Notes on Digital Noise and the Haptic Aesthetic

- What is communication? This seemed the question at the root of our conversation about digital noise. It is interesting that in trying to overcome a problem, such as that tackled by Claude Shannon, one must first define it and through that definition emerges restrictions and hence problems. In order to removing noise in order to make communication easier, a linear definition of communication was developed, separating sender and receiver and possibly negating the role of receiver. This model therefore begins to hinder true communication which is two-way. The ‘noise’ in essence feedback, is actually essential to communication. So, the digital, initially a process that intended to remove noise has developed feedback, digital noise and this is perhaps why it has such an impact, such possibilities. At the root of a lot of debate about the nature and validity of the digital I think lies this question, what is communication?

- When talking about this noise, it is very seductive to think that this is the interesting part that creates context. The noise of the web is probably both its strength and its weakness and is certainly what makes it so relevant. The noise contains the difference, a sort of peaceful difference where everyone has their voice. Someone compared this with nature (‘variety as the spice of life’) which is an interesting analogy. When there is too much variety in nature, its starts to become self-restrictive through evolution. The essential qualities are therefore not lost. Does/can/will the digital environment do this? The idea that the digital is a noisy space that requires renegotiation to navigate an created through this renegotiation are interest and human qualities, this is very seductive but just because an idea is appealing and we want to believe it doesn’t make it true.

- This haptic aesthetic, when it does succeed is very interesting. ‘Appeel’ is an illustration which although uses no digital media, communicates very well this idea. It succeeds as a project because the stickers hack into instinctive human tactile desires and hence a virus is created. This is something I try and tap into in my own work, the seductiveness of tactility and the potentiality of expanding a tiny motif into chaos. There is also the case of artists who work in digital media feeling the need to build ‘noise’ into their work, such as in the digital spray can that drips. Finally a reference to Very Nervous System, a beautiful work. It poses the question where does dance interpretation and sound creation begin and end, or are they one and the same? This feedback created between music and dance reminds me of a part in the film, the red shoes, where the conductor says he will have the music played at whatever speed the dancer dances, which comes first?

Views of the Internet

1. How I respond to each of the 5 different views of the internet, how does my own use of the internet fit into this?
I think that although contradictory these views, from experience, manage to be simultaneously valid. Just a tool Probably the way I approach the internet as I relatively occasional user, I see it mostly as a facilitator for I want to do, for example i have a blog for my creative writing but I think if this option was not open to me I might self publish a 'zine in order to get my ideas an audience. I think the creative population has always sort to exploit any medium, the internet opens up a lot of creative opportunities to a wider audience in its ease of use. This could be seen as professionals vs. amateurs but there have always been amateurs who manage to get their voice heard. The internet opens up opportunities to the less determined. Also I believe the internet is becoming increasingly tool-like and in its bid to appeal to all, compared to the early days of the web, the internet is much more user-friendly and requires less technological know-how. For example, myspace was still quite dependant on ones ability or interest in using html, whereas facebook superseded by removing this barrier and hence appealing to more people. The internet in such ways is becoming less unique and more like an imitation of non-virtual life. Big but becoming dull Once the internet is truly 'everyday' it's impact will be more profound but it will also be less tangible. It will be difficult to define where internet and non-internet begin and end and therefore how to measure its impact. Although this sounds a long time in the future, I do not believe we are that far away in terms of technology but we are in terms of mindset. We have yet to have a generation of adults that have grown up with the internet as we know it and certainly there is a great generational gap between people my age and our parents. Once the population is more homogenised in terms of its internet use, this will be the first step in integration. big but BAD Again these are valid points but as the internet continues to grow there comes the interesting concept of self-regulation, not only in terms of ethics but also in terms of contact. Obviously there is a lot of rubbish on the net but because of the number of people going through it, what is worthwhile starts to rise to the top. In fact as the internet grows and more and more people access it, it becomes more refined. Also in terms of myself and my contemporaries, the internet offers the opportunity for the professionals of tomorrow to communicate and develop their ideas. I don't believe the internet erodes independent thought any more than any other media, we just have to be aware of the ways in which this could happen. big and getting bigger FAST The good aspects of the internet are fairly easy to agree on. What is important is making sure they continue as the nature of the web changes. Powerful people such as Rupert Murdoch are seeking to change the nature of the internet, possibly for the worse. As big business becomes more dominant online we need to be aware of changes that may occur. Also will all this social networking, new conversations, actually help in tackling major issues like environmental problems? This is a good question. The positive attributes of the internet should not cloud the importance of governments and big business in truly shaping the world. big, good - could become bad The idea that the internet needs controls similar to conventional media would completely change its nature. Yes, a lot of problems might be removed but a lot of the unique and good aspects would also be removed. It would become difficult to differentiate between the internet and conventional media and this would therefore diminish the power and opportunity of the net.
2. Is Rupert Murdock correct in saying that there is not enough advertising revenue to go round, therefore news papers and other news providers will have to charge for their content?
I do not think it is necessary to simply start charging for content, nor will this necessarily be the answer. However, obviously conventional models for collecting revenue will have to change. Interestingly we have seen since the growth of the internet a greater desire for what is not easily available online ie live experience. Events like Glastonbury have become extremely popular and financially successful. Newspaper may find revenue in tapping into this desire for live and often shared experience. It is worth remembering also that people buy newspapers not only for news - this is easily available for free on the radio or on television - but because they wish to buy into a brand. I buy a physical copy of the Guardian 3-5 times a week. I listen to Radio 4 everyday so have a pretty good idea what is going on but I like to read from my own political viewpoint. I buy a physical copy even though I could read it online for free because I enjoy reading on paper in a way I don't when I read on a screen. Newspaper must look into non-conventional revenue collection. If they simply start charging for online content, they risk alienating a mass of readership and therefore lessening their importance in the media of the new century.
3. What do you think a Murdock shaped internet would look like in the future if his ideas were successful?
As stated before, the internet would be less unique and more like conventional media. I also think it would become less relevant. Whether Murdoch is aware of this or not I am not sure, perhaps he is willing to curtail its potential as long as he is able to have a majority stake in its power. Actually a Murdock shaped internet would be pretty depressing. Regulation would lead to ghettoisation of what is not 'approved' and therefore a split in the internet and in society to which people access what. Ultimately, big business and those with money would be the ones determining content.

Digital is Dangerous, notes on the art of Keir Williams, Chris Poolman and Jonnet Middleton

- Reflection arising from the ‘democratisation’ caused by digital especially in regards to art and in particular to relational aesthetics or participatory art. Relational aesthetics has always been problematic for me, put in the basest terms I don’t think the act of participation makes the artwork. There is the problem of how to get people to participate and to what extent one should coerce the audience. It seems controlling to determine a certain level of interaction for the viewer. It also questions where the other, physical elements of art fall. Are these really less important? However a social media art seems to fall in more readily with relational aesthetics and is perhaps a way to develop the concept. Social media are by their nature participatory. An art that exists in this space is compelled deal with questions of interactivity. The physicality of this art is also more limited allowing participatory aspects to come to the fore without this seeming contrived. Also perhaps because social media are inherently participatory, it is easier and more natural for the individual user to take part without feeling coerced or placed in an artificial situation.
- A variety of different temporalities are developed through the projects as they exist in multiple forms, and the interesting question arises which will last longer; physical, emotional or technological? The relationships between these are constantly shifting as online and offline share strategies. There is the question to what extent could online communities could exist without the offline? Or where does an online community forge a link with the physical world? Does it require person to person contact or merely the act of say creating a knitting pattern one finds online? There is a feeling that traditional difference between the online and offline are dispersing, for instance most online communities used to be characterised by anonymity and openness, in contrast facebook follows offline protocol in that it uses real names and depends on privacy. Does social media aesthetics play a part in breaking down boundaries between on and offline communities?

Comments On "The Machine is Us/ing Us" and "We Think"

Both of these shorts grapple with how to depict 'virtual' space which does not really exist in 4-dimensions as we think of them. It is interesting that both use a fairly conventional, low tech approach to this in the form of stop-frame or hand drawn animation (admittedly though this is certainly a convenient form for digestion through a youtube pop-up box). In such an 'hyper' space, The Machine is Us/ing Us asks is there a difference between virtually anywhere, anywhere virtual and anywhere virtually? Can it be possible to mark out a dividing line between the virtual and the real when the internet is building itself through our reactions to it? is it a place? or a source? The other notable thing about these shorts is the fact they both have a utopian outlook, the same one associated with the birth of the internet and its early development. "We Will", "You Will", the internet is seen as a place of collective activity. When "we are teaching the machine each time we forge a link, we teach it an idea", and so man and machine become inseparable. However the question "We need to rethink a few things..." continuously looms over this somewhat strained positive outlook. Likewise in We Think the life of ideas is explored, ideas that take life when they are shared. This collectivity is deemed essential for creativity. But it is the web really a mass of such productive conversations? It would be nice to think that following the eras of mass production and mass consumption we are now entering one of mass innovation but we do not have complete proof for this. Has the internet really created more freedom of knowledge, or are we dependant on how knowledge-able we are? Should ideas be free since they undoubtably have a value? Is making them free undermining their worth? And the ultimate question of quality should not be overlooked - "what if wikipedia is crap?"  

LO

From the Guardian G2 Special 'The Internet Turns 40' 23/10/09

It's impossible to say for certain when the internet began, mainly because nobody can agree on what, precisely, the internet is. But 29 October 1969 has a strong claim for being, as Leonard Kleinrock, a professor at the University of California in Los Angeles, outs it today "the day the infant internet uttered its first words". At 10.30pm, as Kleinrock's fellow professors and students crowded around, a computer was connected to the IMP (interface message processor), which made contact with a second IMP, attached to a second computer several hundred miles away at the Stanford Research Institute, and an undergraduate named Charley Kline tapped out a message. Samuel Morse, sending the first telegraph message 125 years previously, chose the portentous phrase: "What hath God wrought?" But Kline's task was to log in remotely from LA to the Stanford machine, and there was no opportunity for portentousness: his instructions were to type the command LOGIN. Still, Klienrock recalls a tangible sense of excitement that night as Kline sat down at the SDS Sigma 7 computer, connected to the IMP, and at the same time made telephone contact with is opposite number at Stanford. As his colleagues watched, he typed the letter L, to begin the word LOGIN.
"Have you got the L?" he asked, down the phone line. "Got the L," the voice at Stanford replied.
Kleine typed an O. "Have you got the O?"
"Got the O," Stanford replied.
Kliene typed at G, at which point the system crashed, and the connection was lost. The G didn't make it through, which meant that, quite by accident, the first message ever transmitted accross the nascent internet turned out, after all, to be fittingly biblical:
"LO."

Oliver Burkeman

I love this story.

Notes on The Practice of Everyday (media) Life - by Lev Manovich

The first part of the essay has lots of statistics about media use, can you add any personal experiences to support or contradict these facts? - I think it is difficult to obtain complete meaning from many of the statistics Manovich uses. For instance I have a myspace account but I haven't accessed it in over a year, however I would probably still be included in statistics as a user. Also although i do agree web 2.0 opens up opportunities to communicate in a new and different, not necessarily everyone will exploit this and this is a more difficult data to record. For example, I have a facebook account but i do not feel i use it in such a unique way. I feel i use it to communicate with friends in pretty much the same way i always have. i.e. I might share an event between friends using the network whereas before i might have handed them a flyer i hand picked up but it is pretty much the same sort of action. Web 2.0 is often a facilitator for human behaviour rather than changing it.  I also feel the following statistic is not very helpful, "in the middle of 2000s every track out of a million of so available through iTunes sold at least once a quarter. In other words, every track no matter how obscure found at least one listener. This translates into new economics of media: as researchers who have studied the long tail phenomena demonstrated". I think iTunes is far from comprehensive* so you are limiting yourself if you just purchase music from there. Also I feel it is easier to discover music randomly through analogue media, i.e. you might buy a record in a car boot sale because you like the sleeve art (or anything indeed, i think accident plays a bigger role in analogue media. since the user has less choice, for example I often end up listening to radio 4 shows and enjoying them because they happen to come on whereas i wouldn't choice them as a podcast. I think what really comes across from this data is it is HOW digital media is used that is important. Manovich questions "If one person gets all her news via blogs, does this automatically mean that her understanding of the world and important issues is different from a person who only reads mainstream newspapers?", but I think this is a difficult question to answer because as individuals we self-select according to what we want to hear anyway. For instance I read the Guardian because I like to reinforce my lefty-liberal views. The source is only part of the issue of communication.

* As an aside i decided to test iTunes to see if it is any good since I have always been snobby about it. I searched for three favourite songs of mine and. actually did a lot better then i expected. It had House Party, Fred Wesley. It also had Girls on Pills, The Droyds but unfortunately only part of a dj mix (i.e. edited) rather than the single version. It didn't have the K C White version of Anywhere But Nowhere but it did have one by Simplicity People. I compared with spotify (had nothing), last fm (had anywhere but nowhere! mentioned house party, but not available to play and again only edited versions of girls on pills) and youtube (only house party). These songs, i would say are a bit obscure but well known amongst people who are into music.

Manovich suggests the merging and even reversing of De Certeau’s categories of ‘strategy’ and ‘tactic’, do you agree with this point? Is there a democratising of media or is it still in the hands of ‘big business’? Does the mappability of web 2.0 structures mean that De Certeau’s categories are now irrelevant however you answer the question above? - I agree with this to a certain extent but whereas Manovich seems to see this as a positive to me it is more troubling. Design that incorporates customisation is strategic as it is designing to accommodate tactics and thus attempts to bring them under control. Manovich seems to suggest that tactics have taken over strategies but to me it seems the other war round. De Certeau suggests subversion must be 'unmappable'. Tactics relayed through facebook etc. are mappable and this is indeed how such companies make money, but having access to our personal data. I think it is an interesting thought that user-created content has just become a way of getting people to buy consumer electronics. One could even agree that under Web 2.0 'subversion' has become impossible. This worries me as 'tactics' seems an essential and instinctive way we guarantee freedom and personal liberty. As an artist this idea about the world seems particularly important as a good definition of an artist seems to be one who communicates through tactics, i.e. creates personal responses about the world that reveals or questions something about it.

What do you make of Manovich’s statement, ‘ it is only a matter of time before constant broadcasting of one’s live becomes as common as email’? - I don't think email is a very helpful comparison. Email serves a particular and obvious purpose. Indeed a significant proportion of email correspondence is probably what previously would have been communicated in a different way, be it telephone or internal mail in a company or on a poster. The purpose of constant capture and broadcast is harder to define, other than being a sort of self-generated 1984 where we put ourselves under constant surveillance so that capitalist powers that be can observe and exploit. There is obviously a potential for expression through such media, however I feel that the constant and instant nature detracts from this. I think some kind of editing and reflection is important in order to express oneself well, otherwise anything interesting can become smothered in a hail of unnecessary communication. Manovich does ask the interesting question though of whether Web 2.0 renders redundant the romantic/modernist model of creativity of “making it new.” Are the masses assimilating what was previously confined to artists and professionals, who in a sense have always worked in a multimedia (i.e. tactical/creative) way? Manovich talks a lot about the influence of 'prosumers' but these are the people who will go on to become the establishment and are hence not a completely new and creative voice. In conclusion, after reading this essay, I felt more aware of the potentials of communication through the internet, its abilities to redefine boundaries of space and time but in contrast to Manovich I feel the internet is a facilitator rather than an instigator of change.   

What Noise Is In Digital?

- Analogue noise is what is created by the constraints of the technology. The excess sound created by the physical means of reproduction e.g. the hiss of a vinyl record, the grain of a photograph etc. It can be minimised but can not disappear completely.

- In digital recording 'bits' may be directed to remove such noise - 'headers'. There is a choice to remove or not remove rather than a variable.

- Digital recording is indirect in that it is encoded so there is no physical mechanism to create such 'noise'.

- Digital noise is perhaps in the concept of 'multimedia' where bits may rearrange themselves. Data is muddled rather than restricted or clouded.

- Insufficient memory or excess compressing will lead to a loss of information, hence the 'noise' of a pixelated image.

- Digital data displayed as binary code will resemble noise or nonsense to the average person. It must be re-assembled to make sense.

Some Other Thoughts On What Digital Is

- Commonly difficult to define, digital is often used in context rather than having a specific meaning i.e. digital watch etc. it is the opposite of analogue but the meaning of analogue can be troublesome as well. It is thought of as a continuous entity whether digital breaks down into bits etc.

- Are humans digital in our thinking, how we perceive the world etc.? Language can be thought of as digital

- It is more important to be knowledge-able rather than knowledgeable? The key skill is finding the information, knowing which information to take on board.

- Digital is a common identity, a universal language and means of communicating, it can put people on the same level and is without conventional borders.

- "Re-framing consciousness" what is reality? Does living in a digitalised world mean we have to be continually questioning what is real and what is not? Where is the line drawn? i.e. a haptic arm can give digital feedback so handling a virtual tool feels the same as a real one.

- Digital, for an system based on order, has had messy origins, many pioneers were eccentric.

- Walter Benjamin wrote on art in the mechanical age in the 1930s. How art was changed by the rise of new technology of reproduction then (photography, industrial printing etc.), has links to how art is being changed now in the digital age. The changes brought by the digital era can even be compared to those brought by the invention of the printing press.

- Grey matter theory - the point where a computer can better itself and therefore could exist without humans. This starts to question what makes us human. What is post-human? The cyclical nature of the three laws of robotics stops robots from becoming self-determining.

- The digital exists in the 'ether' but also data-centres are required, it is physical in some respects but not others. The origins of the internet were in ARDOnet, a network without a centre.

- How might the action we take now shape the development of technology in the future? How might we anticipate it? e.g. The man who created the integrated circuit chip and went on to develop the concept of open-source, set up an open-system of team work contrary to management ideals of the time. This may have been because he came from a small co-dependant community where everyone's input was recognised as a necessity. Such revolutionary thinking which is needed to make such breakthroughs comes from a context.

- The democratising nature of the digital creates fear i.e. the firewall of china. Will this change/hold up development?

- The on-line environment is perhaps neither positive or negative but different.

Digital Is...

- "The Digital Revolution is a Revolution of Random Access" Graheme Weinbren
- Korean Artist Nam June Paik 1963 installation Random Access (audio tape on a wall)
- "Random access Computing, noun. the process of transferring information to or from memory in which every memory location can be accessed directly rather than being accessed in a fixed sequence : [as adj. ] random-access programming."
- Basis for processing and assembling information. Paradigm of controlled randomness. Too much freedom can have a negative effort, boundaries necessary for understanding

RANDOM infinite possibilities, infinite combinations of 1 and 0
ACCESS opportunity, availability, interactivity, a path through the numbers which is chosen by the recipient, control, choice

- The contrast, tension between the two, is at the heart of what digital is and why it is difficult to define. The tension between the possibility of knowledge and the recipients choice (question of who welds the choice?)

BITS are...

- either in the state of on or off, 1 or 0 the smallest particle in the DNA of information

- can be combined infinitely to represent anything

- able to deliver informationable to move at the speed of lightweightless

- without physical boundariesare as hard to price as knowledge and that value varies according to who is using them and how

- able to be mixed up and rearranged hence 'multimedia'

- able to contain information about other bits hence 'headers'

Some Initial Thoughts about The Digital in Art

- I think the first and easiest way for me to think about the digital was to think of as a system and to work digitally was to work within that system adhering to (or working against) those formal instructions. 

- Thinking about the internet,  it is an infinite number of paths and there are ways to create different paths through it. An artwork could be a set of rules that can only be carried out through the internet. In a way, a hide-and-seek and the viewer/protagonist creates their own route from A to B and back to A.

- The digital in its most basic form is the notion of something being on or off, at 1 or 0, it is the infinite possibilities that make it complex.

- In terms of art there are strong links to Dada, Fluxus and conceptual art in terms the role of formal instructions, concept, event and participation. i.e. Maholy-Nagy's 'virtual volumes' -'the outline of trajectory presented by an object in motion' concepts of digital art can exist without the technology. OULIPO, Ouvroir de Litterature Potentielle saw creative inspiration as an intellectual game.

- Inherent in the digital is the interplay of randomness and control, its inherent interactive nature. "The digital revolution is a revolution of random access". The artist is a mediator/facilitator. 

- Digital art brings about the question of documentation.

- Manipulation; the reality of 'what is' at a certain point in time is constantly open to question.

- Recontextualisation; the relationship between copy and original.

- 'Hyper-real'; neither artificial nor authentic, a fiction is created.

- Question of the digital image not being representational because it is encoded. Does not record or reproduce physical reality? No continuality with a real world. Computer drawing; loss of relationship with the mark?