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Leonardo
Vol. 39, Issue 5 (2006)

Celebrating 40 years of Leonardo journal!

Leonardo is a print journal, published five times a year. Leonardo is edited by Leonardo/the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology, and published by the MIT Press.

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LEONARDO 39:5 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editorial

The Global Artists’ Diaspora and the LambdaRail

by Jack Ox

Artist Statement

Suspended Spaces

by Jayachandran Palazhy

Artists’ Articles

Seeing without Objects: Visual Indeterminacy and Art

by Robert Pepperell

ABSTRACT: This article discusses the perceptual phenomenon of visual indeterminacy in an art-historical and scientific context and considers the phenomenon's role in certain heightened states of awareness. Further philosophical implications of the phenomenon are discussed, specifically the suggestion that visual indeterminacy may point to an inherent contradiction in the relationship between mind and world. This discussion is then related to a body of artwork produced by the author over some 20 years. The article concludes that visual indeterminacy is a fruitful subject for further interdisciplinary research, as it draws on ideas from the arts, sciences and humanities.

An Artist’s Journey in Art and Science: From behind the Iron Curtain to Present-Day America

by Sherban Epuré

ABSTRACT: The artist traces his work from its beginnings behind the Iron Curtain in 1967, when cybernetics became the driving force of his creative process, to the present day. Given the scarcity of information and the absence of access to Western experimental work in Romania, this step was the unlikely result of a purely personal train of thought. He went on to lecture and write extensively to promote cybernetics and explain his approach to art, which was highly unconventional in the context of the times. Two directions emerged and remain the focus of his work today: the S-Band, an interactive art machine, and the Meta-Phorm, a behavioral geometry articulated by cybernetic mechanisms.

General Article

Corporeal Mélange: Aesthetics and Ethics of Biomaterials in Stelarc and Nina Sellars's Blender

by Julie Clarke

ABSTRACT: Contemporary artists who use biomaterials to make art objects provide a valuable occasion for raising provocative questions about the value and use of human and nonhuman tissue in the biotechnological age. By disseminating ideas from the insular space of the laboratory to the general public, artists are able to broach philosophical, political, social and ethical questions that surround human ontology. The author considers the aesthetic aspects of Stelarc and Nina Sellars's Blender installation alongside the work of artists who assert an ethical position in their use of biomaterials.

Special Section: ArtScience: The Essential Connection

Wilhelm Ostwald and the Science of Art

by Robert Root-Bernstein

Similarities and Contrasts in Artistic and Scientific Creation-Discovery

by Jacques Mandelbrojt

ABSTRACT: The author summarizes 13 of his publications in Leonardo on the comparison of artistic and scientific creation-discovery. This article details how fundamental aspects of artistic creation are clarified by mechanisms initially introduced to describe scientific discovery. These aspects are linked to the equilibrium between an artist’s pictorial idea and the material or technique used. The author also sheds light on art by contrasting it to science. He further addresses the muscular image or kinesthetic aspect of art, which is also shown to be essential in much scientific thinking. He then links aspects of his own paintings to his practice of science.

Communicating Science through the Language of Dance: A Journey of Education and Reflection

by Tonie Stolberg

ABSTRACT: Bharatanatyam, the classical dance style of South India, is adept at conveying complex, multilayered narratives. This paper documents and reflects upon the interactions between the author, a scientist and educator, and a professional dance company as they strive to develop and produce a dance-drama about the carbon cycle. The author examines the process by which scientific ideas are shared with the artists and the way a scientific narrative becomes one with an artistic meaning. The paper also examines areas for possible future science-dance collaborations and explores the necessary features for a collaborative science-dance pedagogy.

Special Section: Arts and Science Research Fellowships
Arts Council England and Arts and Humanities Research Council

Special Section Introduction: Creating a Program of Support for Art and Science Collaborations

by Bronac Ferran

Extending Contexts, Making Possibilities: An Introduction to Evaluating the Projects

by James Leach

ABSTRACT: The author, an anthropologist, discusses his role as an attached observer to a collaborative arts/science research fellowship program. He examines the role of collaboration in research and in the Fellowships and explores new ways of conducting collaboration so that the research process itself becomes part of a project's output.

Little Earth: A Solar-Planetary Investigation

by Jo Joelson and Stanley W.H. Cowley

ABSTRACT: The authors present Little Earth, the result of collaboration between an artist Jo Joelson and the Radio and Space Plasma Physics Group at the University of Leicester. The project draws on the historical research of Kristian Birkeland and C.T.R. Wilson to examine how developments in technology have affected the relationships between artists and scientists in observing and representing the natural world. Birkeland’s research is also used to present more recent advances in understanding of space weather and its relationship to the human mind.

Mindscape: An Attempt to Visualize the Workings of the Brain

by Michael O’Shea and Sol Sneltvedt

ABSTRACT: The authors describe Mindscape, an artwork in the form of an audiovisual installation. The work visualizes complex brain activity, attempting to bridge the distance between scientific imagery and artistic representations. Starting with images and data drawn from nerve cell activity, artist Sol Sneltvedt and neuroscientist Michael O’Shea collaborate to create a visualization of the unlimited scale of human thought.

Drawing the Line: Some Observations on an Art/Science Collaboration

by Heather Barnett and Robert Whittle

ABSTRACT: The authors describe their project Metamorphosis and Design, an examination of the place of design and transformation in biological systems across research areas from nanofibers to cuttlefish display. They also discuss the collaborative process between artist and scientists

A Software Interface between Human and Computer Virtual Players for Music Performance in Concert

by Alejandro Viñao and Ian Cross

ABSTRACT: The authors discuss the collaborative process of creating a computer interface to enable live musicians and computers to play together without compromising the integrity of the music or the performance.

Spatial Audio Measurement, Modeling and Composition

by Damian Murphy

ABSTRACT: The author presents the results of an exploration of spatial composition through acoustic measurement and modeling techniques. He discusses the capture of actual acoustic spaces and the use of such captures to create virtual acoustic landscapes. He also describes a series of directly related sound-works.

Extremeties of Perception

by Alan Wall and Gron Tudor Jones

ABSTRACT: The authors present their collaborative exploration of the use of metaphor in science. If scientific writing is dependent to a large degree on metaphor, then to what extent is scientific thought itself dependent on metaphoric or analogical perception? The authors discuss the use of metaphor in scientific thought as a process of transferred pattern recognition.

Musical Agents: Towards Computer-Aided Music Composition Using Autonomous Software Agents

by Palle Dahlstedt and Peter J. McBurney

ABSTRACT: The authors, a composer and a computer scientist, discuss their collaborative research on the use of multi-agent systems and their applicability to music and musical composition. They describe the development of software and techniques for the composition of generative music.

Making Material Culture

by Alan Blackwell and Simon Biggs

ABSTRACT: The authors present their collaborative investigation into the creative applications of liquid crystal elastomers. They explore the process of making these new materials as well as the question of how artists and scientists can work together to develop new materials and to use them in artistic or architectural applications.

Bodies Meet Minds: Choreography and Cognition

by Rosaleen McCarthy, Alan Blackwell, Scott deLahunta, Alan Wing, Kristen Hollands, Philip Barnard, Ian Nimmo-Smith and Anthony Marcel

ABSTRACT: The article describes a collaborative research project between choreographer Wayne McGregor and a team of neuroscientists and psychologists concerned with the relationship between mind and bodily movement. The project comprised several areas of research into the neurological and cognitive basis of movement. The article also discusses the mutual benefits of collaboration between the dancers and scientists.

Willing Conversations: The Process of Being Between

by Scott deLahunta

ABSTRACT: The author argues that the role of facilitation within art and science collaboration projects is perhaps best described not as a function or position, that of the facilitator, but as a framework for thinking about relations and how to encourage a certain quality of exchange. The article reflects on how the themes of willingness, inter-profession, conversations and wording, empathy, and collaborative writing relate to the conditions for interdisciplinary collaboration. This is based on the author's experience with collaborative projects, most recently as research organizer and facilitator for Choreography and Cognition, one of the first Arts and Science Research Fellowships jointly funded by Arts Council England and Arts and Humanities Research Board (U.K.).

Leonardo Reviews

Reviews by Wilfred Niels Arnold, Jan Baetens, Roy R. Behrens, Martha Blassnigg, Dene Grigar, Rob Harle, Amy Ione, Mike Leggett, Martha Patricia Niño Mojica, Marcus Neustetter, Eugene Thacker, Stefaan Van Ryssen, Ian Verstegen, Stephen Wilson

Leonardo Vol. 39, Issue 5 (2006)