[-empyre-] (no subject)

[cingraha@pratt.edu]

Regarding Kevin and others' discussion of the nature of the senses and how
instrumental or not our approach to sensory art might be, I think
information theory has given us an interesting way of understanding what
is called collective intelligence--that is, the way the senses work off
each other and, more importantly, are ratified by the senses of others
around us.  The "I saw it" is verified by the "so did I" which is
interrogated by the "but it didn't sound like that" etc. Information is
gathered from everywhere and any given moment of "sense" is constructed
from unimaginably small clues and actions that knit the senses together. 
If one sense is blocked the others become hyper-tuned. 
Instrumentality--probing the nature of attention, distracted or otherwise,
and asking for something or someone to react in a particular
way--qualifies all critical art practices as well as architectural work of
all kinds.  The question for me is how finely tuned can we make the
instrument--can the instrumental process or interview or auditory
installation or interactive skin be smart enough to respond to or gather
in aspects of the collective intelligence at work in the situation?  And
the reverse.  How deeply can we refrain from abusing one sense in the
interest of another--visuality at the expense of the auditory, auditory at
the expense of something else?

Catherine Ingraham