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Leonardo/ISAST NEWS Leonardo/ISAST NEWS The Newsletter of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology LEA Editorial Board Member by minorities. Since 1996, she has worked for Leonardo/ Michael Naimark OLATS as a curator and graphic designer and is now in charge Michael Naimark has been a professional media artist and re- of three of its projects: “Virtual Africa,” a multidisciplinary ex- searcher for over two decades. As an independent media artist hibition on traditional and contemporary African cultures; from 1980 to 1992, he produced artworks in conjunction with “Frank J. Malina, Kinetic Artist and Engineer in Astronautics”; the Paris Metro, the Exploratorium (San Francisco), the ZKM and “Abraham Palatnik.” She is also research assistant at the (Karlsruhe, Germany) and the Banff Centre (Canada) and con- Varian Fry Foundation in France, the purpose of which is to sulted for companies including Atari, Lucasfilm, Apple and bring to the largest public audience and to schools and uni- Panavision. In 1992, he became a member of the research staff versities in France the memory of the humanitarian resistance of the newly founded Interval Research Corporation in Palo of Varian Fry and of the American rescue and relief organiza- Alto, CA, employed for arts and media projects, where he stayed tion he established in Marseilles during World War II. through 2001. As a fellow at the Roberto Longhi Foundation in Florence Naimark is an expert in place representation and its conse- and at the École Française de Rome, Rotily first wrote a bio- quences and has worked extensively with field cinematography, graphical study on the American art historian Bernard Beren- interactive systems and immersive projection. He was instru- son, focusing on his relationships with French intellectuals mental in making the first interactive video at the Massachu- (André Gide, Marcel Proust and others) and on his contribu- setts Institute of Technology in the late 1970s and was on the tion to the development of Renaissance art collection in the original design team for the MIT Media Laboratory. He has United States. She has published articles in literary journals been a member of the Society for Visual Anthropology since such as L’Infini and Critique on building connections between 1984. His art projects have been exhibited internationally. the visual arts and literature. As a specialist in the history of Naimark’s published work includes “Realness and French-American artistic relationships, she more recently pub- Interactivity,” in B. Laurel, ed., The Art of Human Computer In- lished Artistes américains à Paris, 1914–1939 (Paris: L’Harmat- terface Design (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1990); “Field Record- tan, 1999), in which she examines the role played by Paris and ing Studies,” in M. Moser, ed., Immersed in Technology its artistic avant-garde in the birth of a typically “American” art. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996); and “Art ‘and’ or ‘versus’ Rotily was a teacher at Harvard University in the Art History Technology,” in C. Sommerer, ed., Art@Science (Vienna: Department and in the Romance Languages Department. In Springer Verlag, 1997). France, she has also taught undergraduate classes on Ameri- In 2001 Naimark’s 3D interactive installation Be Now Here, a can art in the 19th and 20th centuries at the University of Aix- unique collaboration between Interval Research and the en-Provence. UNESCO World Heritage Center, was exhibited at the San Fran- E-mail: <[email protected]>. Web site: <http:// cisco Film Festival and the San Francisco Museum of Modern www.olats.org>. Art. Naimark is currently in residence at the Institute of Ad- vanced Media Arts and Sciences in Japan and an advisor for Frank J. Malina Symposium Media Lab Europe in Ireland. at Texas A&M University For further details please see <http://www.naimark.net>. The first Frank J. Malina Symposium was held at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, on 22 February 2002. Frank New in Virtual Africa Malina was the founder of Leonardo in 1967 and also was an In the new Virtual Africa project “Alma da Agua: A Space Aware- American rocketry pioneer, the first director of the NASA Jet ness Initiative” by Richard Clar and Dinis Ribeiro, natural water Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and a tireless worker for inter- samples gathered from the eight Portuguese-speaking coun- national collaboration in UNESCO and the International Acad- tries will be combined in space aboard a Brazilian sounding emy of Astronautics. rocket. In metaphorically celebrating their common bond of This symposium honored Malina’s lifetime artistic and sci- language between these countries, the project addresses the entific achievements. The program consisted of distinguished possibility of greater technical unification and deeper collab- scientists, engineers, architects and artists, making a series of oration of Portuguese-speaking countries in addressing the is- presentations drawn from the left-brain/right-brain creative sues of water management using space technology. spectrum that Malina’s many diverse contributions collectively Web site: <http://www.olats.org/africa/projets/gpEau/ spanned. pouvoir/contrib/contrib_clar_ribeiro.shtml>. Speakers included scientist-artist Roger Malina, artist- sculptor Janet Saad-Cook, aesthetic architect–artist Thomas Jocelyne Rotily, Leonardo/OLATS Virtual Africa Project Coordinator Jocelyne Rotily is Doctor in Art History and American Civili- Leonardo/ISAST News Coordinator: Andrea Blum zation. She is a specialist in the history of American art col- E-mail: <[email protected]> lecting and in the study of modern American art, including art © 2002 ISAST LEONARDO, Vol. 35, No. 4, pp. 459–460, 2002 459 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/002409402760181295 by guest on 29 September 2021 Linehan, aerospace engineer John Junkins, propulsion expert “While the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is a sci- Joseph Schetz and technical historian Benjamin Zibit. entific endeavor with more than 40 years of experience, woe- For more information on Frank Malina, see: <http:// fully little thought has gone into what we might say if we either www.olats.org/pionniers/malina/malina.shtml>. make contact or find ourselves ready to send messages of our own,” said the chair of the workshop, Douglas Vakoch. “Even less is understood about the interplay between technical meth- ods and the aesthetic nature of the message.” Artists and Scientists Meet to Plan Participants’ backgrounds ranged across disciplines in the Messages to E.T. arts, humanities and sciences, including artists who work in A group of 20 artists, scientists and scholars from the humani- drawing, musical composition, new media, painting, sculpture ties gathered in Paris on 18 March 2002 to better understand and space arts. Speakers from the humanities included schol- how we might communicate the human sense of beauty to in- ars in history, law, literature and philosophy. Scientific disci- telligent civilizations that could be circling other stars. plines represented included astronomy, biology, computer The Art and Science of Interstellar Message Composition work- science, engineering, mathematics, physics and psychology. For shop, held in the Paris suburb of Boulogne Billancourt, focused more information visit <http://publish.seti.org/art_science>. on aesthetic messages that could be transmitted by radio waves The workshop was sponsored by the SETI Institute; or laser pulses. These communication techniques reflect the Leonardo/l’Observatoire Leonardo des Arts et des Techno- methods used by current observational programs in the Search Sciences (OLATS); the International Society for the Arts, Sci- for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), including the world’s ences and Technology (ISAST); the International Academy of most comprehensive search, being conducted by the SETI Insti- Astronautics (IAA) Permanent SETI Study Group; and the IAA tute. SETI and Society Study Group. Thanks to Our Supporters Leonardo Codex Sforza Monument La Gioconda Flying Machine ($5,000 and above) (The Bronze Horse) (Mona Lisa) ($250 to $499) The California Tamarack Foundation ($1,000 to $4,999) ($500 to $999) Ray Bradbury College of Extended Learning, Martin Anderson Una Dora Copley Curtis Karnow San Francisco State University Lisa Bornstein Arana Greenberg Mark Resch CRSS Architects Donna Cox Rosemary Jackson Barbara Lee Williams Interval Research Corporation Creative Disturbance Alan Malina Eric Roll Roger Malina Char Davies Isabel Maxwell Jonathan Willard The Malina Trust The Daniel Langlois Foundation Sam Okoshken Rockefeller Foundation Marjorie Malina Sonya Rapoport Al Smith Christine Malina-Maxwell Joel Silverman U.S. National Endowment for the Arts Itsuo Sakane Martin Segal Makepeace Tsao Angel ($249 and under) Aaron Alpar Emma Lou Diemer Kenji Kohiyama Ron Rocco Charles Ames Augus Dorbie Thomas Kostusiak David Rosenboom Art Science Collaborations Inc. Hubert Duprat Kathleen Laziza Peter Rudolfi (ASCI) Elmer Duncan Levi Family Foundation Mr. and Mrs. Robert Russett Roy Ascott Michele Emmer Guy Levrier Colin Sanderson Yasuhiro Asoo William Fawley Carl Machover Piero Scaruffi Bret Battey Theodosia Ferguson William Marchant Patricia Search Marc Battier John Fobes Delle Maxwell Edward Shanken Mark and Lauren Beam Alan & Mickey Friedman Elliot Mazer Sonia Sheridan Patricia Bentson Ryozo Fujii Kevin Meehan Allan Shields Timothy Binkley David Gamper Minneapolis College of Gregory C. Shubin Anna Campbell Bliss George Gessert Art & Design Leonard Shlain
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