Leonardo/ISAST News

LEONARDO, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 345–346, 1999 345© 1999 ISAST Leonardo/ISAST NEWS The Newsletter of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology Section Editor: Andrea Blum E-mail: French Ministry of Culture Grant Observatoire Leonardo des Arts et Technosciences (OLATS) is developing the Repères et Resources (Highlights and Resources ) critical guide to multimedia artworks. The guide will cover both on-line (web sites) and off-line (CD-ROM) works, and will also cover useful resource sites in the fields of art, science and technology. The Repères et Resources project recently received a grant from the French Ministry of Culture and Communication as a first step towards establishing both an on-line multimedia resource center for the French-speaking community and a French network, “Cultural Spaces for Multimedia,” consisting of centers all over France dedicated to the promotion and knowledge of new media products and art forms. For more information on the project, see . —Annick Bureaud Virtual Africa Gallery: Burkina Faso Artists Works by a group of African painters and sculptors from Burkina Faso—Claude-Marie Kabre, Sama, Fernand Nonkouni, Beybson, Blanche Ouedrago, Jean-Didier Yanogo, Suzanne Ouedraogo, Ali Kere, Sokey Edorh, Namsiguigna Samandoulougou, Adama Sawadogo, Boly Sambo—are currently presented in the virtual Africa gallery. Also presented in the gallery are paintings by Abdelkader Badaoui (from N’Djamena, Chad); sculptures and robots by Unisa Kargbo (from Sierra Leone); sculptures by Aboudramane (from the Ivory Coast); and paintings and sculptures by Godefroy Kouassi (from Togo). Currently highlighted in the Virtual Africa project is the original work of Iba Ndiaye, a painter of Senegalese origin. His paintings explore the syncopated rhythms of jazz (for example , in his series Jazz and Blues) and recall his youth in Dakar and his Muslim education. Ndiaye also finds his inspiration in the works of such old masters of Western art as Nicolas Poussin. He appropriates their forms to express his own vision of Africa to describe, for example, the African’s condition in a world dominated by whites. To Ndiaye, the essential aspect of modernity lies in its crossed culture. The Virtual Africa Gallery is located at . —Jocelyne Rotily Space and the Arts Workshop 1999 Leonardo/ISAST, OLATS, OURS Foundation, the International Academy of Astronomics and its Art and Literature Committee held the third annual “Rencontres du 13 Avril” workshop on 21 March 1999 outside of Paris on the theme “Cultural Perspectives on Space.” The workshop focused on the cultural (artistic and scientific ) dimensions of the space age “after the exploration.” Discussions centered on the questions, approaches, attitudes, thinking and research conducted today on living in space. Among the presentations were artists’ projects, exhibitions celebrating the third millennium, discussions of the interior design of an art annex for the International Space Station, etc. Among the participants were Ralf Buelow, curator, Berliner Festspiele GmbH; Jean Clair, director du Musée Picasso, Paris; artists Richard Clar, Jean-Philippe Fontanille, Marko Peljhan, Jean-Marc Philippe, Richard Americus de Seabra and Arthur Woods; and scientists Frank Friedlaender, Roger Malina and Susan McKenna-Lawlor. For more information, see . —Annick Bureaud Pioneers and Pathbreakers: Nicolas Schöffer The Leonardo Pioneers and Pathbreakers art history project (http://www.cyberworkers.org/olats/pionniers) has constructed a web site on the work of technological artist Nicolas Schöffer. Materials recently added to the site include statements by Marc Saltet, Georges Patrix and Claude Parent; new images of Schöffer’s digital artwork Microtemps 9 (1962); and statements about Schöffer’s collaborators, including Maurice Bejart and Pierre Schaeffer. Individuals with documents or visual images relating to the work of Schöffer who are interested in adding them to this web site should E-mail . —Annick Bureaud Leonardo Book Series Art and Innovation: The idea behind Xerox’s interdisciplinary Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) is simple: put creative people in a hothouse setting and innovation will naturally emerge. Xerox PARC’s Artist-in-Residence Program (PAIR) brings artists who use new media to PARC and pairs them with researchers who use related media in different contexts. This is radically different from most corporate support of the arts, which entails little intersection between the disciplines. The results are interesting and...