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edited by Colin Beardon and Lone Malmborg.
published four times a year by Swets & Zeitlinger, The Netherlands
ISSN 1462-6268
Subscription prices, 4 issues: Dfl. 142,00, US$ 79.00 (individuals)
383,00, US$ 213.00 (institutions)
Reviewed by Yvonne Spielmann, Germany. E-mail: spielmann@medien-peb.uni-siegen.de


The journal "Digital Creativity" aims to cross disciplines starting from art, design and new media that shall be linked with computer scienes and information technologies and with architecture and education. The journal grew out of the merger with the Computers in Art & Design Education (CADE) organisation in the early nineties and from1998 on it has found a new publisher in Swets & Zeitlinger and also changed the format to large seize. The ambitious approach of convergence is to overcome the "old" divisions in the history of discourse and replace "traditional" disciplinces by opening spaces for new fusions. Thereby the journal does not only focus on text-based contributions but also encourages artists and designers to present their visual works. Certainly these are high goals to achieve in a print journal that appears in black and white only. In this view "Digital Creativity" cannot be compared with "Leonardo". Furthermore, any critical reader and researcher will be reserved towards an announcement where the editors in the self-portrayal say with enthusiasm, "the journal aims to cover new developments in all of these fields".

Albeit the impression of presumption at first sight, the careful reader will find thoroughly edited issues addressing topics that were not so much discussed elsewhere, such as "Digital Technologies for Theatre and Performance" in 1999 that covers questions of introducing technologies of virtuality into the theater scenes. Of interest in this issue is in particular Mike Tuomola's research into the Commedia dell'Arte where he finds conceptualizations of characters that "can provide us with a formula for sets of varieties that have the potential to create dramatic action in 'Multi-user Virtual World'." (vol 10, no. 3, p. 171) In the same issue Steve Dixon refers to Brenda Laurel's interactive statement of "computers as theaters" and expands her ideas into a "digital proscenium" and on a multi-media screen where the theatrical mise-en-sc¶ne undergoes processes of transposition and transformation, more precisely remediation.

Another issues features on "Osmose" by Char Davies, where the author of this well-known project gives a comprehensive description of the potential of 'medium' in 'immersive virtual space' and explains it's paradox that "the immersant feels embodied and diesembodied at the same time." (vol. 9, no. 2, p. 71) The key aspect lies on a body experience where time and space dissolves in parallel to diving, as Davies outlines. Body and technology certainly becomes a major topic to be addressed in many different aspects, such as Victoria Vesna's approach towards avatar technology that brings light into the discussion of personal/impersonal relations in virtual reality. On step further into mediation, Roy Ascott compiles a selection of presentations given at the "Consciousness Reframed" conference around questions of self and reality. Again avatars, but also the description of software systems to create Artifical Life belong to Rebecca Allen's scenario for a wandering mind. Thinking the body in terms of extensions describes Johanna Drucker's concern with hybridity and protheses, and Ted Krueger's projects for the amalgamation of organism and architecture, whereas Ebon Fisher imagines a more playful future of "wiggling" that is a kind of combinatory and risky game model "revealing the tension of being part animal and part environment." (vol. 9, no. 1, p. 27) In contrast, Niranjan Rajah seriously examines the history of modern philosophy in cross-reading with Buddhist metaphysics in order to evaluate ontological problems of the "post-biological era" that is defined by multi-user environments. In connecting computer language and poetic language Bill Seaman explores theoretical/conceptual models for the use in an aesthetic practices. The idea idea is to create a "new form of poetic construction and navigatioin that I call 'Recombinant Poetics'." (vol. 9. no. 3, p. 154) A "purely" poetic "answer" to theoretical considerations is provided with the "Interactive Poem" by Nako Tosa & Ryohei Nakatsu. As the artists describe the piece (that was presented at ISEA'97) in the journal: "A computer-generated poet, MUSE, conveys short poetic words and emotions to a person (...) By hearing these words, the person is able to enter the world of that poem, and, at the same time, he or she is able to speak to MUSE with poetic words." (vol. 9, no. 1, p. 53)