Trevor Paglen of the Department of Geography University of California at Berkeley on The Other Night Sky - Artist / geographer Trevor Paglen will talk about his recent project to track and photograph 189 classified “moons” (reconnaissance satellites) in Earth orbit. Along the way, he introduces us to an international network of satellite observers, tracks the history of two “stealth” satellites, and contemplates the relationship between classical empiricism and democracy.

Ken Goldberg, Director of the Berkeley Center for New Media on Robots as Naturalists - Ken will present experiments and questions raised by robots and social networks, ranging from ouija boards to human “tele-actors,” and tell a true story about how invasions of privacy led him and his students to investigate how robots can assist in monitoring the natural environment. He’ll describe a robotic system they’ve deployed to assist the search for the ivory billed woodpecker, a bird of extreme interest to birdwatchers, ornithologists, and conservationists whose last confirmed sighting was in 1944. Ken will also present the manifesto of the Berkeley Center for New Media and propose a hopefully controversial definition of “media.”

Carlo Sequin on Knotty Sculptures.

Richard Rinehart, Curator of the Berkeley Art Museum, on the forthcoming UC Berkeley Big Bang conference - Berkeley’s New Media Center and Leonardo ISAST are organizing a two-day academic conference to be held in June 2008 at the Berkeley Museum. Richard Rinehart, Curator of the Berkeley Museum, will present the Berkeley day of the conference (first day of the conference).

Kris Paulsen, grad student at Berkeley Center for New Media on Participation TV - Kris will examine a sequence of projects from the 1960s to the present in which artists have worked to reverse the unidirectional structure of broadcast television. These artists feed back into the networks by disrupting broadcasts, “hijacking” programs through pseudo-events and hostile takeovers, and by developing their own multi-directional systems that challenge the television viewer’s traditionally passive role. By exploiting the potential for liveness on television news, CCTV, and public access, the artists addressed in this talk attempt to put viewers into direct contact with the event and with the others who are watching - the network becomes a crowd.

Space is limited. Please RSVP to Piero Scaruffi: p [at] scaruffi.com

The artists will introduce themselves and their projects related to the discourse between art and technology. To get things clear, we want to discuss the notion of ‘art VS science’. Is art hacking technology? or is technology hacking creativity? Where do we stand as artists, curators? And what do technologists, academics say about this?

Mateusz Herczka “has a diverse project history, the common denominator being an interest in bioscience and artificial intelligence research, exploring ways to connect those with realities of human existence and perception. His works appear internationally in artspaces and museums as well as new media contexts. He also collaborates in dance projects with some of Swedens main choreographers, designing and exploring new systems for generating movement.”(from his own website). He participated in the series of workshops, lab-sessions and brainstorms of the first stage of the Ambient Art Experience Warp. This project of MAD has resulted now in the projects TAOS (Gijs van Bon, Mander liefting and others) first presented at STRP festival 2007; and Prototope (Mirjam van Overbeek and Michiel van Overbeek) first presented january 2008 during the opening of Digitale Werkplaats CBK ’s Hertogenbosch. He also presented his installation 44\13 at STRP 2006. He studied at the KABK Den Haag with a.o. Horst Rickels. He is an invited artist for Image Radio 2008 in Eindhoven.

Frederico Bonelli “was born in Rome in 1969. Computer hobbyist in the 1980s, in the beginning he was a ’smanettone’ (Italian slang for lesser form of hacker). He graduated in philosophy and history of science at the University of Rome. After a period of research within the department of Mathematics working with prof. Lucio Russo as a mentor he decided to practice philosophy as an independent researcher. Bonelli moved to Amsterdam in 2002 to pursue personal evolution and survival as an independent worker. He has developed a large “Protocuadro Installation” with Philips Research Labs that was presented in Eindhoven in November 2007, and is currently working on a documentary project on the Futurists.” (from Transmediale website) He worked together with Philips Research Evert van Loenen in developing Protoquadro in relation to interactive shopwindows. He presented and showed this project during the Image Radio 2007 conference ‘Urban screens prelude of virtual reality in public space?’ in the Van Abbemuseum. The Enhanced Protoquadro (EPQ) Junglescape was first presented in the Philips Research Experience Lab on November 30, 2007.

This meeting of minds about art & technology is organised by MAD emergent art center (René Paré / Carmin Karasic).

4-ICOM brings together leading international scholars from a range of disciplines (i.e. linguistics, social semiotics, communications & new media, digital media art, history, mathematics, science, computer science and education) to explore the ways in which technology enables and constrains the ways knowledge, social relations and culture are constructed and enacted, with a special focus on interactive digital media. The aim is to explore the functions of language, visual imagery, three dimensional objects, space, sound, music and so forth, and to develop new approaches to understanding how these resources integrate in the world of new interactive digital media.

Questions which arise include the following. What is the relationship between technology, multimodal representation and knowledge? How is interactive digital media changing our view of the world and each other? What are the implications for teaching and research in the humanities and social sciences? What directions have research & development in digital technology taken, and for what reasons?

We encourage papers which address the conference themes from different theoretical perspectives. Papers which address more general issues in semiotics, multimodality and multimodal analysis are also welcome.

4-ICOM is run in conjunction with the International Symposium on Electronic Arts (ISEA2008). 4-ICOM participants will have access to ISEA2008 exhibitions and galleries at no charge from 25 July to 3 August 2008. Information on the exhibitions, galleries and combined events will be provided soon.

We encourage you to pre-register for NEO LEO as this will help us plan, design the conference and fundraise. Pre-registration is voluntary and free, and is not required for final registration. Pay registration will launch later in 2008. Fees are planned at 300 USD for general, 200 USD for students, UNM and Leonardo members.

This conference, the final in a series of Leonardo 40th Anniversary events, will bring together scientists and artists, elder practitioners and younger creators, scholars and administrators from around the world. Thematically, the conference is centered on the convergence of art, science and technology, and will celebrate the achievements of the Leonardo Organisation and Publications [MIT Press] as well as design the important questions that will shape and impact the future over the next 40 years. The event will showcase some of the most compelling work of the New Leonardos. It will provide a framework to debate the burning issues that face the arts, humanities and the sciences and technology in a world of declining science literacy, limited resources, anthropogenic environmental change, and enduring inequalities and social injustice.

The Leonardo 40th Anniversary celebrations began with a kick off conference MUTAMORPHOSIS: Art and Science in Extreme and Hostile Environments held in November 2007 in Prague. A one-day Symposium will be held on June 3, 2008 at the University of California, Berkeley. The New Mexico conference will be the culminating event bringing together the Leonardo community with interested organizations and corporations.

The conference will be hosted and co-organized by the ARTS Lab at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque and Leonardo/ISAST.

Call for papers and pay registration will launch later in 2008. To be kept up to date, please visit the conference website and sign up on the mailing list.

For more information, please contact

Roger Malina
International Conference Chair
Chairman of the Board
Leonardo/ISAST
neoleomalina [at] gmail.com

Claudia X. Valdes
New Mexico Conference Chair
Associate Director, ARTS Lab
University of New Mexico
cxvaldes [at] unm.edu

Seth Riskin is an artist, researcher and teacher of light. A former U. S. national champion gymnast, Riskin brings his physical ability to his Light Dance art. In silent, space-defining performances, Riskin’s precise movements articulate light effects that extend from his body. He “sculpts” space, shaping fluid architectures of light around viewers who find themselves within the “dance.” The work has been presented widely, at venues such as the São Paulo Bienal, The Kitchen in New York City and India’s National Centre for the Performing Arts in Bombay.

Riskin’s research is described as “anthropology” of light. For example, in 1993, with support of a Fulbright Scholarship, he studied concepts and practices of light in Hindu India, with particular focus on fire dancing. Riskin’s teaching concerns light as an expressive medium, worked through the wealth of possibilities afforded by emerging technologies. His curriculum and educational philosophy of light reflect his interdisciplinary approach to the subject/medium. Courses such as The Culture of Light, Light Art Studio and The Architecture of Light engage the senses, new technologies and historical and cultural perspective. Currently, Riskin directs the Emerging Technologies Initiative at the MIT Museum, where he brings cutting-edge technology research to public understanding through exhibitions and events.

Upgrade! Boston is curated by Jo-Anne Green for Turbulence.org in partnership with the Studio for Interrelated Media at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. It is one of 27 nodes currently active in Upgrade! International, an emerging network of autonomous nodes united by art, technology, and a commitment to bridging cultural divides. If you would like to present your work or get involved, please email jo at turbulence dot org.

Featuring: Tiziana Terranova (IT), Christoph Wachter (DE), Mathias Jud (CH), Yolande Harris (UK), Bureau d’etudes (FR), and Di Mainstone (UK).

Topology is often mentioned as an ultimate example of the same subject being studied in parallel within various branches of science and art, each branch approaching the subject from its own background and with its own methodologies. Today, there are numerous initiatives on the radar in which representatives of the various branches of topology explicitly state a desire to exchange ideas and methodologies related to the topic. But do all these diverse branches even share a common understanding of what topology is?

In practice, it seems that there is still a fair amount of confusion surrounding the notion of topology, and that its definition is a matter of debate rather than consensus, with a single commonly agreed-on defining characteristic: topology deals with the qualitative properties of geometrical structures. Should the confusion surrounding the notion of topology discourage topologists from trying to unify the field? Or could it perhaps serve as a commonly shared ground for collaboration and exchange?

This topology edition of Test_Lab will feature several new and exciting artistic Research and Development (aRt&D) projects within the artistic topology tradition and will investigate the common understanding of the notion of topology in the arts. Audience members are invited to actively involve themselves in the practices of topological aRt&D and, on the basis of this involvement, discuss what defines the field and whether the proposed exchange and collaboration with other topology branches is justified.

Test_Lab: Topology will reveal censored areas on Google maps and the true networks of the world s power structures, and will include a sonic navigation walk and a fashionable artist intervention. The different branches dealing with topology will be represented by international experts participating in the project A Topological Approach to Cultural Dynamics (ATACD).

Test_Lab is a bimonthly public event organized by V2_, Institute for the Unstable Media, that provides an informal setting for the demonstration, testing, presentation, and discussion of artistic research and development (aRt&D).

Preceding this edition of Test_Lab, the Piet Zwart Institute will organize a seminar on mapping as a medium of cultural reflection and critique with presentations by artists, activists, and theorists, titled: The Map is not the Territory?! April 16, 2008, 19.30.- 21.30, Mauritsstraat 36, Rotterdam.

Presenters: Bureau d’Etudes, Theo Deutinger, Christoph Wachter and Mathias Jud, with an introduction and moderation by Florian Cramer.

AREA 10: MEDIALAB /> will focus on engaging cross-disciplinary collaborations between various arts and science based practices, encouraging open and critical discussion in addition to knowledge sharing and skills transfer. Aims to establish a strong community of users both locally and internationally. Locally the lab will be able to provide the support, space and skills in which projects, workshops and research can be realized for individual practitioners, media groups as well as local colleges and universities. Internationally the lab will aim to make strong connections with other media labs worldwide in order to reinforce the global community of practitioners and focus on the exchange of research, art work and physical space.

Participating Artist, Musicians and Hackers: Project Serendipity (UK) Rob Davis (UK) Andy Wheddon & Fraser Geesin (UK) Genetic Moo Project (Peckham) Radek Rudnicki (UK) Erik Groen & Piebe de Vries (Holland) CathSign (France) Peckham Space (UK) Deptford.TV (UK) Chiara Passa (Italy) Phill Niblock (USA) Thibaud De Souza (UK) Sinsynplus (Germany) Günther Albrecht (Germany) Sunshine Frere (UK) Jenny Pickett (UK) Anila Ladwa (UK) Apo33 (France) Martin John Callanan (UK) Jean-Phillippe Roux (France) Lawrence Upton (UK) Mattin (Basque Country) ManamiN N(Japan) Nanofamas (Corsica) Goto10 & OpenLab (UK) Constant (Belgium) Yvan Etienne & Brice Jeannin (France) Medialab Madrid (Spain), Sonic (France) Tim Goldie (UK)…and many more!!

AREA 10: MEDIALAB has been introduced to facilitate the development of research and art practices using open source new technologies in the media arts. The medialab will focus on engaging cross-disciplinary collaborations between various arts and science based practices, encouraging open and critical discussion in addition to sharing knowledge and skills transfer.
() RE | BOOT; is part of the Node London Spring ‘08 season - and is supported by APO33.

Based in Rennes, artist Laurent Duthion is a confirmed experimenter with sensations, objects and environments. Intensely curious about scientific research, he works with soil and crop researchers and has spent time in the Antarctic collecting samples of odours and discovering new vegetable and animal species. For Duthion the question is not one of blindly applying scientific experiments to the sphere of art, nor of claiming to revolutionise science with an artistic vision. He roams the fields of art and scientific research in order to upset our certitudes and put our perception of the body and space to the test. Art and science come up with new possibilities for human freedom, especially via their capacity to put together critical visions of our individual and collective relationships with the world.

At his exhibition at la criée centre for contemporary art, Laurent Duthion will be presenting ten experimental creations including:
– events at the private view: an underwater tasting using a sculpture-object (Aquarhine) and a buffet based on recipes invented by the artist
– installations that disturb our retinal and olfactory perceptions: fragrant synthetic fat, a reflective microbead wall, and Porte de Fresnel , a magnifying door
– a sculpture-object and a film testing the capacity of bodily energy to produce images: the Bolex-Mobile bicycle and Sunfest, an experiment filmed on the Arctic ice pack
– a topography of words and images covering the entire floor area and making palpable the experimental processes used by the artist (Paysage des négociations)
– the presence of an animal, a vulturine guineafowl, representing both an aspect of living systems and a visual logo.

Environmental Risk Assessment Rover-­AT, Version 1.0, 2008: “Sooner rather than later, one comes up against the law that so long as risks are not recognized scientifically, they do not exist–at least not legally, medically, technologically, or socially, and they are thus not prevented, treated or compensated for. No amount of collective moaning can change this, only science. Scientific judgment’s monopoly on truth therefore forces the victims themselves to make use of all the methods and means of scientific analysis in order to succeed with their claims.” -German risk theorist Ulrich Beck

ERAR­AT is a mobile, solar- and GPS-powered, networked video installation that will accumulate and aggregate the environmental threats and risks faced by the population in its immediate location. ERAR-AT performs the difficulty of perceiving, evaluating, and understanding risk scenarios and presents an assessment of its given locale by producing a unique fourteen-tiered threat level embedded live within video projections onto local natural and architectural surfaces.

What kind of local and global environmental risks do you face everyday? How far is the closest superfund site or nuclear power plant or agribusiness? How do the 148 industrial chemicals already in every American human body interact with the synthetic hormones and antibiotics in the dairy products we eat? How many chemicals are in human breast milk? How do the chemicals in your toothpaste interact with the pesticides on your food? Why has modernity, which was supposed to create a sense of security, produced more anxiety and threats than ever? Can scientific data and research help us understand the “riskiness” of contemporary life?

ECOARTTECH is Christine Nadir & Cary Peppermint ERAR Programming & Research Assistant: Colin Twomey.

ERAR-AT is part of the Neuberger Museum of Art’s Off the Grid Exhibition, March 30 - June 1, 2008. “Off the Grid” features works that subvert and circumvent conventional infrastructures. Co-presented by the Neuberger Museum of Art and free103point9 and curated by Jacqueline Shilkoff, Galen Joseph-Hunter, Tianna Kennedy, and Tom Roe.

Participating artists: Benjamin Cohen, Dylan Gauthier, and Stephan von Muehlen, EcoArtTech, eteam, Max Goldfarb, Louis Hock, Nina, Katchadourian, Kristin Lucas, Joe McKay, Trevor Paglen, Temporary Services, Seth Weiner, Bart Woodstrup

Join us in Berkeley for a three-day symposium and festival of new media and art hosted by the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and the Berkeley Center for New Media. This event is timed to link with 01SJ: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge, so come spend the week in the Bay Area and be part of the biggest explosion of new media art in the nation. [On June 2, Embodied Media, the first of a two-part symposium.] June 3:

8:30 - Introduction by Steve Wilson, Leonardo board member since 1983, about the 40 years of Leonardo ISAST

9:00-10:30 - “Osmosis”: What can the arts do for the sciences?

Art-Science interaction is a two way process. The impact of science and technology on the arts is much discussed and well documented. This panel seeks to examine the influence of the arts on the sciences, and the benefits that science can derive from the arts.

- Bronac Ferran
- Jim Crutchfield physicist at UC Davis
- Chris Chafe at Stanford’s CCRMA

11:00-12:30 - Brilliant Noise: how data becomes experience for artists and for scientists

Most information about the world we live in is now mediated by instruments. This data is often visualised and sonified both to aid analysis and to communicate with other researchers, but artists too can make this data meaningful and “sensual”. The same data sets can lead to very different kinds of work. One person’s noise is another person’s sound.

- Michael Joaquin Grey, artist and inventor
- Laura Peticolas, geophysicist at the Space Sciences Lab in Berkeley
- Douglas Kahn, UC Davis Technocultural Studies Program

12:30 - free-form meeting of the interested audience with Leonardo ISAST board members during the lunch break

1:30-3:00 - The New Sensuality: Epistemologies of the Very Very Small

Human cognition is bounded by the inadequacy of human senses to allow us sensory contact with the world on scales larger or smaller than ourselves. To perceive the nano world one needs extended senses or new senses. The nano world requires a new ontology and a new epistemology.

- Ruth West artist with background as a molecular geneticist
- Gordon Wozniak former nuclear scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- Wayne Lanier microbiologist at the Hidden Ecologies project of the San Francisco Exploratorium

3:00 - Closing event of the two-day conference for the audience to mingle with the speakers of the various panels and with Leonardo board members.