This morning Michael Punt, editor of Leonardo Reviews, sent me this message by email: "Did you know George Shortess had died recently? He was a panelist before I was editor! I  think George Gessert is the only one left who preceded me. Michael"

So I did an AI search and got: George K. Shortess (c. 1940s–2025) was an American psychologist, artist, and pioneering scholar in the arts-technology field. He earned his PhD in experimental psychology and served as a professor emeritus at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he taught, created, and wrote on subjects spanning perception, interactive art, and experimental aesthetics. (MIT Direct)

His creative output included conceptual artworks, interactive installations, and artist books that explored the intersections of mind, perception, and technology; many of these are preserved in the George Shortess Artists’ Books Collection at Lehigh University Special Collections. (ArchivesSpace)

Shortess was also a longtime contributor to Leonardo Reviews, where he reviewed books and exhibitions at the nexus of art, science, and technology, bringing psychological insight and artistic sensitivity to an international scholarly audience. (Leonardo/ISAST)

He passed away in 2025, leaving a legacy as a multidisciplinary thinker who helped shape dialogue between experimental psychology, artistic practice, and digital media.

So yes, I Roger Malina, knew him but mostly by mail when I became involved in Leonardo in 1981, before the internet existed. He helped us understand how fundamental experimental psychology was to what we were involved in.

His most cited article is: “Properties of a Population of Art Works in Experimental Aesthetics” (with J. C. Clarke), Visual Arts Research, 1988— a study that combines empirical analysis with aesthetic theory, exploring how visual properties influence viewer perception and emotional response. This article is often cited in discussions at the intersection of psychology, perception, and art theory, and represents an early, sustained attempt to bring experimental methods into the analysis of visual art. Lehigh University

I don’t know how I met him, before the internet existed. The technophiles among us thought the internet would create a planetary village (Roy Ascott?) but today’s news is all about wars and the American capture of the Venezuelan president.

If George Shortess were alive today he might publish, according to AI: The study brings empirical analysis into dialogue with aesthetic theory to examine how the internet shapes viewer perception and emotional response. Combining observational data, viewer feedback, and analytical frameworks drawn from art theory, it investigates how networked contexts such as screens, interfaces, circulation, and attention economies alter the experience of images and artworks in negative fashions. Rather than treating online viewing as a neutral transmission channel, the study shows how digital mediation actively reorganizes perception, affects emotional intensity, and reframes aesthetic judgment, revealing the internet itself as a constitutive element of contemporary aesthetic experience but also of the AI Anti-Enlightenment..