Leonardo

ART / SCIENCE FORUM Design and Entertainment in the Electronic Age Roundtable with RebeccaAllen, Bill Brown, Kit Galloway, Sherrie Rabinowitz, Alex Singer and convener/moderator Ruth E. Iskin. Introduced and edited by Ruth E. Iskin. The current revolution engendered bythe wide use ofelectronic technologies and their new applications is a compelling and contested subjectfor today's designers. Employing these new media requires inventiveness as well as overcoming the double jeopardy of techno-phobias and the strictures ofa paper/ print design mentality; it calls upon practitioners operating in a new electronicparadigm whose parameters are stillforming to recreatethe roles ofdesigner, artist and entertainer established in the pre-electronicage. A new horizon ofpossibilities as well as problems is emerging in design, art and entertainment with electronictechnologies. New media practitioners, designers, artists and inventors are working with the recognition that we are living in an age in which the inert materials ofyesterday are thefluid, fast, and always-subject-to-changeinformation visualizations ofelectronicmedia today. These changes are bringing about new forms ofentertainment in which VR (virtual reality) is grafted with the young traditions of3D (three-dimensional) cinema, the special-effects thrills ofDisneyland rides, and the addictive trance ofvideo games. And they all enact an experienceofsimulation as a new "real." Two roundtable discussions held at UCLA (the University ofCalifornia, Los Angeles) between artists, designers and professors addressed a range ofissues. Participants included • RebeccaAllen, internationally recognized media artist and director ofnew media projects that integrate computer animation, live action and sound. A mong her works are short films, music videos, interactive videodiscs and CD-I (compact disc-interactive) titles; ofspecial interest in her work is her study of human movement and her understanding ofadvanced technology as an extension ofthe human body and mind. Ruth E. Iskin (art historian). Visual Arts Department, UClA (University of California, Los Angeles) Extension, 10995.Le Conte Avenue. Room 440. Los Angeles. CA 90024, U.S.A. E-mail: . Received 26 August 1993. This article presents a modified transcription ora roundtable discussion recorded at UCLA on 18 Ncvember 1991. She is currently part ofUCLA's department ofdesign. • Alex Singer, television and theatrical film director, whoseProlific careerincludes some 260 television productions; he is creative director, withfaron Lanier, ofthe development ofa VR theatrical experienceproduced byMCA (Music Corporation ofAmerica). • Bill Brown, ofUCLA's Design Department ; a graphic designer, illustrator, creative director and educator whose credits include visual communication for ABC (American Broadcasting Company ), CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System), NBC (National Broadcasting Company) and Twentieth Century Fox. He has introduced new courses in design for interactive multimedia to the UCLA curriculum and has done interface design and art direction with AND Incorporated, Synapse Technologies and the VoyagerCompany. • Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, new media artists whose genres combine live audience, performance and interactive telecommunication environments. Their Electronic Cafe has beenfunctioning as a new media salon for diverse audiences interested in new technologies, live tete-poetry via satellite and experiments with techno-avant garde music. Their understanding of global audiences, intermedia and international linkages via telecommunications and their dedication to sharing this understanding in a noncorporate, lively arts milieu make their contribution ofvalue to the democratization of sophisticated new media, as well as to thefurthering ofdialogue. • Myself, convener ofthis roundtable discussion and editor ofits print-media version-I am an educator at the Computer Graphics, Visual Communication and Visual Arts Department of UCLA Extension. In the mid-1980s, I founded the Computer Graphics ProfessionalDesignation Program, which currently offers over 100 courses to several hundred students and includes a state-ofthe-art Macintosh laboratory. Throughout the last decade I have initiated numerous symposia on new media , rangingfrom "The Aesthetics of Computer Graphics" to "Video Games as a New Creative Frontier." My interests range from the interrelationships of mass-print media visual culture and avant-garde painting and gender issues in late-nineteenth-century Paris to contemporary media theory. Ruth Iskin: How do you see the new roles of artists and designers, given the new technologies? Rebecca Allen: For me, it's mandatory that artists of every discipline get involved and help to mold what's happening with new media technology. As an artist, I was interested in technology because I had a strong idea ofwhat I wanted my work to be...