Is digital an efficient motto
To appreciate the importance of the term "digital" as an efficient term in communication about digital art, we shall try here to look at the various aspects of the concept. We shall go, rather informally, from the old to the new, which more or less goes along with the simple and the complex. An hence we shall propose some projections and stragegic elements.
Digital properly speaking was borne with the electronic computers and the Von Neumann era. But it was a new stage in a long history of pre-digital conceptual pairs, such as continuous/discrete. History is a sort of dialectics between these opposite poles, and others like formal/informal, logic/analog, algebraic/geometric...
History
Emergence and waning of digital
Morse/telephone
as other technologies. Iron hinges for home furniture.
Framgementation is perceivent only at definite levels. specially text.
the window. My Rox program.
Degré d'inclination à partir duquel un objet cmmence à couler sur un plan.
Singularité. Black hole.
Big bang, quanta and atoms.
Thresholding
Typically, triggering of a behavior, or choice between two behaviors. (Flee/Attack).
The complex analog forms can be replaced by simple ones (Lorenz), some pixels.
Decision
Finite by definition. Cut.
Sometimes, decision not to decide (about life an death)
Images
Vectorial screens. Pixelization.
Cinema and video
The basic fragmentation. Illusion (Bergson, Deleuze)
The second fragmenation. (Eisenstein, Lawson).
HD
Objects
Typically, the clock and the wristwatch.
Jaquet-Droz and Le Boucher
3D Printing
Sculpture.
Not representations.
Miguel Chevalier
Voluntary digitization. Find back the arist
Machines
Machina quae dividit.
The gear, a specirif combination of continuous/discontinuous.
The mill
Psychology
Emotion as a suspension of reason
Politics
The terrigories.
Cadastre
City and its walls.
Power separation
Digital properly speaking
Back to analog with large numbers
Formal languages
Art
unpublished resonance
Writing/speaking
Painting
Alternance, codification/realism
Pompier/Ingres, a summit
Then cubism. analtic.
Then forms generaion. Schillinger.
The first, very "digital"
The path opened by abstraction.
Fantasia
Mohr/Molnar, the series in
De Cambiaire
Then matte painting. HD. (3D)
Algorists
Cinema
The FPS Level, the mounting level. The pixel level.
1992 marvels. Ses history of 3D.
Fantasia.
Abstarc inema
In music, the fragmentation is perceived, rythm.
Emission : instruments
Peception: the ear, the correspondence with the heart beat
Abstract considerations
A mode of relation
You can process a digital object like a book or a CD like an analog one: throw them to the dustbin, for example.
You can use digitally an object: consider that a black sail annouces death, for example.
(here the 4. subchapter. and the real line R.
The infinites
Recursion
as resonance, a cyclical structure. refer to frequency.
The computer program loop has a frequency linked to the power of the processor and the complexity of the loop.
In a recursive loop, the loop duration is not constant. Varies with the successive iterations. May be constant (xi +1 = xI). Or appear constant, as long as the values stay within ghe limits of an integer/word.
originality is recursive
Discrete/contiunous and the NC
A 19th century idea to preserve religion against science.
The Duprat layers.
Continuity as a "vue de l'esprit"
Connexion by large numbers.
The NC by large numbers, exceeding the capacity of one side (mainly reception?)
Conversions
From continuous to digital
A/D conversion
analysis
vector/raster
descriptibe geometry
Evolution. The sand heap.
Triggering.
From digital to continuous
D/A. a NC, somehow. You are never (?) sure to get back the original.
Re-introduction
HD, Antialiasing. Shading and textures
On seome printers.
HD, antialiasing, seamless
Averaging systems, mulitpilicity
Swarm.
Temparature/pressure . A sensor? etc.
Continuity/discontinuty in knowledge and history
Time division. Machina quae dividit horas. A fragmentation of time.
It is naturally fragmented. The natural fragmentation. plus more complex ones. Going to Anticythere mechamism
Periodization. Revolution. Historic breaks : Renaissance, REvolution. Wars.
NC
Irreductibility of different sciences.
Emotion is a loss of rationality, at least for some duration. Any true emotion is a sort of "small death", a suspension of discursive abilities. Sublime.
Good and bad emotions.
This suspension of rationality is comparable to the flat points in Lauzun algorithms.
The intimate conviction of the judge.
Nor properly random...
Emotion may lead, due to this suspension, to hiegher levels of rationality.
Emotion is not basic random.
Society
Privacy as a NC. Individual freedom.
Power separation
Quantities and measurement
The number of bits (or symbols) we can master.
Beyond, we have to chunk.
Below, its boring, or we have to combine with ohers.
Quantities of bits (6 in DU). One bit, several bits. Hardware and soffware associations.
redundancy, compressin, glitch
Strong fragmentation goes to continuity. Powder. Grinding the colors. HD.
Infinity and reductionism. Unspeakable
Down to the limits of matter possibilities.
Quantum computing. DNA computing.
For large assemblies, we have to accept some kind of loss. Foreing Affaire, Souverainists.
Paul, It's no longer I who lives, Galatian 2, 19-20. Extreme : ultra, COC (BOF : believe, obey, figtht).
Measure the complexity of analog? Quantity of equivalent digital ? Count the llops. Hmeter (here with thresholding).
Baiscally, such a measure is thresholding : the equivalence.
You can measure the complexity not of all the stimulating object but of the behavior.
More exactly, count the complexity of behavior cases.
Reproduction
The meme. Analog reproduction. Digital. Genetic.
Similarity and distance
Information is a differente able to procuce a difference.
Outgrow one's own definition. Ni Dieu ni maitre. Ni Dieu ni gènes.
Similarity, difference, distance, recognition
Similarity
Not a binary concept
Information as a difference able to reproduce a difference.
The Dawkins meme. Memetics. Is a meme necessarily digital.
Reproduction in the life form. Similarity. Broken by the crossover system. Sexual reproduction is a renouncement to mere self continuation.
Recognition goes into a finite series of objects through a feature space, which may be continuous. Typically a D/A function.
Symmetric function: set of models for each form.
Typical recognition: species, animals and men. Gn II.
Voronoi spaces. The nodes, the borders. NC.
Difference is a difficult concept. Deleuze.
Resonance
Digital if the damp factor is 0.
resonance.
more binary if you lower the damping factor
Resonance, demands originality, at least for human minds. We do not resonate indefinetely on the same stimulus.
Actually, each new work changes the resonance.
The damping factor.
Future and strategy
Probably a continuation of the dialectics. discrete/continuous
The singularity
Acceleration.
Digital art, you live with it.
Arguments for showing
Arguments for hiding
Conclusions
DICCAN'S PARTNERS:
Paris ACM Siggraph, the French chapter of ACM Siggraph, worldwide non-profit organization of computer graphics.
Les Algoristes, an association of artists using their own algorithms in their work.
