ARTBASE (1)
BIO
born in 1962 in Lier, Belgium.
studied filology at Louvain, Belgium.
worked a lot in bars and restaurants before i became obsessivly addicted to producing stuff on computers.
i once won a design contest of cgi-magazine and they let me go to New York for four days, that was nice.
i think in terms of writing mostly (or programming, but those are very similar processes for me)
painting is a very different process and i'm very bad at it but i do it anyway because i like the differences it produces and i like the freshness of amateurism, i guess.
what i produce new media-wise is also very much influenced by my daily practice of webdesign and programming with its concerns of usability and the pragmatic approach it implies.
studied filology at Louvain, Belgium.
worked a lot in bars and restaurants before i became obsessivly addicted to producing stuff on computers.
i once won a design contest of cgi-magazine and they let me go to New York for four days, that was nice.
i think in terms of writing mostly (or programming, but those are very similar processes for me)
painting is a very different process and i'm very bad at it but i do it anyway because i like the differences it produces and i like the freshness of amateurism, i guess.
what i produce new media-wise is also very much influenced by my daily practice of webdesign and programming with its concerns of usability and the pragmatic approach it implies.
Re: PLEASE DO NOT SPAM ART
>Sorry, Dirk, I'm not really following you, but I do know that if you
>compress a compressed message, you will get something that is much the same
>size as the compressed message.
Sure, but you were relating amounts of information as contained within a
binary system to amounts of information as contained within textual messages
to suggest that seemingly (?) random text messages may actually contain more
information.
That's what is happening a lot: the ease with which we transcode
mathematical usefull constructs to the field of human interaction, to the
point of reducing meaning to what is calculable. I'm not saying that meaning
finally can't be made calculable or trying to rescue the artistic from the
scrutiny of science or (whatever) that it would be a bad thing if that were
so, I'm just trying to stress the fact that any calculation implies a
reduction because it takes time: a calculation is also an event in the same
continuum of informed matter and, furthermore, that we tend to forget what
fiction our calculations are based on, where the human factor is decisive
for the validation of calculated results.
So I took the liberty of using the information that is likewise
allegorically compressed in the word 'compression' to include 'any kind of
algorhytmic optimising of a message for transmitting that message in a given
system', hence my use of 'compressions of compressions'.
Even if you generate your words at random from a dictionary, the fact that
text messages get read (or could get read) enhances the information
contained within them in a natural way because words _do_ things to each
other while being positioned/read/sent/received. I don't see an easy way to
beat the meaning out of words, not even if they are uncalled for like these
messages. And the generating of meaning includes a surplus of information
that should be accounted for in the calcul of that information. The Shannon
article doesn't remain the same article, not even compressed to the 437 kb
or so zipped pdf-file. If it would remain the same, our scientists would
still be drawing triangles in the sand, like Pythagoras. Not too sure its
real 'progress' though. But information is never static or totally
abstracted from meaning in my view, because the process of abstracting it
generates meaning itself.
Now you could say that the textual surplus of information is virtual in the
same way as any strain of 1's and 0's in the random message could be
virtually meaningful, but then you're coming dangerously close to Cathedral
Building Theory because that's where any piece of information is only truly
calculable as an event: "What we call virtual is not some thing that lacks
reality, but [a thing] that engages itself in a process of actualisation
following the plane that gives it its reality (lui donne sa realite
propre).". Code is text too, it happens in similar ways. Perhaps if we deal
with code as events more, we get to solve some problems more efficiently.
Its more a unity of movement that I'm trying to make clear, I really
shouldn't be doing this outside my very limited region of clarity.
apologies,
dv
>compress a compressed message, you will get something that is much the same
>size as the compressed message.
Sure, but you were relating amounts of information as contained within a
binary system to amounts of information as contained within textual messages
to suggest that seemingly (?) random text messages may actually contain more
information.
That's what is happening a lot: the ease with which we transcode
mathematical usefull constructs to the field of human interaction, to the
point of reducing meaning to what is calculable. I'm not saying that meaning
finally can't be made calculable or trying to rescue the artistic from the
scrutiny of science or (whatever) that it would be a bad thing if that were
so, I'm just trying to stress the fact that any calculation implies a
reduction because it takes time: a calculation is also an event in the same
continuum of informed matter and, furthermore, that we tend to forget what
fiction our calculations are based on, where the human factor is decisive
for the validation of calculated results.
So I took the liberty of using the information that is likewise
allegorically compressed in the word 'compression' to include 'any kind of
algorhytmic optimising of a message for transmitting that message in a given
system', hence my use of 'compressions of compressions'.
Even if you generate your words at random from a dictionary, the fact that
text messages get read (or could get read) enhances the information
contained within them in a natural way because words _do_ things to each
other while being positioned/read/sent/received. I don't see an easy way to
beat the meaning out of words, not even if they are uncalled for like these
messages. And the generating of meaning includes a surplus of information
that should be accounted for in the calcul of that information. The Shannon
article doesn't remain the same article, not even compressed to the 437 kb
or so zipped pdf-file. If it would remain the same, our scientists would
still be drawing triangles in the sand, like Pythagoras. Not too sure its
real 'progress' though. But information is never static or totally
abstracted from meaning in my view, because the process of abstracting it
generates meaning itself.
Now you could say that the textual surplus of information is virtual in the
same way as any strain of 1's and 0's in the random message could be
virtually meaningful, but then you're coming dangerously close to Cathedral
Building Theory because that's where any piece of information is only truly
calculable as an event: "What we call virtual is not some thing that lacks
reality, but [a thing] that engages itself in a process of actualisation
following the plane that gives it its reality (lui donne sa realite
propre).". Code is text too, it happens in similar ways. Perhaps if we deal
with code as events more, we get to solve some problems more efficiently.
Its more a unity of movement that I'm trying to make clear, I really
shouldn't be doing this outside my very limited region of clarity.
apologies,
dv
Re: PLEASE DO NOT SPAM ART
in shannonian information theory, there is the notion of being able to
measure the amount of information in a message. but that is not a measure of
meaning. it is a measure of the amount of uncertainty present in the
message. for instance, consider a message that consists of a million ones.
long message, not much information. in fact you already have enough
information to reconstruct it with complete certainty. now consider a
message that consists of a million random zeros or ones. such messages
cannot be compressed with winzip or stuffit or whatever. whereas the first
message compresses down to almost nothing. the more a message can be
compressed, the less information it contains.
ja
-------
"the more a message can be compressed, the less information it contains."
Hm. Thank you for that. Apart from the Shannon paper being a bit too
compressed for me, or because of that, for this thesis to be true we would
need , i think:
1 the message to be a singular isolated event
2 the fictional limits, abstract cases, of a million zero's as a message
and a million patternless repetitions of 1 or zero as a message
3.those fictional messages to be confined to that and only that to avoid the
possibilities mentioned in point 4. However they can only become messages
if they are enlarged by the fact of being messages, that is they happen as a
message, which implies they happen somewhere, a place or places including
the possibility mentioned in point 4.
4. because only then can you disregard the amount of information that could
be and mostly is present in compressions of compressions (of ...) as not
contradicting the thesis because in such cases a more compressed message can
easily be shown to trigger a higher amount of information to be sent (e. g.
exactly a million zeros could be the key to understand a tonload of
information encrypted a bit further on (algorhitmic encryption being the key
to compression) or, a better example perhaps, more in the spirit of true
calculation, the case of a few 1's at exactly those locations where in the
receiving end or in decompressioning it it would contain more information
than a similarly diversified message, similarly near to the limit of
absolute diversification, because it would recursively decompress the
compressions it contains.
To come back to the matter at hand, however, this particular chain of
message events: in 'The Fold', Gilles Deleuze devotes special attention to
the Leibniz idea that souls ('monads' in his terms) who are damned are,
however pitifull for them, the condition for other souls to be able to
increase their zones of clarity. In the Leibniz system this can be so
because every monad contains the whole of the universe inside its 'folds'
but it only has a limited zone of clarity and a vast region of what is
called a 'fuscum subnegrum', its dark zone. A damned soul is eternally
damned because it continually choses for the one thing that is its greatest
point of desire:its whole universe is directed, pointed to its hatred of
God. This ultimate obsession is the only thing that constitutes this soul's
zone of clarity and because of the eternal divide of the constant amount of
information that is the case in the Leibniz system, these poor souls leave
other souls more 'room' for expansion of their zones of clarity.
You see how, if interpreted along similar lines, replacing religiously
connotated parameters with artistic ones if you feel that is required,
Roman is really doing us all a favor by continually sending these messages,
their _meaning_ being reduced by their own intent, but perhaps not their
amount of information, however obsessive they might be (or how adequate an
answer to a entirely different process that is not clear to me), and
however futile they might seem with our finger hovering over the delete key
from the instant we read PLEASE, how he in fact creates for us a sublime
moment of clarity each time we actually press the delete key, bringing
perhaps the only true moment of clarity in our seemingly endless consumption
of messages loaded with valuable information on the shady starlit fields of
our arts. The next moment always sheds a light on the previous, and vica
versa. To calculate (subtract, add)information, information is needed. And
time.
In this context, by the way, Leibniz often stressed the fictional nature of
any calculation, which might be surprising to some, coming from this great
advocate of the Enlightment. History mostly compresses its leading figures
beyond repair for day to day decompression utils.
So, to return the favor: the more easily a message can be deleted, the more
room we have for decompressing others, hence the more information it
contains (virtually).
A thesis that might (only) hold for the split second before you hit delete
on it.
dv @ Neue Kathedrale des erotischen Elends
http://www.vilt.net/nkdee
-----
ps: received work from turkey's ozcan turkmen the other day. he is a
programmer-poet. he is working out a notion of "entropic poetry". very
interestin stuff.
-----
Would you have an URL on him, decompressable to less Turkish and more
English than what Google shows?
measure the amount of information in a message. but that is not a measure of
meaning. it is a measure of the amount of uncertainty present in the
message. for instance, consider a message that consists of a million ones.
long message, not much information. in fact you already have enough
information to reconstruct it with complete certainty. now consider a
message that consists of a million random zeros or ones. such messages
cannot be compressed with winzip or stuffit or whatever. whereas the first
message compresses down to almost nothing. the more a message can be
compressed, the less information it contains.
ja
-------
"the more a message can be compressed, the less information it contains."
Hm. Thank you for that. Apart from the Shannon paper being a bit too
compressed for me, or because of that, for this thesis to be true we would
need , i think:
1 the message to be a singular isolated event
2 the fictional limits, abstract cases, of a million zero's as a message
and a million patternless repetitions of 1 or zero as a message
3.those fictional messages to be confined to that and only that to avoid the
possibilities mentioned in point 4. However they can only become messages
if they are enlarged by the fact of being messages, that is they happen as a
message, which implies they happen somewhere, a place or places including
the possibility mentioned in point 4.
4. because only then can you disregard the amount of information that could
be and mostly is present in compressions of compressions (of ...) as not
contradicting the thesis because in such cases a more compressed message can
easily be shown to trigger a higher amount of information to be sent (e. g.
exactly a million zeros could be the key to understand a tonload of
information encrypted a bit further on (algorhitmic encryption being the key
to compression) or, a better example perhaps, more in the spirit of true
calculation, the case of a few 1's at exactly those locations where in the
receiving end or in decompressioning it it would contain more information
than a similarly diversified message, similarly near to the limit of
absolute diversification, because it would recursively decompress the
compressions it contains.
To come back to the matter at hand, however, this particular chain of
message events: in 'The Fold', Gilles Deleuze devotes special attention to
the Leibniz idea that souls ('monads' in his terms) who are damned are,
however pitifull for them, the condition for other souls to be able to
increase their zones of clarity. In the Leibniz system this can be so
because every monad contains the whole of the universe inside its 'folds'
but it only has a limited zone of clarity and a vast region of what is
called a 'fuscum subnegrum', its dark zone. A damned soul is eternally
damned because it continually choses for the one thing that is its greatest
point of desire:its whole universe is directed, pointed to its hatred of
God. This ultimate obsession is the only thing that constitutes this soul's
zone of clarity and because of the eternal divide of the constant amount of
information that is the case in the Leibniz system, these poor souls leave
other souls more 'room' for expansion of their zones of clarity.
You see how, if interpreted along similar lines, replacing religiously
connotated parameters with artistic ones if you feel that is required,
Roman is really doing us all a favor by continually sending these messages,
their _meaning_ being reduced by their own intent, but perhaps not their
amount of information, however obsessive they might be (or how adequate an
answer to a entirely different process that is not clear to me), and
however futile they might seem with our finger hovering over the delete key
from the instant we read PLEASE, how he in fact creates for us a sublime
moment of clarity each time we actually press the delete key, bringing
perhaps the only true moment of clarity in our seemingly endless consumption
of messages loaded with valuable information on the shady starlit fields of
our arts. The next moment always sheds a light on the previous, and vica
versa. To calculate (subtract, add)information, information is needed. And
time.
In this context, by the way, Leibniz often stressed the fictional nature of
any calculation, which might be surprising to some, coming from this great
advocate of the Enlightment. History mostly compresses its leading figures
beyond repair for day to day decompression utils.
So, to return the favor: the more easily a message can be deleted, the more
room we have for decompressing others, hence the more information it
contains (virtually).
A thesis that might (only) hold for the split second before you hit delete
on it.
dv @ Neue Kathedrale des erotischen Elends
http://www.vilt.net/nkdee
-----
ps: received work from turkey's ozcan turkmen the other day. he is a
programmer-poet. he is working out a notion of "entropic poetry". very
interestin stuff.
-----
Would you have an URL on him, decompressable to less Turkish and more
English than what Google shows?
biblio-NAart
<http://www.vilt.net/nkdee/druksel.jsp> 2 Towers & a Scroll of Books you
could Buy
greetings,
dv @ Neue Kathedrale des erotischen Elends
http://www.vilt.net/nkdee
could Buy
greetings,
dv @ Neue Kathedrale des erotischen Elends
http://www.vilt.net/nkdee
One day, critics will become extinct?
<http://www.lips.utexas.edu/art-testbed/>
http://www.lips.utexas.edu/art-testbed/ : an AMD-sponsored testbed for the
release of software 'Appraiser' agents deciding on the value of fictional
works of art.
" The winning appraiser agent is selected as the appraiser with the highest
bank account balance."
http://www.lips.utexas.edu/art-testbed/competition_rules.htm
greetings,
dv @ Neue Kathedrale des erotischen Elends
http://www.vilt.net/nkdee
http://www.lips.utexas.edu/art-testbed/ : an AMD-sponsored testbed for the
release of software 'Appraiser' agents deciding on the value of fictional
works of art.
" The winning appraiser agent is selected as the appraiser with the highest
bank account balance."
http://www.lips.utexas.edu/art-testbed/competition_rules.htm
greetings,
dv @ Neue Kathedrale des erotischen Elends
http://www.vilt.net/nkdee