any general topic like modern and contemporary art, poke tap with a specific things such as a lump of lead, will yield new knowledge, insights and problems. The question then is, do these benign provocations arch back into art in some useful solid way? And in this book, they certainly do. They're also useful notes to every chapter entirely to the point. One of the very interesting chapters is Jeffrey vices on Richard Serra's early lead splash works. There you have or would, if they still existed, everything, the lightness of a splash, the solidity of led the process of melting it from solid to liquid, than the loss of energy as it solidifies. And don't tell me that chucking molten lead at the very fabric of a gallery is both art political and satisfying. And yet the splashes work gallery pieces per excellence, becoming literally a part of it as they embedded themselves in the angle between walls and floor. Inside for the Leo kastelli show. Outside for Amsterdam stedelijk Museum, there's a photo of Sarah and Philip Glass, who used to be a plumber at work on it outside the stedelijk, both looking as benign the terroristic as Marx Brothers, though Sarah used both casting and splashing in titles, the splash lead does form a cast of the walls and floor shapes and textures. The thought is provoked that evening molten metal flung into the air or dropped into water jumbo granulated zinc from school makes essentially casts of itself in its own space, which is nice. You could write a long review just of this chapter, which goes much further than I indicate here. Then follows luminescence discussion of Lynda Benglis is 1975 lead cast of an earlier polyurethane work itself solidified in the corner like Sarah's work made in the same year as Sarah was casting or splashing lead. So the plot thickens up plastic, she said was repulsive, but the form isn't ambivalences and ironies are everywhere, who other than the artists would have imagined that lead plus artist or poet could do that? Now some talks of the lead works fragility and precarity. A far cry perhaps from forbus dissatisfaction with lead or somehow we, your work is exorbitant, she said, layers upon layers. It's the ideas that are whittled down. Following chapters deal interestingly, with our tip of errors, varied approaches to the material, and especially what surrounded it for those artists. Then you might say with happiness, and there's no space to deal everything here at chapter headings such as boys, alchemy, and do Shawn two views of Anselm key for new British sculpture and pragmatics of lead and so on. The editors have to be congratulated on the eclectic but coherent contents and on choosing people for not only have things to say but who can actually write not always the case in such collections. led may have set splashed, dull, and almost sullen in the corner of a gallery, like an artist come too late or maybe too early at a vernissage but goodness me in this book, and a process of remarkable transformation. It becomes a catalyst beyond Platinum catalysts for thought about process and materials in general.

Erica Hruby  29:08

Brian Reffin Smith is an artist, writer and musician with degrees and backgrounds in both science and art. He works in areas of zombie theory, cybernetics, and 'pataphysics, all applied to art performance, writing and music. Leonardo reviews has provided scholarly reviews of books, exhibitions, videos, websites and conferences since 1968. Reviews are published monthly at Leonardo dot info slash reviews.

Tinatswe Mhaka  29:38

between art and science is a production of Leonardo, the International Society for the art Sciences and Technology. Our editorial director is Erica Hruby. Ars Leonardocast is produced by Kenneth Azurin. Leonardo reviews editor in chief is Michael Punt podcast production by Tinatswe Mhaka. Our theme music was composed by Wyatt Keusch. visit Leonardo dot info slash podcast for extended episode notes with more information about our contributors a list of available episodes and links to the streaming services where we can be found. Find out more about Leonardo, our publications and our programs at WWW dot Leonardo dot info