Hello,
As was stated earlier, a pandoras box was opened on the topic of programming and art. This topic is of special concern as I have a bafa and a minor in comp-sci. THere is also a forum for code-art at runme.org.
Code is the next art, as it has the power of text and the power of touch.
Anyway, enough of the soapbox, and I promise never to use it again...
My question is about pidip. Im running linux and pd ontop of jack. It all seems to start up fine - I use the word seems as this is the first time ive used a linux box for multimedia as I have been using a windows machine for pd - but then I get major crashitude from MR. pd! It dies just after pidip loads: PDP: pure data packet PDP: version 0.12.2 /usr/local/src/pidip-0.12.11/pidip.pd_linux: /usr/local/src/pidip-0.12.11/pidip.pd_linux: undefined symbol: ScaleShortToQuantum /usr/local/src/pidip-0.12.11/pidip: can't load library audio I/O stuck... closing audio
What did I do wrong? pd-0.36 Planed-ccrma kernal (sweet package!) gem is loaded, as well as pdp obviously
Im using 0.36 as its installed via rpm, and Im trying to keep things installed via rpm's because it makes my life a little easier. I have no problem with compiling though...
Thanks for the help, and for the great peice of software! -thewade
PDP: pure data packet PDP: version 0.12.2 /usr/local/src/pidip-0.12.11/pidip.pd_linux: /usr/local/src/pidip-0.12.11/pidip.pd_linux: undefined symbol: ScaleShortToQuantum /usr/local/src/pidip-0.12.11/pidip: can't load library audio I/O stuck... closing audio
pd should not die there, you just won't be able to use pidip objects, but the rest should work.
the reason for the error is that you don't have a recent Image Magick library, you should have at least 5.5.5, 5.5.7 preferred.
my personal question is : does everybody decided to use pidip today ?
i'm honoured but that's a lot of f**** libraries problems out there.
cheers, sevy
Is code the next art, or the next material?
I think the argument that the material is what is most important in art has had its time.
B.
----- Original Message ----- From: "thewade" pdman@aproximation.org To: "the list" pd-list@iem.kug.ac.at Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2003 7:55 PM Subject: [PD] a question about pidip, and a comment about programming and art
Hello,
As was stated earlier, a pandoras box was opened on the topic of
programming and art.
This topic is of special concern as I have a bafa and a minor in comp-sci. THere is also a forum for code-art at runme.org.
Code is the next art, as it has the power of text and the power of touch.
On Wed, 3 Dec 2003, B. Bogart wrote:
Is code the next art, or the next material?
Yes. :-]
I think the argument that the material is what is most important in art has had its time.
That is the survival meme of conceptual art?
On Wed, 3 Dec 2003, Pall Thayer wrote:
You can't argue against the fact that the material has a very large impact on the outcome of a work of art. But no, code is not art. No more so than paint or canvas.
What is considered art has changed tremendously along the years, and the purposes of art have changed accordingly. Furthermore, what is considered art is contextual to who you do ask. The "average folk", for example, is unlikely to care walking into any gallery, and usually will prefer 15th-19th century painting to most of what has been done by (academic) artists in the 20th century. Then there are a bunch of "lesser" artists that are unappreciated by the "real" artists, yet sell a lot.
In the light of this, it seems clear to me that in the context of the open-source programmers' community, (some) code may be art, though nearly all other communities won't understand it and may not call it art.
[code] is a new material with very new properties.
Agreed.
On Wed, 3 Dec 2003, thewade wrote:
Code has been around for years in the form of stories, or manual tasks, for example knitting.
I wouldn't call a story "code". However a recipe, a method for knitting or weaving, many things in the engineering corpus, any routine we set ourselves, etc, those may be considered algorithms.
It's a pity that "computer science" is called like that when it could be called "computing science". Computing in general is something that can happen anywhere. Plants grow following algorithms.
Anecdote: Computer used to be a job, a noun for a person who compute. Then that job was the first cut by the advent of mechanical and electrical computers.
I could intrepret material as medium: then code is just the nex fad, like capris pants or push-up bras... I think its more than that.
Depends how large a category of medium you do consider. I mean, 16 mm film came to pass, but cinema still exists and is stronger than ever. The smaller categories are usually quite disposable as long as there is a sufficiently suitable replacement. The bigger categories are literally kinds of art with their own profoundly defining characteristics and an associated culture and language.
I just think code is more than material. Its a sturcture and sometimes a simple mind. But then again I like to think of us as more than the material which comprises us...
If humans are only made of matter, then the _miracle_ of life is that _mere_ matter is, in certain conditions, capable of selforganising to the point that it can reproduce its own pattern, acquire information from its environment, process that information, remember, affect its environment in extremely complex ways, and reflect upon its own thoughts and existence, just like the lump of matter I am now ;-)
Mathieu Bouchard http://artengine.ca/matju
----- Original Message ----- From: "Mathieu Bouchard" matju@sympatico.ca To: "B. Bogart" ben@ekran.org Cc: "thewade" pdman@aproximation.org; "the list" pd-list@iem.kug.ac.at; "Pall Thayer" palli@pallit.lhi.is Sent: Saturday, December 06, 2003 4:54 AM Subject: Code Art
On Wed, 3 Dec 2003, B. Bogart wrote:
Is code the next art, or the next material?
Yes. :-]
I think the argument that the material is what is most important in art has had its time.
That is the survival meme of conceptual art?
I suppose we have been popping back and forth between material and conceptual supremacy. In my own art education concept has tended to be the emphasis, with material asethetics there to "complete" the package.
In my own work I find it more and more difficult to seperate the "material" (bits? algorithms? electrons? phosphors? ICs?) from the "concept". I think its probably my abandoning of black and white logic for a more fuzzy conception.
On Wed, 3 Dec 2003, Pall Thayer wrote:
You can't argue against the fact that the material has a very large impact on the outcome of a work of art. But no, code is not art. No more so than paint or canvas.
What is considered art has changed tremendously along the years, and the purposes of art have changed accordingly. Furthermore, what is considered art is contextual to who you do ask. The "average folk", for example, is unlikely to care walking into any gallery, and usually will prefer 15th-19th century painting to most of what has been done by (academic) artists in the 20th century. Then there are a bunch of "lesser" artists that are unappreciated by the "real" artists, yet sell a lot.
In the light of this, it seems clear to me that in the context of the open-source programmers' community, (some) code may be art, though nearly all other communities won't understand it and may not call it art.
[code] is a new material with very new properties.
Agreed.
Code is also a process (created by, and creating), something like a clay pot being fired as the artwork is being viewed.
On Wed, 3 Dec 2003, thewade wrote:
Code has been around for years in the form of stories, or manual tasks, for example knitting.
I wouldn't call a story "code". However a recipe, a method for knitting or weaving, many things in the engineering corpus, any routine we set ourselves, etc, those may be considered algorithms.
absolutly.
It's a pity that "computer science" is called like that when it could be called "computing science". Computing in general is something that can happen anywhere. Plants grow following algorithms.
Neil Postman said that "For a programmer, everything in the world becomes an algorithm."
I've always hated that term, In fact I could not mind dropping the science part altogether, since its a little closer to engineering than science. (even social sciences are closer to natural sciences than computer science). It is very closely tied to that context of science of course (due to modeling below I imagine). How about "computation art" - or perhaps "modeling science"... -> (Is there any science that does not use models?)
Anecdote: Computer used to be a job, a noun for a person who compute. Then that job was the first cut by the advent of mechanical and electrical computers.
It is at the technical level still "computation" -> but is that not almost anything? don't reductionists think thought processes can be reduced to compuation? I think conceptually (and I suppose phiosophically) computers actually model things, based on computation, but I think its the modeling part that is more meaningful and significant to computers.
I could intrepret material as medium: then code is just the nex fad, like capris pants or push-up bras... I think its more than that.
Depends how large a category of medium you do consider. I mean, 16 mm film came to pass, but cinema still exists and is stronger than ever. The smaller categories are usually quite disposable as long as there is a sufficiently suitable replacement. The bigger categories are literally kinds of art with their own profoundly defining characteristics and an associated culture and language.
medium and material were interchangeable words before Mcluhan, still some vestages left -- mixed media sculpture... I think the current understanding is that a media has its own context and makes a strong (or overwhelming) contribution to the content (or makes it irrelevant). I do think material has just as much impact though.
I just think code is more than material. Its a sturcture and sometimes a simple mind. But then again I like to think of us as more than the material which comprises us...
If humans are only made of matter, then the _miracle_ of life is that _mere_ matter is, in certain conditions, capable of selforganising to the point that it can reproduce its own pattern, acquire information from its environment, process that information, remember, affect its environment in extremely complex ways, and reflect upon its own thoughts and existence, just like the lump of matter I am now ;-)
Without structure the concept of "material" is meaningless.(except for the case of noise as material) Without material the concept of the word "structure" is meaningless. These things are utterly inseperable, and to reduce to one or the other is just that, a reduction.
If matter + structure is all that is required to make a mind, then there is certainly no reason why a computer could not develop one.
B.
Mathieu Bouchard http://artengine.ca/matju
On Sat, Dec 06, 2003 at 12:33:12PM -0500, B. Bogart wrote:
If matter + structure is all that is required to make a mind, then there is certainly no reason why a computer could not develop one.
We need to address what life is before giving computers a mind of their own. I'm very reluctant to the idea that life could essentialy be a sort of computing process. Our fascination for computing is a bargain for pundits like Ray Kurzweil...
Indeed.
I think structure+matter is *not* all that is required. :) what is required? I don't know. (good!)
Ben
On Sat, Dec 06, 2003 at 12:33:12PM -0500, B. Bogart wrote:
If matter + structure is all that is required to make a mind, then there is certainly no reason why a computer could not develop one.
We need to address what life is before giving computers a mind of their own. I'm very reluctant to the idea that life could essentialy be a sort of computing process. Our fascination for computing is a bargain for pundits like Ray Kurzweil...
-- Marc
On Sat, Dec 06, 2003 at 01:41:00PM -0500, Marc Lavallée wrote:
I'm very reluctant to the idea that life could essentialy be a sort of computing process.
i like this sentence, it seems related to an idea which wander in my mind. i would be interested by your opinion about it.
an hypothesis,
but if we assume that the "complete life" is contained completly in the body, another way to say it would be, if we assume their is no soul, no immaterial stuff floating above us kindof ghostly, then the life would be a physical process (with a lot of biology and chemistry), i mean just a physical process, so life will only follow the clear rules of physic at the atomique level. thoses rules can be expressed by equations and so could be computed by a computer, at least in theory. so a computer could be able to compute it... "it" is "a life"... so a computer could be able to compute a life. a computer would be able to create life, a computer would be able to "give birth". in short, if we assume there is no soul, a computer would be able to create life. -- the end.
i like this reasonment, it doesn't mean i agree with it, but i find it interesting. it seems to demonstrate that if we assume there is no soul, a computer would be able to compute a life, even better a single computer could compute several lifes. according the moores's law, the speed of computers is doubled everything 18months... so the number of computed life can be doubled 18months, so the population computed inside the computer will increase exponentially.
If all that is true, can a computer be alive ? the answer is let as an exercice for the reader :))
On Sat, Dec 06, 2003 at 01:41:00PM -0500, Marc Lavallée wrote:
I'm very reluctant to the idea that life could essentialy be a sort of computing process.
i like this sentence, it seems related to an idea which wander in my mind. i would be interested by your opinion about it.
an hypothesis,but if we assume that the "complete life" is contained completly in the body, another way to say it would be, if we assume their is no soul, no immaterial stuff floating above us kindof ghostly, then the life would be a physical process (with a lot of biology and chemistry), i mean just a physical process, so life will only follow the clear rules of physic at the atomique level. thoses rules can be expressed by equations and so could be computed by a computer, at least in theory. so a computer could be able to compute it... "it" is "a life"... so a computer could be able to compute a life. a computer would be able to create life, a computer would be able to "give birth". in short, if we assume there is no soul, a computer would be able to create life. -- the end.
This indeed *is* the reductionist argument. And of course reductionists do beleive that life is *only* a physical process. In terms of floating ghostlike immateriality quantum theory (and epirisism) becomes very interesting. There is a great book called "The Physics of Consciousness" by Evan Harris Walker. I saw him talk at a art-science conference. I does not talk about "life" as being the interesting part, nor the "soul" for that matter but focuses entirely on awarness/consciousness. A lot of the discussion is about the quantum observer and the creation of reality (physically/materially). The question them becomes, do computers (as humans), have the ability to trigger state-vector collapse (the reduction of what *could* be to what will be.)? I think physisists have been using computers for quite some time, yet I don't think any have witnessed a machine causing state-vector collapse. This may not be meaningful since a consciousness needs to cause the state-vector collapse in such a way that another event was collapsed due to a computer...
now this is a (really OT) digression!
I think its certainly true that the prospect of a machine being conscious is much more interesting than being "alive". I would certainly suggest the book to anyone interested in the topic-he makes a very interesting argument.
B
i like this reasonment, it doesn't mean i agree with it, but i find it interesting. it seems to demonstrate that if we assume there is no soul, a computer would be able to compute a life, even better a single computer could compute several lifes. according the moores's law, the speed of computers is doubled everything 18months... so the number of computed life can be doubled 18months, so the population computed inside the computer will increase exponentially.
If all that is true, can a computer be alive ? the answer is let as an exercice for the reader :))
PD-list mailing list PD-list@iem.at http://iem.at/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pd-list
On Sat, Dec 06, 2003 at 12:02:46PM -0800, ben@ekran.org wrote:
I does not talk about "life" as being the interesting part, nor the "soul" for that matter but focuses entirely on awarness/consciousness.
man, you spoil all the fun by using clearly defined and rationnal words when there are others full of fuzzy emotions :))
I would certainly suggest the book to anyone interested in the topic-he makes a very interesting argument.
it seems very interesting, i will see where i can find it.
On Sat, 6 Dec 2003, B. Bogart wrote:
I suppose we have been popping back and forth between material and conceptual supremacy. In my own art education concept has tended to be the emphasis, with material asethetics there to "complete" the package.
But is that emphasis visible in the art object, in the process of constructing it, or in the small blurb every artist's got to write to keep critics happy ?
In my own work I find it more and more difficult to seperate the "material" (bits? algorithms? electrons? phosphors? ICs?) from the "concept". I think its probably my abandoning of black and white logic for a more fuzzy conception.
I don't think it has anything to do with fuzziness. It has to do with the stereotyped material/conceptual dialectic that assumes that the concept never can be about the material used, from the axiom that the art is an idea first, and it's just a sad thing that it has to be incarnated into puny petty materials [that make it impure]. ;-)
But in your process there is, as far as I can infer it, a dialogue between the concept and the material.
It's a pity that "computer science" is called like that when it could be called "computing science". Computing in general is something that can happen anywhere. Plants grow following algorithms.
Neil Postman said that "For a programmer, everything in the world becomes an algorithm."
It is also that the world also lends itself to be seen as such.
I've always hated that term, In fact I could not mind dropping the science part altogether, since its a little closer to engineering than science.
It depends which compsci you are talking about. Topics of computing have grown like mad in the 50 last years and have invaded all surrounding domains. It reaches around for logic, mathematics, statistics, operations research, linguistics, psychology, engineering, and so on.
It is at the technical level still "computation" -> but is that not almost anything?
Hired "computers" only had to deal with computing numbers explicitly to get results needed by engineers and the military.
don't reductionists think thought processes can be reduced to compuation?
Yes, but it depends: if it is the case that the reduction is valid, it doesn't mean it is useful, and still the higher levels of thought may remain better ways of thinking.
Without structure the concept of "material" is meaningless.(except for the case of noise as material) Without material the concept of the word "structure" is meaningless. These things are utterly inseperable, and to reduce to one or the other is just that, a reduction.
I didn't reduce them. I was talking about the structure of matter. (!)
A small bit about noise: every noise has its distribution, and a distribution is a pattern. Noise/randomness has _some_ structure, albeit less than anything else.
Mathieu Bouchard http://artengine.ca/matju
----- Original Message ----- From: "Mathieu Bouchard" matju@sympatico.ca To: "B. Bogart" ben@ekran.org Cc: "thewade" pdman@aproximation.org; "the list" pd-list@iem.kug.ac.at; "Pall Thayer" palli@pallit.lhi.is Sent: Saturday, December 06, 2003 5:17 PM Subject: [PD] Re: Code Art
On Sat, 6 Dec 2003, B. Bogart wrote:
I suppose we have been popping back and forth between material and conceptual supremacy. In my own art education concept has tended to be the emphasis, with material asethetics there to "complete" the package.
But is that emphasis visible in the art object, in the process of constructing it, or in the small blurb every artist's got to write to keep critics happy ?
Good point. The emphasis is only visible in the process/documentation (lord I hate making these "reductionist" writeups, which are too non-material, the idea is everything. How else to get grants though???)
In my own work I find it more and more difficult to seperate the "material" (bits? algorithms? electrons? phosphors? ICs?) from the "concept". I think its probably my abandoning of black and white logic for a more fuzzy conception.
I don't think it has anything to do with fuzziness. It has to do with the stereotyped material/conceptual dialectic that assumes that the concept never can be about the material used, from the axiom that the art is an idea first, and it's just a sad thing that it has to be incarnated into puny petty materials [that make it impure]. ;-)
Agreed, In fact dialectics are not just blank and white anyhow. I'm happy you say dialectic here and not dichotomy! Oh the impurity of reality! On this topic I have some (related) writing:
http://www.ekran.org/ben/oracle/process/art_in_the_face_of_the_sublime.html
But in your process there is, as far as I can infer it, a dialogue between the concept and the material.
Absolutely, I would say for myself (dispute the eductation perhaps) that both sides have to be taken in a dialectic relationship. Not one being the master of another.
It's a pity that "computer science" is called like that when it could
be
called "computing science". Computing in general is something that can happen anywhere. Plants grow following algorithms.
Neil Postman said that "For a programmer, everything in the world
becomes an
algorithm."
It is also that the world also lends itself to be seen as such.
I find it hard to seperate our world from our conceptions of it.
I've always hated that term, In fact I could not mind dropping the science part altogether, since its a little closer to engineering than science.
It depends which compsci you are talking about. Topics of computing have grown like mad in the 50 last years and have invaded all surrounding domains. It reaches around for logic, mathematics, statistics, operations research, linguistics, psychology, engineering, and so on.
definatly true, even more reason for a better term! But what?
It is at the technical level still "computation" -> but is that not almost anything?
Hired "computers" only had to deal with computing numbers explicitly to get results needed by engineers and the military.
This is true, those old trajectory tables!!! Eniac's main (only?) purpose.
don't reductionists think thought processes can be reduced to compuation?
Yes, but it depends: if it is the case that the reduction is valid, it doesn't mean it is useful, and still the higher levels of thought may remain better ways of thinking.
This is also a great point. A reduction may be technically/empirically valid, but that does not mean something has not been lost. (Postman talks a lot about this)
Without structure the concept of "material" is meaningless.(except for the case of noise as material) Without material the concept of the word "structure" is meaningless. These things are utterly inseperable, and to reduce to one or the other is just that, a reduction.
I didn't reduce them. I was talking about the structure of matter. (!)
A small bit about noise: every noise has its distribution, and a distribution is a pattern. Noise/randomness has _some_ structure, albeit less than anything else.
Very true, I was talking about uniformly distributed noise. But does this really exist? Or is all noise also chaos? (structure and indeterminacy) What is the lyapunov (measure of chaos) exponent of white/brown/pink noise?
B.
Mathieu Bouchard http://artengine.ca/matju
PD-list mailing list PD-list@iem.at http://iem.at/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pd-list
On Sat, 6 Dec 2003, B. Bogart wrote:
On Sat, 6 Dec 2003, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
I don't think it has anything to do with fuzziness. It has to do with the stereotyped material/conceptual dialectic that assumes that the concept never can be about the material used, from the axiom that the art is an idea first, and it's just a sad thing that it has to be incarnated into puny petty materials [that make it impure]. ;-)
Agreed, In fact dialectics are not just blank and white anyhow. I'm happy you say dialectic here and not dichotomy! Oh the impurity of reality!
Actually I meant dichotomy :-}. But then I was not expressing how I think about things, just an impression about how some may be thinking about art; I mean in the same way that some "pure" mathematicians seem to frown upon practical applications, because the concept is everything.
BTW I finished my semester last monday. Yay! (and that's my excuse for replying late)
On this topic I have some (related) writing: http://www.ekran.org/ben/oracle/process/art_in_the_face_of_the_sublime.html
cool. i really like it!
Absolutely, I would say for myself (dispute the eductation perhaps) that both sides have to be taken in a dialectic relationship. Not one being the master of another.
Agreed.
Neil Postman said that "For a programmer, everything in the world becomes an algorithm."
It is also that the world also lends itself to be seen as such.
I find it hard to seperate our world from our conceptions of it.
If you don't have any conceptions about the world, then when things happen, you cannot have predicted them nor say that in retrospect they were likely to happen. Therefore you don't have anything to say about the world. That's why the conceptions are essential. Separating yourself from the conceptions, you cannot say much more than that there exists a world that you can have conceptions about, and that there exist different conceptions, and that one's conceptions change over time. (And I guess even that could be disputed.)
It depends which compsci you are talking about. Topics of computing have grown like mad in the 50 last years and have invaded all surrounding domains. It reaches around for logic, mathematics, statistics, operations research, linguistics, psychology, engineering, and so on.
definatly true, even more reason for a better term! But what?
Informatics, from French "informatique". Where I live, a compsci bachelor's degree is called a "baccalauréat en informatique".
don't reductionists think thought processes can be reduced to compuation?
Yes, but it depends: if it is the case that the reduction is valid, it doesn't mean it is useful, and still the higher levels of thought may remain better ways of thinking.
This is also a great point. A reduction may be technically/empirically valid, but that does not mean something has not been lost. (Postman talks a lot about this)
Which is why, in practice, several models of different levels are superimposed and used simultaneously, and then one chooses the model that best fit a problem or discourse; like, chemistry and classical physics are now considered to be consequences of quantum physics, but still we use the former.
A small bit about noise: every noise has its distribution, and a distribution is a pattern. Noise/randomness has _some_ structure, albeit less than anything else.
Very true, I was talking about uniformly distributed noise. But does this really exist?
The domain over which uniform noise is uniformly distributed is a pattern of the noise.
Now if you are looking for a domain the least "patterny" possible, maybe you'd try the biggest possible domain in a given context, but usually it does not make sense; for example, uniformly distributing noise over all natural numbers (or all real numbers) is a mathematical contradiction.
Or is all noise also chaos? (structure and indeterminacy)
What is considered noise is relative to the observer, and in particular to its ability to see patterns in it, and its willingness to do so.
I don't think you can prove that there exists an absolutely unpredictable source of data, and I don't think you can prove that there doesn't exist any. Those are largely metaphysical questions.
What is the lyapunov (measure of chaos) exponent of white/brown/pink noise?
The concept of "chaos" as found in mathematics is not founded on randomness at all. It merely refers to how, often, knowing the rules of a system doesn't mean that you can make much accurate predictions about it.
Now, if you have a source of white noise, then by definition, the only knowledge you have of white noise values is their probability distribution; for if you happen to know anything else about how those values go about, it's not white noise to you anymore, as its values are not independent from each other.
Therefore you can compute a Lyapunov exponent on white noise iff you can do it only considering its probability distribution; and briefly looking at what the definition is, I don't think it makes sense at all to try to find a Lyapunov exponent on white noise.
Mathieu Bouchard http://artengine.ca/matju
I wonder if there are OT threads such as this on the MAX lists!
I do think that traditionally art has been more about dichotomy than dialectic but there does seem to be a contemporary interest in looking at things (art) beyond a dichotomy.
Congrats on the last semester, what were you studying?!
I've been thinking about a second paper based on that first one, more concentrating on the idea of metaphor in relationship to information-media (hmmm I like that term much better than new-media). I think one of the core ideas of information technology (after symbolic representation) is the ability to transcribe from one system of symbols into another. George Lakoff talks about metaphor as a transference from one conceptual domain onto another. Leading up to using PD to create "metaphorical networks".
Oh course conceptions are what allow us to understand, identify and organize our world. My point was not the lack of conceptions, but perhaps the possibility that our conceptions are the world. It is my personal view that awareness is actually the creation of structure, perhaps from randomness. Any sophists in the group?
Information-media of informatic-media (hmm does the info part even cover "media")
Yes, chaos is not about randomness.
Ah yes, noise is the absense of signal, so depending on what "signal" your looking for, the noise would be different. Is noise then a signal your not looking for?
Ben
----- Original Message ----- From: "Mathieu Bouchard" matju@sympatico.ca To: "B. Bogart" ben@ekran.org Cc: "thewade" pdman@aproximation.org; "the list" pd-list@iem.kug.ac.at; "Pall Thayer" palli@pallit.lhi.is; "Michael McGonagle" mjmogo@comcast.net Sent: Saturday, December 20, 2003 11:36 AM Subject: Re: [PD] Re: Code Art
On Sat, 6 Dec 2003, B. Bogart wrote:
On Sat, 6 Dec 2003, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
I don't think it has anything to do with fuzziness. It has to do with
the
stereotyped material/conceptual dialectic that assumes that the concept
never can be about the material used, from the axiom that the art is an idea first, and it's just a sad thing that it has to be incarnated into puny petty materials [that make it impure]. ;-)
Agreed, In fact dialectics are not just blank and white anyhow. I'm happy you say dialectic here and not dichotomy! Oh the impurity of reality!
Actually I meant dichotomy :-}. But then I was not expressing how I think about things, just an impression about how some may be thinking about art; I mean in the same way that some "pure" mathematicians seem to frown upon practical applications, because the concept is everything.
BTW I finished my semester last monday. Yay! (and that's my excuse for replying late)
On this topic I have some (related) writing:
http://www.ekran.org/ben/oracle/process/art_in_the_face_of_the_sublime.html
cool. i really like it!
Absolutely, I would say for myself (dispute the eductation perhaps) that both sides have to be taken in a dialectic relationship. Not one being the master of another.
Agreed.
Neil Postman said that "For a programmer, everything in the world becomes an algorithm."
It is also that the world also lends itself to be seen as such.
I find it hard to seperate our world from our conceptions of it.
If you don't have any conceptions about the world, then when things happen, you cannot have predicted them nor say that in retrospect they were likely to happen. Therefore you don't have anything to say about the world. That's why the conceptions are essential. Separating yourself from the conceptions, you cannot say much more than that there exists a world that you can have conceptions about, and that there exist different conceptions, and that one's conceptions change over time. (And I guess even that could be disputed.)
It depends which compsci you are talking about. Topics of computing have grown like mad in the 50 last years and have invaded all surrounding domains. It reaches around for logic, mathematics, statistics,
operations
research, linguistics, psychology, engineering, and so on.
definatly true, even more reason for a better term! But what?
Informatics, from French "informatique". Where I live, a compsci bachelor's degree is called a "baccalauréat en informatique".
don't reductionists think thought processes can be reduced to compuation?
Yes, but it depends: if it is the case that the reduction is valid, it doesn't mean it is useful, and still the higher levels of thought may remain better ways of thinking.
This is also a great point. A reduction may be technically/empirically valid, but that does not mean something has not been lost. (Postman talks a lot about this)
Which is why, in practice, several models of different levels are superimposed and used simultaneously, and then one chooses the model that best fit a problem or discourse; like, chemistry and classical physics are now considered to be consequences of quantum physics, but still we use the former.
A small bit about noise: every noise has its distribution, and a distribution is a pattern. Noise/randomness has _some_ structure, albeit less than anything else.
Very true, I was talking about uniformly distributed noise. But does this really exist?
The domain over which uniform noise is uniformly distributed is a pattern of the noise.
Now if you are looking for a domain the least "patterny" possible, maybe you'd try the biggest possible domain in a given context, but usually it does not make sense; for example, uniformly distributing noise over all natural numbers (or all real numbers) is a mathematical contradiction.
Or is all noise also chaos? (structure and indeterminacy)
What is considered noise is relative to the observer, and in particular to its ability to see patterns in it, and its willingness to do so.
I don't think you can prove that there exists an absolutely unpredictable source of data, and I don't think you can prove that there doesn't exist any. Those are largely metaphysical questions.
What is the lyapunov (measure of chaos) exponent of white/brown/pink noise?
The concept of "chaos" as found in mathematics is not founded on randomness at all. It merely refers to how, often, knowing the rules of a system doesn't mean that you can make much accurate predictions about it.
Now, if you have a source of white noise, then by definition, the only knowledge you have of white noise values is their probability distribution; for if you happen to know anything else about how those values go about, it's not white noise to you anymore, as its values are not independent from each other.
Therefore you can compute a Lyapunov exponent on white noise iff you can do it only considering its probability distribution; and briefly looking at what the definition is, I don't think it makes sense at all to try to find a Lyapunov exponent on white noise.
Mathieu Bouchard http://artengine.ca/matju
On Sat, 20 Dec 2003, B. Bogart wrote:
I do think that traditionally art has been more about dichotomy than dialectic but there does seem to be a contemporary interest in looking at things (art) beyond a dichotomy.
"Fuzzy logic" is a contemporary word, too =)
Congrats on the last semester, what were you studying?!
Numerical Analysis, Fourier Analysis, Group Theory, Differential Geometry.
I've been thinking about a second paper based on that first one, more concentrating on the idea of metaphor in relationship to information-media (hmmm I like that term much better than new-media).
If taking the word "media" as in communication theory, then "information media" sounds redundant, and even if you take it in the alternate meaning of "mass media" then "information media" still sounds redundant. Well you can argue that "mass media" is not about information, but then it depends on how you define "information"... (argh)
I think one of the core ideas of information technology (after symbolic representation) is the ability to transcribe from one system of symbols into another. George Lakoff talks about metaphor as a transference from one conceptual domain onto another.
In math, "homomorphism" is a mapping from one context to another such that (at least) part of the second one is (at least) partially equivalent to the first one. To me it's the formal equivalent of what an analogy is. That concept is very much useful in mathematics for connecting different contexts together and showing that things that apply to one context also apply to another, which is also the role of analogy in nonmathematical discourse. Analogy is, imho, the transference from one conceptual domain into another, and metaphor is an implied analogy where one part is implicit.
Oh course conceptions are what allow us to understand, identify and organize our world. My point was not the lack of conceptions, but perhaps the possibility that our conceptions are the world.
If you redefine the world as being our conceptions, then that is true, but the fact that our conceptions vary over time and from person to person according to things external to our conceptions, suggests that there is something else than our conceptions, and that something else was supposed to be called "the world", in the first place. So in the end it's just that we're pulling each other's definitions from under our feet.
That shifting of the meaning of the words "world", "reality", etc., is central to postmodernism: the denial of the world as a thing outside of ourselves. Deconstructing the narrative of postmodernism, I find that the meme "our conceptions are the world" is itself a power structure, and that in the opposition between "world" and "our conceptions", this power structure makes the latter dominant over the former, to the point that "our conceptions" is seen as better than "world", and the meaning of "world" shifts towards "our conceptions" (of it), such that the world seems, uh, less worldly.
It is my personal view that awareness is actually the creation of structure, perhaps from randomness.
No, becoming aware is the discovery of structure from what was previously seen as random or nonsignificant. That means the creation of additional structure in your conception from the existing previously-unnoticed structure in the things that you are observing.
Any sophists in the group?
Shht. I wish they do not show up.
Ah yes, noise is the absense of signal, so depending on what "signal" your looking for, the noise would be different. Is noise then a signal your not looking for?
Noise is the complement of signal, and signal is whatever you look for. If you look for something else, then for the same input, something else may be the signal and something else may be the noise. Since all we have is finite information, then we can construe anything into being interpretable and having a pattern and being a signal, but that creates expectations on what the following inputs will be, and so, if you made up a pattern that is not backed by enough data, you are likely to be disappointed/confused by the following inputs...
If you consider (theoretically) analyzing infinite amounts of information, then there are infinite inputs have an unanalyzable portion of infinite size, that has no pattern no matter how you put it. (This is closely related to "Skolem's paradox"). This may seem silly at first, as we can't analyse infinite amounts of information in the first place, but see it as a limit case of analysing ever more information instead: absolute noise gradually reveals itself as something that eventually refutes every pattern you may see in it.
(Am I being too heavy?)
Mathieu Bouchard http://artengine.ca/matju
On Sat, Dec 20, 2003 at 02:29:50PM -0500, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
Well you can argue that "mass media" is not about information, but then it depends on how you define "information"... (argh)
Mass media is mostly fiction, especially "information mass media".
"our conceptions" is seen as better than "world", and the meaning of "world" shifts towards "our conceptions" (of it), such that the world seems, uh, less worldly.
That's a good definition of mass media.
Any sophists in the group?
Shht. I wish they do not show up.
Hello! ;-)
absolute noise gradually reveals itself as something that eventually refutes every pattern you may see in it.
Another good definition of mass media; by being repetitive and nihilistic, its purpose is to mask any useful information.
(Am I being too heavy?)
Yes, but it's fun!
Marc
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