With Leonardo’s 50th Anniversary now upon us, the Leonardo Pioneers and Pathbreakers project ( http://www.olats.org/pionniers/pionniers.php ) is offering to document the memories of pioneers in art and new technologies for their work prior to 1984.

Papers and podcasts dealing with the history of developments in the arts, sciences and technology are solicited.

This project aims to establish reliable, selected, online documentation about twentieth-century artists, scholars, curators, and institution builders whose works and ideas were seminal in the development of technological art.

Since its founding in 1966, and the publication of the first issue in January 1968, Leonardo has accompanied and championed the work of the pioneers who were just beginning to use computers and other emerging technologies for artistic purposes.

We are interested in topics including the following:
– Memoirs by pioneer artists using new media (holography, computer and electronic arts, telecommunication arts, interactive arts, new materials, space arts, bio art, etc.). Texts must be written by the artist in English and cover an extended body of work. Articles and memoirs should be no more than 2,500 words and 8 illustrations. Preference will be given to artists describing early work carried out prior to 1980. Memoirs of engineers and developers who collaborated with artists or whose engineering or computer science work in the 1960s, 1970s and/or 1980s proved to be important for developing new art forms based on new and emerging technologies.
– Memoirs by pioneers from Africa, South America, Asia.
– Memoirs by curators who organized art-and-technology exhibitions in the 1960s, 1970s and/or 1980s
– Memoirs by pioneering women.
– Memoirs by pioneering collectors who were early supporters of technological artists.
– Memoirs by pioneering individuals who identify outside of the normative gender binary.
– Memoirs by pioneering institution founders of organizations, university programs or centers pre-1984.

We are happy to record short podcasts over the phone or internet with pioneers for publication on the Creative Disturbance podcast platform.

Readers of Leonardo are asked to encourage their colleagues to submit such memoirs, which will be invaluable primary documents for historians and scholars in the future.

Interested authors should submit manuscript proposals or completed manuscripts to the Leonardo Editorial Office. Email to: leonardomanuscripts [at] gmail.com

Memoirs and articles by pioneers recently published in Leonardo include:
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/leon/0/ja
A. Michael Noll: “Howard Wise Gallery Show of Digital Art and Patterns (1965): 50th Anniversary Memoir” (2015)

Jim Pallas: “Century of Light Shines for Twenty-five Years” (2015)

Trudy Myrrh Reagan: “Ylem Rode the Wave, 1981-1986: A Bay Area member organization that served artists using science and technology until 2009” (2015)

Edmond Couchot: “Digital art: From 60’ to 80’: Point of view of an observactor” (2015)

PodCasts published on the Pioneers Pathbreakers Channel of Creative Disturbance: http://creativedisturbance.org/channel/pioneers-and-pathbreakers/
Judy Malloy and Roger Malina: “Pioneer Judy Malloy Thinks Aloud about her Role in the Birth of Electronic Literature” (2015, English)

Pamela Grant Ryan and Roger Malina: “Re-thinking the Leonardo Journal” (2015, English)

Pierre-Alain Hubert and Roger Malina: “Artiste Pyrotechnicien P A Hubert discute ses feux d’artifice et musique dans les espaces urbains” (2015, French)

Neil Rolnick and Roger Malina: “Neil Rolnick Remembers IRCAM, iEar and Early Days in Art/Technology” (2015, English)

Dan Sandin and Roger Malina “Pioneer Dan Sandin 40 Year Look Back at the Analog to Digital, and Video Revolutions” (2015, English)

Edmond Couchot and Roger Malina “Contre le Post-Humanisme et Vers la Co-evolution de Forms de Vies Numerique et Organique” (2015, French)

Jacques Mandelbrojt and Roger Malina “Jacques Mandelbrojt se rappelle à voix haute” (2015, French)

Sean B. Carroll and Charissa Terranova “Overlaps in Practices Between Humanists and Scientists” (2015, English)