From: Natasha Vita More (fka Nancie Clark) (natasha@natasha.cc)
Date: Sun Jul 12 1998 - 10:57:52 MDT
Yesterday's speakers and exhibition at UCLA Dickerson Art Center on "Art &
Aesthetics of Artificial Life" was spot on! For a small exhibition, it was
quality, to be sure. And, in this instance size didn't count. It was one
day, about 11 speakers and only two small rooms of visuals, 3D and 2D. It
was a jewel of a show.
A speaker that whose talk I enjoyed very much was mathematician Stewart
Dickson (Disney), who displayed algorithmic sculpture by first showing a
mathematical equation on a blackboard, then holding up the 3D image (and
also with a braille texture so you could "feel" the equation). His own
frustration with the "inherent flatness of two-dimensional displays spurred
him to turn to sculpture and to new technologies for creating models of
mathematical forms in their three-dimensional splendor." He uses a
software system known as Mathematica and the new technology of
stereolitholgraphy, which allows the designer to sculpt a plastic rendition
of the equation and. Its called Plastic Math. (Ballistics particle
manufacturing is another technology.)
Also Charles Ostman (Mondo, SFSU) exhibited his growing art as a
combination of synthetic sentience, nanotechnology, biochip, and digital
biota. The visuals were beautiful to look at. I enjoyed his presentation
very much because it was jam packed with images and scientific language. A
real confluence of art and science.
Other speakers who I was unable to meet where Yachiro Kawaguchi and Steven
Rook who discussed the artform of utilizing computational processes which
mimic the physiologies of living organisms and systems as a methodology for
"discovering" aesthetics content.
(Some other exhibitors who were not invited speakers were H.R. Giger, Karl
Simms, Una May O'Reilly, Mamou Oshie, and others.)
I was delighted when Gary Zebington of Merlin in Australia (Stelarc)
recognized me and introduced himself. (He is a charter signee of the
Extropic Art Manifesto.)
Anyway, it was an exceptional show, and I'm really sorry that I missed
Sarita Thakoor (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) who talked about 1st NASA/JPL
Workshop on Biomorphic Explores for Future missions to Mars.
Natasha Vita More [fka Nancie Clark]: www.natasha.cc
Transhumanist Art Centre - Home of Extropic Art: www.extropic-art.com
**NEW** Transhuman Culture InfoMark: www.transhuman.org
PRESS RELEASE: "We are transhumans ..." Meme Orbits Saturn in 2004!
"The best defense is an aesthetic offense."
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