The Leonardo organisation: 40 Years on…

Roger F Malina

Tell a few stories…..

• The world has changed, artists have changed...

• The New Leonardos are here…..

• Intimate Science and Micro Science…

• Art-Science Collaboration in the tool kit for sustainable development….

• Artsactive: Artists in Labs, Scientists in Studios

The SuperNova Acceleration Probe Satellite

• Observational Cosmology: Dark Energy and Dark Matter

• Open new observational ‘niches’

• Design new intruments to test theories

• Mysterious effectiveness of Robots

• Cf Wigner: Mysterious Effectiveness of Mathematics

Frank Malina: Astronautical Pioneer

• WAC Corporal Oct 1946• First Man made object in Space 1949

• Jet Assisted Take Off Units • Director/founder NASA Jet

Propulsion Lab• Founder Aerojet General

Corp

• Deputy Director UNESCO • President International

Academy Astronautics

• Frank J Malina IAF Medal

Frank Malina Kinetic Artist

• First art and technology show 1955

• Patented Lumidyne System

• Interactive art= sound triggering images

• ELI Company

• Pioneer of Kinetic Art movement

A little history• Leonardo Journal founded

in Paris 1967

• Kinetic Art Movement• Op Art Movement • Cybernetics Serendipity 1968• Experiments in Art and

Technology (E.A.T.) in NY• Center for Advanced Visual

Studies, MIT

• C.P. Snow: “The Two Cultures Debate”

Artists Working With Scientists and EngineersIndividuals with Hybrid Careers

– Frank Malina– C.P.Snow– Joseph Needham– Jacob Bronowski– Gyorgy Kepes– Buckminster Fuller– Richard Gregory– Yona Friedman– A.L Copley– Claude Berge– Photo: Nicolas Schoffer 56

Leonardo Organisation activities since 1967

• Working Groups

• Workshops/Conferences

• Publications

• Prizes and Awards

• Collaborations

• …over 40 years we have promoted and documented the work of over 6000

• New Leonardos

Leonardo Books Series @ MITPRESS

30 books, 4/year

eg: Art and Innovation( XEROX PARC )

Immersed in Technology (BANFF, Canada). MA Moser/D MacLeod

Language of New Media

Signs of Life: Art/Biology

Tactical Bio Media

Arts &New Technologies……….Sciences…..

…. History ….. Philosophy/Theory

A story….• Leonardo an organisation founded in the 1960’s

– A generation of survivors of World War II – Creation of new international organisations– A ‘social contract” between science and government

• Cultural appropriation of science and new technologies

• The birth of the digital arts

And now….?

• « Ask Not What the Sciences can do for the Arts…Ask what the Arts can do for the Sciences¨….Roy Ascott

• The « Hard Humanities »: art science collaboration as part of the tool kit for building a sustainable world….burning issues…

• Enabling and promoting the New Leonardos

Intimate Science

Roger F MalinaBanff

August 2008

Arrhenius 1896

The disconnect between our senses and the world

• Most knowledge about our world now comes through scientific instruments

o Few people have experience of mediated senseso Experiments on data vs experiments on the worldo The Galilean Fallacy…The End of Theory

• Most of the world isnt on human scales

• Our intuition, languages, metaphors, arts are built training on the wrong data for survival

Inhabiting New Scales cf Cheese Diagram Guardans, Czegledy

SLOW........................................................................................................

• FAST• SMALL OUR SIZE LARGE

The Senses: AugmentationSight , Touch, Temporality ……………………………………

New Senses: Gravitational Wave Observatories-

LIGO in USA ,VIRGO in Italy

New scales: The Antares Neutrino Observatory under the Mediterranean

Modern Science doesnt Make Common Sense: A Cargo Cult ?

• We need a new sensuality

• We need a new scientific method o Most science is done in protected semi monastic enclaves

• We need to understand the world o « society » no longer think science is a priority for

government spending or for peoples careerso Need the « hard humanities »

o A New Folkoric Art Movement appropriating scientific knowledge of the world….hacker and “make” communities

.• Micro Science:

• Coupling Common Sense to Common Science

• Micro-Science o Micro Science is to the National Science Foundation What Micro Credit is to the World Bank

• Making science intimateo Owning data about your own environmento Science creating communities own their knowledgeo Building intution, language from mediated sensory experience

Muliple Modes to Intimate Science

• INTIMATE SCIENCE: «  ownership of the data about ones own

environment »

• New AMATEUR SCIENCE: « public or peoples science », Calm Technologies

• CROWDSOURCING : » distributed and open science »

Intimate SciencePigeon Blog ( B Da Costa) Inside Outside Handbag (Katherine Moriwaki )

…Calm Technologies..Locative Media

Mediated Sensuality1904 2004

Cezanne: Mont St Victoire.........Sabine Raaf: Translator II

Immersion in Extreme EnvironmentsAntarctica......Deserts…Oceans…

eg Marco Peljham and Makrolab

Hybrid Bodieseg Marcel.li Antunez Roca

New Corporality; Physical, VirtualStelarc Char Davies

Nano Intuition Sommerer/Mignoneau

People’s Science, New Amateur Science

• Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti: Indian People’s Science Networks

• Brazil Digital Culture projects

• Sergipe « Human Project »o Humbi Umbi in Brazil

• Srishti School, Bangalore• Ubiquitous micro science

producing communities

Calm Technologies/Distributed Sensing/Locative Media

• Weiner 1991 Xerox Parc

• Eg Eric Paulos, Intel• www.urban-atmospheres.net/

CitizenScience

• active participation in basic scientific data gathering

• richer, finer-grain data sets for modeling

• mobile phone for grassroots participation in government and policy making

• Trash Truck project

Crowd-Sourcing

• Distributed Science

• BOINC : Berkeley Open Infrastructure Network Computingo SETI@home search

for extraterrestial intelligence

o climateprediction.net , climate modelling

o malariacontrol.net

Innocentive.com: « open innovation »

• Organisations can submit problems for solution

• Together with award incentive

• Over 200 problems solved to date

• Problem solving communities outside the Academy

The way we do Science carries within in the seeds of its own failure

Vesna/Gimzewski

• Failure of the enlightenment

• Science is done in guarded monasteries

• Science education and outreach from the top floor not from the ground floor

• More science education will not help

• Science must be systematically culturally redesigned

How

• Artists in Labs• Scientists in Studios• Town Scientists• Micro Science funding for artists• Open sourcing of data about your own

world• Developing the ‘hard humanities’ to

change the content and direction of science

ArtsActive Network Artists in R and D Labs Programs

• Art in Labs, Switzerland, Jill Scott• ANAT/Synapse, • Symbiotica Australia• Dissonancias, :Laboral, Spain• Art and Genomics: Holland• ECTOPIA; Portugal• FUSE/CADRE: .Climate Clock• UK ITEM, ArtsCatalyst, FACT/

Blue Sky Residencies • Leonardo - UCB Space Sciences • Leonardo/POP SUD France• TRANSGENESIS; Czech rep

• Observers: James Leach, Emmanuel Mahe (Orange), Bronac Ferran, Sammuelle Carlson

• List of patents filed by artists• Exchange of Intellectual Property

approaches• Jurying systems• Announcements• Scientists in cultural organisations ?

• www.artsactive.net

Berkeley: Art and Space Exploration Residencies

• Space Sciences Lab• NASA and UK Arts

Council

• Rejane Spitz: web media• Semi Conductor: data

sonification, infographie• Liliane Lijn: robotique, new

materials• Joanna Griffin: data

visualisation, education• CNMAT STEREO Satellite

sonification “Sounds of Space”…Marty Quinn

SemiConductor residency

• Secret Life of Magnetic Fields

• Interviews of Lab scientists on limits of scientific knowledge

• Brilliant Noise Installation= repurposed solar data

Liliane Lijn: Silicon Aerogel SculpturesSolar Hills = solar robots

The Sound of Trees Growing

• David Dunn (composer, sound artist)

• Jim Crutchfield ( complexity scientist)

• Artist driven recording of sounds of trees growing led to research project in the coupling of ultrasound from trees, beetles, forest fire system dynamics

And now….?

• « Ask Not What the Sciences can do for the Arts…Ask what the Arts can do for the Sciences¨….Roy Ascott

• The « Hard Humanities »: art science collaboration as part of the tool kit for building a sustainable world

• Enabling and promoting the New Leonardos

Thanks

• rmalina@prontomail.com

• www.leonardo.info

• www.olats.org