Women, art, and technology
Leonardo/ISAST organization

The discussion panel organized by Leonardo gathered several female artists to discuss women's role in art and technology and to display a little of the feminine production around the world.
Sonia Rappoport, Victoria Vesna, Donna Cox, Diana Domingues, Christiane Paul, Christa Sommerer, and Nell Tenhaaf all took part.. The panel is part of the Women and Technology Project coordinated by Leonardo.
Sonia Rappoport's artwork in the web deals with female images, ideas, and metaphors.  
Victoria Vesna's work is divided into three stages: disrupting traditon, building many worlds, and the construction of personal information. Donna Cox participated in the development of a movie called Cosmic Voyage, which renders the study of the universe in an artistic way possible, with special concern for the choreography of the stars. Diana Domingues outlined the Brazilian situation. In her opinion women have a huge and decisive standing in Brazil, which isn't the case in other Mercosur countries.
The main discussion was about whether or not women have conquered their position in that field or if it is still dominated by men. Women end up concentrating on research and managing departments, whereas men are in charge of the more technical areas. Hardly do we find women working in postbiological development. Even in universities they are in small numbers, either teaching or learning.
Eversion and Transmodernity
Marcos Novak

Marcos Novak presented three main concepts that emerge from the technology development: liquid arquitecture, eversion, and trans.
Liquid arquitecture is the equivalent to Roy Ascott's concept of technoetic. A liquid arquitecture, mutable. Moving buildings that react to the environment. Virtual communities have changed the notion of city. They are megacities of communication with no frontiers.Eversion is a concept parallel to that of imersion. Information and the virtual aspect enter the natural world. We start thinking about what lies beyond electronic art.Trans means transformation, all kinds of changes. And transformation is part of modernity. As in technoetic all areas converge, approch each other to create a new reality, the trans concept also leads to the merging of these areas.
In modernity the production of the new occurs, whereas in transmodernity what is produced is the alien. Alien can be understood in different ways: ETs, abnormalities like the killings in the American schools, the internal alien, or the androgynous. The singer Marilyn Manson is a good example of an alien, with his distorted image, an androgynous being with breasts and makeup, and presenting ET features as well.
Astronomy: an old science, a new science; notes on the roles of new
technologies in art and science
Roger Malina


Astronomy is currently in its golden age. Many discoveries have been made, especially due to the introduction of new types of telescopes. The use of new technologies, such as computers, robots, and spacecrafts has caused a huge impact and revealed a new universe to us, the existence of which, we wouldn't be able even to imagine, if not for them. We will be able to study everything with these instruments, even that, which we can't behold, since we only see part of the light spectrum with the naked eye.
These advances will bring us new sensations. Rockets can get where we can't and bring us images we couldn't see otherwise. The probability of incidental discoveries is big.
Malina is amazed at the number of artists determinated to create pluridimensional images and new worlds. Metaphor is a key word in the creative process. When designing new networks, we must think of adjustable ones.Only a small quantity of data is kept in our mind.
We need machines to improve our senses and others to create new senses. We have only five senses that are not sufficient to make us understand everything around us.
New science creates new technology and vice versa and both operate with experimental processes. Their relationship is not symbiotic, but rather parasitic. If technological evolution is interrupted, science won't develop anymore. But art will go on. New forms of art don't replace ancient ones.

texts and photos: Fabia Fuzeti
english version proofreading : Regina Stocklen