Leonardo Journal Volume 42, Issue 1, (2009)

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 42:1 TABLE OF CONTENTS


Editorial

The Missing Link in Art-Science Discourse, or Art and the Social Sciences

by Sundar Sarukkai


Gallery


Social Fabrics: Wearable + Media + Interconnectivity

Curated by Susan Elizabeth Ryan

ABSTRACT: Art as a garment, fused with sensing, media and network technology, can become a powerful means for investigating current forms of social interaction and the place of the body and self in digital society. The Leonardo Social Fabrics Gallery presents new works exploring this rich mix of old and new arts and technologies.

Gallery Artists: Sarah Kettley and Frank Greig; Joanna Berzowska and Di Mainstone et al.; Younghui Kim; Ebru Kurbak, Ricardo Nascimento and Fabiana Shizue; Matthew Kenyon and Doug Easterly; Daniela Kostova and Olivia Robinson et al.; Anne-Marie Skriver Hansen; Rachelle Beaudoin, Jeanne Jo and Islay Taylor; Geraldine Juárez


Artists Article

Vanishing Landscapes: The Atlantic Salt Marsh

by Joseph Emmanuel Ingoldsby

ABSTRACT: The author, trained in art and landscape architecture, utilizes observation of nature and culture as a central focus in his art. The work involves research, scientific collaboration and examination, documentation, analysis and synthesis using art, science and technology for environmental advocacy. The focus for these works has been on the coastal landscape of New England, the imprint of humans on land and sea, and the impact of climate change on the marine landscape and fisheries of New England.


General Note

Art Thief: An Educational Computer Game Model for Art Historical Instruction

by Jonathan Kinkley

ABSTRACT: Cognitive research has revealed learning techniques more effective than those utilized by the traditional art history lecture survey course. Informed by these insights, the author and fellow graduate researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago designed a "serious" computer game demo, Art Thief, as a potential model for a learning tool that incorporates content from art history. The game design implements constructed learning, simulated cooperation and problem solving in a first-person, immersive, goal-oriented mystery set within a virtual art museum.


General Articles

Catching the Light: "Doing Art" and Education

by Margot Grallert

ABSTRACT: Drawing upon the author's experience as a painter and visual art consultant in a public elementary school, this paper describes how "doing art" applies to the artistic thought process. The artwork of Joseph Beuys provides an historical perspective. The author shows how Beuys' use of three-dimensional form parallels her own work with color; like Beuys, identify an educational value behind "doing art." She also reviews cognitive-science literature in light of her experience. She hopes that this paper will encourage scientists to design research projects to explore the artistic thought process and ultimately demonstrate its relevance of to how we learn what we learn.

Oriented Flows: The Molecular Biology and Political Economy of the Stew

by Ramon Guardans and Nina Czeglèdy

ABSTRACT: The authors argue that living organisms establish long-range links over space and time by building and maintaining highly oriented flows and asymmetric interfaces. They use the example of stew as a familiar process in which this network of oriented dynamic perturbations in space and time can be observed.

Truth and Beauty at the Nanoscale

by Chris Toumey

ABSTRACT: New forms of science sometimes raise issues about the relation between an object and an image of the object. What is a faithful reproduction? How do technical processes affect the image? Nanoscale images evoke these issues. To enhance our visual knowledge of nanoscale objects, the author revisits early cubist theory. This leads to suggestions in a neo-cubist spirit for making and seeing nanoscale images.


Yemeni Squares

by Brian Wichmann and John Rigby

ABSTRACT: Having noted the simple but elegant design of a tiling pattern in a Yemeni mosque based on the division of a square into 10 x 10 small squares or cells, the authors have created Yemeni squares by generalizing the design to a square consisting of 2n x 2n cells. They prove an algebraic property of such squares and enumerate by computer all such squares up to n = 6. The original Yemeni square spells out the name Ali in square Kufic script; the reader may be able to find other examples of words in the figures provided in the article.


Special Section: ArtScience: The Essential Connection

Robert R. Wilson: Shaping Matter

by Robert Root-Bernstein


Leonardo Reviews

Reviews by Jan Baetens, John F. Barber, Geoff Cox, Anthony Enns, Jennifer Ferng, Rob Harle, Stefaan Van Ryssen, Jonathan Zilberg


Transactions

The Martian Rose

by Howard Boland and Laura Cinti

ABSTRACT: This artwork explores extreme environments and life beyond terrestrial settings. Using a planetary simulation chamber, a rose was exposed to Martian environment for six hours at the Mars Simulation Laboratory, University of Aarhus, Denmark.

Interactive Art: The Art That Communicates

by Chee-Onn Wong, Keechul Jung and Joonsung Yoon

ABSTRACT: This paper highlights the intrinsic communication in interactive art. The authors propose knowledge discovery or data mining as a technique to measure the communication between the spectator and the intelligent interactive artwork. Due to the nature of interactive art, this aspect of technology is an essential part to integrate the artist's representation with the spectator. An example of interactive SwarmArt using knowledge discovery for personalized interactive experience is explained in this paper.


Leonardo Network News

Updated 25 February 2009