Episode 06: On computer graphics and interactive techniques

We talk Ars Electronica, an annual festival for art, technology and society in Austria. In a collab with Ars Leonardocast, Kenneth Azurin and Dawn Faelnar interview Dutch fashion and textile designer Hellen van Rees about her projects at Ars 2018. Leonardo’s Vanessa Chang introduces [Anti]disciplinary Topographies for Ars 2021. The first winner of the Prix Ars Electronica, Brian Reffin Smith, reviews Lead in Modern and Contemporary Art edited by Sharon Hecker and Silvia Bottinelli.

Derek Lee McPhatter, a playwright who unfolds narratives at the crossroads of race, class, gender, sexuality and technology speaks about his work, informed by his subjective experience as a black gay man. Edith Doove reviews the exhibition Fiction-Science—Buvard et Pichet.

In this special bonus episode looking forward to the 2021 SIGGRAPH conference, we speak with Andrés Burbano, the 2021 Retrospective Program Chair and discuss the history of computer graphics and creative techniques; Artificial Intelligence, art and social justice; and advice for practitioners wanting to submit their work to the SIGGRAPH art program.

Sarah Meyohas, an artist who centers her practice within emerging technologies, talks about art on the blockchain, including BitchCoin, crypto currency backed by her own photography. Jussi Parikka reviews Critical Zones: The Science and Politics of Landing on Earth edited by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel.

Artist, playwright and technologist Kat Mustatea discusses with Leonardo senior program manager Vanessa Chang her award-winning digital performance VOIDOPOLIS, a take on Dante's Inferno played out in New York City: born on Instagram, premiering his year in Augmented Reality, and culminating in experimental book form. Edith Doove reviews the book A History of Art History by Christopher S. Wood, newly released in paperback.

Chicana indigenous mestiza transborder nepantlera activista Liliana Conlisk Gallegos discusses decolonization through the expansion of borders as well as the Eurocentric myth of modernity. John F. Barber reviews Nothing But the Music: Documentaries from Nightclubs, Dance Halls and a Tailor's Shop in Dakar by Thulani Davis. 

This special bonus episode coproduced with the MIT Press Podcast features a conversation between Bettina Forget, director of the SETI institute's artist-in-residence program, and Lindy Elkins-Tanton, principal investigator of the NASA Psyche Mission. Listen as these Leonardo authors discuss the connections between art and science, the flawed idea of the hero, exploration of both land and space, and the complexities of being a woman in a male dominated field.

Art critic and curator Annick Bureaud and curator and art historian Natalia Kolodzei discuss COSMOS and CHAOS in the context of their contributions to the February 2021 issue of Leonardo journal on Space Art, a special publication in English and Russian for the CYFEST-13 Media Art Festival. Jan Baetens reviews the new book Peanuts Minus Schultz by Ilan Manouach.

Erica Hruby introduces BETWEEN ART AND SCIENCE, the new podcast from Leonardo/International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology.  Leonardo/ISAST exists to create a community for transdisciplinary practitioners and to amplify their ideas and their work. In this podcast, you can expect to hear from the creators, makers, thinkers and artists who exist in the spaces in between. Please join us.