This survey and summary of documentary material on Scriabin's “color hearing” is being presented for consideration by researchers studying his ideas of light-music synthesis. On the basis of their analysis, the authors conclude that the nature of Scriabin's “color-tonal” analogies was associative, i.e. psychological; accordingly, the existing belief that Scriabin was a distinctive, unique “synesthete” who really saw the sounds of music—that is, literally had an ability for “co-sensations”—is placed in doubt.

In this note the artist and his collaborators describe the process behind Blueprints, an ongoing body of work composed of abstract blue ballpoint pen ink drawings on found plotter paper, accompanied by a digitally manipulated, ambient-style soundtrack. The soundtrack is created from the sounds of the ballpoint pen's strokes marking the surface of the plotter paper. The artist also reflects on his concerns regarding the practice and meaning of blending the two mediums within his own conceptual processes.

The author examines historical precedents for contemporary art practice using artificial life, in particular in the work of Paul Klee and Kasimir Malevich. Similarities are identified between artificial life and the philosophical tradition of organicism; specific examples from Klee and Malevich indicate that those artists were engaged in a form of creative organicist thought that imagined the realization of living structures in artificial media.

The concepts of process and data, inherent in the technology of contemporary music, are contributing to a new musical practice and aesthetic. The role of technology in musical production has cast music into data (a tangible entity, commodity or product) and thus made data a kind of cultural object itself in certain contexts (LPs, CDs, MP3 files). This condition suggests that a rethinking/transformation of contemporary audio arts based on process is taking place. Increasingly, sound may be only one of several simultaneous and expressive components constituting a cultural experience.

This review of the First Iteration Conference held in Melbourne in December 1999 discusses several of the presentations made and includes brief summaries of the keynotes. Related issues like the problems of gender representation as well as shortcomings in the education of artists are also mentioned.

The author proposes possible ways for artists and cultural activists to use the Internet and other new media to help counter the currently devastating situation in Colombia.

This essay considers the relationship between science and mathematics and the social order that they both rely upon and reinforce. A peaceful and egalitarian world, the author argues, will require instilling a sense of responsibility in those who work with mathematics for the uses society makes of their efforts. Such an understanding of their social responsibilities would also require mathematicians to become more sensitive to history and to the social and psychological dynamics of the presentation of knowledge.