Immersed in Technology: Art and Virtual Environments ed. by Mary Anne Moser, Douglas MacLeod (review)

ANNOUNCEMENTS IMMERSED IN TECHNOLOGY: ART AND VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS edited by Mary Anne Moser with Douglas MacLeod. A Leonardo Book. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA 02142, U.S.A., 1996.339 pp., illus. Trade. ISBN: 0-26213314 -8. The Banff Centre for the Arts is a place where professional artists working with electronic media come to produce new work and develop new skills. This book brings together critical essays along with artists's projects produced at the Banff Centre to explore the many issues raised by the creation ofvirtual environments and to provide a glimpse into worlds that have been much discussed but rarely seen. Immersed in Technology includes 11 essays addressing the cultural and social implications of cyberspace plus artists' statements from artists who created nine virtual worlds over a three-year period as part of the Art and Virtual Environments Project at the Banff Centre. The writers and artists examine the consequences in cyberspace for race and identity, materiality and the body, landscape and narrative. LEONARDO DIGITALREVIEWS Leonardo publishes reviews of books, digital publications (CD-ROMs, on-line works, World Wide Web sites), audio CDs and tapes, events and exhibitions. Accepted reviews are published either in Leonardo DigitalReviews (a section of our electronic journal Leonardo Electronic Almanac), on our Leonardo World Wide Web site (http://wwwmitpress .mit.edu/Leonardo/ home.html) or in our printjournals Leonardo or Leonardo MusicJournal. We do not accept unsolicited reviews. Individuals interested in joining the Leonardo reviews panel should e-mail a brief professional biography with an REVIEWS example of a review to mason@mitpress.mit.edu. Authors and artists interested in having their (physical) publications (books, CDs, CD-ROMs, etc.) considered by the reviews panel should arrange to have one copy shipped to Leonardo DigitalReviews, 236 West Portal Avenue, #781, San Francisco, CA 94127, U.S.A. Organizers of events or exhibitions and authors of on-line publications and events should e-mail information to mason@mitpress.mit.edu. Readers with comments or reactions to published reviews may send them for publication consideration to mason@mitpress.mit.edu. BOOKS HIDDEN ORDER: HOW ADAPTATION BUILDS COMPLEXITY byJohn H. Holland. Helix Books, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, U.S.A., 1995. $24.00. ISBN: 0-201-40793-0. Reviewed by RogerF. Malina, 95 Hiller Drive, Oakland, CA 94618, U.S.A. E-mail: . This book is about how complex adaptive systems (economies, cities, diseases, ecologies, civilizations, the nervous system ) emerge, survive, evolve. With remarkable clarity Holland outlines a research agenda that began over the last 20 years and will become one of the main new sciences of the next century. He summarizes his own pioneering contributions to the invention of genetic algorithms and his own road map (a class of models called "echo" models ) of the fundamental principles that he thinks will underpin successful theories of complex adaptive systems. Upon re-reading, I find that the word "clarity" summarizes best Holland's achievement in this book. He clearly defines the problem set as he sees it, clearly identifying the underlying principles, and succinctly describes the necessary interaction between observed phenomena in diverse domains, the models and simulations, and the resulting rigorous mathematically based theories. Like the Lectures on Physics of Richard Feynman, this book and Holland's work will have wide influence. In his closing chapter Holland states boldly his beliefs about the broad requirements of a successful approach to a theory of complex adaptive systems. Each one of these is a rich area for discussion in itself: 1. Interdisciplinarity: The theory must apply to very different domainsfrom biology, medicine and ecology to sociology, anthropology and history. A good theory of complexity must apply equally well to the emergence ofAIDS and the fall of Central American civilizations , as well as the evolution of the Internet. 2. Computer-based thought experiments : Computer-based models allow complex explorations not possible with real systems. These can guide theoretical thinking, but Holland is insistent that computer models that happen to match certain characteristics of real systems should not be mistaken for a deeper understanding of underlying principles and predictive theoretical constructs. 3. A correspondence principle: Holland insists that a successful theory of complex adaptive systems must encompass standard models from prior...