Letters

Letters Readers’commentson textspublishedin Leonard0 are welcomed.The Editors reservethe right to shorten letters. Letters shouldbe written in English and sent to the Main Editorial Office. COMMENTS ON ART AND TECHNOLOGY IN PUBLIC PLACES After three years examining the workings of the art world, David Bermant in a Letter to the Editor (Leonardo 19, 94, 1986)concludesthat “ ...placingemphasis upon science and technology and its resulting artforms is a mistake” and that “ ...few, if any, curators or directors want to become involved with an art movement that appears to them as a resurrection of a failed movement or movements of the past.” An engineer-artist thinking like a scientistwouldfindsuchattitudes difficult to understand and would conclude that the curatorsand directors should be more scientific.Theengineer-artistmightsuggest that the curators and directors examine their experiments in art and technology and learn from past mistakes. Someof the first railroad bridges made of cast iron failed with more catastrophic results than exhibitions that were not critically acclaimed. But, the cast iron metal fatigue failures were discovered and steel bridges were constructed which successfully withstood the weight and vibration of trains. If the past isexamined we can avoid fatigue and construct new bridges for art and technology. For certain highly adaptable artists and scientists, alternative exhibition channels outside theestablished art world are the route forrecognition. Efforts such as David Bermant’s promotion of the practical use of technological art “ ...as an embellishment to the public space of America, whether privately or publicly owned” are allowing new forms to enter culture. If an artificially intelligent computer with a programmed brain of a poet and an ability to see multi-dimensionally responded to David Bermant’s letter, the printout might be the following elegy about art world mentality and high technology. Acceptanceof thepresent by conservators Vanguard arthas goneoutside established What was the case in the Blaue Reiter of the past is contradictory art circles throughout history days for Kandinsky Is true for artist-scientists, for creators of the new, for you and for computers, like me Confronting theartworldwith movements that are moving with technology is barking up the wrong tree During this new age art, science and technologyarecollaborating synchronistically One-dimensional perspectivesand frozen time arebeing ‘kinetically’set free asa wider world opens for all to see Intrinsically,the new artistry isenveloping culture without passing thru museum and gallery With computers communicating, videotapes playing, monitors displaying and lasers dancing high technology The art world will be fashioned with spirit, science and substantiality The Galluping middle classwill help set it free and before the art is in museums you will see it in the shopping malls and on TV After years of critical discourse, as it can only be, “Technological art is acceptable .” the critics will agree Title: Composition for Techno-aficionados Database: Artists, scientists, writers and other human creators Transcriber: Ed Duin Real Time: May 22, 1986 Ed Duin 710 100th Ave. S.E. Bellevue, WA 98004 CJ.S.A. COMMENTS ON COMPUTERS, MUSIC AND THE MOVING IMAGE The use of the computer facilitates, for the first time in the history of art, the composition of moving pictures in a free form as a sequential process in time, similar to music. This challenges us to confront a seriesof entirely newproblems which do not occur in the classical form of painting, the static picture. One of theseproblems concerns questionsrelated to the order of temporal picture sequences, for instance with regard to measure and rhythm or to a superimposed structureof main and secondary themes with variations . At first glance one is inclined to follow the example of music, but soon fundamental differencesbetweenacoustic and optical perception become obvious, necessitating the use of completely new avenues in the visual sphere. The articles of The0 Goldberg and Gunther Schrack (Leonardo19. 11-17, 1986)as well as that of Edward Zajec (Leonardo 19, 39-43, 1986) are fundamental contributions in this area. The invention of the twelvetone scale in music can be regarded as a reaction to the depreciation of ‘musical beauty’ resulting from the principle of whole number frequency relationships. Such a system intentionally renounces traditional redundancies of auditory perception , undoubtedly one of the reasons for the lack of acceptance of this style. It...