Please wait a few moments while we process your request
Please wait...

Observatoire Leonardo des Arts et les Techno-Sciences (OLATS)

Pioneers and Pathbreakers

Pioneers and Pathbreakers is an on-line documentation project developed by OLATS and dedicated to presenting information on seminal figures in the history of technological arts. The information is presented monographically and through lists of selected links and organized around three major axes: links to existing Web sites, hosting of sites, and development of new works initiated by OLATS. The Frieda Ackerman Working Group, a team of artists, scientists and scholars specializing in art and techno-sciences, selects the artists featured on the site and compiles the data on them. Currently, the group is gathering information on dance pioneer Merce Cunningham, video and intermedia artist Jerry Hunt, musique concrète innovator Pierre Schaeffer, and Leon Theremin.

The first major on-line monograph to be completed in this series is devoted to a trailblazer in cybernetic and kinetic art, Nicolas Schöffer (1912-1992). OLATS hosts the Schöffer Web site put together by the Schöffer family. OLATS has also concluded a large portion of the electronic monograph on Frank J. Malina (1912-1981), an aeronautics engineer and kinetic artist.

The Daniel Langlois Foundation is supporting continued research on Malina as well as on Abraham Palatnik (born 1928), a Brazilian pioneer of kinetic art. These research projects will result in a book on Malina and an electronic monograph on Palatnik.

Angela Plohman © 2004 FDL