Dear Simon and all,
Even though I usually raise my musicians voice in this forum - for now I
would like to raise the preachers voice:
You wrote " language is itself a discrete system". I would very much like to
simply disagree (without opening up the whole can of words and postioning
this as a preachers' voice). This maybe rooted in me misunderstanding the
term "discrete" as you may use it. Certainly in their written form, letters
and words are made up of discrete elements - but that may not give any clue
to what language is.
As you mentioned Terry Winograd, in his book with Fernando Flores,
Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design, he made
the case - if I remember correctly from back then - that natural languages
could never be made to coincide/be congruent with formal languages because
the use of words implies "contracts" which are established between those
using the words - and contracts can change at any point in time in a rather
in-discrete manner. And he relates heavily to Heidegger who I think might
imply rather drastically an opposite to language as a discrete system . I
always thought that this book actually documented a turning point in
Winograd's research about natural languages.
But I am writing about something I don't have any academic credentials in.
So it might need to be taken with a grain of salt or sugar.
Johannes
On 3/22/11 4:29 PM, "Simon Biggs" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Great post Andy.
>
> Nice to think you consider me well educated - but like you, I am an
> autodidact. I left school at 16 to go surfing and never went back. I don't
> think that formal education is necessarily the best way to learn, even
> though I've worked in Universities, on and off, for many years. The most
> important thing about universities is that they are relatively safe places
> where you can experiment and take risks that would be difficult in the world
> of industry or commerce. For students it is a short-lived opportunity of
> perhaps only a few years. For those who work in universities it is great to
> sustain that sense of play and adventure - although there is a lot of crap
> on the downside too.
>
> The question as to whether it is important if something is digital or
> analogue depends on a number of factors. For my own practice it is an
> important issue. Medium specificity is important in my practice, especially
> the role of code and the semi-autonomous character of the works that I make.
> They are not stable objects or artefacts in the sense that many artworks
> are. They manifest as temporary instances of events that function in the
> performative. Their purpose is to be part of other events and to transform
> and/or reveal something in that mix. This could be done with analogue media
> but given that nearly all computers are digital it's unlikely. My father is
> a first generation computer scientist and he worked for two decades or more
> with analogue computers. His area was real-time mathematical modelling of
> rockets and until the 70's digital systems were not fast enough to do that
> work. Since the 70's he has worked with digital systems though as they are
> more controllable and flexible.
>
> However, there is more to the digital than computers. If, as Alan and I
> discussed, the digital is a subset of the discrete and language is itself a
> discrete system then either discrete systems are a subset of language or
> language a sub-set of the discrete. I would suggest the latter. The question
> then arises whether digital systems are within the set of languages or an
> overlapping set. I would suggest the former. Terry Winograd proposed that
> computers are writing machines - simple, nothing else, machines that are
> writing. Not machines for writing (although they can be used for that) but
> machines that are writing. Hayles also has some nice thoughts on this topic.
>
> If you are an artist who is interested in writing as well as automation (and
> all the subsequent questions around agency and representation) then the
> digital (or otherwise) status of the medium becomes critically important. It
> is part of the conceptual architecture of the work, part of its ontology.
>
> However, not all artists who use computers are interested in this stuff.
>
> Best
>
> Simon
>
>
> On 22/03/2011 13:39, "andy gracie" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Hi all
>> A few more random-ish thoughts on this subject.
>> As much as I'm enjoying reading the thoughts of people much more
>> educated than I am, like Sean, Simon, Ele... just about everybody in
>> fact; deep down I'm still questioning the need to search for
>> definitions of analogue and digital, as well as many other terms that
>> are used to refer to certain kinds of cultural activity, creativity
>> or 'art'. Is it just a convenience, so we can say łthats what that
>> is˛ and łthats what this is˛? Or do we really need to pin it down for
>> other reasons? Obviously in the harsh world of day to day survival we
>> need to be able to communicate the difference between bread and
>> molten rock clearly and with precision, but in the world of the arts,
>> culture and society i'm still not convinced its so necessary. The
>> very term 'new media art' is obviously referring to works that are
>> now using media developed in the last century, so beyond being a
>> handy peg to hang things on its basically meaningless. I feel that
>> trying to pin down what kind of media or form of expression an artist
>> is using mainly serves to direct us away from what the work actually
>> is... what it represents, what it means, etc etc. Unfortunately,
>> being a not very educated, autodidactic, non-acedemic i'm struggling
>> for juicy quotes to back this idea up. Obviously its no ground-
>> breaker though.
>> I think an idea which has been emerging is that its actually very
>> difficult to seperate the two, and that the two may in fact be a one.
>> Maybe unless an artist is specifically using their work to dicuss
>> dichotomies between analogue and digital process (and again, someone
>> would need to help me come up with examples of such work), then we
>> should accept that there is a 'third thing' formed by the use of
>> combined media and processes and enjoy the work on more important
>> levels.
>> As has been mentioned, our way of perceiving, interacting with and
>> enjoying art is pretty much analogue anyway. My computer uses digital
>> processes but it is an analogue thing. I can't touch or get direct
>> physical feedback from what's happening inside it, I can't get my
>> fingers in there and manipulate the processes as they happen. The
>> purely digital is seperate from us, inaccessible and alien. Maybe
>> people like Stelarc and Kevin Warwick are closer to dissolving this
>> barrier, but most of us need some kind of haptic and therefore
>> analogue - feedback to perceive what is happening digitally.
>> Finally, I was reading this morning that progress is being made with
>> quantum computing with the development of the RezQu architecture
>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811199. There have
>> already been some beautiful references to the strange continuities
>> and wackiness that happens once we approach the quantum level, and
>> I'm certainly looking forward to the discussions on 'Analogue/Digital/
>> Quantum' art that we will be having in a decade or two's time...
>> Best
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> ||||<web>|||||::: hostprods dot net
>> ||||<blog>|||||::: hostdev dot wordpress dot com
>>
>
>
> Simon Biggs
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.littlepig.org.uk/
>
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.elmcip.net/
> http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/
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