Leonardo/ISAST News The Newsletter of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology

CARL EUGENE LOEFFLER, 1946–2001 tems integration of hardware and software,” Loeffler told Mark J. Carl Eugene Loeffler, 54, visionary founder of La Mamelle, Art Jones in an online interview for Cyberstage. Com magazine, and Art Com Electronic Network (ACEN), died in Same is true for the production team, a mix of highly special- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 5 February 2001 of complications ized persons. It is near impossible to produce VR alone, as from an intestinal illness. Loeffler founded the alternative arts space [compared to] painting for example. To produce VR, there is La Mamelle in San Francisco in 1975 and began publishing La someone like me, the concept and content person, who under- Mamelle magazine. In 1976, La Mamelle Arts Center, a space for stands the phases of production from start to finish. It is also conceptual, performance and video art, opened at 70 12th Street in important to understand the field of VR, and produce work that San Francisco with an exhibition of Xerox art. In the ensuing years, addresses and investigates key developments. Then you need events at the center included a woman's performance series orga- CAD (computer assisted design) modelers, visual artists doing nized by Judith Barry; the exhibition “West Coast Conceptual Pho- texture maps, many C language programmers, telecommunica- tographers”; and the performance art series “Performing/ tion specialists, and sound artists. CMU is blessed with Performance.” In 1977, with Avalanche magazine in New York, La extremely talented graduate and undergraduate students. It is Mamelle coordinated the Send/Receive Project—an early two-way a very good situation for someone like me. . . . I'm able to pro- satellite transmission between New York and San Francisco, with simul- duce my best work to date here [4]. taneous broadcast on New York and San Francisco cable TV channels. La Mamelle, later Art Com, was a leading distributor of video Loeffler's books include Performance Anthology: Source Book for a art and actively organized international exhibitions of video artists, Decade of California Performance Art [5] and The Virtual Reality including the cable TV series “Produced for Television, Perfor- Casebook [6]. mance Art in a Live Broadcast Situation.” He is survived by his wife Polly, to whom he was married a year In 1986, Art Com Electronic Network (ACEN) began opera- and a half, and a son, Karl, who lives in Denmark. tions as the ACEN conference on the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (WELL). “Well over a decade ago, Canadian seminal telecomputing REFERENCES AND NOTES artist Bill Bartlett came into Art Com, wild-eyed and carrying a ter- 1. Carl Loeffler, “Modem Dialing Out,” in Roy Ascott and Carl Eugene Loeffler, minal, printer and acoustic modem combo,” Loeffler wrote in 1991 eds., “Connectivity: Art and Interactive Telecommunications,” Leonardo 24, No. 2 (1991). to introduce Connectivity: Art and Interactive Telecommunica- 2. Carl Loeffler, “New Audiences for Art and Communication,” Reflex tions, a Leonardo special issue. “He lifted up my telephone headset, (January/February 1988). dialed out and pushed the headset into the coupler. The printer 3. Virtual Pompeii, a collaboration among the Archaeological Institute of America, started streaming out text onto paper. He said something like 'This the Studio for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University and the Silicon is a network for art' and went on to talk about connectivity and Graphics Corporation, was exhibited at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, telecomputing. I became a convert at that moment” [1]. part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, from 15 September 1995 to 7 Jan- uary 1996. Initiated by Loeffler with Fred Truck as systems designer, ACEN hosted interactive art works, international art networking events, a 4. Mark J. Jones, “E-Mail From Carl,” Cyberstage 1, No. 2 (Spring 1995); . BBS system and Art Com magazine, which moved online with a series 5. Carl E. Loeffler, ed., and Darlene Tong, assoc. ed., Performance Anthology: Source of issues on the interface of art and electronic technologies. “We got Book for a Decade of California Performance Art (San Francisco, CA: Contemporary instant feedback,” Loeffler wrote in Reflex magazine. “And discovered Arts Press, 1980). that our 'community' in the online environment was actually diverse, 6. Carl Eugene Loeffler and Tim Anderson, eds., The Virtual Reality Casebook (Van a pleasant surprise for an art organization interested in expanding the Nostrand Reinhold, 1994). audience for contemporary art” [2]. In the mid-1990s Loeffler moved to Pittsburgh where he was a DANIEL LANGLOIS FOUNDATION AWARDS GRANT Carnegie fellow at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Project We are pleased to announce that the Leonardo Pioneers and Path- Director of Telecommunications and Virtual Reality at the CMU breakers Art History project has received a $25,000 grant from the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, and Research Director of SIMLAB, Daniel Langlois Foundation. The grant will be administered by National Robotics Engineering Consortium. Focusing on networked Leonardo/OLATS in France, where the project is managed. The virtual reality (VR), his work included investigating existence within project is led by Annick Bureaud with research carried out by Joce- networked simulation environments, in the area of tele-existence, lyne Rotily in Marseilles. An International Advisory board (the where multiple users share or co-inhabit a common distributed space, Frieda Ackerman Working Group) provides scientific oversight for as well as the networked VR environment Virtual Pompeii [3]. the project as well as contributing research reports and documenta- “Producing VR is very intermedial, and requires an intense sys- tion. For more information, visit http://www.olats.org/setF4.html.

© 2001 ISAST LEONARDO, Vol. 34, No. 5, pp. 527–528, 2001 527

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/002409401753521683 by guest on 01 October 2021 SHEILA PINKEL, EDITORIAL tion of photography, “Multicultural Focus,” Strange has been Visiting Scholar at the BOARD MEMBER in 1981 at the Los Angeles Municipal Computer Center for Research in Music Gallery in Barnsdall Park. Pinkel has been Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University Sheila Pinkel is an Associate Professor of on the Leonardo Editorial Board since 1983 and guest composer at California Institute Art at Pomona College, Pomona, Califor- and was guest editor of the Leonardo Art for the Arts; the Hochschüller für Musik, nia. She has also taught courses at the Cali- and Social Consciousness special issue pub- Stuttgart, Germany; the Tempo Reale stu- fornia Institute for the Arts, Valencia, lished in 1993. For more information, con- California; Otis/Parsons School of Design, dios, Florence, Italy; and the Laboratorio tact . Los Angeles; School of the Art Institute of Informatica in Guanajuato, Mexico. From Chicago; University of Illinois, Circle Cam- 1994 through 1997 Strange served as the ALLEN STRANGE JOINS BOOK pus; and University of California, Los president of the International Computer SERIES ADVISORY BOARD Angeles; as well as numerous workshops at a Music Association and is currently serving number of universities and centers through- Involved with music technology since the as the Vice-President for Conferences of the out the U.S. She has exhibited her pho- middle 1960s, Allen Strange has remained same organization. He is Professor of Music tographs and other artwork internationally active as a composer, performer, author and at San Jose State University (SJSU), where for more than 20 years and has published educator. In 1972 his text Electronic Music: he founded the SJSU electroacoustic music her artworks and writings in numerous Systems, Techniques and Controls appeared program and has served as coordinator of publications. She has lectured extensively at as the first comprehensive work on analog both its Composition and Electro-Acoustic universities, museums, art centers and sym- music synthesis. A student of Pauline Oliv- Music Programs. He currently serves as posia and has organized exhibitions and lecture eros and Harry Partch, Strange has worked SJSU Director of the Center for Research in projects focusing on various topics relating in a variety media ranging from purely elec- Electro-Acoustic Music (CREAM). For to art and social issues. She organized Los tronic works, music for live-electronic per- more information about the Leonardo Book Angeles's first major cross-cultural exhibi- formance, multimedia, chamber, orchestra Series, visit http://mitpress.mit.edu/Leonar- and opera to music for film and theater. do/isast/leobooks.html.

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