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  • ISEA 2002Orai: Routes to and from
  • Peter Anders, ISEA SecretaryGuest Editor

Acurious feature of Japan—at least to Western minds—is that the streets of its cities have no names. Only their intersections do. This inverts the Western convention that streets, especially in the U.S., have priority over their intersections. The Japanese valuation of place over route is suggested by street signs that name first the destination, "A," for example, then the place of departure, "B." Looking one way the signs read A-B, looking the other way, B-A. The street is the same but the orientation is different. The place from which routes emerge is a nexus, a witness to the comings and goings of daily commerce.

In this second special section devoted to ISEA's 2002 symposium, we pursue the theme of orai, a Japanese word suggesting "comings and goings." The symposium convened in October 2002 on the waterfront of Nagoya, a vigorous, forward-looking city down the eastern coast from Tokyo. ISEA, the Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts, held its semiannual symposium on the theme of orai, a term that eludes easy definition. Our previous issue (Leonardo Vol. 37, No. 3) presented papers and works that addressed the theme either by taking up the task of definition or by demonstrating the liminality of orai itself. We offer here four more papers from the Nagoya event. Each presents the navigation of routes, whether they connect disciplines, species or us with the world. Diana Domingues's "Day-Dreaming States in Interfaced Environments: Telematic Rituals in Ouroboros" presents her exploration of interspecies communication and shamanic ritual. Her artwork Ouroboros features themes of snakes and consciousness as disclosed through the use of virtual realities and robotics.

Brigitte Steinheider and George Legrady describe—in almost anthropological detail—the contingencies of interdisciplinary collaboration. Their paper provides a case study of how artistic methodology changes in the face of contemporary technologies and multi-disciplinary cooperation. The transactions and negotiations involved in producing Legrady's Pockets Full of Memories are required reading for anyone considering similar efforts.

How human experience changes through contemporary technology is the subject of Ted Krueger's "Synthetic Senses." The use of technology to enhance our senses dates back to our earliest history, from the use of probing sticks to ground glass lenses. Krueger projects forward to when we will create unprecedented new senses that broaden our spectrum of experience.

In conclusion we include also the work of Fundación Rodríguez, a multi-disciplinary arts organization in Spain. As evidenced in their projects, Fundación Rodríguez works in the realm of multimedia as well as developing a critical discourse in curatorial practice and art production.

As we have seen, the roadways connecting the arts to the sciences pass over varied terrains. In this and the previous issue of Leonardo we have explored some of their avenues, their comings and goings. But what of their endpoints? What is the distance between art and science, poetry and technique? Indeed the endpoints of these roads may prove illusory, for science and art are mere subsets of human endeavor. If so, we must suffice with the reality of the road, its winds of passage and the evanescence of orai. [End Page 307]

Peter Anders, ISEA SecretaryGuest Editor
E-mail: <ptr@mindspace.net>
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