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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE From the Avant-Garde:
Re-Conceptualizing Cultural Origins GLOBAL CROSSINGS in the Digital Media Art of Japan
ABSTRACT
Misconceptions concerning Jean M. Ippolito digital artists in Japan make them out to be mere followers, savvy with technology but not necessarily the conceptual originators of their work. Examining the aesthetic and philosophical content of their work, however, reveals that their he point at which one stands while observing the international avant-garde arena. attitudes toward the exploration T of process, performance and a natural phenomenon can have an effect on how it is per- From this vantage point, this article ceived and catalogued in the memory. Similarly, from the reinterprets some of the underlying the inherent nature of materials come from innovative and daring perspective of an art historian, I perceive the work of inter- concepts and influences in the work avant-garde groups of the nationally renowned digital media artists Yoichiro Kawaguchi, of Japan’s early digital artists. 1960s and 1970s in Japan, Masaki Fujihata and Naoko Tosa as an immense historical ac- Re-conceptualization #1: The pio- including the Gutai and Mono-ha cumulation of cultural and philosophical influences that well neering computer graphic artists of groups, whose ideas predate those of the New York avant- up into a pinnacle within each complete work of art. This at- Japan are not simply emulators of garde schools, even outside titude toward the art object issues from a method of scholar- Western European and American of the technological milieu. ship developed within the field of art history. When examining creativity; they are unique contrib- a work of art, the art historian sees it not simply as the result utors to the artistic innovations and of a single artist’s conception but as a mirror that reflects the aesthetic thinking of their experi- currents of the era from which it comes. This critical approach mental art groups. is often in conflict with the artist’s own ideas about his or her Re-conceptualization #2: Artists of Japan who draw on Japa- work. It is a very personal thing to the artist, who is sometimes nese cultural influences are not limited to the incorporation hesitant to acknowledge a scope of influence broader than of known images from traditional Japan. that which comes from within, but if one looks at a work of Re-conceptualization #3: Although the content of Japanese art from a broad, conceptual view, the object itself, when one digital media art sometimes has no narrative, the meaning is is produced, is a product of the time and place from which it often profoundly complex and philosophical. comes. One can think of the object as a product of society, These re-conceptualizations are based on popular assump- something that belongs to and reflects society as a whole. In tions and stereotypes widely expressed on both sides of the this respect, the work of art is a conduit of both cultural and ocean. They sometimes appear as annoying hurdles that im- societal influences. pede a deeper philosophical understanding of the works of Having been trained in the traditional methods of art his- art and artists. The standard audience that may be interested tory, with specialization in Japanese art, I naturally look for in Japanese influences tends to look for readily recognizable Japanese influences in the art of Japan. This sometimes pro- images such as geisha and Mount Fuji or images from Edo- vokes fear in the minds of today’s internationally active Japa- period ukiyo-e woodcut prints. nese artists, since they certainly do not want to be associated with clichéd stereotypes. It is not cliché imagery that is of im- portance in my own assessment of digital art, however; it is the Fig. 1. Takamasa Kuniyasu, Return to Self, bricks and logs, fundamental approach to the medium that comes from deep- installation view at Hara Museum ARC, Gunma Prefecture, 1990. (© Takamasa Kuniyasu) rooted cultural immersion. My perception of traditional Japanese influences in Japa- nese digital art comes not only from an understanding of traditional Japanese art and culture but also from knowledge of the reactions of native Japanese artists to their own his- tory and culture. An awareness of the struggles for recogni- tion by the avant-garde groups of Japan in the 1950s through the 1980s, as well as knowledge of similar struggles of Ameri- can and European artists, provides a unique perspective within
Jean M. Ippolito (art historian), Art Department, University of Hawaii at Hilo, 200 W. Kawili Street, Hilo, HI 96720, U.S.A. E-mail:
Article Frontispiece. Takamasa Kuniyasu, La Spirale du Midou, installation view, Le Musée Despiau-Wlérick, Mont-de-Marsan, France, 1997. (© Takamasa Kuniyasu)
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perimenting with new materials and new methods of painting. The leader of the group was Jiro Yoshihara, and many of the participants were his students. They attempted to do away with the traditional
GLOBAL CROSSINGS brush and canvas for painting. In the exhibition Experimental Outdoor Exhi- bition of Modern Art to Challenge the Mid-Summer’s Sun, held in a public park in Osaka in 1955, the exhibited works consisted of clear plastic tubes filled with colored water suspended from trees, paper plates lined up on the ground, plastic ground cloth stretched with foot- prints leading the audience/participants to a set location, etc. [3]. There were no works of art in traditional media—no paint on canvas. The artists of the Gutai group were exploring new materials with which to make art. This experimentation led to new processes and included per- formance art. The Gutai group staged performances at theater spaces in Osaka as well as Tokyo in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Members of the group also ex- perimented with different approaches to painting. Kazuo Shiraga, an ordained Buddhist priest, would swing from a rope and paint with his feet. Saburo Murakami would run through successive canvases Fig. 2. Conceptual diagram of the building blocks used in Yoichiro Kawaguchi’s growth made of paper on stretcher bars to cre- algorithm. (© Jean M. Ippolito) ate human-size holes through each [4]. Atsuko Tanaka is famous for her electric piece Bell and the electric-light dresses in which she would parade. Akira Kana- Even in Japan, these misconceptions Shigeo Chiba, an art historian and yama made drawings using a remote- have created roadblocks to my study of critic in Tokyo, wrote an article for Art- controlled toy car [5]. the cultural roots of digital media artists. Forum in 1984 that advises the casual art Members of the Gutai group were not Some Japanese artists that I interviewed observer from outside Japan: “Although acknowledged for their innovative work held back in fear of being associated with a show of interest in Japanese particular- in the international arena until very re- stereotypical imagery and refused to have ities is desired, dwelling on the exoticism cently. Even standard textbooks on 20th- anything to do with such research. They of Mount Fuji and Geisha girls is intoler- century avant-garde art movements did want to be a part of the international art able” [2]. not include the Gutai group’s contribu- arena and do not want to be pegged as For myself, I certainly enjoy traditional tion until the publication of more recent Japanese artists. In Japan, to be associated Japanese imagery in art; however, I have editions. The fourth revised edition of with such traditional imagery is to be found profound influences in digital Arneson’s History of Modern Art (1998), clichéd, and some artists are scorned for work that may be of concern to the con- however, does recognize that the per- capitalizing on stereotypes in order to noisseurs of more conceptual art in the formance art of the Gutai group predates get the attention of Western enthusiasts. international arena. Some of the work of that of Allen Kaprow and others of the Chuichi Fujii, a traditional-media artist these concept-based artists is often mis- early 1970s [6]. High Red Center, a coali- whose large sculptural pieces resemble understood because of the lack of nar- tion of three artists from Tokyo, also bonsai trees, admits to cultural influ- rative. The cultural influences of these staged performances, some of which ences, but hesitates to focus on them for artists stem, not from the popular art of were reenacted by members of the inter- fear of exploiting stereotypes: Japan, but from the avant-garde move- national Fluxus artists in New York [7]. ments of the 1960s and 1970s. The desires of the Gutai group to find Without saying that we are American or new processes and materials for making Japanese, we carry our cultures within art in the late 1950s and 1960s grew in us, and that emerges in a work. With- EARLY AVANT-GARDE ART parallel with the Abstract Expressionist out being conscious of it, culture just GROUPS IN JAPAN naturally is an influence. I don’t like it movement of New York in the early 1950s. when artists use their culture as a sell- One of the earliest independent avant- The Gutai artists were fascinated by ac- ing point. And I don’t like art that is garde groups in Japan was the Gutai tion painters such as Jackson Pollock. based on images of Mount Fuji or geisha. group. The Gutai movement began in They wanted to further the experimen- Although my work may have a certain influence from Japanese traditional cul- 1955 with a group of artists in Osaka tal ideas of the New York art movements, ture or Buddhism, I don’t want this to be- searching for new approaches to art. which also influenced European artists come a major issue [1]. Some of the artists of this group were ex- such as Yves Klein. They saw in the ex-
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periments of the action painters a de- sire to tap the inner rhythms of the sub- conscious mind through automatic tech- niques (automatism). Although some parallels can be found between auto-
matism and traditional Buddhist use of GLOBAL CROSSINGS repetitive activities to tap resources within the subconscious mind, these were not evident on the surface of the group’s work and theories, and certainly not ob- vious to contemporary international art circles [8]. An avant-garde movement that began in the early 1970s in Japan, known as Mono-ha (School of Things), was pro- pelled by an altogether different motive. It was founded by the Korean-born U-Fan Lee, who sought a uniquely new art that drew from Asian philosophy and culture [9]. The Mono-ha artists had a refresh- ing new approach to the raw materials from which they produced their artwork. They usually used natural materials such as wood, clay, charcoal, earth, air, metals, etc. Janet Koplos, a specialist in contem- porary Japanese art theory and criticism, explains that the Mono-ha artists had
a direct approach to ordinary materials, which were considered to have an inher- ent character and value; the actual real- ity of space, bound into works which interacted with their settings, and a rela- tional, relative emphasis in which the sculptor, the sculpture, and the world were seen as one continuum, in which “creation” was not possible, and the ex- pression of ego was not desirable [10].
They would juxtapose and contrast these materials to reveal the materials’ inner essence and changing characteris- tics when confronted by the variables of space and time. Artists of the Mono-ha movement included Kishio Suga and Nobuo Sekine [11], known for simple but profound installations that used nothing but a few pieces of wood or stone to prop up windows and change the na- ture of a gallery space or show contrast between natural and artificial surfaces over time. Toshio Hara, of the Hara Mu- seum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, ex- Fig. 3. Yoichiro Kawaguchi, still image from Eggy, computer-generated animation, 1990. plains: “Generally, their art is a direct (© Yoichiro Kawaguchi) response to natural processes of growth and decay” [12]. Although the Mono-ha artists were active in the galleries of Japan in the early 1970s, their legacy continued blocks of baked clay bricks and cut logs that it appears to flow down the street on through the 1980s in the work of art- that have since become the signature of (Fig. 1 and Article Frontispiece). ists dubbed post–Mono-ha by critics and his work. The artist claims to begin with- Kawamata uses scrap lumber that has historians. These artists include Taka- out a preconceived plan and stacks the been discarded or set aside to build his masa Kuniyasu and Tadashi Kawamata, materials in a repetitive rhythm until he installation structures. He gathers up who are internationally renowned today no longer needs to think about what he the materials and hammers the wood for their installations using logs, bricks is doing [13]. Thus the installation takes together to change the space inside the and scrap lumber. on a life of its own as it “grows” to fill gallery or outside the building. His work Kuniyasu created a number of instal- the gallery space, sometimes spilling out sometimes has the appearance of scaf- lations by stacking the standard building through the doorway and windows so folding, as if it were holding up the build-
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Fig. 4. Yoichiro Kawaguchi, Gemotion Dance, interactive installation with performance, 2002. (© Yoichiro Kawaguchi)
ing or providing footing for the general ent in the work of these artists in his Let us consider, for instance, the work of maintenance of a structure. Kawamata’s somewhat controversial essay for the ex- Yoichiro Kawaguchi, an internationally structures become walls and corridors; hibition A Primal Spirit at the Los Ange- acknowledged digital media pioneer. On thus they affect how people move through les County Museum of Art: the surface, Kawaguchi’s work appears the building’s space. Although his work to be a simulation of nature’s organic is occasionally misinterpreted as a politi- Their art draws upon ideas and aesthet- growth and evolutionary processes. The cal statement about war or decay [14], ics that are not only traditional but dom- artist himself often presents his work as inant in Japanese art, including Shinto from a post–Mono-ha perspective it is attitudes—that man is equivalent to and springing from his own childhood ob- about transformation and change [15]. involved with nature and the spirits and servations of evolutionary growth and One additional example of the post– life force embodied therein, that the art change during his upbringing on Tane- Mono-ha approach to materials is found object is the locus of the individual’s spir- gashima, a tropical island teeming with itual encounter with nature, that the in the work and attitude of Chuichi Fu- artist works “with” the materials to dis- land and sea creatures [18]. This rela- jii. Fujii works with large cut logs that cover their “inner being,” rather than tionship to growth and change is often he tapers gradually by wrapping copper against them to impose his technical vir- found in the concerns of the post–Mono- wire around them and adjusting the work tuosity—and Buddhist concepts—that ha artists. Kawaguchi’s work is stimulat- in stages to form uncanny shapes and man is not at the center of the universe, ing and visually awe inspiring, but, for that the art object represents a micro- precariously balanced structures. He ex- cosm of that universe, and that the func- international avant-garde art circles, not plains: tion of art is fundamentally meditative necessarily concept laden. There is no [17]. story line to his animated pieces, and his Wood is wood, and it should be ap- themes are not instrumental in nature. proached simply; the point of departure The standard interpretation of Kawa- should be the A of ABC. . . . There seems ARLY IGITAL EDIA to be a lot of art in which it makes no dif- E D M guchi’s work is that the computer is used ference what material it is made from. My ARTISTS IN JAPAN as a tool to produce images that are beau- attitude is that one should start from an Parallels can be found in this unique ap- tiful to behold on the surface. The art- understanding of what a material can do, whatever the material is [16]. proach to materials and awareness of the ist uses high-definition resolution and transitory nature of time and space in the Implicit Surface modeling techniques to Howard N. Fox sums up the traditional attitude of the Mono-ha artists and that enhance these images [19]. When we ex- Japanese influences that he sees appar- of the digital media pioneers of Japan. amine the fundamental building blocks,
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however, we can find parallels with post– cylinders are the equivalent of Kuni- use of computer technique, however, Mono-ha artists’ use of basic materials yasu’s bricks and logs. Furthermore, the does not simply mimic the actions of and processes over time to reveal the random element programmed into the avant-garde artists; it explores the nature transitory nature of art. Kawaguchi uses computer algorithm and its recursive po- of the algorithm and the computer as virtual cones and cylinders in a growth tential is the equivalent of the intuitive process. Although Kawaguchi’s work con-
algorithm that recursively fills the vir- stacking performed by Kuniyasu and tains broader concepts of birth, growth GLOBAL CROSSINGS tual space [20] (Fig. 2). The cones and other Mono-ha followers. Kawaguchi’s and decay from a visual and philosophi-
Fig. 5. Masaki Fujihata, Mandala, computer-generated animation, 1983. (© Masaki Fujihata)
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Fig. 6. Masaki Fujihata, Owan no Fune ni Hashi no Kai 1984, digital still image from Geometric Love, 1987. (© Masaki Fujihata)
cal perspective, when we look deeper, at The work of Masaki Fujihata, another For Fujihata, the nature of the computer the algorithm itself, we find that the artist pioneer in the field, is different from as a medium is found in the abstract con- also explores the nature of the material, Kawaguchi’s, both superficially and con- ception of universal space that the com- the computer’s abstract space. ceptually. Fujihata treats the computer it- puter represents. On the surface it is Kawaguchi also utilizes the random ca- self as a material to be explored, much difficult to infer stylistic similarities be- pabilities of his computer program to as the early Mono-ha artists explored tween one body of Fujihata’s early work simulate the unpredictability of nature’s natural materials such as wood or earth. and the next, since each is an exploration momentum. These are aspects of his art that he has built upon since his first piece Fig. 7. Masaki Fujihata, Field_Works @ Alsace, digital GPS project, 2005. (© Masaki Fujihata) was exhibited in the 1983 SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater. International artists participating in the early computer graphics movement were astounded by the organic quality and liquid-like sur- faces of Kawaguchi’s work (Color Plate E and Fig. 3), but few looked beyond the technical finesse. When we look be- yond the images, or within the algo- rithmic space, we can find a conceptual exploration of the computer’s ability to simulate natural evolution and change through artificial processing. Although Kawaguchi continues to work with growth algorithms, he has more recently be- gun experimenting with the presenta- tion format for his work by combining projected images with dance perform- ance (Fig. 4). Also, daringly, he had a piece in the format of a byobu, a tradi- tional Japanese folding screen, on display at the SIGGRAPH 2005 Art Gallery in Los Angeles [21].
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Fig. 8. Naoko Tosa, Neuro-baby, 1993, installation at Machine Culture, SIGGRAPH 1993. (© Naoko Tosa)
of a different aspect of the computer’s in 1987 called Geometric Love [23]. The ob- that lacks the gravitational pull of the real abstract realm. Mandala (1983) (Fig. 5), jects produced are a result of his explo- world. recognized at the SIGGRAPH Elec- ration of how the computer algorithm In 1996, Fujihata created some of his tronic Theater for its high-resolution ren- can abstract common utilitarian objects earliest internationally renowned digi- dering using the Cray supercomputer into objects of art (non-utilitarian objects tal installations, exploring the interactive [22], is conceptually much more inter- of beauty). Fujihata would begin with a potential of the computer realm; these esting than its simple surface visuals re- simple lacquer rice bowl of the kind used included the Beyond Pages and Global In- veal. Mandala represents the computer at everyday meals in Japan. By writing a terior projects. Beyond Pages explored the as a simulation of the universe, just as a program that would slice and dice the vir- potential of books of the future by al- Buddhist mandala is a diagram of the tual material and rearrange it into a new lowing people to interact with the virtual spiritual universe. Fujihata began this aesthetic whole, he would produce an art images and content of a visual represen- piece with the image of a historically sig- object, no longer useful, but solely of aes- tation of a book; Global Interior Project al- nificant painting of Shingon Buddhism thetic value (Fig. 6). There are parallels lowed people to meet by avatar when dating from the Heian period (794– between this concept and that of early traveling through virtually created inte- 1185) in Japan. The Womb-World Man- Mono-ha artists, who would change the rior space from distant locations [26]. dala (a type of Mandala usually paired nature of a gallery’s space by subtly ma- The latter technological concept has been with the Diamond-World Mandala) is a nipulating the relationship of the mate- incorporated into numerous on-line video diagrammatic representation of the Bud- rials to that space. In 1990, in a body of games since then, so it may not seem dhist theological universe. Fujihata used work entitled Forbidden Fruits [24], Fuji- unique to current audiences, but in 1996 a computer-generated sphere to repre- hata experimented with the weightless it was a surprisingly new idea. Fujihata is sent each of the central manifestations space of the computer and the idea of currently working on a series of projects of Buddha in the painting. Although natural selection (Color Plate F). The that re-create the character of a geo- computer-generated spheres rendered in Forbidden Fruits are objects with organic graphic place through time using video high resolution were not at all unique form and surfaces, similar to those found clips and interviews combined with GPS in 1983, the concept of the computer as in the work of Yoichiro Kawaguchi. In technology [27] (Fig. 7). Each of Fuji- a microcosm of the virtual universe was a fact, Fujihata goes to the point of paro- hata’s separate creations is an explo- revelation. dying the work of Kawaguchi [25] in For- ration of the characteristics of the Fujihata’s further exploration of the bidden Fruits, as these organic shapes computer as a virtual material and how conceptual material of the computer is are a natural result of working within the it relates to our actual environment. found in a body of work that he created virtual space of the computer, a space Naoko Tosa is younger than Kawa-
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Fig. 9. Naoko Tosa, installation view of Neuro-baby II, 1993. (© Naoko Tosa. Photo: Jean Ippolito.)
guchi and Fujihata, and her earliest work a digital representation of the fetus float- —experimenting with its nature, discov- was producing computer graphics effects ing within the womb. Tosa created this ering its inherent uniqueness through for video and film. However, her 1993 in- piece by embedding computer monitors processes and juxtaposition—that is of teractive piece Neuro-Baby shows concep- in the abdomen of cast fiberglass models interest. This approach is not so appar- tual parallels between the computer of the female torso. A later piece, entitled ent on the surface but is found in the algorithm and the workings of the hu- Unconscious Flow, continued Tosa’s work artists’ attitudes toward their media and man brain. Just as Fujihata found paral- with human emotional input and digital in their discoveries about the nature of lels between the macrocosm of the responses, and was displayed for audi- the simulated space and the random el- universe and the microcosm of the com- ence participation in the TechnoOasis ement that is so much a part of the digital puter’s interior abstract space, Tosa finds Gallery of SIGGRAPH 1999 [29]. Re- realm. This attitude stems from the avant- parallels between the algorithmic think- cently, she presented the Inspiration Com- garde traditions of Japan and is carried ing of a computer and the neuron trans- puting Robot, an interactive piece that over to the new-media experiments of fers of the brain. Like Fujihata, Tosa explores random connections in lan- the pioneers in technology and art. Just explores the nature of the computer’s ab- guage, at the Emerging Technologies as artists of the Gutai group experimented straction, the algorithm and its virtual venue of SIGGRAPH 2005 [30]. Her with nontraditional materials and pro- realm. Neuro-Baby deals with neural net- 2006 Leonardo article “ZENetic Computer: cesses, some of which included tech- works, a kind of artificial intelligence that Exploring Japanese Culture” examined nological media—electric bells, lights, simulates the unpredictable emotional Japanese cultural concepts through in- remote-control devices, etc.—the digital responses of the human mind. Tosa’s first teractive design [31]. media pioneers explored new devices version of the work was an interactive vir- and processes through algorithmic pro- tual baby that responded to voice input gramming. In addition, the Gutai artists through a microphone. Different voices CONCLUSION often “performed” their art in theaters and pitches affected the expression on To compare the work of a group of artists with no resulting art “object” created, the baby’s computer-generated face in who use current computer technology to placing the emphasis on the process various ways (Fig. 8). The neural network another group who use primarily natural rather than the result. Early computer- utilizes artificial intelligence with a ran- materials such as wood and clay may seem graphic artists such as Kawaguchi pro- dom component, as nature’s changes can a stretch of the imagination. It is not the duced short animated film clips that be surprisingly unpredictable [28]. The artists’ material, however, that is signifi- showed the results of the idea and pro- second version of Neuro-Baby (Fig. 9) was cant. It is the approach to the material cess but did not carry a plot or narrative.
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The Mono-ha group focused their efforts the Guggenheim Museum and San Francisco Mu- 24. Masaki Fujihata, Forbidden Fruits (Tokyo: Libro on the exploration of the “nature” of ma- seum of Modern Art, 1994) pp. 83–100, 149–163. Port, 1991). terials. Although the former used more 4. Patrick Frank, Prebles’ ArtForms, 8th Ed. (Upper 25. Interview, 1993. traditional natural materials such as Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Prentice Hall, 2006) p. 448. 26. Masaki Fujihata, artist’s statement, in Jean Ip- wood and clay, the Japanese digital me- polito, ed., “The Bridge Art Show,” Visual Proceedings:
dia artists of the late 1970s and early 5. Munroe [3] p. 92. The Art and Interdisciplinary Programs of SIGGRAPH96 GLOBAL CROSSINGS (New York: ACM SIGGRAPH, 1996) pp. 24–26. 1980s carried this exploration of the in- 6. H.H. Arnason, M.F. Prather and D. Wheeler, His- herent nature of the medium over to the tory of Modern Art, 4th Ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: 27. Interview, 27 June 2005. Prentice Hall; and Harry N. Abrams, 1998) p. 515. digital realm in utilizing the computer’s 28. Naoko Tosa, artist’s statement, in Simon Penny, virtual space and the random and repet- 7. Munroe [3] p. 159. ed., “Machine Culture,” Visual Proceedings: The Art and Interdisciplinary Programs of SIGGRAPH93 (New itive qualities of the algorithm. 8. Munroe [3] p. 84. York: ACM SIGGRAPH, 1993) p. 167. This research supports the speculation 9. Janet Koplos, Contemporary Japanese Sculpture (New 29. Naoko Tosa, artist’s statement, in Marla that cross-cultural currents in the inter- York: Abbeville Press, 1991) p. 41. Schweppe, ed., “Art Gallery: Techno Oasis,” in Marla Schweppe, ed., SIGGRAPH 1999 Electronic Art and An- national art-and-technology movements 10. Janet Koplos, “Mono-ha and the Power of Mate- imation Catalog (New York: ACM SIGGRAPH, 1999) rials,” New Art Examiner (29–30 June 1988) p. 30. were not a one-way street, that the con- p. 11. ceptual nature of the avant-garde move- 11. T. Minemura, “Measuring Up to the Mono-ha— 30. Kawaguchi [21] p. 154. ments did not simply spring from New and Beyond,” in T. Minemura et al., Mono-ha and Post York, but rather that each culture devel- Mono-ha: Art in Japan since 1969 (Tokyo: Seibu Art 31. Naoko Tosa and Seigow Matsuoka, “ZENetic Com- Museum and Tama Fine Arts University, 1987) pp. puter: Exploring Japanese Culture,” Leonardo 39, No. oped its own avant-garde experimental 190–194; p. 191. 3, 205–-211 (2006); see also Naoko Tosa and Seigow groups in parallel with others interna- Matsuoka, artist’s statement in Lauro-Lazin [21] p. 12. Fox and Hara [1] p. 7. tionally, and as ideas and attitudes de- 154. veloped they were shared through such 13. Takamasa Kuniyasu, artist’s statement, in Fox and Hara [1] p. 81. international groups as Fluxus. The in- Artists’ Web Links 14. R. Rhodes, “Tadashi Kawamata,” ArtForum 28 ternational art-and-technology move- Fujihata, M.,
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Happy 40th Birthday, Leonardo!
Forty years ago in Paris, a group of artists, scientists and engineers got together and decried the lack of professional venues where emerging work bridging the two cultures could be presented, debated and pro- moted. Frank Malina, himself a research engineer and a professional artist, convinced publisher Robert Maxwell of Pergamon Press to take on the challenge of publishing a peer-reviewed scholarly art-science- technology journal, the first time such a project had been attempted. To date we have published the work of 5,538 artists, researchers and scholars; we wish we could bring this community together for a celebration, but in keeping with our networked times, we are collaborating with groups around the world on a variety of events: Leonardo Celebrates Leonardo da Vinci Special Section of Leonardo, 2007–2008, edited by David Carrier What, building upon Leonardo’s ways of thinking, can artists and scientists tell each other today? Full call for papers:
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