[-empyre-] An indecipherable communication?: Gaia and sonic topologies

[Christina McPhee <christina112@earthlink.net>]

Dear Empyreans,

I was interested by Allessandro's remarks a couple of weeks ago in exchange
with Barrie and others. He and Barrie seemed to touch on something that
compels my own practice -- the matter of the invisible or indecipherable
'code' or system' on the one hand, and its immanence, or presence, in the
mediated gesture of a specific art; and how might it be thought of as a
'natural' gesture coming from the system of Earth itself (gaia).

Imagine interpolated virtual and actual spaces thrive and decay, die and
live in a riparian zone, watered by pervasive computing As a neural
territory or intelligent topology, the net acts as if alive. As a place of
continuous ruin and simultaneous regeneration, the networked space of
electronic communications is re-presenting, itself.  A semiotic model may
offer us the net as a subjective topology,  a synaptic process-space. This
space is not silent. Semiotically, it ?voices¹ itself. A model of the net as
a live voice finds some echo in analogy to the Gaia hypothesis on the nature
of the physical landscape. As life, Gaia persistently self-represents, or
emits information about herself [1]. This is an old idea in new dress. ³Day
by day pours forth speech,² declares the Psalmist. In semiotic terms, a
landscape of voice or self-expressive phenomena, as actual, real
information?is both a data landscape and  sonic topology.
 

Let us intuit the structure, or topology of data streams, whether in the
electronic or in the natural ecosystem, as an invisible domain that persists
over, and through discontinuities. The leap across the breaks, or
breakdowns, can be expressed musically by means of formal structures of
recursion and feedback loops, as in classic cybernetic theory, but also as
in Baroque fugue structures. I imagine recursion and flow, between natural
data and human/machine, an interpolated, mutual consciousness.  The place of
flow is sonically expressive.
 

As a visual artist, one may turn a gaze to what cannot be ?seen¹. Here we
move into a zone of the sublime. Sublimity refers to that which is below,
beyond or immanent relative to an ontological or cognitive threshold. I
assume that there is a way of expressing this indeterminate zone, or
invisible condition, in both the realms of the physical, cultural landscape
and in the interior, ³behind the screen² landscape of the net.

 
As an ecosystem, the data landscape may be described as continually subject
to entropy, following the second law of thermodynamics. Life itself may be
thought of arising, like a phoenix from ashes, as an articulate resistance
to  entropy.  A continuous dialectic between entropy and the architectural
self-structuring process of life means that homeostasis is predicated on
breakdown, or ruin. Data stream is not always continuous.  Scientific
instrumentation for measurement and transmission of physical data may fail.
Anomalies of landscape data are not always explicable based on known models.
Humans struggle with the limitations of their bodies, including, fatigue,
inattention, illness and mortality.  A telemimetic aesthetic of the sense of
place in the data landscape accommodates breakdown of the ?language¹ of
information streams. This is true as much for electronic cultural topologies
of the net as for the physical This is true as much for electronic cultural
topologies of the net as for the physical landscape of our planet.

 
A poetics of entropy and growth proceeds analogically to forms of recursion
and feedback loops, as in the art of fugue.   I imagine recursion and flow,
between natural data and human/machine, an interpolated, mutual
consciousness.

Christina-- 



Transmedia artist


<www.christinamcphee.net>
<www.naxsmash.net>


Adjunct faculty, Department of Architecture, c/o Hargrave Studio, California
Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, California




>>  This is a very interesting conjecture. Gestural drawing, isn't all drawing
>>  gestural? Gestural drawing has traditionally, I presume, an immediacy that
>>  allows for *un-premeditated* marks to be made. So, where is the language in
>>  this, symbolism? shape of the mark? metaphore? Mood/emotional state would
>>  seem to be an important aspect of this way of making a drawing. What rules,
>>  if any does Twombly apply in the way he works? These would effect outcome;
>>  Present centered being? Systems art concepts?
>>
>Why must there _necessarily_ be either system or code behind Twombly? Does
>art _necessarily_ imply language, or even a coherent 'reading,' or even a
>'reading' of any kind?
>
>Art may well be mute, inert; it need not be readable. Perhaps the surplus
>of painting is that indecipherable core, which may or may not rise to the
>surface as well.

Perhaps, even if one of my personal methods is to trying to see
things with an alien eye.

If the same binary information could be read as text, programming
code, movie, sound (many musicians like Massimo worked in this
field), that should be even other possible intepretations, unknown
now.

And intertia would be one of them

Gaia theory, anyone?
It's just another point of view: the earth as a global sentient
organism and the humanity as cells of this (sorry for simplifing too
much, perhaps).