Continue reading ‘In Praise of Hybridity: Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Frank J Malina’ »]]> Colleagues

I have just drafted this editorial to appear in Leonardo Journal.

I would welcome comments and thoughts

Roger Malina

In Praise of Hybridity: Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Frank J Malina

v3

My father was a hybrid. He achieved success in the 1940s as a scientist in the nascent field of astronautics, helping develop the theory of space flight and leading the team that launched the first human made object into outer space (1). As a pioneering kinetic artist in the 1950s he helped start the art and technology movement that has led to large industries in entertainment and cultural media.

In the 1960s he socialized with other hybrid artist-scientists such as artist and mathematician Anthony Hill, artist and bio-rheologist L. Alcopley and mathematician-artist Claude Berge member of the Oulipo literary group (2). But they were few and far between. They were often lonely professionals and marginalized by their peers. My father debated the problem with his friends such as C.P.Snow, Jacob Bronowski, Roy Ascott and Buckminster Fuller.

This year a group of colleagues and I have been developing a report funded by the US National Science Foundation and supported by the US National Endowment for the Arts, the SEAD White Papers Study (3). The study seeks to enable new forms of collaboration between the sciences, engineering, the arts, design and humanities, identifying opportunities and obstacles. It has been an exhilarating task working with a growing, dynamic and energetic community of practice. Artists are involved in all fields of science and engineering, from the health sciences to the nano-sciences, from digital manufacturing to space technologies. And they are working on the hard problems of our time where it is impossible to decouple culture from science  or engineering; climate change, the aging of the brain, sustainable energy.

The hybrids have arrived! From mixed teams of artists and scientists, to hybrid individuals with dual career tracks they are working in universities, industry and the burgeoning making and hacking spaces. In studying the demographics we were surprised that 20% of them are hybrids in the sense that they have both a higher education degree in science or engineering and a second diploma in a field of arts, design or humanities. (We also noted that the community of practice is gender balanced with 50% women and 50% men). These hybrids often play a special role as ‘translators’ able to navigate between the different ways of knowing represented by the sciences and the arts. Nature magazine (4) recently took note of the phenomenon, asking whether there were new hybrid career tracks emerging. They noted the recent development of PhD programs dedicated to the training and cultivation of these hybrids.

Physiologist and artist Robert Root Bernstein has recently studied hundreds of successful scientists and engineers; out of all proportion with the general population of scientists and engineers, and the public, they are hybrids participating in deep avocations in the arts that they view as essential to their own scientific practice. (5)

There are very good reasons to have disciplines and to train scientists and engineers to drill deep with a single minded focus. Art is not Science (6).But there are also good reasons to have mobile professionals who can navigate in trans-disciplinary practices. The good news is that the Tree of Knowledge has been felled and we now live in an evolving system of Networked Knowledge, enabled and accelerated by the internet and on line collaboration technologies. As Anthony Hill and Claude Berge would have told you, this is a topological revolution. It is far easier to make connections in complex network structures that are continuously evolving, than in tree structures that rigidify as they age (7). Unfortunately our institutions are still locked into the topology of old tree structures rather than complex networks and hybridity is still often a high risk activity.

I think my father would be thrilled at the turn of events. My father once wrote “It was my feeling that one way in curbing the misuse of technology might be if we could, through the arts, emotionally prepare young people to see the aesthetic, positive side of things and also then respond by seeing the negative” (8), Chastened by the human crimes committed using advanced science and technology during the second world war, he was convinced that the arts and sciences had to be connected at their very source, the human imagination and passions that drive scientific, engineering and artistic discovery. This emerging hybrid community is carrying within it the ideals of a socially robust science (9) that foregrounds not only ethics and values as core values in science and engineering but also celebrates with joy and pleasure the well-being of human beings in all their, non-reductive, complexity.

Notes

1. There is a large literature on Frank Malina’s career in astronautics from co founder and first Director of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, designer of the WAC Corporal rocket and co founder of the International Academy of Astronautics:  http://olats.org/pionniers/malina/malina.php

2. I have recently co written a history of the Leonardo Journal that Frank Malina founded to champion the work of artists involved in science and technology:  http://malina.diatrope.com/2013/05/19/a-history-of-the-leonardo-journal-on-the-100th-anniversary-of-the-birth-of-its-founder-frank-j-malina/

3.   The SEAD network is coordinated by Carol Lafayette; the SEAD White Paper Study is co chaired by Roger Malina and Carol Strohecker working with an international community of 200 professionals. The work of the network and the draft report can be found at: http://malina.diatrope.com/2013/05/19/a-history-of-the-leonardo-journal-on-the-100th-anniversary-of-the-birth-of-its-founder-frank-j-malina/

4. Interdisciplinarity: Artistic Merit, Virginia Gewin, Nature, 496, 537-539 (2013) doi:10.1038/nj7446-537a

5.    Root-Bernstein RS, Lindsay Allen^, Leighanna Beach^, Ragini Bhadula^, Justin Fast^, Chelsea Hosey^, Benjamin Kremkow^, Jacqueline Lapp^, Kaitlin Lonc^, Kendell Pawelec^, Abigail Podufaly^, Caitlin Russ^, Laurie Tennant^, Erric Vrtis^ and Stacey Weinlander^.  Arts Foster Success: Comparison of Nobel Prizewinners, Royal Society, National Academy, and Sigma Xi Members.J Psychol Sci Tech 2008; 1(2):51-63.

6. See the writing of my colleague Physicist Jean-Marc Levy Leblond, La science n’est pas l’art, Jean Marc Levy-Leblond, Hermann Editeurs, Paris 2010 ISBN 978-2705669409 “. My rebuttal is at http://malina.diatrope.com/2011/04/17/is-art-science-hogwash-a-rebuttal-to-jean-marc-levy-leblond/

7. See the Leonardo Project on the Arts, Humanities and Complex Networks: http://ahcncompanion.info/

8. See http://malina.diatrope.com/2013/05/19/a-history-of-the-leonardo-journal-on-the-100th-anniversary-of-the-birth-of-its-founder-frank-j-malina/

9. See the work of European Research Council President Helga Nowotny, for instance http://www.itas.fzk.de/deu/tadn/tadn993/nowo99a.htm

Continue reading ‘A History of the Leonardo Journal on the 100th anniversary of the birth of it’s founder Frank J Malina’ »]]> Colleagues

Here is draft article I am finalising

Comments welcome
Roger Malina

A History of the Leonardo Journal on the 100th anniversary of the birth of  it’s founder Frank J Malina

Author(s): Roger Malina and Pamela Grant-Ryan

Abstract-

The development of the journal Leonardo is traced from its beginnings as an idea in the mind of its founder, Frank Malina, through 46 years of publication. The need for a  professional journal for artists sparked its creation in 1968, and Leonardo has served since then as a forum of exchange by and for artists and others interested the connections to the sciences and new technologies in the contemporary arts. The journal championed and documented the work of the first artists to use computers in the 1960s, holography and space technologies in the 1970s, interactive media in the 1980, the web and biological technologies in the 1980s, and more recently the nano technologies, synthetic biology,the science of complexity, ecology and the environmental sciences. The Journal has served an important platform for the world wide movement in art and science and art and technology. The executive editor of the Leonardo Journal since 1982 is the founder’s eldest son Roger F Malina.

“Change is a part of our world. Not to use it is to tie our hands behind our backs. When the whole world is changing, how can art be static? “

-Frank J. Malina [1]

Introduction

Frank Malina was born in Brenham, Texas on October 12, 1912 and we celebrate this year the 100th anniversary of his birth. He founded the Leonardo Journal in Paris in 1967, 46 years ago. Of particular interest for Chinese readers is the fact that one of Frank Malina’s best friends, while they were both at the California Institute of Technology, was the father of the Chinese space program Tsien Hsue-shen. Malina and Tsien were the leaders of a group that build the WAC Corporal, the first human-made object to reach outer space in 1946. Tsien was expelled on false charges from the United States in 1955 and went on to develop the very successful Chinese rocket and satellite program. In addition, during the 1970s, Shao Dazen of the Department of Art History , Central Institute of Fine Arts served as a co-editor. In addition it is important  to mention that one of the founding editors of the Journal was Joseph Needham, the author of the influential  work “Science and Civilisation” in China.

It is thus fitting to mention that discussions are under-way with the Academy of Arts and Design of Tsinghua University to start a new Chinese- American Journal on Art and Science. We therefore dedicate this article to the memory of  Frank Malina, Tsien Hsue-shen, Joseph Needham.

I. THE FORMATIVE YEARS

Frank Malina was a man who embraced change and synthesis as means to a better world. He already had achieved eminence in several fields of endeavor-research engineer, director of scientific research at UNESCO and visual artist-when he had the ideas which led to the publication of Leonardo. As his work and life evolved, moving forward from one field to the next, it was natural that he would integrate his knowledge from previous experience into whatever work was at hand.

As an aeronautical and rocket engineer pioneer, he certainly knew that change was an inevitable fact of the present and future. Yet as a humanitarian whose life experience was shaped by WorldWar II, he was aware that scientists and engineers should not be the only ones involved in directing the changes wrought by technology; artists in particular should be instrumental in developing technology toward humane ends. “It was my feeling that one way in curbing the misuse of technology might be if we could, through the arts, emotionally prepare young people to see the aesthetic, positive side of things and also then respond by seeing the negative” [2]. As an artist he sought to integrate his knowledge of technology and scientific working methods into his own evolving artwork. And as an editor he sought to create an interdisciplinary forum documenting synthesis and change toward the creation of a synthetic worldview.

Perhaps his most frustrating career move was into the field of art. Malina began painting professionally full-time in 1953 after 20 years of working in technical fields. Trained as an engineer, he attempted to begin his artistic investigations in the usual way: to delve into documented studies written by experts-in this case by artists. Whereas technical and scientific advancement are based on each generation of investigators building upon the exhaustively documented work that has gone before, he found to his amazement little significant relevant body of literature written by artists about their work using new technologies, their methods, their discoveries or ideas. He expressed frustration that the lack of appropriate documentation in the arts caused artists to waste enormous time and energy duplicating each others’ technical dis- coveries.

Indeed, when he began to work on his “Lumidyne” system of kinetic art [3], he was unable to find any precedent for kinetic painting and believed himself to be the first artist doing this type of work. When he began exhibiting his kinetic works in the mid-1950s, he learned of one artist, Thomas Wilfred, who had been producing kinetic works since 1905 [4]. During the time Malina was discovering that artists did not have a history of, or a literary vehicle for, exchanging ideas and technical information among themselves, he began also to experience firsth and the political powerlessness of the artist. Then as now is often the case, the decision-making in the art world was in the hands of a group of non-artists, such as gallery owners, art critics and museum curators, who had assumed niches of eminence in explaining, promoting and disseminating art. By contrast, in the technical and scientific professions, documentation by the originators of the work has always appeared first, followed by explanation and comment by the popularizers, science writers and historians. Further, the decision-making in scientific research is dominated by the scientists and engineers themselves.

The establishment ‘supporting’ the arts was at best not interested in-and at worst opposed to  innovative art such as technological or kinetic art. This kind of art was hard to analyze, hard to sell, often hard to display and sometimes hard to repair and maintain – considerations surely not central to artistic significance. Except for a few scattered theoreticians such as Frank Popper , the individuals writing about art were engaged primarily in the business of selling yesterday’s ideas, since that which has already gained widespread acceptance makes for the best merchandise. Meanwhile, at a time when scientists and researchers in other disciplines were exchanging ideas and information at an ever-increasing rate, contemporary, exploratory artists seeking to extend the boundaries of art were working in relative intellectual isolation with no formal system of mutual support. In the midst of a revolution in communication and technology, artists were effectively out of communication with other artists, with other professions and with the entire rapidly changing, rapidly shrinking world community-all of whom, in return, needed very much to hear from the artist. It was not a scenario that suited Frank Malina’s ideas of the artist’s place in society.

As Malina’s artistic explorations continued to evolve through various forms and media [5], he began to discuss the  dilemma with his colleagues in both the arts and science, among them natural scientist Joseph Needham, editor Sandy Koffler, artist-teacher Vic Gray, artist and mathematician Anthony Hill, artist and scientist L. Alcopley and mathematician-artist Claude Berge. His colleagues at the time also included seminal thinkers like C.P Snow and Jacob Bronowski. His initial idea was to form a professional society of scientist-artists in the tradition of existing scientific and technical societies, many of which publish journals as a part of their activities.

Although his plans for such a society were never realized, he became ever more convinced of the need for a journal by and for artists. Malina began in the early 1960s to consider publishing a periodical modeled on scientific journals. By 1965 he had begun to contact prospective publishers and individuals to serve as editorial advisors. And in 1967 he reached an agreement with Robert Maxwell of Pergamon Press to published the journal quarterly.  In 1992 , MIT Press became the publisher.

Following the death of Frank Malina in 1981, his son, co author of this article, Roger Malina took over the journal and realised his father’s dream of starting a society. In 1982 Leonardo the  International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology was founded in San Francisco, and in 1992 the Association Leonardo, Observatoire des Arts et Technosciences was founded in Paris.

II. THE EARLY YEARS

It was historian of Chinese science and technology Joseph Needham who suggested the name Leonardo, in reference of course to Leonardo da Vinci, whose work epitomized to the public the melding of science and art. The first issue of Leonardo appeared in 1968 and featured writings both by and for artists. Technical information,discussions of new materials, and the use of technology in art were stressed. Malina believed that the artist of the future would need a working knowledge or at least a basic understanding of contemporary thought in a wide range of disciplines. Today we see a whole generation of artists who are scientifically and technically trained and literate.

Each issue featured Artists’ Articles and Notes, written in the first person by artists. These provided a means for artists to communicate with each other as well as useful source material for teachers. When it came to setting editorial standards for the writings of artists, Malina saw no reason why artists should not, like scientists, present readable accounts of their work. Under his scrutiny nothing passed his desk and onto the pages of Leonardo un-queried.While some artists objected to this rigorous, ‘dry’, scientific approach to writing about art, Malina was undeterred. “It is evident that those that resist editorial comments misunderstand the purpose of Leonardo. We want clear articles of a descriptive and analytical nature” [6]. There was no place in the journal for inaccurate, loosely defined, or misused terms or concepts. The purpose of the journal was to disseminate knowledge and information -to dispel mystery rather than to create it-and its focus was to be ideas and description, not poetry or fiction.

Because Malina believed artists “should be presented readable accounts of relevant developments in other domains (aesthetics, philosophy, science, technology, education) contributed by experts in their fields” [7], General Articles addressing topics with possible cross-over applications to art were published in each issue as well as Book Reviews in diverse fields of study. Over the years several topics sparked debate or special interest in the journal. Kinetic art, which Malina thought would be increasingly important in the future, was an area of lively interest. ‘Entropy and art’ proved to be the dominant subject of debate in 1973, and thought- provoking ideas on visual perception and psychology were debated by E.H. Gombrich, Rudolf Arnheim and J.J. Gibson in the late 1970s. In the 1990s the new complexity science and developments in artificial life were explored. More recently topics such as art and ecology, art and the environment have become more prominent.

That the exchange in Leonardo should be international was of pre-eminent importance in the founding guidelines of the journal. Malina had worked toward international cooperation onearth (as a director of scientific research for UNESCO), in space (as a founder of the International Academy of Astronautics), and in life (as a U.S. American married to an Englishwoman, living in Paris and personally involved with the international community there).Believing that the free exchange of information should know no national boundaries,he carefully selected the original board of editorial advisers for international distributionas well as expertise and solicited and published articles from artists and scholars around the world. Throughout the cold war he worked with colleagues behind the iron curtain and in China.

III. THE TRANSITIONAL YEARS

As might be expected of a pioneer in rocket technology, Frank Malina knew that innovation and a progressive future could only be born of a firm foundation. He was a student of Theodore von Karman, who was responsible for introducing rigorous applied mathematics to many fields of engineering and knew the value of interdisciplinary thinking. It was with great foresight that Malina built Leonardo around a backbone of international thinkers. Artists, scientists and experts from varied backgrounds comprised an editorial board of Co-Editors,Corresponding Editors and Editorial Advisors who solicited articles and provided support, inspiration and information about developments in art and science around the world. An international board of peer reviews reviewed all articls before acceptance; today only 15% of articles submitted for publication are accepted.This broad network that Malina instituted at the beginning has been a hallmark of the functioning of Leonardo ever since.

Following the death of Frank Malina in 1981, editorial operations were moved to San Francisco. During 1983 and 1984 the journal found a hospitable home at San Francisco State University under the editorship of Professor Bryan Rogers. In later years the Journal also found a home at the San Francisco Art Institute.

V The Evolution of the Journal

Today the Leonardo Journal is published by MIT press with a number of other Leonardo publications. These include: The Leonardo Book Series, founded by Joel Slayton and now under editor in chief Sean Cubbitt in England, The Leonardo Music Journal edited by Nic Collins in Chicago, the Leonardo Reviews edited by Michael Punt in England, the Leonardo Electronic Almanac founded by Craig Harris and now edited by Lanfranco Aceti in Turkey, the Leonardo Abstracts Data Based edited by Sheila Pinkel in the USA. In 2009 Ernest Edmonds started the Leonardo Transactions project for rapid and open access publication. Leonardo now allows authors either to publish in open access, with an author fee, or to publish freely with readers paying a fee ( either by subscription or by  article download)

Leonardo has continuously championed the work of artists that are appropriating new areas of science and emerging technologies. The area of Art and Biology is led since the 1990s by Eduardo Kac and George Gessert; the art-science connection by editor Robert Root Bernstein; Art and Chemistry by Tami Spector; Art and Mathematics by editor Michele Emmer; Synesthesia is led by editors Jack Ox and Jacques Mandelbrojt; Art and the Environment is led by editor Drew Hemment;  Art and Complex Networks by Max Schich and Isabelle Meirelles; Art and Space Exploration by Annick Bureaud and Arthur Woods. These topic areas are indicative of the changing topics as artists become involved in new areas of science and technology; this strategy was developed by the late Leonardo Journal co-editor Stephen Wilson whose Leonardo Book ‘Information Arts developed the agenda by including all the new areas of science and technology that artists were appropriating.

Leonardo as an organisation has been an early adopted of the new emerging technologies of communication and publishing. The journal moved very early to desk top publishing. In 1988 Leonardo began publishing an electronic newsletter on the university networks; this electronic newsletter Fineart Forum was founded by Ray Lauzzana. It was followed by Leonardo Electronic News and the Leonardo Electronic Almanac. in 1994 Leonardo was on of the first 400 web sites in the world. The archive of all articles published since 1968 are now available on line through MIT Press and aggregators such as Project MUSE and JSTOR; last year over 300,000 individual articles were downloaded by readers; individual articles are also available on the DeepDyve service. In 2012 the Leonardo Initiatives were established at the University of Texas at Dallas  and a number of new digital publishing methods have been initiated including e-books and web companions; these are targeting areas of current excitement such as art and complex networks, art and synthetic biology, art and water sciences, and art and chemistry. Since most of the Leonardo readership is online there is discussion of whether print publication should be stopped.

V. TODAY: THE PRESENT MERGING WITH THE FUTURE

Today the journal and organisation is enjoying a new period vibrancy thanks to the efforts of numerous individuals as well as the strength of Frank Malina’s idea and the effective structure by which he realized it. This new incarnation of Leonardo relies heavily on the active support and participation of its International Co-Editors, Editorial Advisors and Honorary Editors to help identify innovation in the arts, to select material for publication and to determine the journal’s scope and future directions.

In its evolution since Paris 1982, Leonardo has benefited from continued efforts to balances  synthesis with change. While the basic framework, format and general areas of emphasis have maintained an obvious continuity since the first volumes, the network of supporting individuals has broadened significantly; as a result, the journal has become  audibly an interweaving of multiple international voices. As new art forms and areas of inquiry develop in the overlapping areas of art, science and technology, so too will Leonardo change.

To date the Leonardo Journal has published articles by over 7000 authors; this world wide community of artist-scientists and artists-techologists have had a growing impact on contemporary culture. No-one now questions whether it is possible to make art with computers, a subject that was much debated in the 1980s. And many of the artists working with computers led to international industries in special effects for films, animation and games on computers. Leonardo’s early adoption of emerging communication technologies and the internet is now taken for granted and emerging and social media are now industries also. Perhaps in twenty years we will see new industries arising from artists who are working with biology, chemistry and nano-science, with space technology and the environment. The community that uses the Leonardo Journal is working on the hard problems of our time, from climate change to the health of older people; in these areas they know have no choice but to combine the arts, sciences and technology in new kinds of professions and new sources of economic development.

Leonardo was and is in many ways a reflection of the life of its founder: modest, simple, direct,accessible-and always changing. The fact that the journal has survived 46 years in an era of unprecedented change is a remarkable tribute to the legacy of Frank J. Malina.

Acknowledgements

This article is an updated and expanded version of a text published for the 20th Anniversary of Leonardo Journal by co author and Leonardo Managing Editor Pamela Grant Ryan published in Leonardo, Vol. 20, No. 4, 20th Anniversary Special Issue: Art of the Future: The Future of Art (1987), pp. 397-399.

REFERENCES

1. Frank J. Malina quoted in Catherine  Read, Biography of Frank Malina (School of Three-Dimensional Design, Kingston Polytechnic, Surrey, England).

2. Frank Malina, interview with Studs Terkel (Chicago: 14 December 1978).

3. Frank J. Malina, “Kinetic Painting: The  Lumidyne System”, Leonardo 1, No. 1, 25-33 (1968).

4. T. Wilfred, “Composing in the Light of Lumia”, J. Aesth. Art Criticism 7, 70 (1948).

5. Frank J. Malina, “Electric Light As a Medium in the Visual Fine Arts: A Memoir”, Leonardo 8, No. 2, 109-119 (1975).

6. Frank J. Malina, Letter to Anthony Hill  (5 August 1967).

7. Sandy Koffler, “Obituary: Frank J. Malina (1912-1981)”, Leonardo 15, No.  1, iii (1982).

Continue reading ‘The Data Body on the Dissection Table’ »]]> The Data Body on the Dissection Table

Arts, Humanities, Medicine and Complex Networks

Dissection reveals what lies beneath the skin, but for a brief moment in time, and for a priviledged few. Depictions, models, and preservations have long been used to share what dissection uncovers; from ancient anatomical drawings to today’s virtual 3D anatomies.

In the 18^th Century skinned “écorché” figures and anatomical waxes were constructed to reveal systems of interlocking bones, balanced pairs of muscles, and delicately entangled traceries of nerves and blood vessels. The Anatomy Lesson by Rembrandt, and the écorché The Horse Rider by Honoré Fragonard are famous examples at the border between medicine, science and art.

Contemporary medical sciences reveal ever more about the complex systems of the human body – but at a barely perceptible level. The (medical) human body today is understood, tested, and treated as a huge system of data, including complex interactions between our genetic material, our environment, and our host of microbial companions.

How do we grab hold of this data? How do we make sense of it and communicate it to others? How do contemporary artists and designers give our ‘data body’ material form through images, sound, and touch? What kind of tools are complex networks science proposing, and what kind of body do they reveal?

The Data Body on the Dissection Table brings together scientists, artists, philosophers, and designers to explore these questions, through roundtable presentations and audience discussion. The event takes place in Medical Museion’s auditorium – the Danish Royal Academy of Surgeons’ former anatomical theater.

The event is co-organised by Leonardo/Olats and Medical Museion under the EU Studiolab framework, and in conjunction with the Leonardo Day “Arts, Humanities and Complex Networks” satellite event for NetSci 2103.

PROGRAMME

6:30 – 7:00 pm: Museum open for visit of the exhibitions

7:00 – 8:30 pm

* Welcome introductions

- Louise Whiteley, Assistant professor in medical science communication at Medical Museion, Introduction for the Medical Museion

- Annick Bureaud, Director Leonardo/Olats, Introduction for Leonardo/Olats

- Roger Malina, Distinguished Professor of Art and Technology, University of Texas Dallas, Introduction for the Leonardo Day at NetSci: Arts, Humanities and Complex Network

* Round Table

moderator: Max Schich, Associate Professor, University of Texas Dallas and organizing Chair of the Leonardo ‘Arts, Humanitites and Complex Networks’ at NetSci

- Albert-László Barabási, Distinguished Professor and Director of Northeastern University Center for Complex Network Research, Boston, Networkology, Thinking in Network Terms.

- Annamaria Carusi, Associate Professor in Philosophy of Medical Science and Technology at the University of Copenhagen, Getting Hold of the Digital Patient.

- Jamie Allen, Artist and Researcher, Head of Research CIID/Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, Our Data Doppelgängers. Using creative practice to reflect on what data reveals.

- François-Joseph Lapointe, Professor at the Biological Sciences Department, University of Montreal and Artist, Metagenomic Art: A Family Portrait

Discussion

8:30 – 9:00 pm:

Refreshments and snacks, exhibitions open

SPEAKERS

* Jamie Allen, Artist and Researcher, Head of Research CIID/Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, Copenhagen, Denmark

Our Data Doppelgängers. What creative practice with and from data reflects and reveals

Data can be gathered and presented in ways that clarify and inspire, but also in ways that obscure and confuse. In many creative practices that engage with technology, data plays a central role in as a medium for aesthetics, motivating and justifying arguments, and even sanctioning design and policy decisions. But data, appearing at first objective and ‘quantified,’ often misses out key aspects of experience and reception – everything is more ‘qualitative’ than it first appears.  Data visualisation and user-study data-colleciton provide two points of (data?) entry for conceptual and practice design, artistic practice and new media work, that reflect the data body back to us. Through this mirroring, data as media mirrors material, cultural, and experiential aspects of human existence. These reflections do not in fact suggest a paradigm shift or a new data-driven, quantified era, but usefully serve to reflect an instructive insights of a “data body” that was there all along.

Biography: Jamie Allen (b. Canada, 1976) is an artist and researcher, Head of Research at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID). His short talk touches on the topic using examples of practice-based projects and creative works from CIID and the international interaction design community.

http://ciid.dk/research/people2/jamie-allen/

* Albert-László Barabási, Distinguished Professor and Director of Northeastern University Center for Complex Network Research, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Networkology, Thinking in Network Terms

Biography: Albert-László Barabási is a Distinguished University Professor at Northeastern University, where he directs the Center for Complex Network Research, and holds appointments in the Departments of Physics, Computer Science and Biology, as well as in the Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women Hospital, and is a member of the Center for Cancer Systems Biology at Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

Barabási’s latest book is Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do (Dutton, 2010). He has also authored Linked: The New Science of Networks (Perseus, 2002) and is the co-editor of The Structure and Dynamics of Networks (Princeton, 2005). His work led to the discovery of scale-free networks in 1999, and proposed the Barabási-Albert model to explain their widespread emergence in natural, technological and social systems, from the cellular telephone to the WWW or online communities.

* Annamaria Carusi, Associate Professor, Centre for Medical Science and Technology Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Getting Hold of the Digital Patient

The Digital Patient project aims to produce a “super-sophisticated computer program that will be capable of generating a virtual living version of yourself”, which can then be used to simulate treatments and predict the future (www.digital-patient.net). This seems to promise radical changes in personalized medicine, but what kind of a thing is this ‘digital patient’? A programme that is virtual, yet lives, and is a version of you? My talk will dissect the concept of the digital patient and the images used to promote it, focusing on how it combines ideas about both material and immaterial things – data, programmes, in silico and in vivo laboratory processes, virtuality and reality, and, course, you.

Biography: I study the way that computational technologies are involved in medical research, particularly: the social infrastructure for science in cyberinfrastructures, the construction of computational models and simulations of biological and physiological processes, and the role of computational displays and processing of images and other visualisations. I’m interested in the multiple ways that these supposedly abstract and disembodied computational networks, methods, tools and techniques are hooked up to material things.

www.annamariacarusi.me

* François-Joseph Lapointe, Professor at the Biological Sciences Department, University of Montreal and Artist, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Metagenomic Art: A Family Portrait

Recent advances in high-throughput sequencing technologies and whole-genome sequencing have produced massive DNA datasets for a growing number of species. Metagenomics now makes available not only the genome of a single organism, but that of a community of species sampled directly from the environment. Namely, metagenomic research has been used to analyze and characterize the human microbiome – i.e., the collection of microorganisms living on our body and inside of it. Metagenomes are often depicted with complex networks displaying the similarities among microbial communities sampled at various body sites, or in different individuals. Here, I will present a framework for metagenomic art. I will use metagenomic networks to study the human microbiome, an artscience project focusing on real-life families. To do so, the oral microbiome of selected couples will be analyzed and compared with that of random individuals not living in the same household. I will further test the hypothesis that married couples who have been living together for a long time are more likely to have similar microbiomes than newlyweds. The corresponding networks will be displayed as metagenomic family portraits, a testimony of the intricate relationships among the metagenomes of individuals sharing microbes on a daily basis.

Biography: François-Joseph Lapointe has a PhD in evolutionary biology from the Université de Montréal (1992) and a PhD in dance from the Université du Québec à Montréal (2012). As a scientist, he is interested in phylogenomics, population genetics and conservation biology. As a bioartist, he has transposed the stochastic processes of molecular evolution to the field of dance composition. For his most recent project, he is sequencing the human microbiome to create metagenomic family portraits.

Organisers

* Annick Bureaud, Paris, France

Independent art critic and curator (www.annickbureaud.net), Director of Leonardo/Olats (www.olats.org)

* Roger Malina, Dallas, Texas, USA

Distinguished Professor of Art and Technology, University of Texas Dallas (www.utdallas.edu/atec/malina); Directeur de Recherche, CNRS France; President Leonardo/Olats (malina.diatrope.com/).

* Maximilian Schich, Dallas, Texas, USA

Art historian, Associate Professor at the University of Texas Dallas, organizing chair of the ongoing NetSci symposia series on Arts, Humanities, and Complex Networks (www.utdallas.edu/atec/schich/).

* Louise Whiteley, Copenhagen, Denmark

Assistant professor in medical science communication at the University of Copenhagen’s Medical Museion

(www.museion.ku.dk/about-museion/staff/louise-whiteley/)

Relevant web sites

Leonardo/Olats

http://www.olats.org/studiolab/studiolab.php

Medical Museion, Copenhagen

http://www.museion.ku.dk/

Arts, Humanities and Complex Networks 2013

http://artshumanities.netsci2013.net/

Arts, Humanities and Complex Networks e-Book and web companion

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007S0UA9Q

http://ahcncompanion.info/

StudioLab

http://studiolabproject.eu

]]> http://malina.diatrope.com/2013/05/19/the-data-body-on-the-dissection-table/feed/ 0 http://malina.diatrope.com/2013/05/18/steps-to-an-ecology-of-networked-knowledge-and-innovation/ http://malina.diatrope.com/2013/05/18/steps-to-an-ecology-of-networked-knowledge-and-innovation/#comments Sat, 18 May 2013 14:42:47 +0000 admin http://malina.diatrope.com/?p=2511

Continue reading ‘Steps to an Ecology of Networked Knowledge and Innovation’ »]]> Colleagues

 
We are pleased to post for public comment our draft report summary for the SEAD White Papers Study

we hope to incite stakeholders to enable and unblock new forms of collaboration between

the Sciences, Engineering, the Arts, Design And Humanities

http://seadnetwork.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/dc_report_draft_12may2013.pdf 

Steps to an Ecology of Networked  Knowledge and Innovation

Enabling new forms of collaboration among sciences, engineering, arts, and design

DRAFT OVERVIEW OF A REPORT ON THE SEAD WHITE PAPERS
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No.1142510, IIS,
Human Centered Computing, “Collaborative Research: EAGER: Network for Science, Engineering, Arts and Design (NSEAD).
Prepared by Roger F. Malina, Carol Strohecker, Amy Ione, and Carol LaFayette
on behalf of the SEAD White Papers Steering Group and 200 White Papers contributors

http://seadnetwork.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/dc_report_draft_12may2013.pdf

Over the coming weeks we will be finalising the SEAD White Papers report- we thank the over

200 contributors to the SEAD White Papers- we welcome inputs , comments, attacks. suggestions

or independent meta analyses of the White Papers

http://seadnetwork.wordpress.com/white-paper-abstracts/final-white-papers/

Continue reading ‘Hybrid Cities: interviewing Roger Malina, Mariateresa Sartori and Bryan Connell’ »]]> Colleagues

Read this interview with Martiateresa Sartori, Bryan Connell and yours truly on the art and physics of the city

http://www.furtherfield.org/features/interviews/hybrid-cities-interviewing-roger-malina-mariateresa-sartori-and-bryan-connell

Lawrence Bird interviewed Roger Malina, Mariateresa Sartori, and Bryan Connell about the intersection of their work with the city. Images above courtesy: Roger Malina, Rita Gambardella, Bryan Connell.

Lawrence Bird: Roger Malina, in your recent writing you make the case that science is no longer just a field of positive knowledge. Scientists are increasingly open to engagement with the arts — for example artists’ residencies at CERN. You’ve even argued that we’re in a crisis of representation as profound as that of the Renaissance or the 19th century, and this is “driving a new theatricalisation of science.”

Urban life has often been understood as performative – display, performance of social roles, presentation of oneself before others are all part of the public life in cities. How would you say that crisis of representation plays out with regards to this performative dimension of urban life? How is science implicated alongside art in the city, in these conditions?

Roger Malina: One of my arguments for the ‘crisis of representation’ really looks at Renaissance systems of representation — first driven by what the eye could see, and then the eye extended by microscopes and telescopes. These systems of representation were developed that led to a deep contextualising of the viewer in the world.

Johann Hevelius’ 46m telescope (1673)

Today we are in a new situation because so much of our perception of the world comes not through extended senses but, in a real way, through new senses. This has been happening over a number of decades; the first wave of this was at the end of the 19th century when there was a cultural shock with the introduction of x-ray images, infra-red and later radio — which didn’t extend existing senses but augmented them.The most recent series of triggers maybe comes from the nano-sciences and synthetic biology — we now perceive phenomena of which we have no daily experience of (eg quantum phenomena). Field emission microsopy or MRI or some of the other new forms of imaging really don’t build on our existing experience — there are discontinuities and dislocations. Another element is of course the hand held device that leads to techniques for ‘augmented reality’ — I have a phone app that I can point at an aeroplane overhead and it tells me what the plane is, where it came from, and where it is going.

Continue reading ‘ANTIATLAS ART-SCI CALL FOR PROPOSALS’ »]]> Colleagues

My IMERA colleague, political anthropologist Cedric Parizot has been running a very succesful  ’frontiers’
project in Aix Marseille- we had a great workshop for instance which looked at how new network science affects our concepts of frontiers. They have now issued a call for proposals for work by artists, scientists= you will see that the ambition is to be transdisciplinary and find new forms for showing the complexities of the issues around frontiers: There is a special art-science emphasis

Roger Malina

ANTIATLAS Call For Proposals

http://www.antiatlas.net/eng/

The antiAtlas of borders is a transdisciplinary event that will take
place between September 30, 2013 and March 1, 2014. Bypassing
cartography, at the crossroads of research and art, it offers a new
approach of the mutations of borders and on the way they are
experienced by people in the 21st century.

The antiAtlas is an outcome of the transdisciplinary research project
led by IMéRA (Institut Méditerranéen de Recherches Avancées –
Mediterranean Institute of Advanced Research) on the mutations of
contemporary territorial configurations (2011-2013). It will be one of
the steps of Ulysses, a major exhibition program in Marseille-Provence
2013 supported by the FRAC (Regional Fund for Contemporary Art). The
objective of the antiAtlas is to decompartmentalize the fields of
knowledge, bringing together artists, human scientists, hard
scientists and professionals.

The antiAtlas will rely on five different supports:

1 : an international symposium open to researchers, institutional
actors, and to the public at large. It will take place at the Maison
Méditerranéenne des Sciences de l’Homme in Aix en Provence, from the
30th of September to the 2d of October 2013)
2 : a first art-science exhibition at the Musée des Tapisseries in Aix
en Provence (from 1rst October to 3 November 2013)
3 : a second art-science exhibition at La Compagnie, a place dedicated
creation and art in Marseille (from 13 December 2013 to 1srt mars
2014)
4 : an artistic and scientific web site that will complete and
perpetuate the work done and presented through the research program
and the two exhibitions
5 : an art science printed volume (winter 2014)

Scientific and Artistic Committee: Cédric Parizot (coordinator of the
research program, IMéRA, IREMAM, CNRS, Aix Marseille University), Jean
Cristofol (ESAA, Aix en Provence), Anne Laure Amilhat Szary
(University Joseph Fourier, Grenoble), Nicola Mai (London Metropolitan
University, London; IMéRA), Antoine Vion (Sociologist, LEST, Aix
Marseille University), Paul Emmanuel Odin (Art critic, La compagnie).
Curator: Isabelle Arvers

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

The call for proposals is opened in order to select original
productions for the exhibition that will take place at la Compagnie,
from 13 December 2013 to 1rst March 2014.

Because of its transdisciplinary nature, the antiAtlas of Borders
offers multiple levels of involvement and participation. Visitors will
engage with a variety of transmedia applications within a space
punctuated with interactive sculptures, installations and videos. This
playful exhibition will stimulate the public through the interaction
with robots, drones and video games. This is an exhibition to engage
with: try it yourself!
The curator and the artistic and scientific committee are looking for
various proposals (artworks, net. Art, photo, video, testimonies,
documentaries, video games …) showing different ways to experience the
borders. Proposals from migrants, professionals and artists are
welcome, in order to contribute to prepare a resolutely participatory
exhibition.

COMPOSTION OF THE JURY

The proposals will be selected by a scientific and artistic committee:

Isabelle ARVERS (art curator specialized in web art)
Cédric PARIZOT (Anthropologist, coordinator of the research program
antiAtlas, IMéRA, IREMAM, CNRS, Aix Marseille University),
Jean CRISTOFOL (Philosopher, ESAA, Aix en Provence),
Anne-Laure AMILHAT-SZARY (Geographer, University Joseph Fourier,
Grenoble), representing the European research program Euroborderspaces
(7e PCRD)
Paul Emmanuel ODIN (Critic, ESAA, responsible for the programming of
la Compagnie)
Nicola MAI (Anthropologist, London Metropolitan University, London),
Antoine VION (Sociologist, LEST, Aix Marseille University)

Launch date of the call for proposals: 7 May 2013

Deadline for reception of the proposals: 30 June 2013

Selection of the proposals by the committee: 31 July 2013

Continue reading ‘injecting supersonic steam into stem’ »]]>

Continue reading ‘’ »]]> DC Art Science Evening Rendezvous (DASER)

http://www.cpnas.org/events/051613.html 

Thursday, May 16, 2013, 6 p.m. (doors open at 5:30)

Keck Center, 500 Fifth St., N.W., Room 100

No charge. Photo ID and registration required.

American Sign Language interpretation will be provided.

D.C. Art Science Evening Rendezvous (DASER) is a monthly discussion forum on art and science projects in the national capital region and beyond. DASERs provide a snapshot of the cultural environment and foster interdisciplinary networking. Reservations and a photo ID are required for admittance. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the event begins at 6 p.m. This month, the discussion explores SEAD, The Network for Science, Engineering, Art and Design, which facilitates research, dialogue, and communication within and among those working in these areas. Click here to access the live Webcast. The Webcast begins streaming at 5:30 p.m. EST.

Program

5:30 to 6:00 p.m.
Check in

6:00 to 6:10 p.m.
Welcoming remarks and community sharing time. Anyone in the audience working within the intersections of art and science will have 30 seconds to share their work. Please present your work as a teaser so that those who are interested can seek you out during social time following the event.

6:10 to 7:10 p.m.
Roger Malina, Distinguished Professor of Art and Technology, and Professor of Physics, University of Texas, Dallas and Executive Editor, Leonardo Publications, MIT Press

Gunalan Nadarajan, Dean, School of Art and Design, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Bill O’Brien, Senior Advisor for Program Innovation, National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, D.C.

Carol Strohecker, Director, Center for Design Innovation, University of North Carolina system, Winston-Salem

7:10 to 8:10 p.m.
Discussion

8:10 to 9:00 p.m.
Reception

DASER is co-sponsored by Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences (CPNAS) and Leonardo, the International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology. DASER fosters community and discussion around the intersection of art and science. The thoughts and opinions expressed in the DASER events are those of the panelists and speakers and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the National Academy of Sciences or of Leonardo.

http://www.cpnas.org/events/051613.html

Continue reading ‘Intimate Science’ »]]>

http://williamsongallery.net/intimatescience/

features artists who are engaged in non-disciplinary inquiry; they aren’t allied to the customs of any single field, and therefore have license to reach beyond conventions. This kind of practice hinges on up-close observation, experiential learning, and inventing new ways for the public to participate in the process.”
– Andrea Grover, Curator, Intimate Science

“In an interesting new development in the art world, a generation of artists [is] now collecting data about their world using technological instruments but for cultural purposes. Shared tool-using leads to overlapping epistemologies and ontologies. These artists both make powerful art and help make science intimate, sensual, intuitive.”
– Roger Malina, physicist, astronomer and executive editor of Leonardo Journal

Artists:
BCL (Tokyo)
Center for PostNatural History (Pittsburgh)
Markus Kayser (London)
Allison Kudla (Seattle)
Machine Project (Los Angeles)
Philip Ross (San Francisco)

Intimate Science is curated by Andrea Grover and organized by the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh.

A densely illustrated publication, “New Art/Science Affinities” ( http://millergallery.cfa.cmu.edu/nasabook ), accompanies the exhibition. Co-authored by Andrea Grover, Régine Debatty, Claire Evans and Pablo Garcia, and designed by Thumb, the book features more than 60 international artists and collaboratives. ]]> http://malina.diatrope.com/2013/05/03/intimat-science/feed/ 0