ÐÏࡱá theory of interactive digital installation art is developed. Part II comprises analysis of various interactive installation artworks. The analyses in Part II should be regarded as the method for the dissertation’s theory construction. In such manner, the analyses provide both a basis for my theory as well as exemplify that theory. At the same time, the analyses stand as reflections over individual works, in singularis, each with their own intentional specificity and spectrum of interpretation. Part I: theory Chapter 1, Methodological selections, introduces the disciplinary field in so far as I begin with shift in the conception of what constitutes ‘a work’ begun with installation art and intensified by interactive digital installation art. Interactive artefacts can no longer be regarded as being a definite expression, conceived and executed by an artist. It should rather be considered as variable work realisations, which in addition to spatial and digital expressions also incorporate participants’ actions. This conception of an artwork vastly complicates the recipient position of the work’s viewer, in so far as the strategy of mental contemplation is confronted by the involved physical action; in which response to a work that depends on a distance between work and viewer no longer seems eligible. Any theory that wishes to be valid for interactive installation art, therefore, must be able to deal with a paradox that can be encapsulated in the question “how can a viewer be a contemplative observer of their own simultaneously performed action?” This paradox cannot be explained with a synthesised, identity-creating subject. The theory deployed here, however, proceeds from the system theory of Niklas Luhmann and is based especially on the distinction between psychic systems and communication systems, as well as on the distinction between autopoietic and allopoietic (the trivial machine) system types. My thesis is such: that interactive digital installations operate as staged, artificial interaction systems that I will call transient communication systems. These transient communication systems are generated on the one side conceptually by the artist and on the other side as work realisations of the implicated participant actions in interaction with the digital machine’s variously expressed outputs. Chapter 2, System operations, introduces a range of features from system theory that are relevant to my field of investigation. A short summary of Maturanas and Varelas’s concept of autopoiesis will be followed by a description of Luhmann’s concepts of i) autopoietic systems as the operative observation of (Luhmannian) differences ii) his distinction between a psychic system and a communication system (social systems), together with the communication system’s constitutive ‘difference’ of information-utterance-understanding, and iii) the structural coupling and interpenetration between psychic systems and communication systems. As a result, investigation is carried out thereafter into allopoeitic systems, via a résumé of the main dispositions and mechanisms of algorithmic, cybernetic systems. Chapter 3, Genealogical considerations, comprises an art-history influenced reading of installation art intended to distil the genealogical relevance of this artform for interactive digital installation art. Concepts brought into focus include space, conceptual art, and the recipient position of the viewer within various avant-garde traditions (futurism, Dadaism, Bauhaus, minimalism, and conceptual art). From a discussion that includes Michael Fried’s rejection of minimalism and conceptual art, installation art is considered to be an interaction system in the process of becoming (called here an initial interaction system) that includes the viewer’s observed observations in the space of the installation artwork. Lastly, the chapter focuses on arrival of digital multi-media technologies into the installation artwork’s space and the subsequent shift from a primarily spatial response towards the artwork to a temporal one. Chapter 4, Transient communication systems, develops the dissertation’s main thesis of digital interactive installation art as a transient communications system. The thesis proceeds from Luhmann’s conception of the autopoietic interaction system (which likewise is a social system), which emerges from reciprocal observed observation, supported and ensured by the psychic system’s perceptional generation of information (Wahrnehmung). In its demarcation to a autopoietic interaction system, interactive digital installation art is defined In 74% of Rembrandt's female portraits, the subject's left cheek faces the viewer. However, this occurs in only 26% of his male portraits. This asymmetry is consistent with viewers' assessment of Rembrandt's left-cheeked male portraits as preferably avoided, which may indicate that aggressive dominance is governed by the contralateral right hemisphere of the brain, while the rating of left-cheeked female faces as preferably approached may indicate sexual attractiveness. Rembrandt's exposed-cheek gender difference suggests that both sexual selection and dominance are governed by the more emotionally oriented right cerebral hemisphere. Leonardo Reviews Reviews by Roy Behrens, Martha Blassnigg, Andrea Dahlberg, Anthony Enns, Allan Graubard, Dene Grigar, Rob Harle, Amy Ione, John Knight, Michael R. Mosher, Robert Pepperell, Kathleen Quillian, Aparna Sharma, George Shortess, Eugene Thacker, Pia Tikka, Stefaan Van Ryssen, Claudia Westermann ______________________________________________________ LEONARDO NETWORK NEWS ______________________________________________________ < Celebrating 40 Years of Leonardo > The Leonardo network was first started in 1966 in Paris. The first issue of the journal Leonardo was published in 1968. Leonardo/ISAST is launching its 40th anniversary celebration with a number of activities. Leonardo/ISAST is planning many large-scale events and activities to take place over the next few years. Information about Leonardo 40th anniversary projects and events will be listed in a special section here in Leonardo Network News, as well as on the Leonardo web site at . ------------ Leonardo and LMJ Archives Now on JSTOR Forty years ago Roy Ascott was working on his text "The Cybernetic Stance," David Bohm was writing "On Creativity," L. Alcopley was preparing his interview with Edgard Varèse and C.H. Waddington was writing "New Visions of the World." These texts, along with those written by Richard Land, Frank Malina and others established the first volume of the Leonardo library. We are happy to announce that these articles, along with thousands of other Leonardo and Leonardo Music Journal texts by artists and researchers around the world working at the intersection of the arts, sciences and technology, are now available through the JSTOR Arts & Sciences III Collection. Current Leonardo and Leonardo Music Journal subscribers can now search, browse, view and print full-text PDF versions of the JSTOR collection for an additional $25 annual access fee. Contact MIT Press at journals-orders [at} mit [dot] edu to set up your access today. The JSTOR Arts and Sciences III Collection is also available to users at participating institutions. To find out if the university or other institution you are affiliated with has access to Leonardo and Leonardo Music Journal through JSTOR visit: . ------------ Leonardo Celebrates Leonardo da Vinci Special Section of Leonardo, 2007--2008 In celebration of the Leonardo journal's 40th anniversary, we are calling for essays related to Leonardo da Vinci and his concerns regarding the relationship between art and science. We are interested in submissions in which Leonardo's own concerns serve as a springboard for looking towards the present. What, building upon Leonardo's ways of thinking, can artists and scientists tell each other today? We also seek original accounts of his visual art, of his achievements as a proto-scientist and of the relation between his concerns with science and with visual art. Recommended length: 2,500--3,500 words Illustrations per essay: 5--8 black-and-white images; possibly one color image. Prospective authors are encouraged to review the Leonardo Author Guidelines on the Web: All papers will be peer reviewed prior to acceptance for publication. Please send inquiries and submissions to Guest Editor David Carrier, Department of Art History and Art, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, U.S.A. E-mail: dxc89 [at] po [dot] cwru [dot] edu. _____________________________ Leonardo is pleased to be a co-sponsor of the Pacific Rim New Media Summit (PRNMS), a pre-conference event to ISEA2006. In conjunction with PRNMS, Leonardo will release a special issue of the Leonardo journal to serve as a summit companion. Guest-edited by artist and educator Greg Niemeyer, this special issue of Leonardo follows the Working Group structure of the summit itself, featuring introductory texts by the Working Group chairs and preliminary papers of Working Group members. This special issue of Leonardo will be included in the registration packs of all ISEA2006 early-bird conference registrants (until June 15, 2006), with additional copies available for sale at ISEA2006. Visit <01sj.org> to register. Highlights of Leonardo 39:4 include: Surfing the outernet: Where net art presented the medium of the Internet, locative art brings to the fore the media of mobile and wireless systems. Drew Hemment unfolds a taxonomy of locative-art approaches to the gap between the perfect grid and the reality of the mapped world. Cyber-mythologies and portraits of dispossession: Rachel O'Reilly examines how Asian and Pacific understandings of place in recent work by Vernon Ah Kee, Lisa Reihana and Qiu Zhijie expand the frames of contemporary locative art. Cartographies of the future: Annie Lambla discusses the San Francisco Exploratorium's Invisible Dynamics project, which considers the museum's relocation from a perspective integrating art, science and geographic context. Culture, uncontained: Commerce, communication and technology intertwine in the works of the Pacific Rim New Media Summit exhibition Container Culture. Artists from Mumbai to Vancouver use the medium and metaphor of shipping containers to explore regional and global complexities. _____________________________ < New Bibliography Published by Leonardo Education Forum > The Leonardo Education Forum (LEF) has published a new bibliography for the Leonardo Bibliography Project. The LEF bibliography includes seminal books, periodicals and academic programs available for students and professionals working at the intersection of art, science and technology. The bibliography is available at: The Leonardo Education Forum (LEF) promotes the advancement of artistic research and academic scholarship at the intersections of art, science, and technology. Serving practitioners, scholars, and students who are members of the Leonardo community, LEF provides a forum for collaboration and exchange with other scholarly communities, including the College Art Association of America (CAA), of which it is an affiliate society. The Leonardo Education Forum is open to all individuals who are members of Leonardo. For more information about the Leonardo Education Forum, a list of members and how to join, please visit: _____________________________ < Organization Discounts Available > Special discounts on Leonardo publications are currently offered to organizations interested in networking with the Leonardo/ISAST community. Members of the following organizations are encouraged to follow up on the opportunity to receive special discounts on new subscriptions to Leonardo and Leonardo Music Journal by contacting your organization's Members Services: ISEA, The Guggenheim, College Art Association, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Walker Art Museum and The Miami Art Museum. Organizations interested in setting up a special Leonardo discount for their members should contact MIT Press Journals Marketing Manager Laura Esterley: lesterly@mit.edu _____________________________ < Website Launch for DOCAM (Documentation and Conservation of Media Arts Heritage) > As a member of the DOCAM research alliance, Leonardo is pleased to bring your attention to the opening of the new web site: The DOCAM research alliance announces the launch of its new web site. Initiated by the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology, DOCAM's primary objective is to develop new methodologies and tools to address the problems of preserving and documenting technological and electronic works of art. The DOCAM web site allows visitors to explore the research alliance's key areas of focus: - The conservation of works of art featuring technological components - Documentation strategies and structures adapted to these works of art - A typology and historical listing of the technologies deployed by the artists - Catalogue structures and methods for works featuring technological components - Terminological tools and structures for the electronic arts The DOCAM web site also offers a list of related research committees and their members, information on DOCAM events, and electronic and media art conservation and documentation resource directories. Research reports and articles on case studies conducted by DOCAM will also be added regularly to the site. And finally, a thematic scan of the key research areas targeted by DOCAM is accessible from the site: . _____________________________ < Our Faust has died: Nam June Paik Obituary by Jürgen Claus > Nam June Paik (July 20, 1932 - January 29, 2006) What an ingenious idea to make you, a global travelling video guru, a professor at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts in 1979. Your respectable guidelines for those students who were searching for private assistance was: "Best teacher not visible!" Actually your language: You studied philosophy and art history in Tokyo beginning in 1953. In 1957 we were both together in the Munich University seminar "History and Theory of 20th Century Art." You had been familiar with theories as well as many art historians, but you chose to use philosophic quotations as collage in an overall personal reference system. "On my recent trip to Tokyo," you said in 1976, "I bought dozens of books about time by Oriental and Occidental thinkers. On my return to New York, I found out that I have no time to read them" [1]. Your language was imprinted by Asian logograms, German thoroughness, fiddle-faddle and American pragmatism. To understand you, one had to have a "Paik-input" in one's own apparatus of communication. When we met 10 years later in the New York apartment of Pop Art Mover Lil Picard you had combined excessive Japanese TV avantgarde-knowhow with individual technique-non-conformity and a very personal media-poetry. Charlotte Moorman had become your fixed star--the second, after your life companion Shigeko Kubota. In a (possible?) (forthcoming?) "Clash of Civilizations" we miss people such as you, Paik, who are simultaneously on thirteen Channels, entitled Education, Medicine, Transportation, etc--like your "Faust"-Stations (1989-91), simply called by you "My Faust." In February 1988 we had been asked to join the founding mother of the Cologne Media Arts Academy (Anke Brunn) in Düsseldorf to discuss the academic curriculum of Media Arts. Whereas I opened discussion about my ideas of an "Electronic Bauhaus" [2] you saw no gap between the fine and the applied arts: "Anyhow art is art history written every year again and again." In 1990 you thought it was time for you "to practice a bit of dying" and to look for a "propitious site for a grave." "However," you said, "I've no money for that and land prices became so steep, let's live on and die by an ersatz"[3]. Later you said you would fade away at 75. It was the "right age to go." Now it has happened to you sooner. In your Zen-Buddha-Dada-Flux-Heaven you may ask for a return to earth (the globe), and we will be glad! Jürgen Claus, Leonardo International Co-Editor 1. Nam June Paik, "Input-Time and Output-Time," in Ira Schneider, Beryl Korot (Ed.), Video Art. An Anthology (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976, p. 98). 2. Cf. Jürgen Claus, "The Electronic Bauhaus" in Leonardo, Electronic Art Supplement Issue, pp. 13-18, 1988. 3. In Catalogue Beuys Vox 1961-86, Won Gallery / Hyundai Gallery, Seoul 1990. LEONARDO NETWORK NEWS COORDINATOR: Kathleen Quillian kq [at] leonardo [dot] info ________________________________________________________________ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * CREDITS * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ________________________________________________________________ Nisar Keshvani: LEA Editor-in-Chief Natra Haniff: LEA Editor Nicholas Cronbach: LEA Editor Kathleen Quillian: LEA e-news digest Coordinator Michael Punt: LR Editor-in-Chief Andre Ho: Web Concept and Design Consultant Roger Malina: Leonardo Executive Editor Stephen Wilson: Chair, Leonardo/ISAST Web Committee Craig Harris: Founding Editor Editorial Advisory Board: Irina Aristarkhova, Roy Ascott, Craig Harris, Fatima Lasay, Michael Naimark, Julianne Pierce Gallery Advisory Board: Mark Amerika, Paul Brown, Choy Kok Kee, Steve Dietz, Kim Machan fAf-LEA Corresponding Editors: Lee Weng Choy, Ricardo Dal Farra, Elga Ferreira, Young Hae- Chang, Fatima Lasay, Jose-Carlos Mariategui, Marcus Neustetter, Elaine Ng, Marc Voge ________________________________________________________________ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * LEA PUBLISHING INFORMATION * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ________________________________________________________________ Editorial Address: Leonardo Electronic Almanac PO Box 850 Robinson Road Singapore 901650 lea [at] mitpress [dot] mit [dot] edu ________________________________________________________________ Copyright (2006), Leonardo, the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology All Rights Reserved. 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