Leonardo Network News

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

Electronic Access and Discount Back Issues Available to Leonardo and LMJ Subscribers

All issues of Leonardo and Leonardo Music Journal dating back to 1999 (Volumes 32 and 9, respectively) are available on the MIT Press journals web site <www.mitpressjournals.org> for free to current Leonardo and Leonardo Music Journal subscribers. Subscribers are also reminded that for an additional $25 fee, they can access and download PDF files of articles in the Leonardo and Leonardo Music Journal archives dating back to Volume 1 (1968) through JSTOR. To register for JSTOR, contact MIT Press at <journals-orders@mit.edu>.

Beginning with Volume 40 (2007), MIT Press will offer a permanent 35% discount on back issues of Leonardo and Leonardo Music Journal to all subscribers.

Call for Papers: Nanotechnology, Nanoscale Science and Art

Over the last decade, "nano" has become a buzzword signifying everything from imagined atomic-scale robotic utopias to small electronics. For scientists the shift toward nano has also become ubiquitous; what used to be referred to as molecular has been reframed as nano; 27 journals devoted to nanotech/nanoscience are now published; and the National Science Foundation and other granting agencies have devoted a significant amount of funding toward nanotech/nanoscience. Among engineers, scientists and science-studies scholars, discussions of the potential of nano-tech/nanoscience abound, including conferences that debate the pros and cons of a nano-hegemony and attempt to debunk some of the hype. Artists, however, have only begun to explore this emergent scientific field, leaving it wide open for creative interpretation. With this special section of Leonardo, we hope to ignite artists' interest in the exploration of nanotech/nanoscience and encourage scientists, scholars and educators to contemplate the implications of an art-nanotech/nanoscience connection.

Leonardo, in collaboration with the Exploratorium under the auspices of the Nanotech Informal Science Education Network, will publish a series of special sections periodically over the next 5 years, guest edited by Tom Rockwell and Tami I. Spector, exploring the intersections of nanotech/ science and art. We are especially seeking submissions of artworks (visual, performance, sound, etc.) with artists' statements explaining the relationship of the work to nanotech/science; essays from scientists, engineers and scholars exploring the connection between nanotech/science and art; and essays and visuals aiming at nanotech/science education that use the arts as a pedagogical tool.

Interested artists and authors are invited to send proposals, queries and/or manuscripts to the Leonardo editorial office at <leonardomanuscripts@gmail.com>.

Call for Papers: Archiving, Collecting, Documenting and Conserving the Media Arts

Throughout the 20th century, and certainly at an increasing pace since the 1960s, new art forms that feature technological components have been throwing traditional conservation and documentation practices into upheaval. These works of art are many and varied. They may be analog or digital, mechanical and/or electronic; they are often multimedia-based and include a variety of components, such as mechanical parts, software, electronic systems, varied electronic media formats, etc. Museums, which are charged with preserving and providing access to these works, often find themselves without adequate resources and must make do with methods and means that are poorly adapted to a growing number of artistic practices.

Guest Editors Jean Gagnon and Alain Depocas of the Daniel Langlois Foundation (Montréal) invite researchers, scholars, artists and others to submit articles for publication in a new special section in Leonardo concerned with documenting and conserving the media arts heritage. This new section is the journal's contribution to a larger research alliance bringing together museums, universities and organizations from Canada, the U.S.A. and Europe, with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Daniel Langlois Foundation.

For the next 3 years, the section will publish articles and reports arising out of the alliance's ongoing research. We wish to invite authors concerned about this constellation of problems to propose articles to Leonardo. We welcome articles under the following three programmatic headings: documentation, cataloguing and conservation.

Interested authors please contact...