Leonardo

The history of computation is the result of weaving together multiple cultural threads; one of the major threads is the relation of the arts to computation. Consider Ada Lovelace’s comments on the Analytical Engine, designed by Charles Babbage in 1837; the early devices built by Konrad Zuse, including the Z3, developed in 1941 and the Graphomat 64, created in 1964 [1]; CSIRAC’s experiments with computational sound in Australia in 1949 [2]; or the artworks made by Geraldo de Barros in Brazil using punched cards [3]. Art is a significant force that drives technical and scientific developments, and the contemporary landscape of research into the complex relationship between art and computation is increasingly vibrant.

According to scholar Warren Sack, this relationship precedes Babbage’s and Lovelace’s contributions. For example, the punched cards used to encode instructions to be processed by the Analytical Engine were already widely used in the textile industry. Moreover, Sack argues, various crafts and clerical practices anticipated computation in many senses, especially with regard to the notion of software that could be interpreted by a machine and to the idea that computers can be thought of as “language machines” [4]. A goal of the SIGGRAPH Art Papers is to explore these fundamental relationships and tensions, and to document how they continue to take on new forms relevant to our current age and our current technologies.

The SIGGRAPH 2020 Art Papers are the joint effort of ACM SIGGRAPH and Leonardo/ISAST, who for 12 years have been providing meaningful content within the conference and through this special issue of Leonardo journal. The 2020 call for papers focused on six tracks: Project Description; Contemporary Computational Art (including Theory/Criticism); Methods/Techniques of Creative Practices; Media Art History/Media Archaeology of Artifacts and the Arts; Experimental Design Practice; and Indigenous and Aboriginal Communities, Arts and Technology. Out of 141 submissions, 14 papers were selected, seven long papers and seven short papers. Additionally, this issue also includes an article that was awarded “Best Paper” in the Art Papers track for SIGGRAPH Asia 2019, chaired by Sarah Kenderdine and June Kim.

The long papers explore territories as diverse and complementary as augmented reality, activism, computational art history, artificial intelligence, spatiality and interactivity, social networking, genetics and cultural analytics. The following long papers were selected by the Art Papers jury:

“REALational Perspectives: Strategies for Expanding beyond the Here and Now in Mobile Augmented Reality (AR) Art,” by Liron Efrat; “Inverse-Rendering-Based Analysis of the Fine Illumination Effects in Salvator Mundi,” by Marco (Zhanhang) Liang, Shuang Zhao and Michael T. Goodrich; “Stepping Inside the Classification Cube: An Intimate Interaction with an AI System,” by Avital Meshi and Angus G. Forbes; “Resonant Waves: Immersed in Geometry,” by Richard Grillotti, Andy DiLallo and Angus G. Forbes; “Cultural Viz: An Aesthetic Approach to Cultural Analytics,” by Everardo Reyes and Lev Manovich; “Body RemiXer: Extending Bodies to Stimulate Social Connection in an Immersive Installation,” by John Desnoyers-Stewart, Ekaterina R. Stepanova, Bernhard E. Riecke and Patrick Pennefather; and “Enhanced Family Tree: Evolving Research and Expression,” by Fan Xiang, Shunshan Zhu, Zhigang Wang, Kevin Maher, Yi Liu, Yilin Zhu, Kaixi Chen and Zhiqiang Liang.

The short papers mainly belong to the Project Description track, exploring interactive, immersive and computationally mediated experiences from AI, robotics, storytelling, sonic installations, neural networks, cinematic experiences and VR, among other topics and techniques. The following papers were selected by the Art Papers Jury:

“the Unknown Person,” by Eddie Wong; “Animated Robotic Sculptures: Using SMA Motion Display to Create Lifelike Movements,” by Akira Nakayasu; “Visual Indeterminacy in GAN Art,” by Aaron [End Page 365] Hertzmann; “Hybrid Embroidery: Exploring Interactive Fabrication in Handcrafts,” by Yi-Chin Lee and Daniel Cardoso Llach; “Pixel of Matter: New Ways of Seeing with an Active Volumetric Filmmaking System,” by Seonghoon Ban and Kyung Hoon Hyun; “Rilievo: Artistic Scene Authoring via Interactive Height Map Extrusion in VR,” by Sevinc Eroglu, Patric Schmitz, Carlos Aguilera Martinez, Jana Rusch, Leif Kobbelt and Torsten W. Kuhlen; “Artistic License in Heritage Visualization: VR Sydney Cove circa 1800,” by Kit Devine; and “Cacophonic Choir: An Interactive Art Installation Embodying the Voices of Sexual Assault Survivors,” by Şölen Kıratlı, Hannah E. Wolfe and Alex Bundy. The work described in the last paper was submitted as an artwork to the SIGGRAPH Art Gallery and also appears in that section of this special issue.

In this moment, when universities across the world have suddenly changed their instruction to remote classes, immersive and telematic experiences from the arts could offer new possibilities that nurture and diversify the uniform, rigid and corporate aspects of online education. Due to the current pandemic, it may be necessary to rely on AI algorithms to predict outbreaks and analyze public health data, which play a crucial role in understanding the exponential growth of the COVID-19 virus and the people who will be affected. In their roles as data visualization and user interface designers who are experts at communicating complicated information to a wide range of audiences, artists can help tremendously in the translation from organized data to interactive interfaces. At the same time, the arts serve as a forum for criticizing the contemporary problems related to the overreach of technology, such as information overload and lack of trust in data in times of crisis. These topics are part of our society in the 21st century, and in this historical moment, I believe that it is still critical to share the passion, creativity and courage of the artists, designers, creative technologists and theoreticians featured in this special issue.

Before closing, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Kristy Pron, Jenna Feldman and especially to the jury members, the vast network of reviewers and external reviewers, without whom a task like this would be impossible. The Art Papers track is because of you and for you.