[-empyre-] Louis Bec text

["raquel renno" <raquel@influenza.etc.br>]

Dear empyre members:

Please find below a text from Louis Bec about Art/Cognition in english 
version...it's not really easy to find good translations of his texts, so 
that's why it took a while for me to sending it to you since I've just met 
him (and got the book) a couple days ago. A good reference for german 
readers is the book Vampyroteuthis Infernalis, wrote by Vilém Flusser about 
Bec's work. One of his latest projects (part of the EU's Culture 2000 
project Alterne) can be found at: http://www.alterne.info/node/41

I hope this interest you for our discussion yet other themes that emerged 
were extremely interesting and it would be great to keep them going.

Kind regards,

Raquel
____________________________________________

Art/cognition
Louis Bec
at Art Cognition, Marseille: Cyprès-Ecole d'art d'Aix-en-Provence, 1994

"It is common knowledge that the cognitive sciences embrace a multiplicity 
of disciplines, the major ones being the neurosciences, cognitive 
psychology, linguistics,epistemology and artificial inteligence.
We know too that their aim is the study of all systems of intelligent 
information processing,whatever their physical basis: that they attempt to 
describe and explain the principal cognitive capacities of the brains of 
human beings and animals; and that they construct models of the constituent 
elements of cognition - and of the behavior and interaction of these 
elements - from the sensorimotor level through to their most deeply symbolic 
manifestations, such as language and culture.
At the same time, what the various cognitive sciences have in common is 
something even more fundamental: a passionate quest for the relationship 
between mind and brain, and the vast range of models to which this can give 
rise. Yet when we consider the countless forms this quest takes, together 
with the range of ways and means, both natural and artificial, by which 
knowledge chooses to express itself, we find ourselves involved in something 
which goes far beyond the domain of the purely scientific.
In other words,while a researcher's task consists in developing scientific 
representations of the structures and processes of which knowledge is 
constitued, it must be acknowledged that the same ultimate goal can be 
pursued by quite different means.
These alternative approaches are equally valid and some of the models they 
have come up with go back in fact to the earliest times. Thuis they are at 
the very basis of human evolution and have aidedit in its successive phases, 
especially in respect of artistic expression and technological advance.
We can say then that artistic activity has its own specific role in the 
developmentof our humanity and that this role is a crucial one: for art 
focuses with a unique intensity on the laying bare of meaning by a complex 
use of symbolism, ceaselessly working towards representations and 
interpretations of the world we live in.
In our time it is partnered in its quest by developments arising out of 
computer-based simulations of cognitive processes undertaken at the most 
sophisticated scientific level. These processes are themselves underpinned 
by a continuosly renewed tradition of philosophical and epistemological 
questioning and by the extraordinary proliferation of outcomes emerging from 
the indissociable art/technology binomial.
And so it is in no way shocking or inappropriate that the subject be 
accorded some serious thought backed up by experiments exploring the 
relationship between the cognitive sciences and artistic activity; 
especially since the evolution of each is progressively more marled by the 
use of technological simulation, a factor tending overall to broaden and 
reinforce the similarities between them.
it remains for us,then,to arrive at a clear picture of the present nature of 
the radical epistemological and esthetic changes generated by their 
respective lines of development, at the same time as we foreground not only 
the innovative qualities of their relationship but also, in certain 
cases,the ways in which they have merged.
Firstly, it seems fair to say that the long and unproductive period of total 
separation between the arts and science/technoloy is well and truly over. 
All that was needed was to break down the dichotomy between imagination and 
rationality, between symbolic and logical thought. The means to this end was 
on the one hand to simulate the search for and expression of knowledge this 
side of any tangible outcomes,that is to say at the point - at the very core 
of the cognitive mechanism - where meaning emerges and tales shape;and on 
the other to bring to bear technological procedures whose setting is, 
rather, the social context.
Although this process of relocation has made possible the drawing-up of a 
useful typology of initial similarities and developmental divergences, it 
seems of minor import when compared to the crucial role art/cognition 
relationships appear to play.
If we are to understand this role, we must consider the present 
turning-point as marking the in the introduction of an adaptational tool; 
one capable firstly of bringing us to amore complete understanding of the 
radical changes being imposed in our societies via new modes of 
knowledge-gathering and expression; and secondly of preparing mankind,in 
respect of its sensory and intellectual structures, for a gradual adaptation 
to the consequences of that major redefinition of the living worlds which is 
presently taking place which is nothing less than a new anthropology.
The highly imaginative adaptative techniques such a tool can generate will 
be a necessary and decisive part of an inevitable refocusing of our patterns 
of understanding the world. Putting ot to work will allow us to look again 
at certain gaps in our knowledge, to update our acquaintance with the 
sensory and analytical apparatus of living systems and to venture into 
unknown territory: that of the adaptive responses demanded by the profound 
changes which ensue from the sudden appearance of a second, artificial 
nature in the midst of the initial,natural one.
This means that the resultant enormousvariety of models must be taken as 
veritable processing units and as such capable of maintaining the physical 
and mental viability of living systems. Thus it is that human activity as a 
whole is now involved in a collective and conscious strategy of imaginative 
adaptation.
Here we may have a partial explanation of the dual role of technological 
tools and of the reactions they provoke. For they can be taken on the one 
hand as the source of multiple realities giving rise to artificial contexts 
likely, in some cases, to be perceived as dangerous or hostile; or on the 
other, because of their ability to push human physical and intellectual 
capacities beyond the accepted limits, as adaptive solutions.
This is why the core functions of intelligence and adaptive behaviour- the 
neurosensory ,echanisms of sight, hearing,smell and movement - are currently 
the subject of so much research and meticulous simulation. It is the 
cognitive approach to different pathologies and handicaps that enables us to 
design the "extended" man of tomorrow, via a technologically boosted 
prototype.
It is in this sense that man/animal/machine relationships give rise to 
models of artificial systems which behave like autonomous cognitive agents, 
endowed with certain rational capacities and the ability to interact with 
unpredictable environments. Even the emotional sphere, long considered as 
made up of processes falling outside this area of research, is now included 
and its becoming one of the major paths currently being explored in respect 
of learning and adaptation.
It is here that we come face to face with the new dimension the cognitive 
sciences are adding to the long history of the relationships between 
science, art and technology. The knowledge as a group of parameters this 
become a true field of study in its own right and makes possible and 
ever-expanding range of individual experimentation.
Already certain artistic modes of functioning have opted for the breaking 
down of barriers and the questioning of establishing codes and approaches. 
The results include meaningful experimental shiftsand the beginning of vital 
imaginative implosions triggered by the application of hybrid technologies.
We could say that digital technology, in facilitating the creation of models 
of fictive worlds,allows the imagination in all its forms to take a fresh 
look at perception,at the interpretation of mental representations of 
objects and at multimodal practises bringing together images, sounds, 
languages and gestures. Artistic activity thus consciously introduces 
cross-currents into the mechanics of symbolical and analogical reasoning, 
the effect being to throw the question of reality wide open, to generate 
multiple points of view and to let the consequences of all this loose on 
modes of representation.
Out of this comes a sneakily multi-faceted examination of how variation 
functions whithin variability, of the effects and durability of 
memory-traces, of the triggering processes that allow us to differentiate 
automatic response patterns from cognitive reactions. The overall result is 
to add enormously to the contentof a fundamental debate embracing in its 
entirety the intuitive aspect of creativity.
This plunging of techno-artistics, with all its imaginative possibilities, 
into the universe of virtual realities and televirtuality, adds up to an 
exploration of the questions of spacial cognition, of the variety of modes 
of inner and outer-directed learning, of spatial and temporal environments, 
of perceptual and practical knowledge-gathering, of a digitally and 
symbolically mediated learning-process focusingon the creationof 
long-dreamed-of interactive landscapes.
The scope of artistic activity now also extends to the technology of 
intelligence in all its diversity and to the question of shared and 
collective intelligence. We're talking here about connectivity and 
networking, about laying down the ground-work for creativity seen as the 
expressive vector of a latent and multi-geared phenomenon.
Since artificial life research gives form to an immemorial obsession of 
western culture - the creation of life - it is inextricably bound up with 
the functioning of the imagination. Thus we have before us a hypozoology 
slipping out from  under standart zoology in the guise of cellular automata, 
genetic algorithms and robots capable of interaction with theur 
environments. In giving rise to "techno-ecological" niches and 
"techno-prebiotic" soups at the very core of the biomass, this hypozoology 
raises the question of a second Darwinian revolution.
Robotics, then, since it incorporates not only the cognitive shift from the 
biological to the technological, but also interaction between intelligent 
objects in intelligent environments, is nothing less than the logical 
outcome of kinetic sculpture.
While there is every possibility that the cognitive sciences can come up 
with new interpretations of the mechanics of creativity, it is equally true 
that they can no longer ignore the extent to which artistic advances are 
penetrating and transforming them via an input that is no less important on 
the theoretical than on the practical level. Conversely artistic practise, 
in its representation or interpretation of the perceived world, cannot 
expect to escape the influence of the cognitive sciences, especially if it 
is art is considered as a means to knowledge; especially if it is considered 
as capable of imparting form to matter in all possible contexts; and 
especially if the artistic enterprise is considered as a conscious 
exploration of the now and why of creativity, the how and why of those 
symbolic representations through which the making of all artefacts must 
pass. See thus the cognitive sciences cease to be merely explicative and 
become a  creative well-spring, a take-off point for the imagination
Basicly what is at stake is a search for meaning: a search demanding 
rigorousness and a sense or urgency and one that is vitally necessary if we 
are to resist the current versions of obscurantism, fanaticism and 
technocracy tyranny.
The search for meaning is always political.