Jacques Mandelbrojt looks at the challenges and constraints an artist faces while using one work of art to produce a corresponding one in another medium can force the artist to expand his or her creative vocabulary.

Eduardo Kac reflects on the landing of the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft and how this event brought telepresence to the masses.

Historical Opinion by Curtis E. A. Karnow
In Collaboration with Machines
Curtis E. A. Karnow noted in 1997 that there are many responses to the way the computer impacts copyright laws. He concluded that it is up to us to push for and map out solutions that encourage creativity.

Patricia Olynyk argues that if one accepts the premise of “one culture” – of a shared overall world view, then engaging risk capital in the academy could not only prompt a re-evaluation of our target investments but support the most innovative, generative and experimental thinking, research and creative work emerging from the gaps between historically divided disciplines.

Historical Opinion by David Topper
The Neutrino and the Sydney Opera House

David Topper parallels the development of ideas about the neutrino and the Sydney Opera House, examining the idea that due to the constraints in all aspects of human thought there are similar patterns of thinking among theorists.

Historical Opinion by David Carrier
 Art Criticism and the Death of Marxism
Looking at art in relation to Marxism, David Carrier argues that as cultural historians look back, Marx’s work will come to seem to belong to a period style, to nineteenth century ways of thinking that tell us nothing about how to proceed in the present.

Historical Opinion by Fred Forest
Against Official Contemporary Art, for an Art of the Present
Fred Forest argues that it remains for artists, confronted with the immense field opened for them by new technologies, to resist the seduction of facile effects.

Contemporary Opinion by István Hargittai
Something Has Doubled: In memoriam Erwin Chargaff (1905-2002)

István Hargittai offers a memoriam to Erwin Chargaff (1905-2002), who determined that, while the relative proportions of the different bases varied considerably in the DNA of different organisms, the relative amounts of the different bases followed strict regularities; between certain bases, there was a one-to-one correspondence.

Historical Opinion by Ernst Gombrich

Art is Long…
Ernest Gombrich argues that it takes time for a system of art conventions to crystallize and says we are more likely to achieve a new language of form when we are less obsessed with novelty and change.