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ELECTRONIC NEWS
_________________________________________________________________

July 15, 1993 Volume 3 : Number 7
_________________________________________________________________

WORDS ON WORKS ISSUE
Contents:

About This Issue: Judy Malloy
DEEP CREEK SCHOOL: Dan Collins and Laurie Lundquist
Some Unrecorded Deep Creek Art: Judy Malloy

<<<<< WORDS ON WORKS >>>>>

RUPTURE, AN INTERACTIVE INSTALLATION: Gene Cooper
GLOBAL DISPLACEMENT NETWORK: Dana and Larry
SOUND AND CERAMICS: Bart Lynch
MAOUJA MENHOUTA (SCULPTED WAVE): Azdine Sedjal

<<<<<<< PROJECTS >>>>>>>>>

THE MUSEUM OF PHOTOGRAPHY OF/FROM TRANSYLVANIA: horea
READINGS IN ORGANIZED CHAOS: Max Lanier and Lora McDonald
EARTHVIEW: John Mathews and Charles Garoian

<<<<<<<<ART TALK>>>>>>>

Art Against the Norm: Lawrence T. Gawel
Poking at the environmental fire: H. Anderson Turner III

<<<<<<<ANNOUNCEMENTS>>>>>

SIGGRAPH "Birds of a Feather" Meeting: Roger Malina
MIT Press to publish Leonardo Electronic News: Craig Harris
******************************************************

This issue of LEONARDO ELECTRONIC NEWS was prepared at the Deep Creek
School, an experiment in art education, located in a mountain and
stream environment about seven miles outside of Telluride Colorado. At
Deep Creek, art students not only make work in relation to the
environment and to mountain ecosystems but also work with computers --
either in the design process or to reach out to a wider world through
telecommunications. All the words in this issue, with the exception of
Romanian artist horea's MUSEUM OF PHOTOGRAPHY OF/FROM TRANSYLVANIA (and
those in the "Announcements" section), were written by students,
instructors, and visiting artists at Deep Creek School.
Judy Malloy <jmalloy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
********

DEEP CREEK SCHOOL

Dan Collins and Laurie Lundquist
Directors, Deep Creek School
P.O. Box 171
Telluride, CO 81435 USA
393-894-6211 (home) 602.965.8311 (Arizona State University)
Email: <IDDLC@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Deep Creek is more than a stream in the Rocky Mountains. It is a
school, an art facility, and a conceptual model. It's for students
seeking an alternative to the structure of the University setting.
It's a retreat for professional artists and theorists. And it's a
meeting place for individuals who would like to think about art and
education in a new way.

Deep Creek is in the San Juan mountains 7 miles West of the Town of
Telluride, Colorado. The 65 acre site follows the creek from an
elevation of 7900 feet to 8200 feet above sea level. The property is
bordered by public lands that are currently used for a range of uses
including recreation, transportation, grazing, and mining. The
mountainous area offers a complex "ecology" of mutually interdependent
natural, mechanical, and cultural systems.

The Deep Creek School -- a component of Deep Creek -- is currently
affiliated with Arizona State University. Students receive university
level credit for site-specific projects ranging from the hand-made to
the hi-tech. Intertwining concerns of "site-specificity" and
"information-connectivity" provide the basis for active discourse at
Deep Creek. Students live in tents situated in the woods for the
duration of the five week program. The influence of the environment
enters their work in different ways; some actually engage
the creek, the topography, or the weather while others funnel their
energies into performance or studio-based works. Deep Creek is
equipped to deal with a range of traditional sculpture processes, as
well as video, computer graphics, and computer networking. The
facility is tied to local and international resources via available
technologies. For instance, during the Summer of 1993, Students at the
Deep Creek School collaborated in the creation of online artworks using
an Internet connection made possible through the generosity of the
Telluride Institute's "InfoZone". (1)

The overall Goals and objectives of Deep Creek School are:
--To explore the aesthetic relationships between body, technology, and
ecology.
--To compare the interrelationships of culture and natural phenomena.
--To develop a social dynamic that can function as a strong foundation
for personal investigations.
--To produce works of art that respond to the environmental conditions
at Deep Creek.

An important component of Deep Creek is the artist-in-residence
program -- Deep Creek AIR. While numerous artists have spent time at
Deep Creek School as faculty or visiting artists, in the future Deep
Creek will endeavor to provide space and resources for professional
artists pursuing projects in a variety of "Intermedia" directions.
Residencies will be offered to artists based upon a collective process
of portfolio review and professional recommendations.

At Deep Creek, the grass-roots intertwines with the airwaves and the
hi-tech finds its complement in the hand-made. During a recent visit,
performance and installation artist Ray Langenbach gave his perspective
on what the Deep Creek program is all about: "It's an amazing interface
between digital and analog (which I) totally support...philosophically.
A lot of people I know in academia have become really disenchanted with
the structure of institutions. People are beginning to create
alternatives around the edges of well-funded institutions. (Deep Creek)
is an elaboration of the edge to make (the edge) more relevant."
--------

Deep Creek School Faculty, 1992 and 1993

Dan Collins, Artist, Assistant Professor, Arizona State University
Charles Garoian, Artist, Associate Professor, Penn State University
Laurie Lundquist, Artist, Tempe, Arizona
Joan Hugo, Writer, Educator, Los Angeles, California

Visiting Artists / Scholars, 1992-1993:

Douglas Kahn, Artist, Assoc. Professor, Arizona State University West
Fran Dyson, Artist, Sound Theorist, Phoenix, Arizona
David Groenveld, Environmental Biologist, Bishop, California
Judy Malloy, Information Artist, Berkeley, California
Ray Langenbach, Artist/Theorist, Singapore
Richard Lowenberg, Artist, Urban Planner, Telluride, Colorado
John D. Mathews, Director, Communications and Space Sciences
Laboratory, Penn State University
-----
1. LEONARDO ELECTRONIC NEWS 3(5), 1993
********

SOME UNRECORDED DEEP CREEK ART

Some of the artists working at Deep Creek School preferred to spend all
available time making art that related to the environment and did not
write any words about their work. In addition, there was not room in
this forum to include all the words written about the art made at Deep
Creek. Some works not recorded elsewhere in this issue are listed
here. The first four were a response to the group assignment "control
water". The others were individual projects.

- Kai Staats' ARTICULATE AQUIFER -- an electro-mechanical device that
enables the motion of the creek to be communicated to a keyboard and
computer. "The racing water is a visual and auditory conglomerate as
complex as the motion of the stones that it causes to collide. The
music it makes is white -- noise to some and a melody to others,"
Staats wrote about this work.

- Jennie Overton's WATER BODY -- a white sheet that was stretched
across the creek -- redolent of women's role in the daily (laundry)
control of water. The creek rushing by below was visible, framed
through a rectangular opening cut in the center of the sheet.

- Charlie Pelletier's computer printed WATER ("We can move it, catch
it, channel it,"....) -- many pages of words -- taped together and
held over the creek until they were ripped apart and swept away.

- Aaron DeVault's BODY OF WATER - a performance that took place at
night in a dark studio building. During the performance, sweat
produced by DeVault's continuous jogging in place (invisible behind a
plastic and wood structure) condensed and eventually dripped into a
wine glass in a lighted glass window as the audience watched.

- Phoebe Hillman and Timon Gasowski's HIGH IMPACT CAMPING -- a
collaboratively created satire on low impact camping ("Change your oil
-- Use the used motor oil to kill weeds around your tent and pour
excess in any nearby lake or stream", etc. ) that was posted in the
Camping and Arts Conferences on the WELL.

- Paul Stout's UNTITLED -- a fluorescent light that dangled from a
rope off a bridge into the creek and effectively highlighted the
rolling water. It was eerily reminiscent of Hudson River School
paintings.

- Gasowski, McGinn, Thompson's RED DESERT FREEWAY -- a labor intensive
red sand lined path that led from the road (that runs through Deep
Creek School) to a substantial log bridge across the creek. The
landscaped public campsite appearance of this work contrasted with the
majority of the other works that integrated in the ecosystem
(including McGinn's rope and rock MAPPING GRAVITY and Thompson's
extensive forest-sited LABYRINTH)

- Kim Weston's NEST -- a peaceful, sheltering "human" nest that was
carefully constructed of fallen trees, willow branches and wild
flowers.

=================================================================

<<<<<< WORDS ON WORKS >>>>>>
RUPTURE

Gene Cooper
4900 Council St NE,
Cedar Rapids, IA 52402, USA
Email: <genec@xxxxxxx>

My interests lie in the areas of interactive ecological and cybernetic
systems as they apply to performative acts, experimental writing, forms
of memory, spatial time (degrees of duration), and environment
responsive installation works. My most recent interactive
installation titled RUPTURE occurred on April 23 at the Left Bank
Gallery in Kansas City, MO.

RUPTURE involved a complex web of systems, each of which related back
to a general theme of exploring hidden system structures of the body,
the environment, and the computer. One systemic aspect of the
installation incorporated a series of computers that viewers were
invited to interact with. Inside the cavern like installation,
(littered with uprooted trees, exposed root systems, computer
manipulated imagery, and rubble), two Mac Plus computer monitors
displayed a series of writings. The writings were the stories,
memories, secrets, thoughts, and accidents that viewers were invited to
type into two keyboards located in a space apart from the main
installation. In a corner of the nearby gallery space were the two
basic keyboards (no computer or monitor in sight, just the keyboards),
where viewers could type their story or secret. As they typed their
stories into one of the two keyboards, the text would appear
anonymously in the cavernesque installation space on one of the two
monitors. A third computer was linked via modem to a gallery across
town where viewers at the other gallery space would again type stories
or memories or accidents into a solitary keyboard secretly connected
to a computer. The text would then be transmitted via modem to a
computer in the main cavern and be displayed on a monitor in the cavern
that had been stripped down to the bare wires and electronic
components.

The writings range from poetic ramblings, to deep dark secrets, to
childhood sexual abuse stories, to traumatic accidents, to simple
memories. The following are *UNEDITED* excerpts from the 12 pages of
writings typed by viewers in the 7 hour period of time that the
installation was active.

...I remember when I was an adolescent my mother, wearing only her
underpants, large, threadbare things, would lie on her back on the bed
and have me massage her large and vericose legs. After I drank
gasoline and tried to hang myself these images disappeared for good,
except when I have the opportunity to speak anonymously. so much
struggle grief on the edges of the top of a deep silo down in the
mustygrain for so long so dark and alooone now the strength to climb i
found my limbs are tired, mind exhausted, spirit parched thirsty like
the morning aftre hung over a glass of water....

The content of the writings have intrigued me and added an unexpected
aspect to my work that I quite enjoy. Although they were just a
portion of the installational body, they played an important role in
allowing the installation to be shaped, reworked, and "ruptured" by the
outside public.

*******

GLOBAL DISPLACEMENT NETWORK

Rancho Rio Seco, attn: Dana and Larry
710 w. 12th Place, Tempe, AZ 85281 USA
E-mail: IDDLC@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx attn: Dana and Larry

At the Deep Creek Ranch Outpost of the Global Displacement Network,
our latest project highlights the channels of water through a sea of
mail. Our projects are carefully planned and documented in order to
provide an entire library of resource material for future generations.
Our interests lie in the tension between homogenization and diversity,
time and place, people and landscape and\or any combination of these.

For the Deep Creek Experimental Water Exchange Program, bottles of
water from the snow-melt stream on our premises were mailed ( in
accordance to U.S.P.S. regulations) to various predetermined locations
throughout the lower forty-eight. Included in the packaging were
requests for water from those locations and postage for its return.
Space was provided for the participants to note their usage of the
Deep Creek water and the origin of the exchange water.

When the exchange water is received, it will be stored in our ice shed
until evaluations can take place. We will test for clarity, wetness,
shape holding ability, size, smell and pourability. After the
evaluations are completed, the specimens will be permanently cataloged
in the vast expanses of our library system.
-----
ed: Dana and Larry are Dana Fritz and Lawrence Gawel

********

SOUND AND CERAMICS

Bart Lynch
5720 W. Harrison Street
Chandler, AZ 85226 USA

In architecture, natural harmonies occur in Renaissance structures.
Harmonic relations of form and space were often based on the golden
section and the ratios therein. These same ratios occur in the growth
patterns of flowers, fish, and other components of nature. I am
currently concerned with understanding why these ratios occur and why
they are pleasing to us.

I have been translating sounds to three dimensional pottery using
several computer programs in order to see if pleasing sounds make
pleasing pottery and vice versa. [1] Using the sound program SOUND
EDIT PRO, I can get a visual representation of a sound that is time
dependent. That visual is saved as a picture and imported to SWIVEL
3-D where the sound form can be lathed to resemble pottery and used as
a template to create actual ceramic works. Using these programs, I have
also been animating the figures so that on the computer screen, the
pottery forms dialogue with the sounds that created them. I see these
processes as data gathering exercises that help me to understand the
nature of the harmonic relations so that I will be able to use them
more effectively in the future.
-----
[1] This work was developed at Deep Creek School in conceptual
collaboration with Dan Collins.

*****

MAOUJA MENHOUTA (SCULPTED WAVE)

Azdine Sedjal
Ecole D'Art D'Aix Rue Emile
Tavan
Aix en Provence
13100
France

The rocks like sculpted waves are carried by the river and are brought
and thrown to its center and its banks. I feel carried with them, but
I like to be carried -- with my foreigner's wave among these disparate
waves, in order to partake of this new rhythm and in order to identify
with this new space that comes from the water....water whose beauty is
hidden in the desert is here exposed on the surface of the landscape
like a long rapid line and continues until it rejoins the sea, an
inverted desert -- with the water above and the sand below. The sea and
desert are equivalent.
---------
ed: MAOUJA MENHOUTA is a wooden sculpture through which water moves and
which is moved by the water. It is approximately 15 feet long and is
situated in the center of Deep Creek.

<<<<<<<<<PROJECTS>>>>>>>>>>>>

TRANSYLVANIA VIA ANONYMOUS FTP

horea
106 West 9th Street,
Tempe, Arizona 85281 USA
Email: <marian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

"muzeul de fotografie a/al transilvaniei" (THE MUSEUM OF
PHOTOGRAPHY OF/FROM TRANSYLVANIA) is a work-in-progress that will
integrate existing photographic material consisting of more than 5500
images taken while traveling through Transylvania in the fall of
1991, into a historical context -- more exactly, into the history of
photography.

"muzeul de fotografie a/al transilvaniei" questions such notions as
history, identity, authorship, the system of production, display and
distribution of art -- how history is written, the underlying idea of
the museum, of the archive, and how collections are shaped relative to
the subjectivity of the historian, the curator, and the archivist.

The fictional aspects of the material parallel the way Transylvania
was perceived in time as a mythical place, a theme for books and
film-scripts. The museum will try to re-create Transylvania, beyond its
fictional image by integrating vernacular elements in contemporary
critical, aesthetic, and artistic practices.

By relocating the museum in unorthodox sites (such as The Hayden
Library at the Arizona State University), I will, through
experimentation, confrontation and debate, explore the relationship
between art material and its context. In these sites, temporary
installations with projections/audio/video/computer-generated material
will articulate the existing/re-created image of Transylvania for the
viewer.

Museums and libraries are both spaces for display of collected and
classified objects. Both institutions display the invisible through the
visible ordering of objects. Installing the museum in the library will
reveal parallels in the history of photography, the history of the
book, and the history of the typeface. The exhibition presentation and
method as *archive* will unify the idea of museum and library.

The Hayden Library offers an appropriate environment and historical
context for this installation because many of the books included in
the Hayden Library Special Collection contain original photographs
from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These photographs
constitute a collection tantamount to a museum collection and will be
recontextualized by the installation to reveal the relationship of the
library to the museum.

Recreating and redefining the image and the identity of a place, in
this case Transylvania, is a pretext for questioning the social and the
cultural system in the dialectic of "other" and "self". As a viewer of
the library, producer of the objects and curator of the installation I
will confront this most difficult relationship (artist-curator-viewer)
in the process of exhibiting cultures and difference.

For the MUZEUL DE FOTOGRAFIE A/AL TRANSILVANIEI, I will utilize
technology by having all the visual and written information stored on a
CD-ROM. This will both offer new ways of perception and
distribution of art and give access to the museum's archive in a
democratic manner (the way libraries do) -- thus displacing the
museum's sacrality. The CD-ROM will be the new archive, the new
reference book, the new photograph and the new moving image. The museum
on CD-ROM will be open to access through networking systems (such as
FTP), and the relation receiver/authorship will be virtually
implemented.

****

READINGS IN ORGANIZED CHAOS

Max Lanier and Lora McDonald
823 S Ash, Tempe, AZ 85281 USA
ASMAX@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


A cool realm. A world of plastic boards, phosphorescent tubes,
liquid crystal displays and modem lines. Social interaction
without the physical realities of social contact. Cyberpunk vision
or reality? More the latter than the former. But what is lacking?

Today, the aware reader is wired into an information society that
provides a steady current of facts, images, notes, news, tidbits,
propaganda, opinions, perspectives, views, etc. Received in a steady
stream, the next byte/bit supersedes the last. The past minute's
(rather than yesterday's) news is made old news -- instantly. The
constant rush of information overwhelms the reasoning/processing
facility that translates raw data from trivia into knowledge, so that
the reader is left without the ability to focus -- buffeted in a
shifting sea of outdated (increasingly useless) textual/visual/
verbal/aural information -- white noise for the eyes and ears, and thus
the brain.

From the advent of humankind-as-tool-users, the sense of touch has
played a collaborative, although subtle, role in assisting vision and
hearing with the assimilation of information. In this information age,
the new data transmitters -- computers, video, digital synthesizers --
convey information that has been denuded of the tactile element which
anchors it to physical reality.

Reading a book requires action -- a choice of subject, location,
posture -- mental and physical attitude. Because of its interactive
nature, using a computer relates both literally and figuratively to the
act of reading a book, but the mode of transmission, and quantity of
data it is capable of transmitting, has been radically altered. The
conspicuous lack of tactility within both the information and the
interface becomes apparent: curling up with a good data file never
presents itself as an option.

READINGS IN ORGANIZED CHAOS, a work in progress, is designed as a
tactile, interactive environment that provides a bridge between the
virtual/sensory realm of the computer and the full sensory facilities
of the body. By reinserting the body into the act of cognition, the
hope is to awaken the sensor/censor that differentiates the sentient
reader from the acritical receptacle of information chaos.

The setting for READINGS IN ORGANIZED CHAOS is a large library table
surrounded by wooden chairs. From the center of the table radiate
cables/lifelines -- each terminating at an object/book. The cases of
these tomes are comprised of actual (discarded) books, wrapped and
rebound with pieces of detritus -- all fragments from society's
castoffs. Although connected to the table, the books are individual,
sculptural objects that are designed to be handled, opened, and read.
The initial experience of the book is as an object held in the hand
and perused with the visual and tactile senses -- the look/feel of the
materials used in the binding; the size and heft of the object as it
fits into the hand; the necessity of the act of opening the book
and beginning to read. On turning the pages, the viewer embarks upon a
more or less traditional reading experience, which is then interrupted
by the presence of a miniature television monitor imbedded in the
book. The screen within the book displays a constant stream of
digital information--excerpts from classic literature, dialog from
advertising (commercials, television, print, etc.), continually updated
news/data from the wire services, magazine articles and so on --
samplings of those streams of information/consciousness that bombard us
daily. Intermingled with these infobytes are texts that address and
question this information reality: the critique of the thing being
part of the thing itself.

The chaotic book, with its hoard of constantly shifting information,
lies dormant, much like a closed book on a library shelf -- waiting for
activation by a human participant. Once engaged, the viewer is
confronted with a microcosm of that sea of information that surrounds
us. However, textual/textural anchors provide the reader with options
for organizing and processing the information. Thus READINGS IN
ORGANIZED CHAOS challenge the viewer to question the intent
and modus operandi of the information society that manipulates media in
an attempt to control our access to knowledge.

*****

EARTHVIEW: LOOKING DOWN AT OURSELVES


John D. Mathews
Professor of Electrical Engineering
Director, Communications and Space Sciences Laboratory
Penn State University
University Park, PA 16802 USA
E-mail: JDM@xxxxxxxxxxx

Charles Garoian
Associate Professor of Art Education
School of Visual Arts
Penn State University
University Park, PA 16802 USA

We propose the space art project EARTHVIEW, an integrative conceptual
art project of massive scale and complexity that is about how we look
at ourselves -- about seeing ourselves in a context that is difficult
to visualize because we are not familiar with looking down at ourselves
from on high. "Real-time" video images from various Earth-orbiting
satellites and solar system probes as well as -- ultimately -- the Moon
will be obtained and distributed to much of the world's population via
cable and broadcast television channels. EARTHVIEW will allow us to
see ourselves from a new, ever-changing, yet ever-fixed perspective and
to develop new words and paradigms to describe ourselves and our
context.

Art and science have always challenged us to view and experience
phenomena differently, to adopt different and new perspectives, and to
look to the future. Both artists and scientists have always adopted or
developed the techniques or technologies needed to form the image they
seek to articulate. While these images are often deeply felt and
highly personal, their content may form "words" or paradigms that
impact society as a whole. EARTHVIEW is intended to offer a window from
which to see the world as an integrated organism that exists not on a
planer surface but on a spinning, nearly spherical, planet that is only
too finite in extent. It reminds us that our technology is an
extension of ourselves and can be used to very productive and
"friendly" ends. EARTHVIEW can potentially assist us "confront" our
impact and place on the planet in our ongoing process of evolution [1].

With this document, we propose that NASA and the space agencies of
other countries undertake this collaborative work that clearly lies
within the capabilities of current technology. EARTHVIEW would
distribute to TV viewers around the world continuous (black and white,
color, infrared, etc.) images of Earth from TV cameras on at least one
low-earth-orbit satellite, three geostationary satellites, and
ultimately the moon and interplanetary probes. The various images
would be displayed as a montage on the screen with the various views of
Earth changing at rates depending on the location of the various
cameras. For example, the image from the low-earth-orbit satellite
would change rapidly because of orbital periods of about 90 minutes
while images from geostationary orbit would show a "full" and
stationary Earth with day, night, and weather patterns coming and
going. The intent of this ever changing display is to provide us with
a new "world" view that demonstrates a symbiotic relationship between
ourselves and our planet and to present the Earth from a perspective
such that no single ideology or culture dominates.

In addition to the use of various satellites, we propose that future
interplanetary probes contain a color video camera that "beams" back
the receding view of the Earth-Moon system on a continual basis. All
images would be arrayed simultaneously on the TV screen so that
multiple vantage points in and of space and time are represented.
Occasionally other probes such as GALILEO might supply spectacular
views from, for example, above or below the equatorial (ecliptic)
plane.

One immediate forum for the distribution of these images would be the
US Public Broadcasting System. As a test, college and university
public television stations (e.g., WPSX at Penn State) would broadcast
images from weather satellites and various space shuttle flights to
experiment with format, background audio, audience response, etc. To
further test the EARTHVIEW concept, a cable channel such as C-SPAN
(public access TV) could be temporarily dedicated to this exploration -
through creative application of art, science, and technology - of our
relationship with ourselves and our planet.
-----
1. Jonas Salk, "The Next Evolutionary Step in the Ascent of Man in
the Cosmos", LEONARDO 18: 237-242, 1985.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ART TALK >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

ART AGAINST THE NORM: THOUGHTS ON REPRESENTATION

Lawrence T. Gawel
521 West College Ave
State College, PA 16801 USA

What is it about art that makes it so undefinable? Is it perhaps the
thought processes that are often associated with it? The work of an
artist is representational of that artist, but is an artist responsible
for making that representation clear to others? Thoughts like that
make me question my work and wonder why others question it.

Is it my fault that you don't understand? What is it that makes it so
important anyhow? Perhaps you're looking for something that just isn't
there, like blood from a stone. I know this is hard to grasp if you've
read all the books and can recite names and examples like a broken
record, but maybe just once try and realize that your vision may have
been clouded by an academic education and the rigors often associated
with it.

Sometimes, I just produce to produce, for nothing more than something
to do. It's times like these that I treasure, but in the eyes of
others are turned into trash. Is it your own insecurities that make
you worry about what I have done? Do you feel I am robbing you of
something because I didn't think it out to its fullest?

Maybe it's time to reject all you know and do something just for the
sake of doing it. When you are finished, sit back, relax, and don't
analyze it, but simply appreciate it for what it is and not for what
its about.

Are you worried by the notions that I put forth? I hope so. For some
time now I have been struggling to adhere to the unwritten rules that
are so often talked about. No longer. Adhering to rules that one has
been led to believe are right is acceptable only if you feel they are
right. Otherwise you are merely a political prisoner of your
imagination, and it is time to ask yourself: "Why don't I rewrite these
rules to better suit *me*?"
------
ed: Gawel is currently making site specific installations in remote,
inaccessible areas. When these installations are reinstalled in
gallery situations, photographs of the original installation (printed
on muslin) are integrated into the reconstructed work.

*****

POKING AT THE ENVIRONMENTAL FIRE

H. Anderson Turner III
2474 Brentwwod Rd.
Bexley, OH 43209 USA

Environmental art -- art made to raise awareness -- is becoming more
prevalent as concerns about the condition of the planet continue to
rise. However, no matter how environmentally significant an artist's
message may be, the *act* of making that art may not be environmentally
sound.

"Environmentalism" is a concern for the earth and the impact humans and
animals have upon it -- like Newton's Third law of motion, for every
action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Environmentalists
battle the adverse impact of actions and reactions as they pertain to
the earth. They do this by actively protesting, writing, and informing
people about the effects they and others have on the planet.
Environmental art in which artists seek to enlighten others about key
issues is an off shoot of these concerns.

Unfortunately there is a contradiction hidden in the creation of the
physical art work. For example, a sculptor may choose to clear an area
of forest to display a piece, but the clearing, the piece, and the
material the piece is made out of all have some kind of impact. So
environmental artists are forced to compromise some of their feelings
for the sake of their work.

I have just completed a site specific sculpture/performance piece at
the Deep Creek School in Telluride, Colorado. The idea of the work was
to create a permanent functional site that would also be a reaction to
the advantages and disadvantages of having a school in the wilderness.
The major problem in creating the work was justifying what I was doing
to the land. For example, one element of my piece was a mock river of
broken alcohol bottles.

What makes art so special that an artist can forget or lay aside
convictions? The justification for what I did came from the message I
tried to convey. I believe we, as human animals, have an unavoidable
effect on the earth. We exist and therefore we have an impact. If I had
not accepted the adverse effects of parts of the piece as necessary, I
would have created nothing.

Environmental artists know what kind of impact they have when they
create a piece. They accept that there is some contradiction in the
creation of their work. But, when the survival of the planet is at
stake, the message that the work carries is what's important.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ANNOUNCEMENTS >>>>>>>>>>>>>>

BIRDS OF A FEATHER FOR INTERNATIONAL ART AND TECHNOLOGY GROUPS

A meeting will be held at SIGGRAPH on August 4 at noon for
persons interested in the ISEA conferences and other international art
and technology events. The SIGGRAPH meeting is in Anaheim , California.
The exact location of the meeting will be in the conference program.
The Meeting will be hosted by

Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts ( Wim van der Plas and
Roman Verostko)
Art Science Technology Network ( Annick Bureaud)
Leonardo/ISAST (Craig Harris, Roger Malina )
YLEM (Beverley Reiser)

The purpose of the meeting will be to present plans for the Fourth
International Symposium on the Electronic Arts to be held in Minnesota
in 1993, the fifth symposium to be held in Helsinki in 1994 and the
Sixth Symposium to be held in Montreal in 1995. Organizers of other
international events will be invited to make available their
information. The point of contact person for this meeting is
Roger Malina, c/o Leonardo, 95 Hiller Drive, Oakland, Ca 94618, USA
Email: <rmalina@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

*****

MIT Press to publish Leonardo Electronic News
---------------------------------------------

Leonardo/ISAST is proud to announce that MIT Press will be publishing
Leonardo Electronic News beginning with the next issue. Since 1988
FineArt Forum has filled an important role in the cybercommunity, and
will continue to develop under the guidance of Paul Brown, ASTN, and
others. In 1991 we at Leonardo/ISAST recognized a need for an
electronic publication which could provide in depth information on a
series of topics, while still servicing the immediacy available in the
electronic communication medium. Leonardo Electronic News (LEN) was
created with the goal of filling this need in the art, science and
technology community. LEN has evolved greatly since it began in 1991,
both in content and scope. The agreement for LEN to be published by MIT
Press as their first electronic publication on the internet represents
a significant development in the evolution of LEN, the internet
delivery system, and publishing in general. LEN will continue to
provide such features as Words on Works, profiles of current work at
art/science/technology facilities around the world, and
bibliographies/abstracts on a variety of current topics of interest
It will expand to include longer feature articles new columns in a
variety of topic areas.

MIT Press is offering Leonardo Electronic News monthly to subscribers
for $25 a year. Current members of Leonardo/ISAST, subscribers to the
journal LEONARDO, and our LEN subscribers who have donated money to
Leonardo/ISAST to support this activity, will receive their issues
gratis. Individuals and organizations subscribing now will receive
issues until the end of 1994, providing 16 issues for the price of 12.
FineArt Forum subscribers will continue to receive FineArt Forum
gratis.

To subscribe to Leonardo Electronic News, send your name, address and
credit card information to

journals-orders@xxxxxxx

============================================================

Executive Editor: Craig Harris Co-Editors: Annie Lewis
Judy Malloy
Editor this issue: Judy Malloy

Published by Leonardo, the International Society for the Arts,
Sciences and Technology (ISAST), 672 South Van Ness Avenue, San
Francisco, CA 94110 USA
*******************************************************
End of Leonardo Electronic News 3(7)
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