Leonardo, Volume 57, Issue 4 | Leonardo/ISASTwith Arizona State University
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Contents

Editorial

Artists’ Articles

  • Cursive Calligraphy in 3D and Bio-Ink
    Rem Rungu Lin, You Zhou, Kang Zhang
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    Abstract
    This paper presents a generative approach to creating dynamic 3D cursive calligraphy by integrating motion and bio-data captured by EEG and EMG sensors with particle systems driven by vector fields. The artwork created through this method metaphorically and visually represents a calligrapher’s energy, inspired by the traditional concept of qi. The authors use the term bio-ink to describe the visualization technique of this digital sculpture, which uses bio-data as parameters to control the flow and dynamism of the particles. Utilizing Unreal Engine 5, the authors create a dynamic 3D artwork that inspires further investigation into the therapeutic benefits of calligraphy highlights the potential use of biofeedback in skill development, and paves the way for combining traditional arts with artists’ life-data.

  • Shanshui Journey: Using AI to Reproduce the Experience of Chinese Literati Ink Paintings
    Aven Le Zhou, Kang Zhang
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    Abstract
    The authors investigate Chinese shanshui (literally, “mountain and water”), ink paintings of the natural landscape, through an interactive art installation entitled Shanshui Journey. By examining shanshui’s philosophy, multiple moving perspectives, and creation and appreciation practices, the work emphasizes motion in nature, memories, and interactive appreciation. These concepts are realized in a digitized room, where each participant’s motion is captured as a line “sketch” and transformed into an ink painting via a custom neural network. Generated paintings are displayed in real time alongside previous works, collectively termed Shanshui Memories, mimicking handscroll interaction. The authors’ approach to shanshui aims to reproduce the Chinese literati art experience, and to raise awareness of this cultural heritage.

General Articles

  • Exploring the Materiality of Augmented Reality Markers through Arts-Led Cocreation: Drawing, Weaving, and Tiling
    Leah Lovett, Valerio Signorelli, Andy Hudson-Smith
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    Abstract
    This article explores the use of arts-led approaches to augmented reality (AR) marker design through the presentation of four commissioned projects featuring AR markers created using traditional techniques including drawing, hand weaving, and tiling. The physical-to-digital process to convert artworks into AR markers produces opportunities for cocreation with diverse participants and for materiality to shape the AR experience. Reflecting on the materiality of the different techniques in relation to the temporal, spatial, and social settings of each project (arts festivals, a summer school, and workshops on heat wave-risk communication), the authors argue for a responsive approach to integrating multimodal dynamic markers.

  • SilenceTop: An Interactive Microarchitecture Responding Socially to Nonsocial Silences
    Reina Suyeon Mun
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    Abstract
    SilenceTop is an interactive microarchitecture that reinterprets the traditional Korean soban table. This project aims to create a new form of interaction through silence by emphasizing nonlinguistic cues for interaction. SilenceTop challenges established notions of solitude and awkward conversational gaps while reshaping the domestic landscape. By harmonizing architectural and furniture dimensions, SilenceTop fosters interactivity among objects, spaces, and humans. The design offers easy assembly, adapting seamlessly to domestic settings with diverse spatial functions. Each seating side is positioned 75 cm apart, striking a balance for interaction in relationships both intimate and formal. The project focuses on silence, redefines object-space-human interactivity, and enriches the experience of person-environment engagement.

Historical Perspective

  • Freak Pictures, Fly Fishers, and Optical Illusions: Historical Antecedents of the Science of Fish Vision
    Ann Elias
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    Abstract
    In the early twentieth century, when little was known about the underwater realm, the question of subaquatic vision garnered much interest. Based on human laws of optics in water, observers of the time claimed to show how fish see, and the impact of illusions on fish vision. Addressing fly-fishers in particular, they raised the question of whether fish see “freak pictures” and “monsters.” The present study examines five scientific visualizations published in Scientific American in 1913 to determine whether optical illusions remain relevant for fish scientists today and whether conceptions of visual intelligence in fish have changed since 1913.

Theoretical Perspectives

  • The Ecology of Knowledge: How the Complexity Sciences Can Explain the Peculiar Alliance between Art and Philosophy
    Shachar Kislev
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    Abstract
    Why is art allied with philosophy? Why are artists expected to be familiar with critical discursive practices? This paper sketches a naturalistic framework for approaching this problem by conceptualizing knowledge as a complex adaptive system. The author argues against a static image of the disciplines, as implied by Biglan’s typology, and proposes an evolving understanding of disciplinary dynamics. Based on this framework, the author suggests that art and philosophy form a communication niche maintained primarily through the positions of the critic and curator. The author questions the usefulness of this bond and advocates for the free exploration of the ecology of knowledge.

  • Decoding AI in Contemporary Art: A Five-Trope Classification for Understanding and Categorization
    Guido Salimbeni, Steve Benford, Stuart Reeves, Sarah Martindale
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    Abstract
    The article presents a historical overview of the classification of contemporary artworks that either have utilized artificial intelligence as a tool in their creation or focus on AI as their central theme or subject matter. The authors analyze artworks and descriptions, focusing on artists’ motivations and AI’s role in their practice, identifying five distinct tropes in AI art. The authors compare artworks with respect to key questions, creating a useful tool for art historians, curators, researchers, and artists. This historical classification provides a structured approach to understanding AI art’s creative significance and attributes as it has developed over time.

Special Section: Music and Sound Art

  • Resonance: A Brain-Computer Interface Assemblage of EEG, Sound, and Therapeutic Clowns for the Detection of Consciousness
    Stefanie Blain-Moraes, Natalia Incio Serra, Charlotte Maschke, Jamie Webber, Melissa Holland, Tamar Tembeck, Florian Grond, Joseph Schlesinger, Francis Bernard, Florence Vinit
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    Abstract
    A growing number of individuals live with medical conditions and injuries that render them minimally communicative. Assessing their level of consciousness and awareness is a major challenge that has profound implications for care decisions and their relationships. Resonance: a novel brain-computer interface assemblage, is designed to detect and augment expressions of consciousness in minimally communicative individuals. Resonance consists of (1) high-density EEG features that vary with states of consciousness; (2) sound; and (3) therapeutic clowns. Seven EEG features of consciousness are calculated in real time and mapped to sonic output. Therapeutic clowns use multisensory improvisational play to interact with these sonified brain features to create interpersonal connections with minimally communicative individuals. Resonance has the potential to reveal real-time variations in an individual’s level of consciousness, which may create an entirely new form of interpersonal interaction with minimally communicative persons.

  • Voices of Climate Change
    Sandra Volny, Julien Chaput
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    Abstract
    The authors, an artist and a geophysicist, present three different approaches to art-science projects, depicting hybrid models of interdisciplinarity, particularly via sound art. They first cooperate to create an art installation using sonified seismic data collected in Antarctica, moving then to vibrational data at a seismic deployment in the Jornada desert, New Mexico, envisioning a site-specific listening approach that would effectively merge art and science. The authors propose new models of collaboration in ever-more-urgent global responses to the climate crisis, revealing what we might call the “voices” of climate change.

  • Visibilis 433: Sensory Extension and Audiovisual Reinterpretation of 4′33″
    Ji Won Yoon, Woon Seung Yeo, Da Hye Kang
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    Abstract
    This article introduces Visibilis 433, an audiovisual installation piece inspired by and conceived as an homage to John Cage’s legendary 4′33″. The piece utilizes practically inaudible components of the ambient sound in the gallery to present an audible artificial soundscape and an accompanying virtual landscape in real time, aiming to reinterpret Cage’s original intentions from a new perspective through signal processing and multimedia programming. In addition to introducing notable features of Visibilis 433, the article discusses its significance as a re-mediated synesthetic variation of 4′33″ that extends the limit of our auditory perceptions and crosses the border between audio and visual senses.

Special Section: Pioneers and Pathbreakers

  • The Development of Neural Art: An Outline
    George Shortess
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    Abstract
    Throughout the author’s career, Neural Art, which is based on the functional properties of the nervous system, has been a significant part of his artwork. Three features stimulated his artistic development: (1) nervous systems as functioning networks, (2) sequences of neural impulses that operate within these networks, and (3) the interactions of nervous systems with external environments. This has resulted in three types of artworks: (1) artist’s books, (2) paintings with overlaid grids to suggest the neural networks as interfaces between inner experience and outer reality, and (3) interactive sound sculptures and installations that, when viewers move around the pieces, generate nerve impulse–like sounds or words and phrases related to a nervous system experiencing the external environment. This paper describes the development of this artwork.

Special Section: RE:SOURCE

  • Forgotten Pioneers of Media Art: Laboratory of Presentation Techniques
    Anna Maj
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    Abstract
    In the mid-1970s the group Laboratory of Presentation Techniques (LPT) was active at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice. The artists conducted experiments and formal searches, exploring the potential of film, performance, and a new medium: video. LPT was the first in Silesia, the second in Poland, and one of the first artistic groups in Europe dealing with video art. Looking at the artistic path of Grzegorz G. Zgraja, the last of the artists, as well as Jadwiga and Jacek Singer’s works, the paper analyzes the most pivotal artistic achievements of the group. Based on the interviews and archival research, the author reconstructs LPT’s artistic contribution to European media art and the reasons these pioneers of media art were forgotten.

  • Technology as Resistance: Pioneers of Korean Media Art from the 1960s to the 1990s
    Gyung Jin Shin
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    Abstract
    This paper calls for a reassessment of early-stage Korean avant-garde and experimental art as the cornerstone of Korean media art. The aim is to discern a new genealogy of media art in Korea by tracing and linking the activities of early avant-garde artists and media art pioneers who have been neglected in the dominant art historiography, which has shown a preference for painting and video art. My detailed analysis of the experimental artists of the 1960s and 1970s, small groups in the mid-1980s, and the Art Tech Group in the early 1990s demonstrates how they revealed and articulated their spirit of resistance against academism and the mainstream using technology, thus following a different trajectory from that of the avant-garde and media art in Europe and North America.

Leonardo Reviews

ISSN: 
1071-4391
Title: 

Leonardo, Volume 57, Issue 4

August 2024