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?