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The Vitality of Digital Creation

Author(s): Timothy BinkleySource: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 55, No. 2, Perspectives on the Artsand Technology (Spring, 1997), pp. 107-116Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The American Society for AestheticsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/431257Accessed: 15/11/2009 18:53

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TIMOTHY BINKLEY

The Vitality of Digital Creation

I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess.-Donna Harraway

I. NUMBERS INVIGORATE PICTURES

Since numbers and pictures are diametric oppo-sites, digital images are at first glance improba-ble players in the drama of culture. An image is

a visible percept concretely embodied in a phys-ical object. A number s an invisible concept ab-stractly designated by formal symbols. The aes-thetic principles that guide our appreciation ofpictures have no relevance to plying digits, andthe mathematical ules that govern reasoned or-mulae have no bearing on understanding art."Paint by number" s a derisive appellation inthe halls of high art, alluding to the idle parlorpastime that mindlessly fabricates vapid objectsworthy of artistic ridicule. A "digital mage" istrifling if not oxymoronic.

Despite this apparent contrariety, computershave rapidly infiltrated everyday communica-tions where they routinely ngest, digest, and re-gurgitate vast amounts of digital imagery, alongwith many other types of information ncludingtext, sound, and numerical data. Computer-as-sisted pictures are filling the theater of civiliza-tion-sometimes surreptitiously-as they playgrowing roles in magazines, classrooms, cine-mas, homes, banks, arcades, ... and even in artmuseums and artist's studios. Indeed, the im-pact on art is sufficiently developed to warrant acover article in ARTnews nnouncing hat "com-puters are transforming the way images aremade, objects are studied, and visitors view pic-tures."1 We read that "the digital revolution, n arainbow of 16 million colors, has arrived."2 nthe short span of two decades, the look of com-puter art has evolved from austere to lusciousand it is creating new roles for art as it also sup-plants some of the techniques employed in tra-ditional art making. A computer can streamlineand expedite tedious manual tasks to increase

the artist's creative potential. But more impor-

tant, it augurs novel scenarios or working, play-ing, and knowing that have yet to unfold.

For better and for worse, the changes being

wrought by our increasing involvement withcomputers promise to be far-reaching. We arenot simply creating a revolution n art, but areoverhauling he foundations of culture. The con-sequences of digitizing our discourses encom-pass not only expanded creative phenomena, butalso extended interconnections between art andthe rest of culture as we interact more frequentlyand more fully with each other across geo-graphic, political, and cultural boundaries. Eu-rope and Japan have made significant strides o-ward networking heir citizens with high-speeddigital communication inks, and a new govern-ment initiative in the United States seeks a na-tional fiber optic "highway" that will openfloodgates of data from around the world andfurther shrink he circle of the "global village."3

Visual data are paramount n shaping the in-terface as well as supplying the content for thisnetwork. Since the amount of information con-tained in images tends to be massive, computer-ized high-bandwidth4 inks make it possible toshare them as never before. Moreover, picturesare superbly demonstrative nd eminently com-putable, transcending he parochial limitationsof natural languages. They are now likely toplay increasingly larger roles in all types ofcommunication since they are becoming mucheasier to make and to move.

Digital images are no more or less paradoxi-cal than thinking machines. Computers can beenigmatic because they challenge some of themost fundamental tenets of Western civiliza-tion, from ontological presuppositions aboutwhat exists to epistemological presumptions

about how to find out.5 They also stage riddlesThe Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 55:2 Spring 1997


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The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

to the common sense forged by centuries of ex-perience through the eyes of Western philoso-phy. An automobile that talks to you abrogatesthe mind/matter barrier but also engenders an

unnerving eeling that your quotidian axonomyis crumbling. Problems about understandingdigital technology lurk in the long shadows castby a still colossal Platonic dualism. Despite theforcefulness of a variety of recent philosophicalattacks, everyday language still harbors di-chotomous residues cleaving mind from matter,representation rom reality, and emotion fromcognition. As a result, we will continue speak-ing about computers n paradoxes until our lan-guage catches up with our creativity.

The fortitude of computers in resisting thedaunting weight of so much history comes inlarge measure from the way they are able toamalgamate he affective power of illusionisticimages with the ideational responsiveness of au-tomated calculation. Machines that figure canplay dual roles. Digital technology challengesdualism by spawning nimble avatars of holismconceived from a cross-pollination of scienceand art. We are constructing silicon bridgesacross time-honored mental abysses.

Despite its novelty, the digital revolution

builds upon long-standing, f sometimes misun-derstood, traditions n the arts. The backgroundout of which digital images vigorously leap isinsightfully described by David Freedberg inThe Power of Images. He delineates numerousexamples from different periods where imageshave been endowed with a variety of primitivepowers, from healing the sick and saving thedamned to arousing the lascivious. QuotingNelson Goodman, he explains how "the domi-neering dichotomy between the cognitive andthe emotive"6 has prevented us from recogniz-

ing this power. Because of our predisposition o-ward the same dualism that computers chal-lenge, we have failed to acknowledge universalhuman responses to images throughout history,in many different cultures, both inside and out-side the context of art.

At the heart of Freedberg's rgument s the re-alization that "representation s subsumed bypresence."7 This is explained in an interestinganecdote about how he became angry at theMadonna, and not simply at her likeness, uponbeing disappointed in a sculpture after a longand arduous hike to see it. He details at great

length many other emotional responses to pic-tures that are predicated on seeing through arepresentation o make its subject present. Thisis why people pray to a statue or lust after a pho-tograph. In each case, the spectator elides thephysical representation to enter the spiritualpresence. t is this ability o make the absent pres-ent that allows us vicariously o travel the worldfrom an easy chair and have feelings about itthrough he voyeurism of magazines and televi-sion. From empathizing with the anguish of thestarved, o being awed by the feats of a gymnast,our reactions tell of an experience that is morelike having the subject of a representation be-fore us than merely her transported ikeness.

For Freedberg, he key to understanding heinfluence images exercise over us is their abilityto re-present what they represent. The distinc-tion between representation nd reality does notalways function as an impediment to beingmoved by a depicted person or event.8 The artis-tic medium often barricades reality from repre-sentation only for the sake of preserving it.Sometimes an image encourages us to bask inthe transcribed presence of its subject as tracesof her existence are lodged in a medium thatspirits her visage across space and time.

By thoroughly studying the history of humanresponses to images, Freedberg detected manyfactors that question a tidy separation of intel-lect and emotion and highlight the need "to ac-knowledge the role of sensation n knowledge."9But computers press this challenge to dualismmuch more deeply as they interpenetrate heimage and the viewer to merge representationand reality in a new way.

Computers affect us, in part, because imagesdo. But computers upersede our modern mage-drenched culture of magazines and movies be-cause we can influence them to act in responseto us. Digital representations not only possess apower to move us borrowed from their analogpredecessors, they also contain a vitality whichenables them to engage us in unique and per-sonal interactive experiences. If images maketheir subjects present to us, digital representa-tions make us present to them. The computeropens up our image-saturated ulture o a virtualuniverse composed of numbers that are oddlycapable of reaching out to us. Our individualpresences are delivered to the subjects of digitalrepresentations, and vice versa, as they engage

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Binkley The Vitality of Digital Creation

us in dialogue. Digital images transcend powerto achieve vitality.

At the source of all this activity are two closelyrelated ransformations: he replacement of ana-log with digital media, accompanied by a shiftfrom mechanical to computational models oftechnological problem-solving. Two main con-cepts characterize hese changes: virtuality andinteractivity.

II. THE VIRTUAL REALITY OF DIGITAL MEDIA

Throughout he ages, analog media have set thestage where artists petition posterity for a placein history. From the earliest cave paintings andstone

carvingsto the

contemporary"mass

media" epitomized by television, matter hasbeen shaped nto forms as a means of transport-ing messages across space and time. Digitalmedia are relatively new players n the drama ofculture, and their methods for managing infor-mation are fundamentally different. Analogmedia are primed or imprint, while digital onesare structured o symbolize. One is focused onconcrete preservation and presentation, theother on abstract storage and manipulation. Al-though digital technologies can be excellent

mimics of analog ones, their functionality ismore diverse. In brief, analog media are pre-pared to receive and preserve traces of eventswhile digital media are formatted to store andprocess symbols of numbers.

Both types of media can be used to representreality, but they do it in quite different ways.What is a representation? n visual art contexts,the word conjures up images of pictures. TheMona Lisa represents someone sporting anenigmatic smile; Guernica represents a hideousmassacre. In mathematics and science, however,representations end to be abstractions hat aremore descriptive than depictive. At their mostgrand, they are theories; frequently they are di-agrams; and at their humblest they are simplyraw data.

These are two radically different ways to rep-resent information about the world. A person'sappearance s represented n a photograph hatqualitatively depicts her visage, while height andweight are represented by numerical measure-ments that quantitatively capture more clinicaltraits. We can see her in the picture, but we canonly infer her from the numbers. She may look

gaunt, but her height and weight might ead us toconclude that she is fit instead. Appearancespossess an incommensurable particularity hatnumbers ack, but the generality of mathemati-cal structures makes them tools for inferenceand frameworks or theory.

An analog medium is usually primed into asmooth tabula rasa as preparation or it to re-ceive an imprint of creative activity. The artis-tic gesture maculates a smooth continuum. Theresulting echo is an analogue of the realityechoed: it tends to have curves where its sourcehas curves and is straight where the original is.The reason for this similarity s that informationis essentially transcribed rom one physical ma-terial to another. A direct physical impressionmoves information from a subject to its analogrepresentation. The camera s the apotheosis ofanalog representation, as it uses light to traceshapes of objects instantly onto film.'0 Simi-larly, analog music recordings on cassette tran-scribe fluctuations of sound waves through theair into fluctuations of electrons which are thentranscribed again into varying magnetic fieldson tape. Each analog medium is grounded n aparticular material substrate where imprints arepressed to transcribe orm from one substance o

another.Digital representations, on the other hand,take measurements rather than impressions ofwhat they represent: their goal is mensurationrather han maculation. To achieve their trans-aesthetic epiphany, they convert informationfrom material nto numerical ntities rather hantranscribing t from one physical substance ntoanother. For example, analog video transcribeslight into electric current, while digital videoconverts light into pure numbers dissociatedfrom any physical unit. An analog mediumtransfers shape to produce an analogue of onephysical arrangement n another, analogous one.But digital media transform physical form intoconceptual structure. A shape or color is con-verted into a number whose symbol is then in-scribed on a ledger so that t can subsequently beascertained by a machine or a person. The ma-terial out of which this ledger is constructed sincidental to the information stored, unlike theconstitutive material defining an analog me-dium. Regnant echnologies today use electronscirculating through silicon chips and iron oxideon magnetic disks, but optical disks are rapidly

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overtaking their short-lived predecessors, andoptical computers hat use light instead of elec-tricity to perform computations and store the re-sults are under development. And based on the

promising if surprising results of recent experi-ments, biochemistry may become the next me-dium for even faster computation.1l All digitalmedia are equally capable of producing identi-cal results since their roles lie in abstract sym-bols and not in concrete materials. It is also rel-atively easy to move from one digital medium toanother. For example, one can switch from mag-netic to optical disks by connecting the appro-priate disk drive to your computer. Compare hisfacility with the notorious difficulty in replicat-ing the look of a painting on the printed page ofa book.

Of course, one cannot store a number withoutusing some kind of physical object. But the sub-stance itself is of secondary mportance n a dig-ital medium since numbers are not inherentlymaterial entities. Symbols written on paper oron a computer disk are conventional marks es-tablished by a culture o stand for conceptual ob-jects. A number is an abstraction that can bedesignated n a variety of different symbolic sys-tems. A number symbol is sometimes called a

type,while the various ndividual

nscriptionsof

it are tokens of the type. The symbol type "II"was the Roman way to record the same numberreferred o by "10" n the binary system used bycomputers, which is called "2" n many contem-porary languages. Each time someone writes aparticular "2" in pencil, chalk, or ink, a newtoken is created which instances the same sym-bol type. The inscriptions written onto a digitalmedium as magnetic blips are tokens of numbertypes, albeit tokens that are usually readableonly by a machine. And all of these tokens ulti-

mately refer to the same concept, the numbertwo.In contrast, the inscriptions made in analog

media record physical traces of events that donot betoken concepts. This is true even whenthey must be played back by a machine to beseen or heard. For example, a video tape playersimply transcribes magnetic analogue of soundsand images to recreate something perceivable,and does not treat he recorded signals as havingany symbolic function.

The fundamental purpose of an analogmedium is to preserve and present specific per-

ceptual displays. These two functions coalescein the material substance of the medium. Evenwhen storage and display activities are sepa-rated-as in the cinema, which dedicates film

vaults and movie theaters to each respectivefunction-they are tied together in a celluloid-based iaison neither can escape. You cannot playa videotape in a film projector, and vice versa.To get from film to video, you need a character-istically analog transcription: ou need to video-tape the film. In a digital medium, by contrast,the two functions of storing and displaying in-formation are relatively independent. The fun-damental purpose of a digital medium s to keeptrack of sometimes enormous collections of or-ganized numbers. These numbers need to be ex-hibited somehow to have meaning, but sincethey are abstractions, they are not endemic toany particular medium of expression. This iswhy the contents of a digital medium are com-putable, while those of an analog medium arenot. Computation s allowed to happen n the in-terstices digital media create between storageand display. A spark of vitality is ignited inthese hidden recesses. The reason digital mediaare able to nurture his force is that they are de-signed to host busy minions rather han to bear

enduringmarks.

Digital media are both more temporary andmore permanent than analog ones. A gessoedcanvas and a piece of unexposed film are emp-tied of form as they are prepared o receive animprint and hold it forever, as best they can re-sist the ravages of time. The analog medium isstripped of irregularity and sensitized to pertur-bation. A canvas can be overpainted or scraped,but it is not intended for repeated use, and oncea piece of film is exposed, there is no turningback. But a digital medium s designed precisely

to be used over and over again. Instead of beingprimed as a tabula rasa, it is preformatted with arigid structure nto which any stored informa-tion must be received. A digital medium is animposing edifice where fresh digits are repeat-edly entertained n assigned locations, much astheater seats receive different theatergoers foreach performance. Digital information can beshuttled n and out of a computer with astonish-ing speed and accuracy. Yet despite this es-sentially changeable nature, digital media areparadoxically more, rather than less, resilient.Since they store tokens of numbers rather han

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traces of events, digital images are more imper-vious to the vicissitudes that assail analog im-ages. A few scribbles across the surface of a can-vas will significantly mar its aesthetic qualities,but similar scrawls over a ledger of numbers willnot generally affect its utility. Provided he num-bers can still be discerned from their tokens, noinformation s lost. This is also why there is no"generation oss" in making copies of digital in-formation. Every time a copy is made of an ana-log image, the succeeding copy depends for itsfidelity upon the accuracy of transcription. n-variably, ome details are lost with each genera-tion, so that after repeated copying the originalimage has deteriorated. But copying informa-tion from a digital medium does not take placeby transcription, by making imprints of im-prints. To copy a digital file, the numbers areread and inscribed anew each time. So eachcopy, even if it is several generations away fromthe original, is still an "original" nscription ofthe information. This does not make digitalmedia impervious to error, t just means that thepossible errors are of a different type, namelyerrors of reading and writing rather han of tran-scribing. It turns out that processing tokens ofnumbers by computer can be done with consid-

erably more accuracy than mechanically ormanually replicating races of events. This is notsurprising since discerning a number from asymbol is much easier than matching the colorof a swatch.'2 Creations n digital media reallyhave no original against which copies can becompared. In this respect, they are quite differ-ent even from the traditional media of literatureand music, which use extensive symbolic sys-tems for expression. When writing a novel or asymphony by hand, one produces an originaltext or score, but this is not so when composingat the keyboard of a computer.

Recursive ranscription ies at the core of ana-log culture. Most visual information hat reachesus in analog media has passed through severallayers of transcription. A picture in a book ormagazine was transcribed irst from an actualevent onto a film negative, then onto a film pos-itive, then transcribed again onto an etchedprinting plate, and finally imprinted nto the pagewe see. Video signals pass through similar cas-cades of copies to bring a performance rom thestudio to the home. Modern culture ook up res-idence in this echoing theater of mimesis and

filled it with the surfeit of images that producedthe postmodern crescendo of simulacra.

This intrinsic ranscriptive ature s perspicu-ously presented n some of Magritte's paintings.His familiar "Human Condition" mages capturethe elusive epiphany of analog media, whererepresentation and reality become indistin-guishable. But this magic is worked only in therecursive universe of transcription, where themedium of paint is tricked nto making a pictureof a picture ook like the picture tself. Picturesof pictures are a familiar theme throughout hehistory of art, and they demonstrate he omniv-orous appetite of mimetic media that enabledthem to feed on themselves to produce a frenzyof procreation n the modern world. Althoughthe promiscuous proliferation of transcribed i-sual information has become a wonderful chan-nel for disseminating culture, it has a one-wayvalve at each analog aperture. Once frozen in amedium, the image is trapped and can only godeeper nto mimesis. This is one reason why, al-though analog media are adept at transportinglikenesses of their subjects, they cannot reversethe direction to bring viewers any closer. Digitalmedia are able to do this because they do nottranscribe, and hence do not recurse in the

process of recording information. Informationis immediately converted when it enters the dig-ital universe. That conversion process can onlybe performed once: you can measure a table, butyou cannot then measure the measurement. Youmight measure a measuring ape to check its ac-curacy, but this is no way to replicate the digitalinformation it produces. Once converted frompercepts into concepts, from material nto num-bers, information is freed from the infiniteregress of transcription nd may travel back andforth between the user and the used. Computeralgorithms often use recursion, but it is mathe-matical rather than physical and serves a com-pletely different purpose that is transactionalrather han presentational. By abandoning phys-ical recursion devoted to the service of imper-sonal dissemination, digital media become ca-pable of carrying on individual dialogues witheach one of us.

Digital media are adept at storing vast collec-tions of numbers, and computers are adroit atmanipulating them. But the arcane tokens ofthese thinking machines are incomplete bythemselves. Since concepts are not appearances,

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the curious digital image is unfulfilled without atransformation f numbers nto percepts. To getvisual information nto the computer and onto adigital medium, we require a conversion fromobjects to numbers. To get it back out again, theconverse conversion is needed. Even if our in-terest is primarily in numbers-say for pecu-niary purposes-machine-readable tokensmust be translated nto human-readable nes be-fore we can comprehend them. These conver-sion processes are usually carried out by spe-cialized pieces of hardware called (oddlyenough) converters. There are analog-to-digitalconverters or input, and digital-to-analog con-verters or output. They typically form the heartof an interface, which consists of a hard-ware/software system for automatically andswiftly moving information back and forth be-tween people and computers (or sometimes be-tween two different machines). The canonicaloutput nterface found in most graphics comput-ers takes numbers stored in a specialized por-tion of memory called a frame buffer, and con-verts them into a video image on a monitor. Butthere are myriad other interfaces for changingnumbers nto pictures, from printers o camerasto looms. Some interfaces output numbers as

pigment on paper, others as photographic ilm,still others as pen drawings. There are also ahost of nonvisual interfaces that turn numbersinto sounds or movements. In addition, a varietyof converse interface apertures admit numbersabstracted rom events. The most common inputchannels currently n use are the keyboard andthe mouse. Scanners and digitizing tablets arealso frequently found in graphics settings.

As a result of this dependence on interfaces,digital media augment rather than underminetheir analog forbears. Although they posses

much vigor, computers by themselves have nopower. Their vivacious missives remain evermute without interfaces to the comfortable ana-log media we sentient creatures know and un-derstand.

Herein lies another conundrum centering onthe identity of a digital image. Its definingessence is a numerical file; yet its specific ap-pearance can vary depending upon the outputmethod that converts these numbers nto colors.So while an array of numbers fixes a digitalimage's identity, hey do not fully delimit how itwill appear. Many of its detailed aesthetic qual-

ities are prescribed by the interface used to out-put it, and no single one has any priority n es-tablishing the correct appearance. When anycomputer artist creates his works at a computer,he views the images on a cathode ray tube, the"computer screen" that currently functions asthe canonical visual output. There they are dis-played as colors of light emitted by glowingphosphor. But if he chooses to output these im-ages as silk-screens, they become pigment-based works with a quite different appearance.Which one is the digital image? Both and nei-ther. The numbers unction as the foundation ofa visual construct, but they do not completelydictate its appearance. There is no privilegedoutput; all are equally derivative from and de-pendent upon the digital source. Of course, theartist may choose to present the images only assilk-screens, in which case the computer be-comes a tool in the service of an analog medium.But increasingly, creators of digital art are trans-mitting files for interaction as well as display byusers on their own computers and output devicesover which the artist has no control.

The digital image has a virtual existence. It isintangible and invisible, yet we can perceive itthrough interface portals that change its kernel

of numbers into visual presentations. We haveheard a great deal about "virtual reality" n thepopular press, which revels in describing thefantasy potential of immersive systems. Theseelaborate paraphernalia ncase the user in a co-coon of goggles, gloves, earphones, and a body-suit that propel her into a full somatic experienceof virtual universes, omplete with monstrous d-versaries and teleported overs.13 Yet he virtual-ity of such experience emerges not from the ex-pensive hardware haberdashery, but from thehumble abode of nimble digits. Numbers are the

original virtual reality. They are timeless ab-stractions which nevertheless have a profoundimpact on everyday life as they guide us inbuilding houses and bridges, as well as in de-stroying them. Any time we work with a digi-tally represented universe nside a computer, weare having an experience of the virtual realitymensurated herein. Even when we peer into thesmall screen of a personal omputer, he denizenswe encounter there-from T-squares to ninjaturtles-are all virtual creatures open to our en-treaties.

There are two kinds of "reality" n virtuality.

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One is called the image space, which tends to belodged in the frame buffer; the other is calledthe object space, which is distributed ess specif-ically throughout the computer's general pur-pose memory. The image space is usually anarray of numbers organized as representativesof picture elements, or pixels, which are the in-dividual colored dots of a digital image. Eachpixel has a corresponding location in memorywhere its current color value is stored. Thecanonical interface converts that number nto acolor on a video monitor, which is usually spec-ified in terms of its primary components: red,green, and blue.

In addition to the virtual mages that reside ina computer's mage space, it is also possible toconjure up virtual objects which are describedby their virtual "physical" properties, such asheight, weight, and color. They might also bespecified in much more general ways by associ-ating them with mathematical ormulae or algo-rithmic instructions that tell the computer howto generate them. Fantastic as well as familiargeographies can be created algorithmically romgeneral instructions rather than by specifyingeach component separately, as a landscapepainter does. Plants can be grown in the com-

puter on the basis of parameters et by the artistrather than meticulously painted leaf by leaf.And animals can be evolved from virtual geneticinformation rather han delineated hrough ndi-vidual physical traits.14 Once conjured up in thecomputer's object space, a virtual camera can becommanded to take pictures of these strangenew universes and transmit them to the imagespace which is our portal for peering nto virtualreality.

III. THE INTERACTIVITY OF

COMPUTER SIMULATIONS

The virtual reality hovering among ciphershosted by a digital medium is more ephemeralthan the pictorial space canonized by Renais-sance painting and automated by photography.But this digital soiree is also strangely morealive since numbers are able to capture theessence rather than the presence of what theyrepresent. Their mensurated subjects are ren-dered more abstract (virtual) than their macu-lated counterparts n analog media, but they arealso rendered more real (interactive) since they

can become aware of your presence and respondto you. Because they exist as numbers, hey canbe continuously subjected o computation basedon user input.

Once deposited for delectation in solidifiedswirls of pigment, the analogously depictedworld is a static one. A photograph raps thetrails left by a fleeting moment in time and im-prisons them in formed matter. These preciousobjects subsequently ollow their own temporaltrajectories of potential glory, as well as certaindisintegration and decay, despite assiduous careby august institutions. Whatever power the im-ages of these analogized worlds have, it em-anates from frozen apparitions. The transparentwindow of perspective, for all its lucidity, isnevertheless an impenetrable barrier o our en-treaties. Though the physical objects that medi-ate pictorial space are not entirely impervious ointrusions (which are usually pernicious), theirsubjects are oblivious to our approach.

The openness of pictorial space, despite its in-sularity, is an arduous cultural achievementwhose influence is ubiquitous today. Our dis-course in the presence of pictures is often car-ried on as if we were perceiving the robust worldthey represent rather than a flimsy flat object.

Our connection to reality through snapshots andtelevision is familiar, conventional, and appar-ent: we see the face in the image and know theprincess is sad. A concomitant belief in the ve-racity of photographs became a cornerstone ofmodern culture as the transcriptive dispersal ofanalog imprints permeated our everyday lives.

There is no transparent creen between num-bers and pictures. The computerized onnectionbetween them is recondite and the numbersthemselves remain reclusive. Yet digital uni-verses are oddly more open to us than their anal-ogously rendered orebears. A converse paradoxcharacterizes the inscrutable interface which,despite its perceptual opacity, proffers an openportal inviting us to interact with creatures mys-teriously lodged inside a small gray box. Thecomputer can sense our presence and track ourmovements. Through a variety of input devices,measurements of our activities can be transmit-ted into a computer, odged in a digital medium,cogitated mathematically to formulate a re-sponse, and the results output to us. We can en-gage a computer-mediated niverse n a contin-uous dialogue. Out of this discourse, we can

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generate onvincing pictures hat confuse and lie,as well as gripping games that thrill and edify.

Digital media are incomplete and uselesswithout an interface o convert hem to and from

our perceivable world. But they are also unful-filled without a computer o enliven them. Theydeliver us partners, and not merely pictures.Computers use formulas and numbers n orderto simulate environments we can inhabit. In sodoing, they do not display before us representa-tions in the traditional sense, but invite us toenter the alternative ealities of virtual universes.

The computer s not a medium. It transcendsmedia since it uses material symbolically ratherthan analogically, making its digital representa-tions vital and active. While feverishly manipu-lating tokens, its purpose is to invigorate ab-stractions, and not to sculpt substance.

The presence preserved n an analog mediumis, by contrast, desiccated and passive. At best,it transports a trace of previous vitality by re-presenting t in a material ranscription. But thecomputed environment makes the representa-tion and the viewer mutually present to eachother. The characters residing in a virtual worldcan receive your missives and semaphores, andrespond in like manner. In many ways, the

experience feels more like having the subjectbefore us than her mere representation. Indiscussing the power images can work on us,Freedberg suggests that "response is based onattempted reconstitution of the life of repre-sented form."15 This ancient vision that in-spired mimetic supplication for centuries isbrought much closer to realization in repletedigital systems than transitory analog glimpseswere ever able to achieve. The vitality of pres-ence, and not merely its visage, is captured bycomputing machines. Virtual digital existence is

not a generically reconstituted ikeness or make-believe scenario, but a spontaneously created n-tercourse with an individual participant.16

Interactive virtual realities have alreadyfound many applications, both practical andpure. One of the earliest and most extensive useswas in flight simulation designed to give studentpilots veridical training more safely and inex-pensively than actual flight. As a consequenceof their success, much of the funding that pro-moted the early development of interactivecomputer systems came from the military. Butthe technology has now become affordable

enough to appear in information kiosks at artmuseums and shopping malls that help visitorsnavigate and learn. It has also become a stan-dard resource in most design studios, and evenshows up in fine art ateliers.

The computing assistant initially emulatedtraditional tools, in much the way cinema firstcopied the stage. These virtual tools quickly be-came popular, especially in commercial set-tings, because they are faster, cheaper, and moreversatile than their manual predecessors. In thesecond half of the 1980s, the field of graphic de-sign was revolutionized by computers as art di-rectors discovered their cost effectiveness. Thecomputer can instantly draw a straight ine or aperfect circle, and just as easily undraw t andchange it at the whim of a client. Since the in-formation is virtual, it is infinitely malleable;and since it is computable, it is tirelessly re-sponsive. The virtual environment is circum-scribed by logical rather han physical limits. In-deed, one of the dangers of using computers sthat they provide so much flexibility and for-giveness that it is easy to become engulfed in amesmerizing odyssey of endless tinkering. Thepitfalls of working n a virtual studio adumbratewhole new genres of artistic risk.

Because they perform in a virtual theater,computers have parted the curtain on a kind ofpageantry unapproachable by analog media.Some of these spectacles are the special effectswe frequently see in television commercials andin films such as Terminator I or Kurosawa'sDreams. But the most dramatic new player onthe cultural stage is the interactive experiencefound in gallery installations and home comput-ers as well as the Internet. Interactivity epito-mizes the unique contribution computers aremaking to our culture. Some fine artists havebegun presenting works that literally engage usby offering unique and personal encounterswith a virtual universe. In 1986, Grahame Wein-bren and Roberta Friedman created one of thefirst major interactive works, The Ern King,which allows the user to navigate through a cin-ematic world based loosely on the legend, butexpanding out from it into psychoanalysis andpop music. Jeffrey Shaw created a very differentkind of work in The Legible City (1989), whichoffers the participant a real bicycle to ridethrough virtual cities. His computerized metrop-olises are based on real cities, such as New York

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and Amsterdam, but etters rom a text, with theirheights appropriately djusted, replace the build-ings.17

The computer s now beginning to revolution-ize the entertainment ndustry as sales of multi-media titles surpass box office receipts. Becausethe computer is not allied with any particularmedium, t interfaces o all of them with a facilitythat gives us broad and rapid access to informa-tion for both fun and profit. Interactive omputergames have achieved great popularity throughtheir lively combination of fantasy and action.And digital versions of encyclopedias and otherdatabases are superseding heir printed counter-parts because of the vastness of their contents andthe swiftness of access to

specificdetails.

The possibilities of interactive art have onlybegun to be explored. And the overall enhance-ment of our ability to visualize is having a pro-found impact on science as well as art. Wholenew vistas of science and mathematics areopened up by looking through the portal of acomputer into a virtual universe. The generalholistic thrust of digital representation ncom-passes the barriers between art and science,which weaken as our art gets imbued with num-bers and our science gets advanced by art.

Virtual reality is both more and less real thananalog representations. But we are being chal-lenged to rethink the reality/representation is-tinction. Our sense of reality is-paradoxi-cally-a concept. It is an idea that has beenformed by the history of our representations, ndnot vice versa. Ian Hacking sums it up this way:

Reality s an anthropomorphic reation. Reality maybe a human reation, ut t is no toy; on the contraryit is the second of human reations. The first pecu-liarly human nvention s representation. nce hereis a practice f representing, second-order onceptfollows n train. This is the concept f reality, con-cept which has content only when there are first-order epresentations.18

So our sense of reality is determined in largemeasure by the scope of our representations. Bycomparison with traditional analog representa-tions, digital representations are virtual sincethey are embodied in abstract numbers ratherthan in concrete objects.19 But they are alsocomparatively real, since they can possess a re-sponsiveness unavailable to analog pictures.

Digital representation s forcing us to reconsiderwhat is real and what is not.

For lack of a better word, we call computersmachines, even as they harbor a vitality previ-ously limited to living organisms. Thinking ma-chines elicit strong emotions of both fear and ex-citement. Grandiose visions of a divine digitaldemocracy carry high hopes and sweet dreamsthat undoubtedly will never be realized, or will bedegraded and abused. And the moralistic homi-lies about a sinister big brother may shroud themakings of a different kind of culture. Amidst heemotions s an underlying eality which intimatesfundamental hanges in the way culture s prac-ticed and preserved. No one can know yet pre-cisely where he "digital evolution" will lead, butthe better we understand ts nature, he better wewill be able to deal with it and to direct t towardfair and humane purposes. We are facing a daunt-ing phalanx of practical and philosophical ques-tions about access, privacy, opyright, and a hostof other ssues that are demanding our attention.

Since ancient times, things and ideas havebeen separated. Compare Praxatiles's Aphroditewith Euclid's Elements. One is an expressiveand inspiring material object subject to the on-slaughts of people and weather. This does not

prevent t from conveying ideas as well as emo-tions. The other is an intellectual construct im-pervious to sticks and stones, but neverthelessdependent n some way upon objects to survive,and capable of arousing sublime feelings. Mar-ble is chipped and worn, eaten by acid as it ispummeled by rain. Theorems are pristine as theday they were conceived, and they will remainthat way forever. Yet they are both passive cul-tural products spawned by a human agency thatdeposited them in the annals of history. Andnow the distinction between them is not so clearas our creations become agents.

TIMOTHY BINKLEYGraduate Computer Art DepartmentSchool of Visual Arts209 East 23 StreetNew York, New York 10010

INTERNET: [email protected]

1. Mark Dery, "Art Goes High Tech," ARTnews 2 (Feb-ruary 1993): 74-83, p. 83. A recent ssue of Art Journal wasalso dedicated o computers n art (49:3, Fall, 1990).

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2. Ibid., p. 75.3. Integrated Services Digital Network (or ISDN) was

made available throughout France beginning in 1987 and isnow widely used in other countries. ISDN is a system forrapid transmission of digital information over standardphone lines. Fiber optic networks with much greater capac-ity are now being implemented n many locations, particu-larly in Japan, and they are the main focus of the "Informa-tion Superhighway" urrently being promoted n the UnitedStates by government and industry alike.

4. The "bandwidth" f a communication channel is sim-ply a measure of the amount of information t can convey ina fixed amount of time. Standard telephone lines that useelectrical signals have a relatively low bandwidth hat is in-sufficient to transmit motion pictures, although it is per-fectly adequate for voice communications. Optical fibersemploy light rather han electricity to transport nformation,and as a result have a high bandwidth capable of transmit-ting several motion pictures simultaneously.

5. The debate over the limits of artificial intelligence epit-omizes the often confusing efforts to make sense of "think-ing machines." See John R. Searle, Paul M. Churchland,and Patricia Smith Churchland, "Artificial Intelligence: ADebate," Scientific American 262 (January 1990): 26-38.Some of the greatest fears and highest hopes are aroused byvisions of a thoroughly computerized future. One of themost provocative scenarios s sketched by Hans Moravec nMind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelli-gence (Harvard University Press, 1988). For a well-articu-lated alternative viewpoint, see John Searle, The Rediscov-ery of the Mind (MIT Press, 1992).

6. Nelson Goodman, quoted in David Freedberg, ThePower of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Re-

sponse (University of Chicago Press, 1989), p. 25.7. Freedberg, The Power of Images, p. 28.8. Ibid., p. 438.9. Ibid., p. 435.10. See Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida (New York: Hill

& Wang, 1981) and Susan Sontag, On Photography NewYork: Dell, 1977), whose views I discuss at length in "Cam-era Fantasia: Computed Visions of Virtual Realities," Mil-lennium Film Journal 20/21 (Fall/Winter, 1988/89): 6-43.Even if the artwork is an abstract painting, its analog

medium still stores at least traces of the artist's gestures,analogues of which are inscribed onto the canvas.

11. See Leonard M. Adleman, "Molecular Computationof Solutions to Combinatorial Problems," Science, Novem-ber 11, 1994, pp. 1021-1024.

12. I discuss these ideas further n "Transparent echnol-ogy: The Swan Song of Electronics," Leonardo 28 (1995):427-432, and "The Quickening of Galatea: Virtual CreationWithout Tools or Media," Art Journal 49 (1990): 233-240.

13. The movie Lawnmower Man presents a most fanciful(and unrealistic) vision of this kind of immersive virtual re-ality.

14. Some of the techniques used in algorithmic creationare described n Benoit Mandelbrot, The Fractal Geometryof Nature (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1977); Alvy RaySmith, "Plants, Fractals, and Formal Languages," ComputerGraphics 18 (July 1984): 1-10; and Stephen Todd andWilliam Latham, Evolutionary Art and Computers (NewYork: Academic Press, 1992).

15. Freedberg, The Power of Images, p. 242.16. Kendall Walton has given an innovative and provoca-

tive account of representation n Mimesis as Make-Believe(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990). His extensivediscussion touches on some aspects of make-believe that arepresent in interactive virtual realities, but does not accom-modate many of the salient features of participation n com-puted universes.

17. For additional examples, see Cynthia Goodman, Dig-ital Visions: Computers and Art (New York: Harry N.Abrams, 1987); Herbert W Franke, Computer Graphics,Computer Art (New York: Springer Verlag, 1971); andWilliam J. Mitchell, The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth nthe Post-Photographic ra (MIT Press, 1992).

18. Ian Hacking, Representing nd Intervening: ntroduc-tory Topics n the Philosophy of Natural Science (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 136.

19. Susanne Langer spoke of pictures as creating virtualworlds, but in digital universes even the images are virtualand what they depict manipulable. Computer creations areabstract, in opposition to the concreteness of paint. SeeLanger's Problems of Art (New York: Charles Scribner'sSons, 1957).

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