Recent advances in computer-visualization technology have brought urban historians new tools for analyzing the growth of historic cities. This paper examines both the prospects and problems involved in using this technology to map the development of urban form. Using a computer model of Cairo in two different periods of the Middle Ages, the author has attempted to reconstruct the physical reality of the city and to animate the city so that modernday observers may experience its principal streets.

Visualization techniques used in science and the arts for the advanced analysis of information and theories can and should be similarly used in the humanities. Within the discipline of philosophy there are both the possibility and the necessity to examine and present ideas using visualization techniques. The author created a CD-ROM entitled Blinded … in an attempt to use visualization techniques to analyze and represent a metaphysical action proposed by the French philosopher George Bataille.

After introducing the general advantages of CD-ROM technology as an artistic medium, the author chronicles her initial experiences with the format. Describing the inspiration for the CD-ROM Full Circle, the author outlines the three principal sections of the piece and their significance to its overall message. The article concludes with a discussion of the advantages of the CD-ROM format in subverting the concert-performance space-time continuum and the importance of this to the impact of Full Circle during its presentation.

Vibeke Sorensen describes her technical approach to computer stereographics and discusses in detail the actual genesis of several specific projects. She also discusses the history and future of spatial imaging, including its potential for challenging the centuries-old domination of twodimensional pictorial expression. Sorensen concludes her remarks on a cautionary note, stressing the need to place at least as much emphasis on the exploration of personal ideas and feelings as on the development of new hardware and computational processes.

Doubts about the true nature of recently introduced “water-based” screen-printing inks prompted research into the possibility of producing genuinely water-based inks in which both pigment and thickener are derived from vegetable sources. Literature suggests that not only is this possible but it might even be viable as an industrial process.

The term “synesthesia” has often been used metaphorically rather than accurately. Ongoing scientific research shows the condition to be “real,” rather than imagined. The author focuses her discussion on the effects of colorsound synesthesia, or “chromesthesia,” and on a selection of composers and visual artists. The composers discussed include Alexander Scriabin, Olivier Messiaen and Michael Torke. Visual artists discussed include Robert Delaunay and David Hockney.