Mel Alexenberg (ed.): Educating Artists for the Future. Learning at the Intersections of Art, Science, Technology, and Culture (2008)

In Educating Artists for the Future, some of the world’s most innovative thinkers in higher education in art and design offer fresh directions for educating artists for a rapidly evolving post-digital future. Their creative redefinition of art at the interdisciplinary interface where scientific enquiry and new technologies shape aesthetic and cultural values offers groundbreaking guidelines for art education in an era of emerging new media. This is the first book concerned with educating artists for the post-digital age, propelling artists into unknown territory.

A culturally diverse range of art educators focus on teaching their students to create artworks that explore the complex balance between cultural pride and global awareness. They demonstrate how the dynamic interplay between digital, biological, and cultural systems calls for alternative pedagogical strategies that encourage student-centered, self-regulated, participatory, interactive, and immersive learning. Educating Artists for the Future charts the diaphanous boundaries between art, science, technology, and culture that are reshaping art education.

“Mel Alexenberg, a very sophisticated artist and scholar of much experience in the complex playing field of art-science-technology, addresses the rarely asked question: How does the ‘media magic’ communicate content?”—Otto Piene, Professor Emeritus and Director, Center for Advanced Visual Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Publisher Intellect Books, 2008
ISBN 1841501913, 9781841501918
344 pages

Keywords and phrases
Umbanda, transgenic, media art, prioric, Electronica, Roy Ascott, Eduardo Kac, aniconic, Nam June Paik, computer graphics, virtual reality, semiotic, locative media, Taoist, Bauhaus, Planetary Collegium, syncretic, education in Turkey, RISD, digital art

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N55 Book (2004)

N55 is a Copenhagen-based art collective which was founded in 1994. The name refers to an address in the Danish capital, Nørre Farimagsgade 55. Over the years, N55 have achieved international recognition for their projects. They have exhibited at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Tramway and Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, Camden Roundhouse, Smart Museum of Art in Chicago, in New York, and at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.

All of N55’s work product is freely accessible; their books, manuals, manifestos and images can be seen online and are not copyrighted. N55 BOOK is an accumulation of manuals for different things made by N55. Most of the manuals have been published separately between 1996 and 2003 as periodicals and on the N55 website.

Contents:
Manual for N55 BOOK
Manual for N55
Manual for DYNAMIC CHAIR
Manual for TABLE
Manual for BED MODULES
Manual for HYGIENE SYSTEM
Manual for HOME HYDROPONIC UNIT
Manual for SOIL FACTORY
Manual for CLEAN AIR MACHINE
Manual for N55 SPACEFRAME
Manual for FLOATING PLATFORM
Manual for MODULAR BOAT
Manual for SNAIL SHELL SYSTEM
Manual for SUSPENDED PLATFORM
Manual for PUBLIC THINGS
Manual for CITY FARMING PLANT MODULES
Manual for SMALL FISHFARM
Manual for BARMOBILE
Manual for MOVEMENT
Manual for SHOP
Manual for FACTORY
Manual for ROOMS
Manual for LAND
Manual for DISCUSSIONS

Published by Pork Salad Press and N55, Copenhagen
ISBN: 87-91409-05-5
Pages: 400

The texts and images in N55 BOOK may be copied, reproduced and distributed freely.

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Richard A. L. Jones: Soft Machines: Nanotechnology and Life (2008)

Enthusiasts look forward to a time when tiny machines reassemble matter and process information with unparalleled power and precision. But is their vision realistic? Where is the science heading? As nanotechnology (a new technology that many believe will transform society in the next on hundred years) rises higher in the news agenda and popular consciousness, there is a real need for a book which discusses clearly the science on which this technology will be based. While it is most easy to simply imagine these tiny machines as scaled-down versions of the macroscopic machines we are all familiar with, the way things behave on small scales is quite different to the way they behave on large scales. Engineering on the nanoscale will use very different principles to those we are used to in our everyday lives, and the materials used in nanotehnology will be soft and mutable, rather than hard and unyielding.

Soft Machines explains in a lively and very accessible manner why the nanoworld is so different to the macro-world which we are all familiar with. Why does nature engineer things in the way it does, and how can we learn to use these unfamiliar principles to create valuable new materials and artefacts which will have a profound effect on medicine, electronics, energy and the environment in the twenty-first century. With a firmer understanding of the likely relationship between nanotechnology and nature itself, we can gain a much clearer notion of what dangers this powerful technology may potentially pose, as well as come to realize that nanotechnology will have more in common with biology than with conventional engineering.

Publisher Oxford University Press, 2008
ISBN 0199226628, 9780199226627
Length 218 pages

Keywords and phrases
Brownian motion, nanometres, nanoworld, self-assembly, nanoscale, soft machines, photosynthesis, bacterium, atomic force microscope, quantum mechanics, electron beam lithography, water molecules, solar cells, micelles, light-emitting diode, integrated circuits, entropy, grey goo, scanning probe microscopes, hydrophobic

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