Exploring Information and Art Communication: Insights into Levels and Meaning

1. Lecture 3: 256 Information & Art

2. Communication (Weaver) • When a truck picks up a cargo in New Orleans and delivers it to Baltimore, communication has happened. • When someone steps out onto the beach and the salt air touches their nose and the smell of the ocean comes into their mind, communication has happened. • When two stray cats meet for sex in an alley in Los Angeles, communication has happened. • When a child having breakfast in Phoenix and reads the back of a cereal box, communication has happened. • When a computer in New York City calls up a computer in Tokyo and transmits a message, communication has happened

3. 3 Levels of Communication (Weaver) • TECHNICAL: • How accurately can the symbols of communication be transmitted? • Concerned with the accuracy of the transfer • SEMANTIC: How precisely do the transmitted symbols convey the desired meaning? • Concerned with satisfactorily close approximation in the interpretation of meaning by the receiver, as compared with the intended meaning of the sender • EFFECTIVENESS: • How effectively does the received meaning affect conduct in the desired way? • Problem of effectiveness involves aesthetic considerations in fine arts • Involves mechanics of style, psychological, emotional aspects and other values

4. Shannon’s Information Theory • Applies only to the technical problem of accuracy • But impact on semantic and effectiveness • Any limitations in A impacts on B and C • Weaver argues that A is also a theory of B and C

5. Information & Meaning • In Information Theory, information not to be confused with meaning • Meaning and nonsense may have equivalent information value • Semantic aspects irrelevant to the engineering aspects • “Not what you say, but what you could say” • Information, a measure of one’s freedom of choice when selecting a message • More information with greater the choices

6. For Later Discussion (p10-19) • Probability, Entropy potential for artistic procedure • Markov Processes • Noise

7. Weaver: Semantic Receiver, Semantic noise • Semantic receiver inserted between message and receiver subjects message to 2nd level decoding • Match between statistical semantic characteristics of message to the totality of receivers • Semantic noise inserted between message and transmitter • Decoding must take this into account • Sum of message meaning + semantic noise = desired total message

8. Capacity Issues • Error and confusion arise, fidelity decreases with too much info through a channel • Take into account capacity of channel, but also capacity of receiver/audience

9. Information Theory for Art (to be further dev…) • A model with recognizable features (signal, noise, order, chaos, transmission, encoding, decoding, reception) • Relationship of Signal to Noise has metaphoric potential (art allows for deviation, re-interpretation, metaphoric appropriation) • Art leans towards noise, or the play between signal and noise as aesthetic material • Information Theory provides methodologies by which to address semantic interpretation (Humanities studies cultural interpretation of messages)

10. Historical Transition in Artistic Visualization • Second industrial revolution (1850 onwards) displaced the historical function of painting to visually represent the world • Culprits: camera (realistic optical representation), lithographic printing press (multiplicity), railway system (access to other places, countryside, etc.) • Painting had to reinvent itself. Shifted focus to the language of painting, and the logical perspective of the artist rather then the world • Monet Haystacks at Sunrise Series, 1890-1981

11. Abstraction • Art & Painting Became Abstract in the 1910’s • Kazimir Malevich, Soviet Constructivism, 1910 • Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, Conceptual, 1917 • Luigi Russolo, Art of Noise, Futurism, 1930’s (sound) • Jackson Pollock, Abstract Expressionism, 1940s

12. Art & Chance-Imagery • “A throw of the dice will never abolish chance”, Mallarme, symbolist poet (1842-1898) • Marcel Duchamp: 3 Standard Stoppages, 1913, (mechanical chance processes) • Duchamp dropped three threads, each a meter long, on to the same number of Prussian blue cloths/canvas. Then they were stuck to the surfaces without any adjustments to the curves that chance dictated they fell into. He then cut up the cloth and stuck it to glass plates

13. George Brecht, in “Chance-Imagery” (1957) • Fluxus artist addresses the role of chance in art • Chance-images characterized by lack of conscious design, a method to override subjectivity • Aesthetic decisions through tossing of coin, dice: visual form developed through consecutive sets of two random numbers (RAND Corp, published numbers) • Chance: a means to attain greater generality • http://www.ubu.com/historical/gb/brecht_chance.pdf

14. Artistic Possibilities • John Simonhttp://www.numeral.com/eicon.html • http://www.earstudio.com/projects/listeningpost.html?middle=listening_middle.html (Listening Post) • http://textarc.org/ (Paley) • http://www.marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/ • http://www.txtkit.sw.ofcd.com/ • http://jevbratt.com/projects.html • http://128.111.69.4/~jevbratt/1_to_1/3/migration/ • http://www.ima.fa.geidai.ac.jp/trdproj/TAP2000-E/trap/nishijima.html • http://images.google.com/images?q=particle+tracks&ie=ISO-8859-1&hl=en (particle tracking) • http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/info_spaces.html