In Brief...
SGFI - Carl August Zehnder was appointed
new President of SGFI at the recent general assembly. He succeeds Prof.
Erwin Engeler who has represented SGFI in ERCIM's board of Directors since
SGFI became a member of ERCIM in 1995. Prof. Zehnder is Head of Department
of Computer Science at ETH Zurich and President of the Swiss Federation
of Information Processing Societies. As a professor at the Institute of
Information Systems at ETH Zurich, his main research activities are the
development and application of large scale information systems. SGFI Vice-president
remains Prof. Giovanni Coray from EPF Lausanne. Within the SGFI Board,
Prof. Hans-Joerg Schek from ETH Zurich continues to be responsible for
international activities, like the representation of SGFI in ERCIM.
GMD - Mars-Media Art Research Studies,
a new research program, was installed at GMD in September 1997 which will
cover the intersection of art, media and information technology. The GMD
is working with an international cooperation of partners like the British
Telecom, the University of Geneva, the BBC, London, the Swedish Institute
of Computer Science, and the ZKM - Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe
on a virtual network of cultural and science institutes. The ERENA (Electronic
Arenas for Culture, Performance, Art and Entertainment) project will explore
the representation of virtual space in real space, new concepts for interactive
TV shows with real and virtual actors. The main objectives are the creation
of new knowledge and novel works of media art and culture, scientific and
artistic investigation and exploration into the emerging media art forms
and the developing of ideas, products and expertise for the content and
media industry.
CLRC - The European Commission has just
awarded a contract to INRIA and CCLRC which is a leveraging action
to improve the take-up of the World-Wide Web Consortium's standards and
reference codes within European industry. To recognise the growing emphasis
of the World Wide Web in the affairs of the Department, a new group
W3G has been formed, headed by Dr Stuart Robinson of Information
Systems Engineering. The mission of the new Group is to become a world-class
centre of excellence in WWW and distributed object technology through (a)
foundational research, (b) application of the appropriate new technologies
to real-world problems, and (c) participation in the formation of policy
and standards at all levels. The Group aims to provide authoritative advice
and assistance on WWW matters within CLRC.
GMD - Wolfgang K. Giloi, former director
of GMD's Institute for Computer Architecture and Software Technology, was
awarded the Gold Diesel Medal for his services to the field of supercomputer
archi-tecture at Wasserschloss Wittringen near Cologne on 30 May 1997.
The medal was presented to Giloi by the Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia,
Johannes Rau. Prof. Dr. Erich Häußer, former president of the
German Patent Office and board member of Deutsches Institut für Erfindungswesen
made the laudatory speech. Another prominent personality awarded in this
year was the Nobel prize winner Prof. Dr. Manfred Eigen. Giloi who joined
GMD in 1983 as Director of the new Research Center for Innovative Computer
Systems and Technology left GMD with his retirement from the Technical
University of Berlin in September 1996. The Diesel Medal commemorates the
inventor of the diesel engine, Rudolf Diesel. So far, the Medal had been
awarded to Werner von Braun, Claudius Dornier, Felix Wankel, Konrad Zuse
as well as to a number of Nobel prize winners, eg Ernst Ruska, Hermann
Staudinger and Jan Enders.
GMD Monika Fleischmann, scientist
in GMD's Institute for Media Communication, got a recommendatory prize
at ARTEC'97, the 5th International Biennale in Nagoya, Japan, for Liquid
Views. The media art installation is technically based on digital video
and real time morphing, philosophically it tells the story of Narciss with
new media technology. Liquid Views was chosen as one of 25 media art installations
for its scientific and artistic excellence out of more than 150 works.
Together with her research partners Wolfgang Strauss and Christian-A.
Bohn Monika Fleischmann uses new media technology to work on recognizing
and visualizing the changing cultural identity. She studies the different
behaviour of people and the changing of identity reflecting the development
of media technology in her installation Liquid Views, which was presented
to a japanese audience in the Nagoya Science Museum.
