Selected writing by David Topping

Consciousness Reframed III

An aesthetic of information

Summary

This is an ongoing to study to hypothesise whether an aesthetic of information can provide insight into our understanding of art, information and the human information society. The strategy for engagement is through the use of the definition, 'Information Art'. Much as with conceptual art, Information Art cannot be defined in terms of any medium or style but rather by the questions it raises. As part of this study I am attempting to identify common characteristics, possible groupings and if a common philosophical basis exists.

Keywords

Information Art Knowledge Data Aesthetic

The new machine art is visually incomprehensible unless one knows about and believes in the existence of invisible forces. Drexler (1958)

In 1990, New York's Museum of Modern Art held an exhibition, sponsored by the Intel Corporation Foundation, entitled Information Art. This exhibition of integrated circuit diagrams was given consideration by MOMA as 'the most complex patterns people have ever made.' In the accompanying publication to McCarty (1990) raised a number of issues that equated the physicality of technology to the non-visuality of information itself. She claims Information Art can be seen as the logical successor to the 1934 MOMA design exhibition Machine Art, which was dedicated to the beauty of machines and mechanical objects. A definition of Information Art by Malloy (2000) also stresses the non-visual nature of information, 'Information art is a kind of conceptual art that is based on collections of information that convey some meaning *as a whole* and are (usually) deliberately assembled by artists for this purpose. It could be collections of statements -- such as Hans Haacke's ON SOCIAL GREASE (1975) that is based on (mostly corporate) remarks about art; or, images from the mass media such as the collection Hal Fischer made in the early 80's of advertising from the Poppers industry or Peter D'Agostino's 1981 collections of telecommunications ads INVADING THE INFORMATION AGE.'

These definitions seem very specific about what can be included; consequently limiting in scope and crucially limited in their understanding of the term information. One key area for this research is to usefully define both an artistic understanding and general usage of the term information. Though it is possible to get a sense of what is important in the various descriptions available, it is important to reach a specific articulation. To do this I started by looking for definitions of just what it means to have data, information or knowledge. Currently, these terms are used somewhat interchangeably and with what appears unproblematic abandon. In discussing an Information or Knowledge Society, prominent authors such as Toffler (1990) use the word's 'data', 'information', and 'knowledge' interchangeably throughout merely 'to avoid tedious repetition'. Martin (1988) draws together the opinions by Forest Horton, Fitz Machlup, and Nicolas Jequier amongst others. From his exploration he concludes the following; there is no strict hierarchical form, with data at the bottom and knowledge at the top; the difference between information and knowledge is greater than that between data and information; information has distinct popular and technical concepts and that knowledge 'is universally regarded as a much wider concept than information.' None of these relationships contain an unquestionable usefulness for this study. To illustrate this point I chose three artworks that exemplified the type of information I felt worth consideration. Tracy Emin's Everyone I have ever slept with 1963-1995, Maya Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Gerhard Richter's 1989 painting from the cycle 18 October 1977, Arrest 2. These artworks contain information of a type that I have since called 'Possibility Space'. Though not meant to conform to any existing definitions of information it is possible to explore these works in a context that starts from one. Shannon (1949) talks about 'potential information' which has entropy, randomness or possibility and focuses on the capacity to transmit information. Gatlin (1972) talks about 'stored information', which is contained within a library for instance, or requires a sense of order as the opposite of possibility. It is the prospect of there being a link between Richter et al., and a recognised information theory that encouraged me to explore further. Though neither of these two definitions are absolute or indeed seem to encompass the scope of what it required they do provide the important starting point. It is possible for Richter's painting to be information because it either provides potential information or contains stored information and consequently could be called Information Art. This however could be applied to any artwork and it is hoped that a more useful definition will emerge.

Life communicates itself to us through convention and through the parlour games and laws of social life. Photographs are ephemeral images of this communication - as are the pictures that I paint from photographs. Being painted, they no longer tell of a specific situation, and the representation becomes absurd. As a painting, it changes both its meaning and information content. Richter (1995)

In the study that followed I identified a number of images that seem to provide scope for exploring this idea. I have found myself identifying aesthetic categories that I feel may contribute to a possible definition of Information Art. I have found it useful to classify these images into five overlapping aesthetic groups. These are not intended to be an exhaustive catalogue but a way forward. They exclude much of the area's dealing with cybernetics, interaction and many others. The aim is to get closer to the notion of an information art and not to simply catalogue artists, genres, styles or movements.

• Micro - this focuses on the use of circuit-boards and electronic components
• Bio-Electronics - this looks at a machine-art aesthetic and its convergence with the human body. It includes the work of such as Alan Rath's electronic sculpture Info Glut II and Jo Brunenberg's merging of Leonado da Vinci's scientific diagrams with the human body.
• Systems - such as political and social organisations, artists such as Hans Haacke and processes and objects such as application forms
• Possibility Space - including work by Gerhard Richter, Tracy Emin and Maya Lin
• Conceptual Structures - Conceptual graphs and work such as Simon Patterson's The Great Bear. 

One area that quickly became apparent is the need to specify what Information Art is distinct from. It would be wrong for instance to presume that any art made using a computer, either as a tool or medium automatically fits into this definition. Nor is the cyber-aesthetic of fractals, 3-D vectors or other computer graphics an automatic requirement. The one thing that these groups do have in common is a human connection. They are about how people connect, and not just about how things connect. Many of the art works and artist identified fall into more than one group and this will provide scope for further exploration.

The aesthetic of the integrated circuit is allied to the aesthetic of machine or electronic art. While circuit diagrams themselves can act more as conceptual structures - maps to greater understanding - the physicality of the object owes more to familiarity of context. Circuit boards are about processing, the lack of movement and lack of moving parts giving a sense of the hidden, until the moment when output appears on a display or printer, as if some form of informational alchemy is being performed. There is a sense of expectation that comes from exposing what is usually hidden and that by removing the casing we will somehow experience something more. This exposure being greater than the sum of the parts. 

In its best instances Machine Art is more about connection. It is the aesthetics of technology connecting to something else. A postcard image entitled Test of Faith has Christ on a fitness machine, wired into a 1960's style analogue-monitoring console operated by a number of religious figures. Though the component internals aren't exposed what is important are the connections both physical and conceptual. The religious figures have a connection to 2000 years of Christianity and more specifically to the power, organisation and political history of the Christian church. The wires provide us with a focal point for much wider connectivity.

David Topping, Untitled (museum of hygiene #1), 1996, 4 LCD televisions, glass, transformers, plinths

The reason for the consideration circuit boards were given by MOMA was as quoted earlier, that they were 'the most complex patterns people have ever made.' This element of complexity is important in the aesthetic of the board. If they were easily readable or understandable they would hold much less fascination. The importance of this visual complexity was such that MOMA felt simply showing the diagrams was enough. The components didn't actually have to do anything. No great computational exercise was required to be demonstrated only the knowledge that in their use a hidden, invisible force is possible. If we wish to go beyond the admiration of the design then we have to be prepared to test our belief in the concept of knowing. With the use of circuitry as an aesthetic component in Information Art our concept of knowledge is wrapped up completely in this hidden process. A display can sit there silent and unconnected but still I'm drawn to it because I think I know there is something more going on. Idinopulos (2000) says that if we treat the monitor/screen as mediation then there can be no knowledge/knowing. But if we treat the display in the same way we treat a telescope, microscope or glasses then our experience is direct and knowledge/knowing is possible. This is echoed by Borgman (1999) who while maintaining that having information is the same as knowing also states there are two types of knowledge, direct and indirect. What happens when we experience the idea of the circuit as a direct experience unmediated, though possibly affected, by the output of the display? We know something. This information technology is allowing us to know something, though the circuit board on it's own is giving up only a fragment. 

In July 1970 the Museum of Modern Art in New York mounted a Conceptual Art exhibition Information. This fitted firmly in the conceptual grouping that consists of almost exclusively language-based works and followed on from the exhibition Conceptual Art and Conceptual aspects, held at the New York Cultural Centre in April of that year. One of the exhibiting artists there, Hans Haacke, was quoted in the catalogue as saying, 'The working premise is to think of systems, the interference with and the exposure of existing systems. Such an approach is concerned with the operational structure of organizations, in which the transfer of information, energy and/or material occurs. Systems can be physical, biological or social, they can be man-made, naturally existing or a combination of any of the above. In all cases verifiable processes are referred to.' In the same catalogue Ian Wilson said, 'I present oral communication as an object, all art is information and communication. I've chosen to speak rather than sculpt…My art is not visual, but visualized.'

David Topping, This site will change your life... 1998

Haacke's work is political. His 1971 exhibition for the Guggenheim Museum Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, a Real-Time System, as of May 1, 1971 was an investigation into the real estate holdings of the museum's board members, which included 142 slum properties. The Guggenheim's director, no doubt as an integral part of the work, cancelled the show. The use of systems thinking and specifically the manipulation of organisational systems have provided the basis for two experiments. The artwork This site will change your life… starts to examine the notion of desire, rather than need, and consequently how much data people are willing to give up for the promise of a non-specific, though aspirational, reward. Such offers usually include a promise of self-improvement, some unspecified 'betterness' or a solution to all your problems. Questionnaires in magazines often promise a better life by answering a few simple questions of the type, '15 ways to a better orgasm.' This site… however attempted to subvert this by frustrating the user's attempts at reaching this goal. On clicking or making the affirmation the page simply resets and the data is cleared.

David Topping, in-between (detail), work-in-progress 1998-, data, postings

A second artwork In-between was a piece, first proposed in February 1998, that attempted to reveal how we construct new people, new identities not for ourselves but to examine our relationship with this data space. This was done by subscribing to newsletters and magazines, opening accounts, e-mail etc, and returning junk mail, creating an information presence. The idea of the data shadow is not a new one but rather followed on from the 1960's exploration by Columbia University's Alan Westin. Artists' models have traditionally been defined in charcoal or clay but what happens when we define people with information, preference settings and credit scoring? How do we make sense of information in this raw form and what is the proper use for this information? Much as the revisionist histories tell us, Kings and Queens aren't the only ones that leave trails that we can follow. Has electronic information become our social portraiture? What became immediately apparent was human error appearing in the process. Ms Marie-Thèrése Walter had been translated by Save & Prosper, first as M R, then as Mr Walter. A history defined by keystroke errors and becoming an art of miscommunication. This takes on another dimension when applied to monitoring forms and their role in the standardisation of and transformation from personal to social information. What we admit to then is a slippage in control, and if the standardisation of information is primarily about control, what then might Information Art be able to tell us. Does Information Art directly challenge information control?

This study will continue to research the concept of there being a definable Information Art, that will provide a useful addition to our understanding of the space inhabited by art and information.

References

* Hans Haacke [extracted from http://www.feedmag.com/essay/es303_meta1.htm] 7/5/2000
Borgmann, A. 1999. Holding on to Reality: the nature of information at the turn of the millennium. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press
Drexler, A. 1958. Twentieth Century Design from the Museum Collection, in McCarty, C. 1990. Information Art: diagramming microchips. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, p. 3
Gatlin, L. 1972. Information Theory and the Living System. New York: Columbia University Press, p. 51
Godfrey, T. 1998. Conceptual Art. London: Phaidon Press, pp. 208-209
Hayles N. 1999. How we became Posthuman: virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature, and informatics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, p. xiii
Idinopulos, M. 2000. Telepistemology, Mediation, and the Design of Transparent Interfaces in Goldberg, K., ed. The Robot in the Garden: telerobotics and telepistemology in the age of the internet. London: The MIT Press, pp. 312-329
Judy Malloy: Information Art (what it is) [extracted from http://www.artswire.org/Artswire/infotour/whatinfo.html] 7/5/2000
McCarty, C. 1990. Information Art: diagramming microchips. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, p. 4.
Obrist, H. ed. 1995. Gerhard Richter: The Daily Practice of Painting: writings and interviews 1962-1993. London: Thames and Hudson
Shannon, C. & W. Weaver. 1949. The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Toffler, A. 1990. Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century. New York: Bantam Books

Biographical profile

David Topping is a Sculptor living and working in South Wales, UK. He is also a Senior Lecturer in Digital Imaging in the School of Art & Design at Coventry University. He has a MA Fine Art from the University of Brighton and is currently undertaking a part-time Ph.D. at Exeter School of Art.
e-mail: mail@davidtopping.net
www: http://www.davidtopping.net

Last Updated 08 October 2000