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digest 2006-04-12 #001.txt
litsci-l-digest Wednesday, April 12 2006 Volume 01 :
Number 160
In this issue:
SUB 06 Seeking 3rd panelist interested in evolution of
emotional expression
Sub 06: Evolutionary Fictions: The Struggle for Survival in
Literature, Comics, and Science Fiction
SUB 06:Evolution as Translation Project Report: The Elements
of Web Schemas and Denis Diderots Elements de Physiologie
SUB 06 Leonardo Education Forum Panel: New Media Futures
SUB_06:_A_Promise_to_Return:_Evolution,_Migration,_and_"Nuisance"
Birds?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-----
Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2006 21:16:03 -0400
From: Kara Kendall
Subject: SUB 06 Seeking 3rd panelist interested in evolution of
emotional expression
We are seeking a third presenter for a panel centered on the
(co)evolution and physiology of expression and/or rhetoric. The
panel
title has yet to be determined but might be something like one of
the
following (depending on where the papers share common ground):
"Darwin, Expression, and the Genres of Scientific Discovery"
"Darwin and the Disciplines: Intersections with Humanities
Methods"
"(Co)evolution and the Expression of Emotions"
Individual abstracts are below. If interested, please contact
Kara
Kendall (klkendal@indiana.edu).
Thank you,
Kara Kendall
Associate Instructor
Department of English
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405
Sarah Winter
Assoc. Professor, English, University of Connecticut, Storrs
sarah.winter@uconn.edu
The Physiology of Discourse: Darwin=92s The _Expression of the
Emotions
in Man and Animals and the Nineteenth-Century Demise of Rhetoric
This talk explores the emergence of a Darwinian evolutionary
science of
_expression in the context of the histories of rhetoric and
nineteenth-century theories of race. Charles Darwin=92s The
_Expression
of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), supersedes a series of
earlier studies of gesture and _expression, including rhetorical
treatises on elocution, manuals of stage acting and physiognomy,
and
works of natural philosophy, such as Charles Bell=92s The Anatomy
and
Philosophy of _Expression (1806), which defined _expression as an
indication of uniquely human intelligence and divine design,
based on
examples from art and comparative physiology. Darwin=92s study
explains
facial expressions as a repertoire of automatic responses
resulting
from natural selection and shared with animals. While Darwin=92s
argument contradicts the racial differentiation of human forms
common
in both aesthetics and physiology by arguing for the universal
meaning
of _expression, it also undermines the roles of rhetoric and
aesthetics
in defining _expression as a form of discourse. In suggesting
that
language is supplemental to instinctive and involuntary modes of
communication, Darwin=92s biology of _expression also
subordinates the
humanistic to the scientific disciplines, and participates in the
demise of rhetoric as the practical study of the emotive and
gestural
forms of communication.
Keywords: Darwin; _expression; rhetoric; race; aesthetics;
language;
physiology
Kara Kendall
Assoc. Instructor, English, Indiana University, Bloomington
klkendal@indiana.edu
Of Mongrels and Men: Levinasian Humanism and Human-Dog
Coevolution
A central project of Western humanism has been the establishment
of a
concrete distinction between humans and nonhumans. But Darwinian
continuity, coupled with a growing body of scientific knowledge
of
nonhuman animals and their capacities, renders any universal
distinction tenuous at best. Recent theories of human/canine
coevolution further problematize the category of the humanist
subject.
If, as some studies suggest, the human brain has been literally
shaped
by the presence of our canine counterparts, then the concept of
the
human as an autonomous subject becomes radically unintelligible.
Emmanuel Levinas grapples with this unintelligibility in his
essay,
=93The Name of a Dog, or Natural Rights.=94 This paper explores
Levinas=92=
s
struggle to preserve human uniqueness in light of the evident
=93humanity=94 of his canine doppelganger, Bobby. Levinas holds
that the
human alone possesses a face which both articulates and
recognizes the
commandment, =93Thou shalt not kill.=94 Nevertheless, he seems
tempted to
grant that the dog, too, has a face. While others have noted
Levinas=92s
struggle to preserve his categorical distinction when =93thinking
of
Bobby,=94 I argue that it is precisely the (co)evolutionary
intimacy of
humans and dogs which enables the mongrel to so thoroughly
confound the
face as an ethical category.
Keywords: Levinas, Darwin, coevolution (human/canine), humanist
ethics,
expression of emotions, domestication
- -
+-+-+-+-+-+
Please see the following URL for the LITSCI-L archive, Web
resource
links and unsubscribing info:
http://www.law.duke.edu/sls
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 17:47:09 -0400
From: Lisa Yaszek
Subject: Sub 06: Evolutionary Fictions: The Struggle for Survival
in Literature, Comics, and Science Fiction
- --Apple-Mail-1-1042188713
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset=WINDOWS-1252;
format=flowed
SLSA 2007 Panel Proposal
=93Evolutionary Fictions: The Struggle for Survival in
Literature,=20
Comics, and Science Fiction=94
This panel explores how popular authors writing in the wake of
Darwin=20
adapted narratives of evolution to their own critical and
creative=20
ends. Our first two panelists demonstrate how turn of the
century=20
literary authors and early twentieth century comic strip artists
used=20
new notions of biological evolution to make sense of the
relations of=20
humans and animals and women and men, respectively. Meanwhile,
our=20
third panelist shows how midcentury science fiction writers
challenged=20=
commonly accepted notions of biology as destiny by specifically
linking=20=
scientific revolution to social evolution in their stories.
Taken=20
together, these panelists show how narrative forms derived from
Darwin=20=
provide authors with spaces in which to work out their hopes and
fears=20=
about the impact of science on society.
Panel moderator: Lisa Yaszek, School of Literature,
Communication, and=20=
Culture, Georgia Institute of Technology.
lisa.yaszek@lcc.gatech.edu
Keywords: evolution, naturalism, comics, science fiction, Jack
London,=20=
dogs, Philip Nowlan, Buck Rogers, Kay Rogers, Marion Zimmer
Bradley,=20
Judith Merril, women scientists, scientific revolution.
Paper 1: =93Devolution and Animality in Jack London=92s Dog
Stories=94
Presenter: Doug Davis, Division of Humanities, Gordon College.=20
ddavis@gdn.edu
Nineteenth century French naturalist Emile Zola claimed that
authors=20
interested in =93the inevitable laws of heredity and
environment=94 =
should=20
create literary works that read like =93case studies.=94 In this
paper =
Doug=20
Davis how such authors put Darwin=92s theories evolution to the
literary=20=
test, focusing specifically on American naturalist Jack London
and the=20=
rapid evolutionary experiments he conducts in his stories about
dogs=20
(including =93To Build a Fire,=94 =93Batard,=94 _Jerry of the
Islands_, =
=93Brown=20
Wolf,=94 _White Fang_, and _Call of the Wild_). In the extreme=20
environments of the tropics and the arctic London dramatizes
the=20
interaction of heredity and environment in a two-fold way. Over
the=20
brief course of a London story dogs become developed
characters=20
possessed of understandable motives while humans become dogs left
to=20
rely on instinct and bodily ability. Significantly, these
forced=20
evolutions and devolutions are set within environments that
connect=20
earth to outer space and thus dog and human alike to the grand
workings=20=
of the cosmos. Yet in spite of their binary and reductive
approach=97and=20=
perhaps because of their very scientism=97Davis argue that there
is=20
another kind of experiment at work in London=92s dog stories as
well. In=20=
his own protean way, London takes liberties with science to
dramatize=20
different kinds of becomings, blurring the boundary between
animal and=20=
human to imagine a kind of co-evolution that anticipates 20th
century=20
critical theories of the animal condition (particularly those
proposed=20=
by Heidegger, Deleuze and Guattari, Haraway, and Derrida). Davis
thus=20
concludes by considering what a close study of 19th-century=20
naturalistic fiction can offer current postmodernist thought on
both=20
the abyss that separates humans and animals and the techniques
artists=20=
use to negotiate it.
Paper 2: =93Helpless Heroines: SF Representations of Military
Women in=20=
the 1920s and 1930s=94
Presenter: Patrick Sharp, Department of Liberal Studies,
California=20
State University, Los Angeles. psharp@calstatela.edu
In contrast to Davis, Patrick Sharp shows how authors often
invoked=20
evolutionary narratives to maintain clear distinctions between=20
different types of beings=97in this case, between women and men.
Sharp=20=
begins by briefly reviewing how Darwin=92s _The Descent of Man_
(1871)=20=
depicts the history of human evolution as driven by men who
were=20
naturally selected for their ability to invent and use tools.
This was=20=
centrally important for sexual selection, according to Darwin,
because=20=
those men who could out-fight and out-think their male rivals
would be=20=
able to reproduce with the best females. In essence, Darwin
believed=20
that men were naturally designed to fight using technology.
Women, on=20
the other hand, were seen as passive and beautiful creatures
who=20
watched battles from the sidelines. Sharp then considers how
early=20
twentieth century popular authors drew on Darwin's ideas about=20
technology as the center of human progress to spin tales of the
future.=20=
In particular, as World War I and the growing feminist movement
opened=20=
up new possibilities for women in relation to the military,
authors=20
such as Philip Nowlan increasingly imagined future worlds where
women=20
fought alongside men in war. Nowlan=92s character Wilma was
probably the=20=
best known SF woman soldier from the late 1920s and 1930s: she
was=20
central to the plot of his short story =93Armageddon 2419 A.
D.=94 that =
he=20
later developed into the daily comic strip _The Adventures of
Buck=20
Rogers in the 25th Century_. Wilma wore =93mannish=94 clothing
and =
carried=20
a weapon, fighting with Buck as he tried to overthrow the
Han/Mongol=20
invaders that had overrun the United States. Nonetheless, Sharp
argues,=20=
Nowlan ultimately preserved Darwin=92s =93natural=94 narrative of
the =
male=20
soldier by insisting that Wilma=92s work as a soldier merely
provided =
her=20
more opportunities to fall into the hands of the enemy and serve
as the=20=
damsel in distress. In this way, Sharp shows that science
fiction=20
images of women soldiers in the 1920s and 1930s did not provide
a=20
vision of women's progress, but merely argued that the gains made
by=20
feminists did nothing to change the supposed =93nature=94 of
women as=20
inferior tool users and soldiers.
Paper 3: =93Why Not a Woman? Science as Women=92s Work in Postwar
=
Science=20
Fiction=94
Presenter: Lisa Yaszek, School of Literature, Communication,
and=20
Culture, Georgia Institute of Technology.
lisa.yaszek@lcc.gatech.edu
Finally, Lisa Yaszek concludes by demonstrating how women
science=20
fiction authors used specific kinds of evolutionary narratives to
make=20=
sense of the changing relations of science, society, and gender
after=20
World War II. Science historians generally agree that while this
period=20=
constituted a golden age of American science, prevailing
convictions=20
about the feminine mystique=97which claimed that women were
perfectly=20
evolved for nurturing and homemaking=97justified the ongoing=20
marginalization of women in science. At the same time, the advent
of=20
the space race led new government agencies such as NASA to warn
that=20
the United States would fall dangerously behind the Soviet Union
if it=20=
did not fully utilize American women=92s intellectual and
physical=20
abilities. Indeed, scientists such as Edward Teller even argued
that=20
women would make better astronauts than men because their
childbearing=20=
abilities made them the tougher of the two sexes. Yaszek then
considers=20=
more extensively how science fiction writers Kay Rogers, Marion
Zimmer=20=
Bradley, and Judith Merril responded to these contradictory
discourses=20=
of gender and science with stories that celebrated women=92s
domestic=20
lives as inspiration for scientific and technological discovery.
Like=20
most other midcentury Americans, these authors did not
directly=20
challenge the notion that marriage and motherhood would continue
to be=20=
central to women=92s lives in the future. They did, however,
insist that=20=
biology was beside the point and that it was only when human
society=20
evolved past patriarchy that women would be able to combine work
and=20
family as their individual natures dictated=97and, in doing so,
make=20
technoscientific breakthroughs that would lead all of humanity to
the=20
stars.
- --Apple-Mail-1-1042188713
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Type: text/enriched;
charset=WINDOWS-1252
SLSA 2007 Panel Proposal
=93Evolutionary Fictions: The Struggle for Survival in
Literature,
Comics, and Science Fiction=94
This panel explores how popular authors writing in the wake of
Darwin
adapted narratives of evolution to their own critical and
creative
ends. Our first two panelists demonstrate how turn of the century
literary authors and early twentieth century comic strip artists
used
new notions of biological evolution to make sense of the
relations of
humans and animals and women and men, respectively. Meanwhile,
our
third panelist shows how midcentury science fiction writers
challenged
commonly accepted notions of biology as destiny by specifically
linking scientific revolution to social evolution in their
stories.
Taken together, these panelists show how narrative forms derived
from
Darwin provide authors with spaces in which to work out their
hopes
and fears about the impact of science on society.
Panel moderator: Lisa Yaszek, School of Literature,
Communication, and
Culture, Georgia Institute of Technology.
lisa.yaszek@lcc.gatech.edu
Keywords: evolution, naturalism, comics, science fiction, Jack
London,
dogs, Philip Nowlan, Buck Rogers, Kay Rogers, Marion Zimmer
Bradley,
Judith Merril, women scientists, scientific revolution.
Paper 1: =93Devolution and Animality in Jack London=92s Dog
Stories=94
Presenter: Doug Davis, Division of Humanities, Gordon College.
ddavis@gdn.edu =20
Nineteenth century French naturalist Emile Zola claimed that
authors
interested in =93the inevitable laws of heredity and
environment=94 =
should
create literary works that read like =93case studies.=94 In this
paper
Doug Davis how such authors put Darwin=92s theories evolution to
the
literary test, focusing specifically on American naturalist Jack
London and the rapid evolutionary experiments he conducts in his
stories about dogs (including =93To Build a Fire,=94
=93Batard,=94 =
_Jerry of
the Islands_, =93Brown Wolf,=94 _White Fang_, and _Call of the
Wild_). =
In
the extreme environments of the tropics and the arctic London
dramatizes the interaction of heredity and environment in a
two-fold
way. Over the brief course of a London story dogs become
developed
characters possessed of understandable motives while humans
become
dogs left to rely on instinct and bodily ability. Significantly,
these
forced evolutions and devolutions are set within environments
that
connect earth to outer space and thus dog and human alike to the
grand
workings of the cosmos. Yet in spite of their binary and
reductive
approach=97and perhaps because of their very scientism=97Davis
argue =
that
there is another kind of experiment at work in London=92s dog
stories as
well. In his own protean way, London takes liberties with science
to
dramatize different kinds of becomings, blurring the boundary
between
animal and human to imagine a kind of co-evolution that
anticipates
20th century critical theories of the animal condition
(particularly
those proposed by Heidegger, Deleuze and Guattari, Haraway, and
Derrida). Davis thus concludes by considering what a close study
of
19th-century naturalistic fiction can offer current postmodernist
thought on both the abyss that separates humans and animals and
the
techniques artists use to negotiate it.
=20
Paper 2: =93Helpless Heroines: SF Representations of Military
Women in
the 1920s and 1930s=94
Presenter: Patrick Sharp, Department of Liberal Studies,
California
State University, Los Angeles.
psharp@calstatela.edu=20
In contrast to Davis, Patrick Sharp shows how authors often
invoked
evolutionary narratives to maintain clear distinctions between
different types of beings=97in this case, between women and men.
Sharp
begins by briefly reviewing how Darwin=92s _The Descent of Man_
(1871)
depicts the history of human evolution as driven by men who were
naturally selected for their ability to invent and use tools.
This was
centrally important for sexual selection, according to Darwin,
because
those men who could out-fight and out-think their male rivals
would be
able to reproduce with the best females. In essence, Darwin
believed
that men were naturally designed to fight using technology.
Women, on
the other hand, were seen as passive and beautiful creatures who
watched battles from the sidelines. Sharp then considers how
early
twentieth century popular authors drew on Darwin's ideas about
technology as the center of human progress to spin tales of the
future. In particular, as World War I and the growing feminist
movement opened up new possibilities for women in relation to the
military, authors such as Philip Nowlan increasingly imagined
future
worlds where women fought alongside men in war. Nowlan=92s
character
Wilma was probably the best known SF woman soldier from the late
1920s
and 1930s: she was central to the plot of his short story
=93Armageddon
2419 A. D.=94 that he later developed into the daily comic strip
_The
Adventures of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century_. Wilma wore
=93mannish=94
clothing and carried a weapon, fighting with Buck as he tried to
overthrow the Han/Mongol invaders that had overrun the United
States.
Nonetheless, Sharp argues, Nowlan ultimately preserved Darwin=92s
=93natural=94 narrative of the male soldier by insisting that
Wilma=92s =
work
as a soldier merely provided her more opportunities to fall into
the
hands of the enemy and serve as the damsel in distress. In this
way,
Sharp shows that science fiction images of women soldiers in the
1920s
and 1930s did not provide a vision of women's progress, but
merely
argued that the gains made by feminists did nothing to change the
supposed =93nature=94 of women as inferior tool users and
soldiers.=20
Paper 3: =93Why Not a Woman? Science as Women=92s Work in Postwar
=
Science
Fiction=94
Presenter: Lisa Yaszek, School of Literature, Communication, and
Culture, Georgia Institute of Technology.
lisa.yaszek@lcc.gatech.edu
Finally, Lisa Yaszek concludes by demonstrating how women science
fiction authors used specific kinds of evolutionary narratives to
make
sense of the changing relations of science, society, and gender
after
World War II. Science historians generally agree that while this
period constituted a golden age of American science, prevailing
convictions about the feminine mystique=97which claimed that
women were
perfectly evolved for nurturing and homemaking=97justified the
ongoing
marginalization of women in science. At the same time, the advent
of
the space race led new government agencies such as NASA to warn
that
the United States would fall dangerously behind the Soviet Union
if it
did not fully utilize American women=92s intellectual and
physical
abilities. Indeed, scientists such as Edward Teller even argued
that
women would make better astronauts than men because their
childbearing
abilities made them the tougher of the two sexes. Yaszek then
considers more extensively how science fiction writers Kay
Rogers,
Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Judith Merril responded to these
contradictory discourses of gender and science with stories that
celebrated women=92s domestic lives as inspiration for scientific
and
technological discovery. Like most other midcentury Americans,
these
authors did not directly challenge the notion that marriage and
motherhood would continue to be central to women=92s lives in the
future. They did, however, insist that biology was beside the
point
and that it was only when human society evolved past patriarchy
that
women would be able to combine work and family as their
individual
natures dictated=97and, in doing so, make technoscientific
breakthroughs
that would lead all of humanity to the stars. =20
Times
=
- --Apple-Mail-1-1042188713--
- -
+-+-+-+-+-+
Please see the following URL for the LITSCI-L archive, Web
resource
links and unsubscribing info:
http://www.law.duke.edu/sls
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 18:27:16 CDT
From: brin0126
Subject: SUB 06:Evolution as Translation Project Report: The
Elements of Web Schemas and Denis Diderots Elements de
Physiologie
Gregory Bringman
brin0126@umn.edu
Independent Scholar
Keywords: Emergent Mark-up, Diderot, "Elements de Physiologie?Æ,
Evolution,
Translation
Diderot??s Elements de Physiologie will act as a
practical/theoretical site
for considering the relationship between various registers of
evolution as
translation. As I am currently translating Elements from the
French, and as I
am currently working with Internet web architectures, I propose
to, in
somewhat empirical fashion, translate Diderot??s work, yes, but
also to
experimentally employ schemas, knowledge ontologies, document
definition, and
code to process them, as a functional layer for this translation.
The Elements de Physiologie elaborates some of the implications
of the
author??s Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature, for human
physiology;
occurring in the 2nd half of the 18th Century when many thinkers
abdicated
Newtonian and probabilistic classical systems for a combination
of systems
and ?¨sensibilite?Æ, empirical investigation and (somewhat)
rational thought
used to act on the data of this investigation, the Elements
explore the
presumed boundaries between the natural and the artificial,
including schemas
established by Linnaeus and inverted beginning with Buffon and
(retroactively) Leibniz. The concept of continuity that emerges
in the
Elements then might be seen to eclipse or destroy classification
systems, but
the whole (la toute) of nature is defined by both a generalized
organism and
infinite variations of living beings templated from this same
organism.
Emerging from the framework of classification and continuity
then, biological
translation or the actual evolutionary structuring structures of
organized
bodies or organisms has an overlooked, direct correlation to the
?¨translation?Æ of schemas or classificatory systems.
With newer technologies for mark-up (knowledge ontologies, XML,
XML Schema,
and DTD) we can employ classification and word mappings to
philosophical and
literary texts as artifacts that will exhibit thus, in the sense
of inference
making web architectures, experiences of
cultural-evolutionary-emergence.
Empirically working with the text of Diderot??s Elements, I hope
to show how
translation proceeds in nature and culture as its own curious
dynamics that
?¨swells?Æ (as Boyle has said) to a new kind of system, an
?¨intensification?Æ
(as de Landa has said) of emergent markup, language translation,
and
reflection on the contribution of the Elements to issues in
biological and
cultural evolution that we are thinking about today.
- -
+-+-+-+-+-+
Please see the following URL for the LITSCI-L archive, Web
resource
links and unsubscribing info:
http://www.law.duke.edu/sls
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 07:47:46 -0400
From:
Subject: SUB 06 Leonardo Education Forum Panel: New Media Futures
Please consider the following panel proposal on behalf of the
Leonardo Education Forum.
About The Leonardo Education Forum (LEF): LEF promotes the
advancement of artistic research and academic scholarship at the
intersections of art, science, and technology. Serving
practitioners, scholars, and students who are members of the
Leonardo community, LEF provides a forum for collaboration and
exchange with other scholarly communities, including the College
Art Association of America (CAA), of which it is an affiliate
society. The Leonardo Education Forum is part of the Leonardo
Educators and Students Program which also includes the Leonardo
Abstract Service (LABS) and the Leonardo International Faculty
Alerts List. See http://www.leonardo.info for more information.
Thank You;
- --
Andrea Polli
LEF co-chair
MFA Director
Associate Professor of Integrated Media Arts
The Department of Film and Media, Hunter College
695 Park Ave. New York, NY 10021
t (212) 772-5589
http://www.andreapolli.com
*****
Proposal:
Leonardo Education Forum Panel: New Media Futures: The Artist as
Researcher and Research as Art in the 21st Century
Keywords: art, science, technology, art history, art research
Presenter abstracts:
Title: "Metaphors and Taxonomies: Art as Basic Research"
Dr. Timothy Allen Jackson
tajackso@scad.edu
Professor of New Media
Department of Art History
Savannah College of Art and Design
Savannah, Georgia, USA
From the creation of one-point perspective in the Renaissance to
the recent invention of the CAVE, art research has a long and
distinguished history. Indeed, Alan Kay?Äô?Ñ?¥s remark, ?Äô?Ñ??the best
way to predict the future is to invent it?Äô?Ñ?¥ is as applicable to
art in the 21st century as it is to science and engineering.
Within new media art practice, I would make the case that the
modernist avant-garde has been replaced with an approach to
aesthetic and poetic innovation centered on collective empathy
(e.g., interactivity) and networked consciousness (e.g.,
telematics). Art research in this broad domain parallels other
forms of organized academic inquiry, that require research
directly tied to the technologically-mediated production of
meaning. Art education and practice are becoming increasingly
integrated into the research cultures of science and engineering
as scholars in diverse fields seek to jump-start invention
through interdisciplinary collaboration. Artists are un!
iquely
prepared for innovating hybrid forms of communication as well as
phenomenological personal and social awareness through their
work. Art researchers provide a bridge between the humanities
and sciences linked to technological innovation, and contribute
to the larger research culture in meaningful ways. This
presentation will explore some of these considerations through
exemplary works in light of a projective history for art as
research in the 21st Century.
Title: "From Simulation to Emulation: A Field Theory for
Telematic Art in the 21st Century"
Shawn Brixey Associate Professor | Associate Director
James Coupe, Artist and Research Associate Center for Digital
Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS)
james@ctrl.me.uk
University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
Leibniz once claimed that it was impossible for a human to
construct something that would equal or surpass him/herself. A
wealth of 19th and 20th Century art, science and literature has
wrestled to validate this terminal horizon, and sustain our
lingering ?Äô?Ñ??fear of Frankenstein?Äô?Ñ??. Nevertheless, as humans
have become more aware of the intricate physical, social and
biological universe in which we reside, we begin to assemble a
unique and comprehensive perspective on who we have been and what
we may become. What were once considered latent and heterodox
human potentials are now emerging as real possibilities -- not
solely as biological modifications of ourselves but, equally
dramatically, in our engagements with other things. This shifting
perspective requires us to come to terms with the very
foundations of our own organization -- engaging with the universe
on a cosmological, atomic, molecular, quantum, and genetic level.
The transition inherent in this realization of our c!
ultural,
aesthetic and scientific selves is emblematic of emerging new art
forms that seek to synergize the physical and biological sciences
and define a new mode of arts practice that is significantly
deeper than the rich but ultimately superficial, simulative or
merely illustrative history from which they emerged. The paper
will be presented as a dialog oriented around a number of
specific art projects, presented via laptop computer(s).
Title: "On Art Research: Hybrid Projects"
Nina Czegledy, Independent Media Artist, Curator and Writer
czegledy@interlog.com
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Today, research forms an integral part of contemporary art
practice, especially collaborations involving art, science and
technology. Established academic programs and publications in
North America and Western Europe illustrate a wide range of
opportunities. This study presents alternate options from other
regions where individuals or small informal groups often initiate
novel concepts and where the boundaries between research,
education and art production, are frequently blurred. Case
studies include the NextLab, Budapest, Cultural Center Lindart,
Tirana and Trinity Session, Johannesburg. The "research" of these
groups seems to be flexible and fluid - extending to broader
interpretations such as experimentation, groundwork or scrutiny.
Presenter Biographies:
Timothy Allen Jackson is Professor of New Media at the Savannah
College of Art and Design. Over the past twenty years he has
worked as an artist, designer, writer, and teacher along the
border terrain of art, science, and technology. Along with Joe
Cusumano, he was the co-founder and co-director of Vis Viva, a
research group for artists and engineers at Penn State. He is
also the founder and director of the Synth/Ops Research Group,
originally based at Ryerson University in Toronto. He is the
manager of the online workspace category for the MARCEL Network.
His current work focusses on telematic art systems involving
collective network perceptions and manifestations.
Nina Czegledy, artist, curator and writer, has collaborated on
international projects, produced digital works and has
participated in workshops, forums and festivals worldwide.
Resonance, Digitized Bodies and the Aurora projects reflect her
art&science&technology interest She exhibited as part of ICOLS,
Girls and Guns Collective and curated over 35 art programs shown
worldwide. Her academic lectures lead to numerous publications in
books and journals. Senior Fellow at KMDI, University of Toronto,
Adjunct Professor, Concordia University, Montreal, President of
Critical Media, member of the LEAuthors and Leonardo SpaceArt
Network. Czegledy, an advisor to the UNESCO DigiArts Network is
the current Chair of the Inter Society for the Electronic Arts
(ISEA).
Shawn Brixey is Associate Professor of Digital and Experimental
Arts at the University of Washington. He is Associate Director
and Co-founder of the University?Äô?Ñ?¥s newly established Ph.D.
program in Digital and Experimental Arts (DXARTS) and their
Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media. His research
interests lie at the emerging interface of art, science and
technology. He is currently developing radical new art forms,
which present important evolutionary transformations in digital
media by synthesizing these technologies with the physical
sciences and biotechnology as hybrid strategies for future
computational expression. He has received all levels of major
grants and awards to support his research including: The
Rockefeller Foundation, The Boxlight Corporation, The National
Institute of Health, The Intel Corporation, Silicon Graphics,
Newport/Klinger Research Corporation, Apple Computer, IBM GmbH,
The National Endowment for the Arts, The Corporation for Public
Broa!
dcasting,
Leica and Hughes Aircraft. In 1997 he received the first
Distinguished Visiting Scholar/Mentor award from San Franciso
State University's, New Media Institute. In 2003 he was honored
with a prestigious Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship for New
Media. He lectures widely in the U.S. and Europe on new and
emerging media art forms.
James Coupe is an artist and Research Associate at the University
of Washington?Äô?Ñ?¥s Centre for Digital Art and Experimental Media
(DXARTS). He completed an MA in Creative Technology at the
University of Salford, where he studied robotics, virtual
environments and telematics. His artwork has been exhibited
throughout the UK and abroad. In 2001, his project ?Äô?Ñ??Digital
Warfare Network?Äô?Ñ?? was selected for New Contemporaries 2001, a
highly prestigious annual exhibition considered a significant
launch pad for exceptional and dynamic emerging artists. In 2003,
his research on the synchronicity of art and artificial
intelligence was recognized through a UK Arts and Humanities
Research Board Innovation Award. The grant that accompanied this
award provided him with time and resources to initiate ?Äô?Ñ??I,
Project?Äô?Ñ??, working alongside Hedley Roberts and Rob Saunders.
This resulted in a range of new projects and proposals for
autonomous artworks, including biometric self-replicating cellul!
ar phone
agents operating according to the rules of militia movements, a
self-authoring website, and a Kantian rapid prototyping machine
that attempts to construct a body for itself. Now based in
Seattle, he is developing a series of new art projects, research
strands and collaborations to push his work further and explore
the boundaries of what and where art can be.
Current LEF Members: Matthew Akers, Michael Anthony, Pat Badani,
Robert Baron, Jay Bolter, Julio BermÀÜ?Ä?dez, Michael Century, James
Coupe, Nina Czegledy, Michael Douma, Tom Ettinger, Mette Gieskes,
Anne Collins Goodyear, Diane Gromala, Kara Hammond, Del Hanson,
Gabriel Harp, Amy Ione, Tim Allen Jackson, Nassim Jafarinaimi,
Celina Jeffery, Nisar Keshvani, Prasenjit Laha, Ellen Levy, Roger
Malina, Maureen Nappi, Steve Oscherwitz, Stephen Petersen,
Timothy Peterson, Sheila Pinkel, Dana Plautz, Andrea Polli,
Michael Punt, Louis Rawlins, Mark Resch, Dan Sandin, Eddie
Shanken, Brad Smith, Yvonne Spielmann, Ival Stratford-Kovner,
Victoria Vesna, Lorraine Walsh, Ruth West, Karen White, Yianni
Yessios.
------------------------
>>> Jeff Karnicky 4/12/2006 10:24:36 AM
>>>
SUB 06: A Promise to Return: Evolution, Migration, and ?´Nuisance??
Birds
The voiceover of the 200- film Winged Migration states that
migrating birds make a ?¨promise to return?Æ year after year. In
one memorable series of scenes, the film shows a group of Canada
geese flying by the Statue of Liberty, then past Manhattan, only
to be shot out of the sky by hunters, presumably in one of the
mid-Atlantic states or New England.
These hunted geese are among the few birds to fulfill the
migratory promise that the film romanticizes. Despite this staged
hunting scene, Winged Migration omits any reference to the ways
humans are altering bird migration patterns. Every year, more and
more Canada Geese become non-migratory, partially because of
suburban habitat inadvertently created by humans. Canada Geese
populations are on the increase, but many no longer migrate,
instead staying in one place all year. Many of these resident
populations of Canada geese have been deemed ?¨nuisance?Æ birds by
the USDA??s ?¨Wildlife Services?Æ department and by countless
municipalities. In 2004, ?¨Wildlife Services?Æ killed 10,735 of
these nuisance geese. At the same time, Bernd Heinrich, after
studying a large group of Canada geese, concluded that ?¨each
possess[ed] a unique history and a particular set of
relationships with other individual geese.?Æ This paper will
examine how human actions are altering the migration patterns of
birds that evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. I will
also consider the ethics of human-goose interactions.
KEYWORDS: evolution, migration, nuisance bird, avian identity
jeff.karnicky@drake.edu
Dr. Jeff Karnicky
Visiting Assistant Professor of English
Department of English
Drake University
Des Moines, IA 50311
