Leonardo Network News

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

LEAF Welcomes Incoming Chair Adrienne Klein

Leonardo Education and Art Forum (LEAF) is delighted to welcome Adrienne Klein as Incoming Chair. Klein is Director of Special Projects and Co-Director of Science and the Arts in the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. In this capacity, she has been the principal organizer of over 140 presentations of theater, art, music, dance and film that bridge the worlds of art and science. These public events range from conferences and concerts to science demonstrations on the streets of New York. In addition, her artwork has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in the United States and Europe. Klein joins Chair Patricia Olynyk in the administration of LEAF activities, including the recent "Transdisciplinary Visual Arts, Science & Technology Renewal Post-New Media Assimilation" workshops at Rewire and ISEA 2011.

LEAF 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, LEAF 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.

Find out more about the Leonardo Education and Art Forum: <www.leonardo.info/isast/LEAF.html>.

Nicholas Collins Podcast on LMJ20

Nicolas Collins, Editor-in-Chief of Leonardo Music Journal and chair of the Sound Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, talks about the 20th anniversary issue of LMJ and its theme, improvisation, in Episode 10 of the MIT Press podcast series. In the podcast, Collins explains how he chose the theme and shares insights about putting the issue together, as well as about how improvisation and composition have evolved during his tenure as editor of LMJ.

The MIT Press podcast series includes short interviews with editors and authors from journals published by the MIT Press. Watch the podcast with Nic Collins: <www.mitpressjournals.org/page/podcast_episode10_LMJ>.

Leonardo Abstracts Service:Top-Rated Authors

Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology is pleased to announce the top-rated abstracts published in the English-language Leonardo Abstracts Service Databases during the first half of 2011.

Leonardo Abstracts Service (LABS), consisting of the English-language, Spanish-language and French-language LABS databases, is a comprehensive collection of Ph.D., Masters and MFA thesis abstracts on topics at the intersections between art, science and technology. Individuals receiving advanced degrees in the arts (visual, sound, performance, text), computer sciences, the sciences and/or technology that in some way investigate philosophical, historical or critical applications of science or technology to the arts are invited to submit abstracts of their theses for consideration.

Top-rated abstracts in the English language database were chosen by a peer-review panel including Yiannis Colakides, David Familian, Andrea Polli, Tom Lesser and Edward Shanken and will be published in the Leonardo Electronic Almanac.

The top-rated LABS abstracts of the first half of 2011 are: "Reversed Remediation: How Art Can Make One Critically Aware of the Workings of Media," by Saskia Korsten; "The Search for a Third Way of Curating New Media Art: Balancing Content and Context In and Out of the Institution," by Sarah Cook; "Ambivalent Animal," by Geoffrey Thomas; "The Sensorial Invisibility of Plants: An Interdisciplinary Inquiry through Bio Art and Plant Neurobiology," by Laura Cinti; "Mixed Reality A rt and the Graphical User Interface," by Ian Gwilt; "MIND touch—Ephemeral Transference: 'Liveness' in Networked Performance with Mobile Devices," by Camille Baker.

Read the full abstracts: <leonardolabs.pomona.edu>.

Leonardo Electronic Almanac: MISH MASH

MISH MASH, Issue 1 of the all-new Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA) is now available as a free PDF. With this re-launch of LEA, the editors are working on implementing availability on a wide range of digital platforms. The issues are published on-line but will also be rolled out on a series of e-publishing platforms ranging from Print on Demand via CreateSpace (Amazon) to iTunes.

LEA, a...