Leonardo Network News

The Newsletter of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology and of L'Observatoire Leonardo des Arts et Technosciences

On-Line Monograph on Abraham Palatnik

The initial pages of an extensive monograph featuring the work and life of Brazilian artist Abraham Palatnik are now on-line at: <http://www.olats.org/pionniers/pp/palatnik/palatnik.shtml>. This work is part of the Pioneers and Pathbreakers project developed by OLATS/Leonardo.

According to Palatnik, the artist's role is to "order the chaos of perception." This is probably what led him to explore such a wide gamut of techniques and materials. He first tried his hand at the traditional arts of painting and pencil drawing; this was in the late 1940s, while he was teaching art in the Therapy Department at the D. Pedro II Psychiatric Hospital in São Paulo. His encounters with the inmates, who produced art with a different yet complex language, turned out to be an extraordinary experience that shattered his own relation to art. Palatnik then decided to give up painting and created his first kinechromatic device, which was presented at the first São Paulo Biennial in 1951. With his machines based on the kaleidoscope principle, he established himself as one of the key figures of kinetic and technological arts in Brazil.

Now in its initial phase, the Palatnik Monograph offers a biography, bibliographies and the beginning of an anthology with material contributed by some of the leading scholars of Palatnik's artwork: Mario Pedrosa, Frederico Morais, Aracy Amaral, Eduardo Kac, Frank Popper and Jacques Leenhardt.

The Itaú Cultural Institute in São Paulo recently presented "Pioneer Palatnik: Painting Machines and Decelerating Machines." Curated by the art critic Marcio Doctors, this show displayed a unique selection of 26 kinetic and kinechromatic works, sketches and documents. For more information, or to contribute to the on-line project, contact curator Jocelyne Rotily at <jocelyne.Rotily@wanadoo.fr>.

History of Computer Art in the U.K.

A team of researchers based at the School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media at Birkbeck, University of London has been awarded over £250,000 by the Arts and Humanities Research Board. The grant will enable the team to research, document, contextualize and archive the history of the computer arts in the U.K. from their origins in the 1950s to 1980, when user-friendly interfaces altered the nature of such practice. This is one the first major grants awarded in the U.K. for research in this area.

The team consists of Charlie Gere, lecturer in Digital Art History at Birkbeck; George Mallen, CEO of System Simulation Ltd., who co-founded the Computer Arts Society in 1968; and Anglo-Australian artist, writer and Leonardo International Co-Editor Paul Brown, who is well known as a pioneering practitioner of computer art. Based at Birkbeck, the 3-year project will also recruit a Ph.D. student and a post-doctoral research assistant.

The project has several major objectives, including an authoritative on-line database of artists, events and works; a scholarly publication; a popular publication, intended for a broader audience; acquisition of a new national collection of computer-based work from the period; a major summer show of surviving work to be scheduled for 2005; a new post-graduate program at Birkbeck; and, possibly, a television miniseries.

"This grant is a recognition of the importance of this area which hitherto has been shamefully neglected by historians of art and culture," Gere said, speaking from Birkbeck College, "and also of the urgency of undertaking important research, before it is too late." For more information, contact Paul Brown at <paul@paul-brown.com>.

Cultural Roots of Globalization Project

Leonardo/OLATS recently launched the research project "Cultural Roots of Globalization" at <http://www.olats.org/setF12.html>. In this project, philosophers, scientists and artists question the ontological significance of globalization. We especially emphasize artists in the techno-scientific field who are also sensitive to poetic aspects of the phenomena of globalization (planetary art, Web art, telemetric art, etc.).

The project will present bibliographies, key texts, new unpublished texts and an art gallery, as well as seminars on specific topics...