In September 1993, Leonardo Electronic Almanac - a journal sponsored by the International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology and published by MIT Press - began circulating over the Net. Faster than you can say, "Multiscreen interactive video installation at the Whitney," it became the highbrow hot spot of cyberspace.
With its editorial base in Minneapolis and contributions from all over the world, the Almanac is a digital bible for the lowdown on the art scene. There are essays on the artistic applications of VR, reviews of an exhibition in the Madrid subway, job listings, grant information, event announcements, even classified ads.
"People say it's really different from any- thing that's out on the Net," says Executive Editor Craig Harris. "We try to probe more deeply into the concepts behind the media- arts world - to get people to write about their work at length and how it is they come to use the technology they're using." And so it is that one essay cites 24 bibliographic references, including a privately published comic strip, Those Dovish TuttiFruttiVoodooChill'n Secrets of Love.
In addition to ambitious intentions and thoughtful analysis, Almanac offers a fair dose of the kind of artsy-fartsy mumbo jumbo one usually would have to crash a wine-and-cheese soaked SoHo opening for. For every glimmering gem of unaffected, useful information, there is at least an equal amount of deadly opaque, MFA-brandishing swagger.
An essay on "Metavirtue and Subreality" - which relies heavily on references to Jurassic Park, Blazing Saddles, and the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland - is peppered with such platitudes as "Metafictions don't operate on aesthetic assumptions of verisimilitude, but exult in their own ficticiousness."
If you can wade through the hyperbole, you might find a radical notion or two. Because it's created by and for people who have a stake in the medium, rather than those who merely comment on it, Almanac isn't afraid to embrace the concept that not all art needs to be roped off from the great unwashed masses and hung from a wall or performed in a hall.
The Almanac's own work in progress is figuring out how to take the interactive route the necessary one step further. Earlier this year, it began a "gallery" for images, text, and sound, and a World Wide Web site is under construction. "We're trying to present more forms, to use the technology to show more," explains Harris.
Already dense with information and ideas, the Almanac either promises or threatens to become a veritable thicket by the time its Web site is fleshed out.
As an essay appearing in the Almanac by artist and hyperauthor Mike Mosher muses, "Perhaps 'Stendahl's Syndrome,' the anxiety one feels upon being overwhelmed by too many works of art, is a desirable one." Depends on how much you download.
Leonardo Electronic Almanac: Anonymous ftp to mitpress.mit.edu or visit http://www.mitpress.mit.edu/Leonardo/home.html. Editorial contributions: craig@well.sf.ca.us.
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