Showing papers in "Leonardo in 2002"

Art in the Information Age: Technology and Conceptual Art

Abstract: Art historians have generally drawn sharp distinctions be-tween conceptual art and art-and-technology. This essay reexamines the interrelationship of these tendencies as they developed in the 1960s, focus-ing on the art criticism of Jack Burnham and the artists in-cluded in the Software exhibition that he curated. The historiciza-tion of these practices as distinct artistic categories is examined. By interpreting conceptual art and art-and-technology as reflections and constituents of broad cultural transformations during the information age, the author concludes that the two tenden-cies share important similarities, and that this common ground offers useful insights into late-20th-century art.

CAD and Creativity: Does the Computer Really Help?

Abstract: We are frequently told by its exponents that computer-aided design (CAD) liberates designers and gives them new ways of envisioning their work, but is this really true? CAD in architecture is examined to see to what extent it has enhanced creativity in design. This is partly done by applying a test of creativity advanced by contemporary architect Herman Hertzberger. In this analysis, CAD is found somewhat wanting, and some suggestions are made as to why this might be so.

Growing Semi-Living Sculptures: The Tissue Culture & Art Project

Abstract: Tissue engineering promises to replace and repair body organs but has largely been overlooked for artistic purposes. In the last 6 years, the authors have grown tissue sculptures, “semi-living obje...

The Construction of Jackson Pollock's Fractal Drip Paintings

Abstract: Between 1943 and 1952, Jackson Pollock created patterns by dripping paint onto horizontal canvases. In 1999 the authors identified the patterns as fractal. Ending 50 years of debate over the content of his paintings, the results raised the more general question of how a human being could create fractals. The authors, by analyzing film that recorded the evolution of Pollock's patterns as a function of time, show that the fractals resulted from a systematic construction process involving multiple layers of painted patterns. These results are interpreted within the context of recent visual perception studies of fractal patterns.

Aesthetic Programming: Crafting Personalized Software

Abstract: Marrying traditional methods of computer programming with an artistic temperament allows the birth of a new phenomenon: the aesthetic program. The work of the author and his students builds on visual ap-proaches in programming as well as in software modeling, leading toward a gradual evolution from program to model. The need for the aes-thetic model is increased with the importance of personalized, individually tailored media, as found with web-based style sheets and the economic movement termed “mass customization.” The author and his students have formulated the rube Project methodology around the use of 3D web-based virtual-world model construction. Initial results suggest that these models are artistic, while containing symbolism and concise metaphoric mapping sufficient to be executable on a computer.

Synthetic Harmonies: An Approach to Musical Semiosis by Means of Cellular Automata

Abstract: The authors explore the creation of artificial universes that are expressible through music and internally comprehensible as complex systems. The semiotic approach this paper presents could also allow the development of new tools of investigation into the complexity of artificial-life systems. Through codification systems using musical language, it is possible to understand the patterns that the global dynamics of cellular automata produce and to use the results in the musical domain. In the authors' approach, music can be considered the semantics of complexity. The authors identify analogies between elements of cellular automata and elements of musical form, creating a narrative musical framework that has allowed them to develop a productive, computational and semantic methodology. Music fosters an increased capability for analyzing and reconstructing complexity, providing unexpected insight into its organization.

Was El Greco Astigmatic

Abstract: Why did El Greco (1541–1614) paint such elongated human figures? It has been suggested that he suffered from astigmatism. This is an optical defect of the frontal surface of the eyeball, which if over-corrected by a spectacle lens, could have optically stretched his retinal images horizontally, causing him to paint tall, thin objects that looked normal to him. A horizontal optical stretch would have restored his elongated portraits to normal proportions. Similarly, Holbein’s (1497–1543) squat, broad portraits might be attributed to a vertical astigmatism. A logical objection is that an astigmatic defect would stretch the sitter and the portrait horizontally by the same amount, so that the two distortions would cancel each other out. El Greco should thus have produced geometrically accurate portraits. There are also historical objections: El Greco sketched his figures on canvas in pencil in normal proportions and elongated them only when he painted them over; and he painted angels taller and thinner than mortals, suggesting a deliberate mannerism. Instead of relying on logic or history, I converted normally sighted observers into “artificial El Grecos” using a specially constructed cylindrical-lens telescope to stretch their visual images horizontally by 30%. Five subjects looked through this telescope in turn, with the other eye patched. Upon attempting to draw a freehand square from memory, they drew a tall, thin rectangle elongated vertically by 35%. When they were shown an actual square and asked to copy it, they drew a perfect, square copy—although both original and copy looked like squat, wide rectangles to them. So freehand portraits “from memory” showed an El Greco effect, but copy portraits “from life” did not. I conclude that subjects drew freehand shapes that appeared as square retinal images and drew simple facsimiles when asked to copy a shape. Logically, then, El Greco could have painted accurate life studies and distorted portraits from memory. To simulate El Greco’s supposed lifelong astigmatism, a volunteer was persuaded to wear the El Greco telescope over one eye for 2 days, with her other eye covered. At night she was blindfolded. Four times a day, she drew both a copy of a square and also a freehand square. Her copied squares were perfectly square. On the first day, her freehand squares were 50% too tall, but they became squarer every day because she rapidly adapted to the optical distortion, and after two days she drew as though she had normal vision (see Fig. 1). I conclude that even if El Greco were astigmatic, he would have adapted to it, and his figures, whether drawn from memory or from life, would have had normal proportions. His elongations were an artistic expression, not a visual symptom.

Ten Myths of Internet Art

Abstract: This article identifies ten myths about Internet Art, and explains the difficulties museums and others have understanding what it means to make art for the Internet. In identifying these common misconceptions, the author offers insight on successful online works, provides inspiration to Internet artists, and explains that geographical location does not measure success when making art for the Internet. The article also mentions that the World Wide Web is only one of the many parts that make up the Internet. Other online protocols include e-mail, peer-to-peer instant messaging, video-conferencing software, MP3 audio files, and text-only environments like MUDs and MOOs. The author concludes his list of myths with the idea that surfing the Internet is not a solitary experience. Online communities and listservers, along with interactive Internet artworks that trace viewers and integrate their actions into respective interfaces, prove that the Internet is a social mechanism.

Schizophrenia and Narrative in Artificial Agents

Abstract: Artificial-agent technology has become commonplace in technical research from com-puter graphics to interface design and in popular culture through the Web and computer games. On the one hand, the ...

Is One Eye Better Than Two When Viewing Pictorial Art

Abstract: During viewing of most objects in one’s everyday environment, the binocular and monocular relative depth cues interact in a harmonious, concordant and reinforcing manner to provide perceptual stability. However, when one views pictorial art, these binocular and monocular cues are discordant, and thus a perceptual “cue conflict” arises. This acts to reduce the relative apparent perceived distance of objects in a painting, thus producing overall perceptual depth “flattening.” The theory and physiology underlying this phenomenon are discussed.

Modeling the Emergence of Complexity: Complex Systems, the Origin of Life and Interactive On-Line Art

Abstract: The origin of this paper lies in the fundamental question of how complexity arose in the course of evolution and how one might construct an artistic interactive system to model and simulate this emergence of complexity. Relying on the idea that interaction and communication between entities of a system drive the emergence of structures that are more complex than the mere parts of that system, the authors propose to apply principles of complex system theory to the creation of VERBARIUM, an interactive, computer-generated and audience-participatory artwork on the Internet, and to test whether complexity can emerge within this system.

Genetic Art and the Aesthetics of Biology

Abstract: The creation of Alba, the first mammal genetically engineered to be a work of art, accents the increasing number of artists who take as their medium plants, cells, genes and other biological materials. Like traditional artists, these bioartists raise traditional art issues; but since their work collapses the gap between art and science, representation and biological form, they also marry the rich tradition of manipulating nature for aesthetic reasons, the ethical complexities created by today's biotech revolution and the historical ramifications of applying aesthetic judgment to humans.

Simulated Aesthetics and Evolving Artworks: A Coevolutionary Approach

Abstract: The application of artificial-life principles for artistic use has its origins in the early works of Sommerer and Mignonneau, Sims and Latham. Most of these works are based on simulated evolution and the determination of fitness according to aesthetics. Of particular interest is the use of evolving expressions, which were first introduced by Sims. The author documents refinements to the method of evolving expressions by Rooke, Ibrahim, Musgrave, Unemi, himself and others. He then considers the challenge of creating autonomously evolved artworks on the basis of simulated aesthetics. The author surveys what little is known about the topic of simulated aesthetics and proceeds to describe his new coevolutionary approach modeled after the interaction of hosts and parasites.

The Scientific and Philosophical Scope of Artificial Life

Abstract: The new interdisciplinary science of ALife has had a connection with the arts from its inception. This paper provides an overview of ALife, reviews its key scientific challenges and discusses its philosophical implications. It ends with a few words about the implications of ALife for the arts.

Ten Dreams of Technology

Abstract: This article presents the ten dreams of technology that frame the author/ c urator's selection of ten new media artworks. The “dreams” or themes presented by the author have been developed and/or questioned by artists throughout the history of the intersection of art and technology. This history emerges through artworks that the author describes as containing a “compelling vitality that we must admire.” The collection of dreams includes: Symbiosis, Emergence, Immersion, World Peace, Transparency, Flows, Open Work, Other, New Art, and Hacking. The author notes that these dreams of technology have a future, even if it is not yet determined.

Renderings of Digital Art

Abstract: This essay identifies the current qualifier of choice, “new media,” by explaining how this term is used to describe digital art in various forms. Establishing a historical context, the author highlights the pioneer exhibitions and artists who began working with new technology and digital art as early as the late 1960s and early 1970s. The article proceeds to articulate the shapes and forms of digital art, recognizing its broad range of artistic practice: music, interactive installation, installation with network components, software art, and purely Internet-based art. The author examines the themes and narratives specific to her selection of artwork, specifically interactive digital installations and net art. By addressing these forms, the author illustrates the hybrid nature of this medium and the future of this art practice.

New Naturality: A Generative Approach to Art and Design

Abstract: In the field of generative art and design, design concepts are represented as code. This generative code functions as DNA does in nature. It uses artificial life to generate a multiplicity of possible artworks, artificial events, architectures and virtual environments. In the generative approach the real artwork is not merely a product, such as an image or 3D model. The generative artwork is an Idea-Product. It represents an artificial species able to generate an endless sequence of individual events, each one different, unique and unrepeatable but belonging to the same identifiable design Idea. The author's project, Argenia, realizes the “new naturality” of artificial objects.

What Does a Very Large-Scale Conversation Look Like? Artificial Dialectics and the Graphical Summarization of Large Volumes of E-Mail

Abstract: E-mail-based conversations between thousands of people-very large-scale conversations (VLSCs)-now take place in a variety of on-line public spaces such as Usenet newsgroups and large listservs. This article describes the author's prototype Conversation Map system, which can automatically analyze and graphically summarize thousands of e-mail messages exchanged in VLSCs. Example conversation maps of nine VLSCs are presented. Finally, the sociolinguistic analysis performed by the Conversation Map is discussed as a form of artificial dialectics, and the graphical summaries produced by the system are considered as potential common ground between participants in a VLSC.

Art in Digital Times: From Technology to Instrument

Abstract: The author's approach to selecting digital art encompasses four major themes. The first relates to reprocessing information and the use of sampling as a means of representing the culturescape we inhabit. The second involves the emergence of interactive environments and installations. New forms of storytelling frame the third view and the final theme relates to bridging the categorical gaps, as demonstrated in computer generated multimedia work.

A Self-Defining Game for One Player: On the Nature of Creativity and the Possibility of Creative Computer Programs

Abstract: The AARON program has been generating original artworks for almost 30 years, but is denied by its own author to be creative. The author characterizes creativity as a directed movement towards an illdefined but strongly felt end-state for the individual's work as a whole, not as a characteristic of any single work and profoundly knowledge-based in the sense of externalizing the individual's internal worldmodel and system of belief. He suggests that a creative program would be one that was able to modify the belief-based criteria that inform the rule-base in which expert knowledge is represented, not one that is able simply to modify the rule-base itself.

’SBART 2.4’: An IEC tool for creating two-dimensional images, movies and collages

Abstract: In this article, the author gives an overview of SBART 2.4, an interactive system used to create abstract two-dimensional images, collages and movies. The system, one of the successors of Karl Sims...

Evolutionary Cooperative Design Methodology: The Genetic Sculpture Park

Abstract: The Genetic Sculpture Park seeks to engage artists and observers in a creative dialogue and to empower novices in the creation of complex computer-graphic models. Each visitor to the park experiences a unique set of sculptural forms and takes part in a cooperative conversation with the computer to produce more aesthetically pleasing designs. Inspired by Darwin's theory of evolution, the project uses genetic algorithms to allow visitors to “breed” forms tailored to their individual sense of aesthetics. In this article, the authors recount investigations into evolutionary design methodologies (using shampoo bottles and three-dimensional head models) and describe their implementation in the Genetic Sculpture Park, an interactive Java/Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) world.

Drawing with the Hand in Free Space: Creating 3D Shapes with Gesture in a Semi-Immersive Environment

Abstract: This article presents a new medium in which organic surfaces are drawn in 3D space with the hand. Special interface hardware includes a head-tracked stereoscopic display and sensors that track the body and handheld tools, allowing the artist to share the space of the artwork. Additional tools move and deform the shape. This method provides a fluid, unstructured access to three dimensions, ideal for quick, spontaneous ideation and investigation of complex structures.

Ancient Images and New Technologies: The Semiotics of the Web

Abstract: The article develops an analysis of visual knowledge and the use of pictures in electronic communication. The author focuses in particular on indexical images, which we use in navigat-ing multimedia documents and the Web. For this purpose, the author bases his study on the one hand on semiotics, the core concepts of which were intro-duced by C.S. Peirce at the beginning of the last century; and on the other hand on a more classical historical analy-sis, in order to point out the deep roots of the concepts used in contemporary computer-based communication.

Observer/Observed and Other Works of Video Semiology (review)

Abstract: This book—in a coffee table format—is a delight for the eyes. Anyone with an interest in scientific instruments or scientific illustrations will peruse this book with joy. These wonderful pictures, over 250 and all in color, are accompanied by a clear and well written—although rather sparse—text. The authors are from the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, and all illustrations are from instruments and materials owned by that famous institution. The instruments range across compasses, sundials, quadrants, astrolabes, sextants, nocturnals, clocks, celestial globes, armillary spheres, orreries, and telescopes. The novice reader, unfamiliar with the purpose of an instrument or precisely how to use even a well-known one, will learn something here. For example, there are good descriptions of how to read a sundial and how to use a nocturnal to tell time at night by the position of the stars. Independent of their function, these instruments can be visually appreciated for their exquisite craftwork. Surely many scientific instruments of the past were objets d’art. Other illustrations are of images from the printed page: from manuscripts, broadsheets or books, depicting constellations, eclipses, comets, maps, diagrams, charts and so forth. These too may function as aesthetic objects. One quibble: although every illustration is referred to in the text, there are no captions to the illustrations. Hence, a mere passing reference in the text is not always sufficient to fully grasp the content, meaning or purpose of some of the instruments and images. However there is a useful glossary of terms and an appendix with diagrams of celestial motions, exploded views of astrolabes, and so forth. Finally, the book is very reasonably priced.

Learning from the Cornell Box

Abstract: The Cornell Box serves as a visual emblem of the divide between arts and sciences first articulated by C.P. Snow over 40 years ago. To historians of American art, “Cornell Box” refers to the shadow boxes of Joseph Cornell; in the world of computer graphics the Cornell Box is the evaluative environment in which the Cornell University Program of Computer Graphics refined its radiosity rendering algorithms. Considering both boxes with reference to the perceptual thought of James J. Gibson allows us to generate a site for collaboration at the intersection of light and art for designers and computer scientists devoted to the development of new digital media.

Interaction in an IVR Museum of Color: Constructivism Meets Virtual Reality

Abstract: Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) environments would seem naturally to lend themselves to hands-on approaches to learning, but the success of such virtual “direct experience” depends heavily on the design of interface and interaction techniques. IVR presents surprisingly difficult interface challenges, and the study of interface and interaction design for educational IVR use is just beginning. In this paper, the authors discuss three issues encountered in the creation of an IVR-based educational project: the use of architectural spaces for structuring a sequence of modules, the tradeoffs between metaphorical fidelity and convenience, and the use of IVR in interaction with visualizations of abstract concepts.