Leonardo, Volume 56, Issue 5 | Leonardo/ISASTwith Arizona State University
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Contents

Editorial

Artists’ Articles

  • Envisioning Rhythm: Exploring the Visual Dimension of Natural Ecosystems through Digital Media
    Pai-Ling Chang, Peng-Peng Li
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    Abstract
    For the study described here the authors combined digital technology with 3D printing to explore the feasibility of visualizing the rhythm of natural ecosystems. The achievements of this study were nine pieces of 3D-printed works. The authors discussed the Chinese Taoist view on ecological philosophy, aesthetics, and ecofeminism; probed the spiritual meaning of nature; and adopted technologies to visualize the rhythm of nature. By doing so, the authors aimed to reveal a new form of dialogue between humans and nature, disclose the visual signs of the vital rhythm of nature, and propose a new form of artistic creation based on biotechnology.

  • Piece of Mind: Mobilizing Scientific and Experiential Knowledge of Dementia through the Arts
    Naila Kuhlmann, Jennifer Lécuyer, Aliki Thomas, Stefanie Blain-Moraes
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    Abstract
    While peer-reviewed articles and conferences are appropriate for disseminating research findings within academia, they are less effective for translating scientific knowledge into meaningful and practical applications. Moreover, exchanging knowledge with nonacademic stakeholders is a crucial yet often overlooked step in ensuring that research aligns with the needs and reality of knowledge users. This is particularly problematic in dementia and Alzheimer’s disease research, where social stigma and the reliance on quantitative and self-report methods hamper meaningful dialogue between academic researchers, nonacademic stakeholders, and the broader community. The authors’ project Piece of Mind uses performing arts to create common ground for knowledge exchange, facilitate empathy through creative collaboration, and improve public awareness of dementia.

  • Breath of Light: Reclaiming Shared Breathing Through a Meditative Installation
    Pinyao Liu, John Desnoyers-Stewart, Ekaterina R. Stepanova, Bernhard E. Riecke
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    Abstract
    Breath of Light is an immersive breath-responsive installation aiming to reclaim the connective act of sharing breath in public spaces. During the exhibition at the 13th Shanghai Biennale in March 2021, the lead author interviewed and observed participants to better understand their experience. A follow-up interview conducted in January 2023 illustrated the work’s long-term effect on participants. This technological mediation of breathing explores its transformative potential to revive connective connotations of shared breathing and cultivate interoceptive awareness, reflection, and interhuman connection during the pandemic and beyond with the use of breathing interaction, metaphors, symbols, and ambiguous instructions.

  • Epiphytic Memory: A Cognitive Assemblage of Plant-Human-Technology
    Finn Petrie
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    Abstract
    Epiphytic Memory is an ongoing project motivated by the symbiotic homing relations of plants. The artist 3D-printed porcelain LIDAR scans of ancient trees from Aotearoa New Zealand’s southern rainforests, situating them in hybrid environments in Ōtepoti Dunedin as scientific interventions. These site-specific sculptures function both as memories and as potential bioscaffolds for new life. The project uses augmented reality to help viewers understand the depth of time involved within the work through an interactive gallery installation that simulates plant growth. In this article, the artist contextualizes the project through scientific research and Indigenous Māori thought on plant relations and intelligence. Multiple forms of sentience connect within the project, and the artist uses philosopher N. Katherine Hayles’s ideas of planetary cognitive ecology and cognitive assemblages to understand the ecological value of this connected sentience and how these connections might facilitate plant-human dialogues.

Artist’s Note

  • An Ecological Oracle
    Raphael Arar
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    Abstract
    An Ecological Oracle is an installation that creates a simulated environment to explore social dynamics surrounding a critical tipping point of climate change—the thawing of permafrost. The work engages participants through real-time data that exposes how inputs in and out of their control affect permafrost melt. The work seeks to expose underlying tensions between the individual and the collective, raising questions around how ideology may shape perception of this potential climate event.

General Articles

  • Novelty and Utility: How the Arts May Advance Question Creation in Contemporary Research
    Johannes Lehmann, Rachel Garber Cole, Nathaniel Stern
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    Abstract
    This paper builds on research around novelty and utility to argue that the value of arts thinking should be applied in the generation of scientific questions. Arts thinking is often playful, less goal oriented, and can lead to new modes of questioning. Scientific thinking often solves an existing question, serves a purpose in solving the question, and must be predictable. The “problem of the problem” is that asking creative questions is the linchpin of the quality of research across the sciences, just as the best of art “does things” that make us move and feel moved; yet we posit that it is useful to consider that what each teaches and celebrates typically tends more toward either utility or novelty as an entry point. A new theoretical basis is presented in identifying questions primarily based on novelty rather than utility, and a catalogue of methods proposed for creating questions to employ in education, practice, and project planning.

  • Bioengineered Living Entities in Art: Aliveness, Duration, and Movement in Bricolage
    Ziggy O'Reilly, Christina Chau, Nathan Thompson, Guy Ben-Ary
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    Abstract
    Bricolage is a kinetic biological artwork first exhibited at the Perth International Arts Festival in 2020. The artists used stem cell technologies to create bioengineered living entities from donated human heart muscle cells. These living entities are suspended in an incubator from the ceiling and are made visible to gallerygoers, who watch the performance of cells generating and moving independently. This paper considers how the assemblage, animation, and performance of cells embedded in Bricolage highlight questions around the conceptualizations and perceptions of life, duration, animation, and aliveness.

  • The Drive to Draw: Perceptual Attention and Communicative Intention
    Howard Riley
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    Abstract
    This article argues that drawing facilitates an intelligence of seeing, a visualcy, that should be as important as literacy and numeracy at all levels of the educational curriculum. The author likens cave drawings c. 40,000 years ago to an “external hard drive,” alleviating biological constraints on brain capacity by preserving shareable information about predators and prey necessary for survival during a period of expanding social networks, ultimately leading to humans becoming the globally dominant species. The author reviews theories of visual perception, fundamental to any pedagogy of drawing; discusses modes of visual “attention,” defining the difference between “focused” and “distributed;” and relates both to intentional communication through drawing, the progenitor of writing.

Technical Article

  • The Unveiled City: Multicultural Representation of Tokyo by Hashtag Labeling on Instagram
    Yonlay Cabrera, Luis Diago
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    Abstract
    The birth and progress of civilization are linked to the development of cities. This study investigates how people view and experience Tokyo, the populous megalopolis and major tourist hub. A digital art installation unveils a Tokyo that exists only through interaction. The authors reduce the city’s culturally dependent representation through a database using hashtags in 47 languages. The automated processing of the database finds trends in Tokyo’s representations on Instagram using Computer Vision (CV) and Natural Language Processing (NLP), yielding results in the art installation like current semiotic readings of the city.

Special Section: ArtScience: The Essential Connection

  • The Prospect of Art-Science Interplay in Filmmaking as Research: From Abstract to Implicit Film
    Mamdooh Afdile
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    Abstract
    The neuroscientific and psychological use of fiction films for clinical and academic research is growing. However, artistic research using insights from these fields to advance the filmmaking practice is still in its infancy. Expanding on the author’s previous Leonardo publication proposing the use of scientific hypothesis formation for overcoming filmmaking uncertainty, this artistic research explores the feasibility of integrating scientific findings of abstract and ambiguous image perception to create a novel abstract filmmaking method. This research aims to revive the classical abstract film genre into an implicit cinematic experience.

Special Section: Music and Sound Art

  • Scribe: Machine Learning, Parafiction, and the Perversion of Practice
    Mark Dyer
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    Abstract
    Scribe (2022) is a choral work for three voices. It is a multidisciplinary project that encompasses paleography, machine learning, transcription, and performance. Furthermore, Scribe is a work of parafictional art where fact and fiction overlap, conventional practices of paleography and edition-making are playfully reconfigured, and supposed historical authenticity is employed as a compositional material. This paper describes the creative processes in the making of Scribe before evaluating aspects of the uncanny and material agency. It draws upon autoethnographic analysis before contextualizing this within the psychoanalytical criticism of philosopher Slavoj Žižek.

Leonardo Reviews

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ISSN: 
1071-4391
Title: 

Leonardo, Volume 56, Issue 5

October 2023