Artlink, Special Art and Technology Section (review)

selected for the presen t hook. Donald D. Hoffman searches for geometrical criteria characteristic of perceptual ambiguities, whereas Barbara Gillam discusses the relations between perspective and visual distortions. This latter discussion is indeed needed because some psychologists, such as R. L. Gregory, have derailed research in this area by suggesting that the familiar optical illusions can be reduced to perspective depth effects. What the two phenomena have in common is actually that both are due to distorting tensions in the twodimensional field. In the case of perspective , the gradients of converging lines and size differences created tensions that are relieved by escape into three-dimensionality. On the contrary , the converging lines in the Ponzo illusion create rather than relieve the modification of size. The last-mentioned examples show how much the research strategy of experimentalists is guided by the psychological axioms to which they subscribe . The editor of the present book confesses to the traditional approach formulated around 1860 by Hermann von Helmholtz, in his Treatise ofPhysiological optics, as the Empirical Theory: "The sensations of the senses are tokens for our consciousness, it being left to our intelligence to learn how to comprehend their meaning." Some of us believe that perception reveals its creative genius when the mind, instead of figuring out what can be derived by intellectual inference from past experience, uses its inherent ability to produce wellstructured patterns by organising the raw material of the senses. ARTLINK, SPECIAL ART AND TECHNOLOGY SECTION, Vol. 9, No.1, 1989. Artlink, 363 Esplanade, Henley Beach, South Australia, 5022 Reviewed Uy RogerF Malina, P.o. Box 421704, San Francisco, CA 94142-1704, U.S.A. Most of this issue of the Australian art journal Artlink is devoted to topics in art and technology. The articles include an update on the Australian Network on Art and Technology (ANAT) , a report by Louis Dauth on the First International Symposium on 446 Current Lite-rature Electronic An, Harold Cohen's excellent article presented at that symposium , reports on the ANAT CAD/CAM summer school by Richard Brecknock and Richard Grayson , an article on video art by Frances Dyson and an article by Simon Penny on a performance by Stelarc entitled Events for Amplified Body and Third Hand. In Events for Amplijied Body and Third Hand, Stelarc as described by Simon Penny "stands in a large dark space, his body confined by a lacework of electrodes and wires connecting him to a range of medicalelectronic devices (these include electro-encephalograph, electrocardiograph and electro-myograph and other sensors and devices) ... minor contortions of his body trigger a robotic third arm into action ... body signals and movements trigger a variety of light sources ..." In a thoughtful article Penny explores theoretical, ethical and philosophical issues surrounding advances in medical science that allow the extension of both human life and the human nervous system. As Penny points out, there are three possibilities concerning the way new technologies are affecting the forces of natural selection that drive evolutionary change of the human species. First, that the technology is self controlled; second, that some people control it; third, that it is out of control. And as emphasized by Penny, each of these possibilities is problematical. In an ironic footnote, an earlier (different) performance by Stelarc was cancelled because of a legal opinion that the artist's space would be liable for any accident that might occur to the artist or spectators . If scientists and engineers carried out their research work within the same legal rules as artists, few new technologies would ever become widespread . Readers are referred to Artlink, and its regular Art and Technology section , for excellent coverage of topics of interest. The Australian Network for Art and Technology is planning a conference sponsored by the new international Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts (ISEA) to be held in Australia in 1992. Organisations seeking to be involved should contact ANAT at P.O. Box 21, North Adelaide 5006, Australia. THE MEDIA LAB by Stuart Brand. Penguin, New York, NY, U.S.A., 1987.285 pp., iIlus. Paper, $10.00 ISBN: 0-14-009701-5. Reviewed Uy Stephen Wilson, Art Department , San Franrisco State University, San Franrisco, CA 94132, U.S.A...