1 1 st Bachelor thesis / 2008 from human chaos to artificial intelligence Completed with the aim of graduating with a Bakkalaureat (FH) in Media Technology from the St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences Media Technology / degree course under the supervision of Mag. art Markus Wintersberger completed by Thomas Wagensommerer / tm061084
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1
1st Bachelor thesis / 2008
from
human chaos to
artificial intelligence
Completed with the aim of graduating with a
Bakkalaureat (FH) in Media Technology
from the St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences
Media Technology / degree course
under the supervision of
Mag. art Markus Wintersberger
completed by
Thomas Wagensommerer / tm061084
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I want to notice,
that every term used in
this paper is to be understood without a
preference for either the male-sex or the female-sex.
Furthermore I really would like to thank
Mag.art. Markus Wintersberger
for his inspiration and his support and belief concerning individualized creativity.
- Thomas Wagensommerer, 14.9.2008 -
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Chapter 1 The theory of inter[a](se)ction_____________________________________________4 Chapter 2 Documentation of the practical work_______________________________________13
Chapter 3 Rhizomizing Didi Neidhart______________________________________________25 Chapter 4 Conclusion or Homo Ex Machina_________________________________________31
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Chapter 1
The theory of inter[a](se)ction
Beyond science fiction and utopias dealing with the rise and the overlap of the machines and
with that the loss of human mastery, there have always been philosophical, theoretical, and,
consequently, artistic approaches to the relationship between humanity and artificiality;
investigations of the intersection of man and machine.
In some cases machines are considered to be the new, the better human. Enormous amounts of
money are spent on research on the technological reproduction of peculiarities of humanity.
Besides the analysis and transmogrify of the human body and its movements the most
contemplated area of investigation is the automated perception. This doesn’t only include
processing of visual aspects, but also sound.
The epicentre of this work and for most of the artistic workups of multimedia, in general, is
especially this processing of audiovisual perception.
This work sees itself not only as both a theoretical, subjective discourse of my personal ideas
– of course combined with and influenced by extraneous theories, but also as a documentation
of an actual, physical piece of artistic work that is going to be produced in the course of this
paper.
The way how machines and, consequently, their smallest common “internal organs“ (the
circuitries) conduct, store, transfer, process, produce information, can be considered as a very,
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very strongly simplified and abstract and, of course, way less inscrutable sketch or outline of
the human inside, beyond flesh, bones, and muscles.
Over the years people and especially scientists, but also artists have gained more and more
knowledge about the similarities of those sketches and their actual originals and,
consequently, have developed increasing interest in the possibility of expressing their ideas
(first and foremost artistic concepts) through the medium “machine” as a simplified
reproduction of mankind.
On the one hand, machines could be, and already are, used as an instrument that is fed and
supplied by human input, such as information being given by pushing buttons and keys or
through the purest human outcome at all – the voice.
A machine can be played. Depending on its number of parameters, it is either easier to use or
closer to the original. But it’ll never even get close to this original, because there’s always the
possibility to reduce every piece of cybernetic information into smaller and, therefore, endless
devices.
On the other hand, machines and computers respectively can be used as the control unit. In
this case the output, whatever this may be, depends on artificial intelligence and replaces the
human part at the first glance. But, of course, as the title of my work indicates, there is always
(human) chaos that interacts and corresponds with the artificiality.
Error, glitches, etc. can never be barred completely. Even the strictest programming and
algorithmic language has needed a human mind to create it and still needs a human mind to
apply it. Through a number of effectors (neural receptor) that tends towards incessancy and
their ability to interface, there is a unimaginable amount of probabilities, but still not an
endless one, because it is possible to count them, though it would take an unthinkably long
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period of time (according to the ideas of Holm Tetens described in his book “Geist, Gehirn,
Maschine”).
To illustrate the theories above I want to use the mathematical term “limes /limit (of a
function)”.
According to an article at wikipedia.org the definition of limes / limit is following:
“In mathematics, the limit of a function is a fundamental concept in calculus and analysis
concerning the behavior of that function near a particular input. Informally, a function
assigns an output f(x) to every input x. The function has a limit L at an input p if f(x) is "close"
to L whenever x is "close" to p. In another words, f(x) become closer and closer to L as x
move closer and closer to p. More specifically, when f is applied to each input sufficiently
close to p, the result is an output value that is arbitrarily close to L. If the inputs "close" to p
are taken to values that are very different, the limit is said to not exist1.”
According to the chaos theory the development and action of the features are subject to laws
of physics. The term “physics” should be understood as a “natural system”, that includes
humanity and humane principles too.
So the humane controlling of an automatically processing machine can be considered as
chaotic, because there are certain initial conditions like experience, favor, cultural
background, age, sex, goals, aims, needs, knowledge, etc., but the result is not determined and
first and foremost the origin of the result can not be reconstructed or explained logically.
But one has to be aware to equate chaos with randomness, particularly in digital arts, because
in opposite to chaos a random system is defined as an environment without order, purpose,
predictability and cause. In chaotic systems “cause”, in other words the initial condition is the
only fully defined parameter.
To illustrate the difference and somehow the discrepancy of the artistic values as well
between randomness and chaos, I want to notice that works produced by random processes
can not be protected by copyright, while works based on chaos can.
Computer based arts and digital arts in general cannot exist without chaotic input.
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Furthermore I will radicalize the theoretical approach made above to my practical work.
Every thought and idea, every feature, every parameter is to be reduced to its smallest
possible stadium, to presence and absence.
Starting from only these two basic conditions a whole new alphabet, a whole new way of
cross-linking is made up.
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Chapter 3
Rhizomizing Didi Neidhart
Discussing and thinking about the man – machine relationship, its problem and its
possibilities, is spread widely among theoreticians, artists and philosophers.
That is why I want to make a note of such a conversation, of such a dialogue between Mr.
Didi Neidhart and myself.
Didi Neidhard (born in Salzburg, Austria in 1963) is not only an artist (musician in bands like
Wipeout, Discozma and Dis*ka), but a pop theoretician, director of the institute of art and
technology, Vienna / Austria, and chief editor of the “Skug” magazine (www.skug.at) as well.
He did several lectures on the topic “man-machine”.
Based on the Socratic method, or “elenchus”, I want to build up a brainstorming – like, cross-
linked rhizome10.
I want to notice, that Didi Neidhart allowed me and appreciated it to pick phrases, quotations,
etc. out of the original written document, as well as the fact to express my ideas in the course
of writing.
I want to thank you right away.
The following lines must not be understood as a quotation, but as an long lasting and ongoing
discourse and / or discussion between myself and Didi Neidhart.
10 Rhizome: Term used by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (for example in “Milles Plataeux”) to describe a quite complex and multi-directional network of ideas, historical facts, philosophies, emotions, theories, etc.
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Visual differentiation is made through different font styles:
Didi Neidhart
Thomas Wagensommerer
Do you detect and where do you detect a difference between “the creator” and “the
discoverer” in the sense of artistic work11?
So the quotation refers to Arnold Schönberg, who sees himself rather as the discoverer of the
twelve-tone technique, than as its creator. The difference is a quite ideological one. Creators
define themselves as some sort of geniuses, as genius subjects, who make a creatio ex nihilio,
a creation out of nothing. That’s of course nonsense.
So-called universal geniuses have not done anything different than re-combining something
already discovered or have experienced or developed new perspectives. Mostly this has been
a transversal and transdisciplinary process. Somebody brings up a formula, a hypothesis, a
theory but is not aware of its whole potential. But somebody else does.
If we take a look in the archives, we mostly see disputes concerning patents: several
combinations of patents, which are to be seen as a new patent. Sometimes they succeed.
History needs ingenious individuals.
“Creating” has always some sort of an aura of something god-like. The modernity, the
enlightenment has let God go into retirement and replaced him with the phantasm of a free,
11 “Soundcultures” by Marcus S. Kleiner and Achim Szepanski, Page 133, Suhrkamp 2003
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autonomous subject. Now it isn’t God anymore, who created the world, but the human. In
detail the scientist, the artist, and the philosopher.
The word creation is certainly related to work. Work, meaning active work, which seems to
be rather of a physical nature, than an intellectual one. “Creating” also means focused work
(thinking). Christianity insists on the fact that God did know what he has done, but the
humanity has messed his plan.
It is interesting that in Judaism the “creation” is not completed, but is still in progress and is
developing every day, especially through intellectual, creative work by the humans.
So “creating” can be seen as a product of the modernity, because isn’t the modernity
characterized to be manic and obsessive about creating something? Preferential out of
nothing.
Isn’t any kind of classic avant-garde confident to have messed up or actually destroyed the
prevailing order?
But you can see the relationship between “destroying” and “creating” in two ways:
Firstly as a dialectic, whereas “the destroyed” and the “the remaining” go into a synthesis to
build up something new in an evolutionary way.
The second way is to understand this relationship as a paradox, where there is no synthesis
and no symbioses, because it is not possible. The antithesis cannot be dissolved. Not the
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antithesis between old and new regimes (for instance: art forms, genres, etc.), but rather the
antithesis in thinking.
So that leads as to the fact that as long as the artist (as a subject) is still creating, there is not
going to be a break. This break isn’t going to happen either when the subject sees itself as
broken, because the bottom line is that this is mostly not different to diversity, instead of
fragmented multeities (referring to Gilles Deleuze).
So one has to differ the look for the breakpoint: a radical changed relation of object to subject.
It is not only about “creating” anymore, but also about “discovering” and, consequently, about
rediscovering, developing and evoluting.
The things are already here. America would have been discovered without Columbus (in fact
it was). The “Roland TB-303”12 always was this “acid-machine”.
Now these things already have been there, but the relationship of subject and object always
has been based on the fact that an active subject finds a passive object.
But what if I found something that is actually more interesting and even fancier, then the thing
I have been looking for? What if fortune is starting to play a role in this context? The fortune
has a bad habit: it decreases my active work.
This doesn’t mean that the things are to have a transcendent, meta-physical independent
existence.
12 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_TB-303
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But something different happens: the things are fitting my person. They are speaking to me
and looking at me. Small details, which were experienced very slightly, are now getting into
the focus of attention. Maybe these small details are now only here (in the focus of attention)
for me?
This means, if there are things, which are able to find me, it is not necessary anymore to
create.
How and how far is the artist becoming a “Prostheses-God”13, because of nearly unlimited
access to technical resources?
Of course the answer to the previous refers to the psychoanalysis / analytic psychology as a
product of modernity.
So is this “Prosthesis-God” of Sigmund Freud all about? How should we understand
“prosthesis”? Does it mean a mechanical appendix to the hitherto body structure? A
supplement because something is missing? Or even a completely new body structure? Or does
prosthesis mean something unnecessary?
Concerning art I think, that there are two possible ways:
The attempt to control everything via Man-Machine interfaces. The old fantasy to trigger
machine direct from the body or preferentially with the mind.
This would satisfy the desire to make art without any indirections. The brain activities would
control sound and visions.
13 referring to Sigmund Freud
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If one wants to take a closer look on these activities, one has to get deeper into brain science.
Today’s scientists are able to visualize brain activities, but they cannot understand them. They
can see where there is something going on in the brain and so they roughly know what that
means, but in fact brain activities are measured voltage values, but not a logical code. So this
affirms the Sigmund Freud’s theory of a subconscious mind.
The other way turns against the control. It sees the machines (and consequently prosthesis) as
never finished prototypes, as dysfunctional machines or as instruments to amaze.
God, with or without prostheses, is consequently irrelevant.
Albert Einstein’s idea of a God that does not roll the dice can only be verified outside the
world of quantum theory. Concerning art rather Nietzsche’s “Dionysos” should be valid: a
dancing God, who creates out of the chaos, but certainly knows that chaos per se can be or
can become a engulfing and destroying black hole. So he seeks for little spots for creating
inside the chaos. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari always point out to the fact, that the
destroying force of the chaos must not be forgotten.
To come back to the actual question; the machines – as prosthesis – alienate. Concerning just
art, this is a super potential. Andy Warhol saw himself as a painting machine and Kraftwerk
saw themselves later on as a music machine.
According to the music machine - theory: with a drum machine I can program things no
human could actually play. If the body wants to move to that, it has to re-organize.
“Machine music” as “hyper embodiment”, that reconfigures the body.
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Chapter 4
Conclusion or Homo Ex Machina
Is there intelligence in machines? How could a chaotic human, that never is able to stop being
chaotic, manage to “use” this intelligence in a creating process?
Everybody has to define the answer to this question on its own, but if one digs deeper and
deeper into digital arts or computer based arts or whatever, he or she will come across the
momentum, when to decide to control the machines, to be controlled by the machines or to set
the condition for interaction.
Every artist has its own initial condition and its own definition of a final result, that he tries to
aim on, but, hopefully, never reaches, because then art will become “art pour l’art” and looses
its meta-functional aspect.
I can just speak for myself, that I personally think that the link of the chaotic human and the
artificial intelligent machine and therefore the multiplication of parameters with an ending
amount (machine) with the endless parameters of humanity / chaos is an enormous resource
for creativity and, consequently as the word indicates, for creation.
In my creative work I want to reach a point, where the machines (of course including
software) are too complex and therefore somehow too intelligent for me to understand,
because in this very moment there is a break in operation. The Operation will “flip” to
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interaction, because structured operating would not be possible anymore, simply because one
could not see the structure. Of course there is still a logical structure, because, that is an
absolute condition for the definition of a machine and somehow, if I may radicalize my
statement, the most reduced and therefore archetypical condition of a machine.
So the human will switch unconsciously from structured to chaotic work that is based on
emotional, intentional, subconscious, experienced, irrational, etc. aspects.
This is the stage of “dislocation” and “disembodiment” of the proceeding of creation. The
stage, where the subject looses it object and somehow reunites, to become undefined. Further
on the reunited “thing per se” takes off its relationship to time and space, just to be
reconnected with those two elementary and fundamental conditions by the human and
therefore with the human per se.
The man is the machine is the man is nothing is everything.