DOCSLIB.ORG

Telepresence & Bio Art : Networking Humans, Rabbits & Robots

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Telepresence & Bio Art : Networking Humans, Rabbits & Robots Eduardo Kac Telepresence & Bio Art Networking Humans, Rabbits, of Robots Foreword by James Elkins I ^ 1/ J tens T.OO& Telepresence & Bio Art Studies in Literature and Science pubisbed in association with the Society for Literature and Science Editorial Board Co-Chairs: N. Katherine Hayles, University of California, Los Angeles, and Stephanie A. Smith, University of Florida James J. Bono, State University of New York at Buffalo Clifford Geertz, Institute for Advanced Study Mark L. Greenberg, Drexel University Evelyn Fox Keller, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Bruno Latour, Ecole Nationale Superieur des Mines, Paris Stephen J. Weininger, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Titles in the series Transgressive Readings: The Texts of Franz Kafka and Max Planck by Valerie D. Greenberg A Blessed Rage for Order: Deconstruction, Evolution, and Chaos by Alexander J. Argyros Of Two Minds: Hypertext Pedagogy and Poetics by Michael Joyce The Artificial Paradise: Science Fiction and American Reality by Sharona Ben-Tov Conversations on Science, Culture, and Time by Michel Serres with Bruno Latour Genesis by Michel Serres The Natural Contract by Michel Serres Dora Marsden and Early Modernism: Gender, Individualism, Science by Bruce Clarke The Meaning of Consciousness by Andrew Lohrey The Troubadour of Knowledge by Michel Serres Simplicity and Complexity: Pondering Literature, Science, and Painting by Floyd Merrell Othermindedness: The Emergence of Network Culture by Michael Joyce Embodying Technesis: Technology Beyond Writing by Mark Hansen Dripping Dry: Literature, Politics, and Water in the Desert Southwest by David N. Cassuto Networking: Communicating with Bodies and Machines in the Nineteenth Century by Laura Otis Rethinking Reality: Lucretius and the Textualization of Nature by Duncan F. Kennedy The Knowable and the Unknowable: Modern Science, Nonclassical Thought, and the “Two Cultures” by David N. Cassuto Telepresence and Bio Art: Networking Humans, Rabbits, and Robots by Eduardo Kac Telepresence & Bio Art Networking Humans, Rabbits, & Robots Eduardo Kac ^OVE C0^ The University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor For Ruth & Miriam Copyright © by the University of Michigan zoo 5 All rights reserved Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America © Printed on acid-free paper 2008 zoo 7 zoo6 Z005 4 3 z 1 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kac, Eduardo. Telepresence and bio art: networking humans, rabbits, and robots / Eduardo Kac. p. cm. — (Studies in literature and science) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-472-09810-1 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-472-06810-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Telecommunication in art. 2. Technology in art. 3. Biology in art. 4. Kac, Eduardo. I. Title. II. Series. N74.T45K33 2005 701'.05—dc22 2004015061 Foreword James Elkins A reviewer once said that Eduardo Kac’s work is six degrees of sepa¬ ration from every important issue of our time. It is an accurate remark. I imagine some readers will have picked up this book because they know Kac’s work, and others will be hoping to learn something about bioart or telepresence, but there will also be readers for whom this book’s subtitle is a red flag, a warning that indicates the book is meant for people with a special interest in technology. Wariness of new me¬ dia is a traditional accompaniment of modernism, and in some respects it’s even a necessary element of modernism. Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, modernist wariness about new media has largely evaporated (which is not the same as saying it leaves no un¬ solved problems in its wake or that it’s been done away with once and for all), and yet suspicion about technology remains. Those who are convinced of the importance of film, video, performance, and concep¬ tual art may still resist work that depends on code, pixels, or genes. I suspect the current slight but pervasive mistrust of digital media is a ghostly aftereffect of modernism’s dislike of technology. If you find yourself agreeing with Heidegger’s critique of technology, then this book may indeed have little to say to you. If you feel, like Heidegger, that technology masks fuller senses of experience, then the subjects covered in this book may seem like attempts to conceal, or escape from, life and art in a broader sense. But I wonder how many people who avoid electronic arts exhibitions actually read Heidegger and how many people have managed to keep the digital portions of their life se¬ questered from the artistic parts. I think, in other words, that the mis- James Elkins, an art historian, is the author of The Object Stares Back: On the Nature of Seeing (Simon & Schuster, 1996), The Domain of Images (Cornell University Press, What Painting Is (Routledge, 2.000), What Happened to Art Criticism? (Prickly Paradigm Press/University of Chicago Press, 2003), and Six Stories from the End of Rep¬ resentation (Stanford University Press, 2005). VI Foreword trust of digital arts is sometimes—not always—a matter of old and un examined habits. Given all that, I’d like to use this foreword to address readers who might have some lingering skepticism about the potential relevance of technologically oriented media. Readers who already accept such art may find something of use here as well, especially those who feel that the question of relevance is asked and answered and there are effec¬ tively no divides between the digital and the rest of art—what the digi¬ tal calls the analog. I’ll mention three fields of crucial interest to contemporary theoriz¬ ing on fine art that apply just as well—and in most cases better to the work Kac discusses than they do to the media with which they are nor¬ mally associated. These are three reasons why mainstream art theory, criticism, and history should take notice of the developments in this book as if they did not require a separate book of their own—as if they were simply and immediately examples of art. History This is an unusual book, because Kac has participated in the move¬ ments he discusses. He is an artist and also, at times, a historian. The combination is rare. A comparison might be made to Robert Mother- well, except that as a historian he was more concerned with surrealism than the art of his own generation: he separated documentation from creation in a way that Kac does not. Eugene Fromentin might be an¬ other example, and among near contemporaries there are Meyer Schapiro, Leo Steinberg, and David Summers. It’s a short list. The clos¬ est comparisons may be to Laszlo Moholy-Nagy; or to Paul Signac, who wrote a history of French painting up to and including his own generation; or—though he’s not much of a historian—Frank Stella. (I thank Margaret MacNamidhe for suggesting Fromentin and Signac.) Kac does not consider himself a historian, but it might be more ac¬ curate to say that his practice includes the making of art as well as its discussion: research into what other people do and have done is part of his working process. At the same time, Kac has a perspective on this material that isn’t quite what scholars might have. Rachel Greene’s book on Internet art, for example, is oriented partly to politicals and partly to formal innovation. Similar emphases can be found in books by Julian Stallabrass, Oliver Grau, Christiane Paul, Noah Wardrip- Fruin, Nick Montfort, and Stephen Wilson. This book has an interest, too: a theory, a common thread that binds the narrative. That interest is, in one word, communication. Kac is concerned to find new forms Foreword vii of communication, and that takes him into semiotics; linguistics; com¬ munication theory; and, especially, what he calls dialogism. Dialogism In his art and writing, Kac is singularly uninterested in one-way com¬ munication of the sort in which the work “speaks” to the silent viewer. (I imagine he is also disapproving of the classical music scene, where nothing more articulate than clapping is required of an audience.) The works described in this book share its author’s concern with the elab¬ oration of new communities, new kinds of collaboration, new dialog¬ ical interactions. Those interests become radical when the thing being communicated with is not another person but a software code, a ro¬ bot, or something that’s alive but isn’t human. For Kac the theorist (of his own work and that of others) there is a necessary progression from one-directional work like academic painting (in which meaning seems to flow to a silent viewer), through bidirectional work like some per¬ formance, telepresence, and telerobotics (where the audience becomes a participant and the performers can become the audience), to bi¬ directional work that reaches outside the human. It’s a genealogy whose sturdiness has yet to be tested: the link between the second and third is a historical hypothesis, a proposal for a genealogy of art. The three parts of this book rehearse the genealogy, and it will be up to each reader to decide if the theme of dialogism finds its logical end in works that explore the boundaries of the living and nonliving or incorporate “dialogic” animals like the dog. One question, then, is whether the investigation of new forms of di¬ alogical understanding inevitably leads toward the investigation of new forms of life. Another is the link between dialogism, as Kac explores it, and similar concepts used outside telepresence, telerobotics, and bioart.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Collaborative “Mail Art” Puts the Post in Postmodernism Letters, Envelopes and Enclosures Take Center Stage in an Intimate New Art Show
    Collaborative “Mail Art” Puts the Post in Postmodernism Letters, envelopes and enclosures take center stage in an intimate new art show Envelope decoration was always a staple of the mail art experience. This colorful letter was sent from performance artist Anna Banana (Anna Lee Long) to collagist John Evans in 2010. (John Evans papers, Archives of American Art). By Ryan P. Smith JULY 30, 2018 In the era of instant messaging and FaceTime on the go, it can be easy to forget the pleasure of shuffling out to the mailbox in hope of discovering a thoughtful note from an old friend. Removing a letter from its envelope is a rich tactile experience, and marginalia, cross-outs, distinct penmanship and quirky enclosures combine to give epistolary exchanges a uniquely personal flavor. In the experimental artistic simmer of the late 1950s, the everyday creativity of letter-writing gave rise to a veritable movement: that of “mail art,” an antiestablishment, anything-goes mode of serial imaginative expression whose inclusive nature has kept it alive even into the Digital Age. Now a new show, “Pushing the Envelope,” organized by the Smithsonian's Achives of 2018 American Art and opening August 10 at the Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery in Washington, D.C., promises to shine a spotlight on the medium. The enigmatic Neo-Dada collagist Ray Johnson, a Detroit native who struggled with fame even as he appropriated images of movie stars for his art, pioneered in the field of mail art, weaving together an immense spider web of collaborators that would survive him following his sudden suicide in 1995.
    [Show full text]
  • Danish Artists in the International Mail Art Network Charlotte Greve
    Danish Artists in the International Mail Art Network Charlotte Greve According to one definition of mail art, it is with the simple means of one or more elements of the postal language that artists communicate an idea in a concise form to other members of the mail art network.1 The network constitutes an alternative gallery space outside the official art institution; it claims to be an anti-bureaucratic, anti-hierarchic, anti-historicist, trans-national, global counter-culture. Accordingly, transcendence of boundaries and a destructive relationship to stable forms and structures are important elements of its Fluxus-inspired idealistic self-understanding.2 The mail art artist and art historian Géza Perneczky describes the network as “an imaginary community which has created a second publicity through its international membership and ever expanding dimensions”.3 It is a utopian artistic community with a striving towards decentralized expansion built on sharing, giving and exchanging art through the postal system. A culture of circulation is built up around a notion of what I will call sendable art. According to this notion, distance, delay and anticipation add signification to the work of art. Since the artists rarely meet in flesh and blood and the only means of communication is through posted mail, distance and a temporal gap between sending and receiving are important constitutive conditions for the network communication. In addition, very simple elements of the mail art language gain the status of signs of subjectivity, which, in turn, become constitutive marks of belonging. These are the features which will be the focus of this investigation of the participation of the Danish artists Mogens Otto Nielsen, Niels Lomholt and Carsten Schmidt-Olsen in the network during the period from 1974–1985.
    [Show full text]
  • CLONES, BONES and TWILIGHT ZONES: PROTECTING the DIGITAL PERSONA of the QUICK, the DEAD and the IMAGINARY by Josephj
    CLONES, BONES AND TWILIGHT ZONES: PROTECTING THE DIGITAL PERSONA OF THE QUICK, THE DEAD AND THE IMAGINARY By JosephJ. Beard' ABSTRACT This article explores a developing technology-the creation of digi- tal replicas of individuals, both living and dead, as well as the creation of totally imaginary humans. The article examines the various laws, includ- ing copyright, sui generis, right of publicity and trademark, that may be employed to prevent the creation, duplication and exploitation of digital replicas of individuals as well as to prevent unauthorized alteration of ex- isting images of a person. With respect to totally imaginary digital hu- mans, the article addresses the issue of whether such virtual humans should be treated like real humans or simply as highly sophisticated forms of animated cartoon characters. TABLE OF CONTENTS I. IN TR O DU C T IO N ................................................................................................ 1166 II. CLONES: DIGITAL REPLICAS OF LIVING INDIVIDUALS ........................ 1171 A. Preventing the Unauthorized Creation or Duplication of a Digital Clone ...1171 1. PhysicalAppearance ............................................................................ 1172 a) The D irect A pproach ...................................................................... 1172 i) The T echnology ....................................................................... 1172 ii) Copyright ................................................................................. 1176 iii) Sui generis Protection
    [Show full text]
  • Humana.Mente Complete Issue 26.Pdf
    EDITORIAL MANAGER: DUCCIO MANETTI - UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE Editorial EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: SILVANO ZIPOLI CAIANI - UNIVERSITY OF MILAN VICE DIRECTOR: MARCO FENICI - UNIVERSITY OF SIENA Board INTERNATIONAL EDITORIAL BOARD JOHN BELL - UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO GIOVANNI BONIOLO - INSTITUTE OF MOLECULAR ONCOLOGY FOUNDATION MARIA LUISA DALLA CHIARA - UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE DIMITRI D'ANDREA - UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE BERNARDINO FANTINI - UNIVERSITÉ DE GENÈVE LUCIANO FLORIDI - UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD MASSIMO INGUSCIO - EUROPEAN LABORATORY FOR NON-LINEAR SPECTROSCOPY GEORGE LAKOFF - UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY PAOLO PARRINI - UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE ALBERTO PERUZZI - UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE JEAN PETITOT - CREA, CENTRE DE RECHERCHE EN ÉPISTÉMOLOGIE APPLIQUÉE CORRADO SINIGAGLIA - UNIVERSITY OF MILAN BAS C. VAN FRAASSEN - SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY CONSULTING EDITORS CARLO GABBANI - UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE ROBERTA LANFREDINI - UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE MARCO SALUCCI - UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE ELENA ACUTI - UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE MATTEO BORRI - UNIVERSITÉ DE GENÈVE ROBERTO CIUNI - UNIVERSITY OF DELFT Editorial SCILLA BELLUCCI, LAURA BERITELLI, RICCARDO FURI, ALICE GIULIANI, STEFANO LICCIOLI, UMBERTO MAIONCHI Staff HUMANA.MENTE - QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Fiorella Battaglia, Antonio Carnevale Epistemological and Moral Problems with Human Enhancement III PAPERS Volker Gerhardt Technology as a Medium of Ethics and Culture 1 Nikil Mukerji, Julian Nida-Rümelin Towards a Moderate Stance on Human Enhancement 17 Christopher
    [Show full text]
  • M.A. Maciver's Dissertation
    The computational neuroethology of weakly electric fish body modeling, motion analysis, and sensory signal estimation R s R s C R s i C s 1 Z = + X prey + + s 1/ Rp 1/ Xp 1/ Zs −ρ ρ E ⋅r 1 p / w δφ(r) = fish a3 3 + ρ ρ r 1 2 p / w − t − t = 1/ v + + − 1/ v + vt vt−1e g(1 mt )(1 e ) nt − t = 1/ w wt wt−1e = − st H(vt wt ) = + ∆ ⋅ wt wt w st Malcolm Angus MacIver THE COMPUTATIONAL NEUROETHOLOGY OF WEAKLY ELECTRIC FISH: BODY MODELING, MOTION ANALYSIS, AND SENSORY SIGNAL ESTIMATION BY MALCOLM ANGUS MACIVER B.Sc., University of Toronto, 1991 M.A., University of Toronto, 1992 THESIS Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Neuroscience in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2001 Urbana, Illinois c Copyright by Malcolm Angus MacIver, 2001 ABSTRACT Animals actively influence the content and quality of sensory information they acquire through the positioning of peripheral sensory surfaces. Investigation of how the body and brain work together for sensory acquisition is hindered by 1) the limited number of techniques for tracking sensory surfaces, few of which provide data on the position of the entire body surface, and by 2) our inability to measure the thousands of sensory afferents stimulated during behav- ior. I present research on sensory acquisition in weakly electric fish of the genus Apteronotus, where I overcame the first barrier by developing a markerless tracking system and have de- ployed a computational approach toward overcoming the second barrier.
    [Show full text]
  • Interaction, Participation and Networking Art Florian Weil Student at University of Art in Linz Hauptplatz 8 4010 Linz, Austria [email protected]
    Interaction, Participation and Networking Art Florian Weil Student at University of Art in Linz Hauptplatz 8 4010 Linz, Austria [email protected] Interactions were often used as a dialogue model, for example the “Telematic Dreaming” project. In this installation the viewer is no ABSTRACT longer solely a recipient, but simultaneously an agent, too. This paper is a summary of the essay “Interaction, Participation, Networking Art and telecommunication” from Inke Arns. We At the late 1980s telematic and telepresence began to gain explore how the spectator is involved into the artwork and how importance for interactive media art. Telepresence provided a new the participation of art changed in the last 50-60 years. scope for the artist and allowed the viewer parallel experiences in Furthermore, this paper point out the evolution of art and which three different spaces at once: role participation plays in the art context • The real space in which the viewer’s body is physically located Keywords Art Network Internet mass-media participation telematic • Per tele-perception in the virtual, simulated visual space collaboration Openness NetArt satellite communication • Per tele-action at the physical location of the “data- work” 1. INTRODUCTION In this context of telematic art Kit Galloway and Sherrie Duchamp said that artwork is made entirely by those who look at Rabinowitz created a groundbreaking work, which is called “Hole it or read it. The artist, who made it, survives by their accolades or in Space”. In this installation the viewer from Los Angeles were even their condemnation. These points motivated the artist of the able to talk to the viewer from the other side in New York via a 20th Centaury to use and evolve the concepts of interaction, satellite video connection.
    [Show full text]
  • The Angel of Ferrara
    CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Goldsmiths Research Online The Angel of Ferrara Benjamin Woolley Goldsmith’s College, University of London Submitted for the degree of PhD I declare that the work presented in this thesis is my own Benjamin Woolley Date: 1st October, 2014 Abstract This thesis comprises two parts: an extract of The Angel of Ferrara, a historical novel, and a critical component entitled What is history doing in Fiction? The novel is set in Ferrara in February, 1579, an Italian city at the height of its powers but deep in debt. Amid the aristocratic pomp and popular festivities surrounding the duke’s wedding to his third wife, the secret child of the city’s most celebrated singer goes missing. A street-smart debt collector and lovelorn bureaucrat are drawn into her increasingly desperate attempts to find her son, their efforts uncovering the brutal instruments of ostentation and domination that gave rise to what we now know as the Renaissance. In the critical component, I draw on the experience of writing The Angel of Ferrara and nonfiction works to explore the relationship between history and fiction. Beginning with a survey of the development of historical fiction since the inception of the genre’s modern form with the Walter Scott’s Waverley, I analyse the various paratextual interventions—prefaces, authors’ notes, acknowledgements—authors have used to explore and explain the use of factual research in their works. I draw on this to reflect in more detail at how research shaped the writing of the Angel of Ferrara and other recent historical novels, in particular Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall.
    [Show full text]
  • High Performance Magazine Records
    http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt5p30369v Online items available Finding aid for the magazine records, 1953-2005 Finding aid for the magazine 2006.M.8 1 records, 1953-2005 Descriptive Summary Title: High Performance magazine records Date (inclusive): 1953-2005 Number: 2006.M.8 Creator/Collector: High Performance Physical Description: 216.1 Linear Feet(318 boxes, 29 flatfile folders, 1 roll) Repository: The Getty Research Institute Special Collections 1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100 Los Angeles 90049-1688 [email protected] URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/askref (310) 440-7390 Abstract: High Performance magazine records document the publication's content, editorial process and administrative history during its quarterly run from 1978-1997. Founded as a magazine covering performance art, the publication gradually shifted editorial focus first to include all new and experimental art, and then to activism and community-based art. Due to its extensive compilation of artist files, the archive provides comprehensive documentation of the progressive art world from the late 1970s to the late 1990s. Request Materials: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the catalog record for this collection. Click here for the access policy . Language: Collection material is in English Biographical/Historical Note Linda Burnham, a public relations officer at University of California, Irvine, borrowed $2,000 from the university credit union in 1977, and in a move she described as "impulsive," started High
    [Show full text]
  • Painting in a Digital World: I Told You So
    AUTHOR James Faure Walker University of the Arts, Camberwell London, United Kingdom Painting in a Digital World: [email protected] I Told You So Over the past 10 years, the proportion of painters who use comput­ like say hello. The curator of new media will casually mention that ers in their work has been rising, and rising dramatically. They may painting is "over" as if it were a given among the digerati. Here is not all be expert users, and they probably know next to nothing a phrase from the SIGGRAPH 2005 Electronic Art and Animation about digital art or its origins, and nothing at all about its pioneer art­ Catalog: "... the now-weary exertions of the 20th century's picture ists. They will not have heard of SIGGRAPH. They read Frieze. They plane." Yet the pot-pourri of post-modernist styles suggests oth­ probably outnumber hardcore digital artists by a factor of 50 to one. erwise. That concept of progress in art, of one phase superseding So if we are to speak of the way things are going in "digital art," they another, whether tired or not - that's history. So "new media" is on a are part of the picture. somewhat anachronistic track: a one-way track. No going back! No mixing! It's all historically determined! Goodbye non-interactive art! In the 1990s, it was different. Only a handful of galleries (special- You're exhausted! Any attempt to integrate, to reconcile the disci­ ist digital art galleries) exhibited inkjet prints as fine art. Today it is plines of that wretched, tired-out 20 picture-plane, is doomed.
    [Show full text]
  • Cyberarts 2018
    Hannes Leopoldseder · Christine Schöpf · Gerfried Stocker CyberArts 2018 International Compendium Prix Ars Electronica Computer Animation · Interactive Art + · Digital Communities Visionary Pioneers of Media Art · u19–CREATE YOUR WORLD STARTS Prize’18 Grand Prize of the European Commission honoring Innovation in Technology, Industry and Society stimulated by the Arts INTERACTIVE ART + Navigating Shifting Ecologies with Empathy Minoru Hatanaka, Maša Jazbec, Karin Ohlenschläger, Lubi Thomas, Victoria Vesna Interactive Art was introduced to Prix Ars Electronica farewell and prayers of a dying person into the robot as a key category in 1990. In 2016, in response to a software; seeking life-likeness—computational self, growing diversity of artistic works and methods, the and environmental awareness; autonomous, social, “+” was added, making it Interactive Art +. and unpredictable physical movement; through to Interactivity is present everywhere and our idea of the raising of a robot as one's own child. This is just what it means to engage with technology has shifted a small sample of the artificial ‘life sparks’ in this from solely human–machine interfaces to a broader year’s category. Interacting with such artificial enti- experience that goes beyond the anthropocentric ties draws us into both a practical and ethical dia- point of view. We are learning to accept machines as logue about the future of robotics, advances in this other entities we share our lives with while our rela- field, and their role in our lives and society. tionship with the biological world is intensified by At the same time, many powerful works that deal the urgency of environmental disasters and climate with social issues were submitted.
    [Show full text]
  • Ubiquitous Interactive Art Displays: Are They Wanted, Are They Intuitive?
    Ubiquitous Interactive Art Displays: Are they Wanted, are they Intuitive? Gary Burrows The Information Science Discussion Paper Series Number 2006/02 January 2006 ISSN 1172-6024 University of Otago Department of Information Science The Department of Information Science is one of six departments that make up the School of Business at the University of Otago. The department offers courses of study leading to a major in Information Science within the BCom, BA and BSc degrees. In addition to undergraduate teaching, the department is also strongly involved in post- graduate research programmes leading to MCom, MA, MSc and PhD degrees. Re- search projects in spatial information processing, connectionist-based information sys- tems, software engineering and software development, information engineering and database, software metrics, distributed information systems, multimedia information systems and information systems security are particularly well supported. The views expressed in this paper are not necessarily those of the department as a whole. The accuracy of the information presented in this paper is the sole responsibil- ity of the authors. Copyright Copyright remains with the authors. Permission to copy for research or teaching pur- poses is granted on the condition that the authors and the Series are given due ac- knowledgment. Reproduction in any form for purposes other than research or teach- ing is forbidden unless prior written permission has been obtained from the authors. Correspondence This paper represents work to date and may not necessarily form the basis for the au- thors’ final conclusions relating to this topic. It is likely, however, that the paper will ap- pear in some form in a journal or in conference proceedings in the near future.
    [Show full text]
  • COMPUTER ART As a WAY of LIFE
    COMPUTER ART as a WAY OF LIFE By Gene Youngblood hen I think of computer art I think of Chicago, and of four people there- Jane Veeder, Phil Morton, Dan Sandin and Tom De Fanti-who are pioneer- ring a visual art form that ultimately is not visual at all, but rather the cre- ation of language, and of conversational "envi- ronments" out of which will emerge our future images and the images of our future. Together Wwith Steina and Woody Vasulka in Santa Fe, they inspired me, taught me, and changed me profoundly over thelast tenyears. With infinite patience and dedication, with the passion of vi- sionary seekers, they guided me ever deeper into the digital domain and caused me at last to understand that computer graphics is some- thing more than art, that it is a kind of practical philosophy, a way of life, a way of being in the world anda way of creating a world to be in. No story reflects this more vividlythan that of Jane Veeder, an artist-programmer whose life and work epitomize both the unique computer- art community in Chicago and a personal path- way of growth and discovery that will become representative of the life of the artist in our time. In my opinion, Veeder stands with Ed Em- shwiller and Larry Cuba as one of the most gifted computer artists working in America to- day. Relatively unknown until recently, she is beginning to get the recognition she deserves. Her 1982 animation Montana is the only work of computer graphics in the Museum of Modern Art's video collection, and her interactive paint program/arcade game Warpitout-the sensation of the SIGGRAPH '82 Art Show in Boston-will later this year be installed at the Ontario Sci- ence Center in Toronto, one of the most presti- gious science museums in the world.
    [Show full text]