YLEM Journal:
Artists Using Science and Technology
by Loren Means, Editor; Gregg Rickman,
Guest Editor
YLEM, San Francisco, USA, Sept-Oct 2006
Vol. 26 No. 10
16 pp., illus. b/w
Journal website: http://www.ylem.org
SSN: 1057-2031.
Reviewed by Rob Harle (Australia)
harle@dodo.com.au
YLEM (pronounced eye-lem) is Greek
for "the exploding mass from which the
universe emerged". It is the name of this
journal being reviewed and also of the
"international organization of artists,
scientists, authors, curators, educators
and art enthusiasts who explore the intersection
of the arts and sciences". Their web site
is www.ylem.org - if you are interested
in art and science; it is a must to visit.
This issue has the
subtitle The Rapture for Nerds
and looks at the messianic enthusiasm
of some of the leaders in the technological
race to transcend biological humans (as
we are now), and not so much replace us,
but "phase us out" so the new super artificial
intelligent entities, "post-singularity",
can rule the Universe. The Rapture of
course is borrowed from the fundamentalist
Christian religious concept of the chosen
few being whisked up to heaven when the
second coming occurs.
There are four main essays that provide
balanced, informative, and stimulating
reading in this imminent world of technological
transcendence. Don Riggs scholarly
essay A.I. has a brief historical
look at AI and discusses various presentations
of this in literature and popular films.
What is Artificial Intelligence
by Doug Williams whilst also discussing
popular aspects of AI also looks deeper
at the attempts to develop AI from an
engineering and programming perspective.
Howard V. Hendrixs Agnostic at
the Singularity comes at this phenomena
from a psychological and social/cultural
critique approach, which for me expounds
some real wisdom. Greg Rickmans
Some Authors Ray Kurzweil Should Read
(or Re-Read) tries to come to grips
with Kurzweils apparent messianic
zeal for transcending our biological heritage
as quickly as possible. This brief essay
discusses J.B.S. Haldanes similar
anti-humanist approach to eliminating
all but the greatest thinkers through
his eugenics approach to reproduction
and transcendence!
YLEM is great reading and always
presents a fair and balanced approach
to both sides of the case in question
but I have to ask, "What has this current
issue got to with art?" After all YLEMs
declared aim is, "to explore the Intersection
of the Arts and Sciences". I thought this
meant visual art, as previous issues have
a good balance of visual art (images and
discussion). Apart from the cover artwork,
The Chase Is Afoot II by Alice
Kelley and David Ziels there is no art
in this issue at all!
The reproduction quality of this issue
and the paper used is a great improvement
on the previous issue. I would like to
see the journal present more articles
accompanied by images, made by artists
working at the art-science interface.
Perhaps some critical book reviews and
a far broader section on upcoming exhibition-conference
dates would extend this rather slim and
somewhat parochial journal.