[-empyre-] 'Engines of Logic' and 'The Essential Turing'
I'd like to mention a couple of books I'd recommend not only to people interested in digital poetry but in computer art more generally. And say something about why this is so. The first is a book called 'Engines of Logic' ( http://tinyurl.com/b7queq and by the renowned USAmerican logician Martin Davis. This was only published a couple of years ago but, if I'm not mistaken, it will be read for many years to come by Computer Scientists, Mathematicians, Logicians, and (let's hope) digital artists. Here are some relevant URLs: http://tinyurl.com/b7queq (books.google.com) http://tinyurl.com/6r89rr (amazon.com) It looks at the development of the computer as Leibniz's dream. Davis looks at the life and work of Leibniz, Frege, Boole, Cantor, Hilbert, Godel and Turing in relation to the development of the computer. These are mathematicians/logicians (in chronological order) from the seventeenth century to the twentieth. It's a very intriguing book in its biographical sketches of these men. It looks at their trials and successes. Cantor was in and out of sanatoria. Godel starved himself to death out of paranoia that his food was being poisoned. Turing (probably) committed suicide by eating a poisoned apple. Leibniz had a day job writing the story of his boss's family and his boss valued that more than Leibniz's own work as one of the pre-emminent intellectuals of human history. But what do these mathematicians/logicians have to do with the development of the computer? The book looks at the development of the computer in relation to the development of the languages and theory of symbolic logic. It's been remarked by people who built computers out of Mechano that computers are made of logic, not silicon. You don't need to be a mathematician/logician to read this book. Though, if you are, you'll also dig it. Martin Davis is an emminent logician from New York who taught at the Courant Institute and has done significant work on undecidability, among other things. It's a terrific book both in the 'history of ideas' and in the human dimensions of the lives of these giants of math/logic. What's in it for digital artists? Well, I said at the outset that it's a good book for those interested to understand digital media. Not at the nuts and bolts level. But at the level of history, at the level of the relation of Godel and Turing's work to what the medium is saying. As a student of math, I was particularly interested in the development of the foundations of mathematics and of metamathematics. If you have any sense of that history, you'll find this book remarkable in how it traces the relation of that movement to the development of the computer. And in relation to the current discussion on -empyre-, what I'd point out is the way that computing emerges, in Davis's book, as a synthesis of logic and language, of code and language, of the machinic and the human. Yes, the computer is a language machine, a writing system. But it's also a logic machine, a numeric machine. A profound synthesis of writing and mathematics/logic. I look with interest at work in digital poetry that shows similar or related signs of synthesis rather than being exclusively either of one or the other. Literary while remaining clueless about the nature of the computer. Or programmerly without a sense of poetry. In 'new media', there's a sense of the importance of theory such as Manovich's work. But not much sense of the importance of the theory of computation to an understanding of the phenomenology of computing. I suppose that will change over time. I hope so. The second book I'd like to mention is The Essential Turing edited by Jack Copeland. There's so much written *about* Turing. This presents Turing's own work along with excellent commentaries on crucial issues concerning Turing's work. ja http://vispo.com ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] Poetry and/or poetic
I am arguing that all language, being a discrete system, is effectively digital, using an expanded definition of language here, including all human languages as well as other phenomena. I am not employing the word digital here limited to its use in computing but in the sense that any discrete system or phenomena can be described as digital. The question remains whether it is possible to signify without or beyond or prior to language. It is unclear if this is possible, but there are certainly cases where it is unclear where the significatory origin of an event lies. There is probable value in taking a relational approach to this, considering all signification to be a function of the relationships between things and that meaning cannot arise where there are no relationships (can anything be situated without a set of relationships?). These relationships (which may themselves be divisible) are discrete (this is probably a tautology) and so are functionally digital systems. Similarly, poetics indicate the dynamics of these relationships. Poetry is a very specific case which I am not addressing here. I am not that familiar with Badiou¹s writing. I am rather comfortable with the orthodoxies of postmodernism and apprehend the Zizek¹s and Badiou¹s of the world as over-bearing in their certainties. In your reference to his writings I am not sure what you are intending to mean when discussing an event and its relationship to our finite rules. What finite rules? In what sense breaking away? Aren¹t events the dynamic interaction of things, occuring as a result of their relations? How can something escape those relations and be at the same time of them? I don¹t think I understand what you mean here unless you are seeking to consider these things as a politic. I doubt the value of totalising an apprehension of human interaction and applying it to other kinds of relationships, although I might be tempted to attempt the inverse. Regards Simon On 11/3/09 01:00, davin heckman davinheck...@gmail.com wrote: I do not mean to quibble, but are you saying that since poetics must find their expression in some discernible phenomenon that it cannot escape the digital? I would say that the poetic event can be provoked through digital media and its passage can be marked in digital media, but neither of these are the same as the event itself. If we take it in light of Badiou's writing (and, since I am a lunatic, I may very well be misreading him), an event is what happens when things break away from those things which are bounded by our finite rules. We can always go back, after the fact, and write the equations that can account for the event. But the event itself, happens outside of the set of hypothetical possibilities. And, so, I don't know if this means poetics escapes the digital. I would say that while the digital (or any system of order) must always either incorporate revolution into its system or become a incorporated into the new system, I would say that the event, when it happens, runs contrary to any system of order that cannot contain it at the moment of its occurrence. So, maybe escape is only a fleeting thing. But even fleeting things can alter a person's entire relationship to a system of order. (Look, for instance, at the life of a junkie--all life potentially becomes recast in light of a single event, which is always pursued but can never be reclaimed--an eternity of struggle captured in a single, indelible mark of ecstasy, that is nevertheless written and re-written in the succession of hope and disappointment.) Simon Biggs Research Professor edinburgh college of art s.bi...@eca.ac.uk www.eca.ac.uk www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ si...@littlepig.org.uk www.littlepig.org.uk AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201 ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] Poetry and/or poetic
You both appear to be addressing something that didn't make it to the list. Are we missing something? Pall This is a multi-part message in MIME format. I am arguing that all language, being a discrete system, is effectively digital, using an expanded definition of language here, including all human languages as well as other phenomena. I am not employing the word digital here limited to its use in computing but in the sense that any discrete system or phenomena can be described as digital. The question remains whether it is possible to signify without or beyond or prior to language. It is unclear if this is possible, but there are certainly cases where it is unclear where the significatory origin of an event lies. There is probable value in taking a relational approach to this, considering all signification to be a function of the relationships between things and that meaning cannot arise where there are no relationships (can anything be situated without a set of relationships?). These relationships (which may themselves be divisible) are discrete (this is probably a tautology) and so are functionally digital systems. Similarly, poetics indicate the dynamics of these relationships. Poetry is a very specific case which I am not addressing here. I am not that familiar with Badiou¹s writing. I am rather comfortable with the orthodoxies of postmodernism and apprehend the Zizek¹s and Badiou¹s of the world as over-bearing in their certainties. In your reference to his writings I am not sure what you are intending to mean when discussing an event and its relationship to our finite rules. What finite rules? In what sense breaking away? Aren¹t events the dynamic interaction of things, occuring as a result of their relations? How can something escape those relations and be at the same time of them? I don¹t think I understand what you mean here unless you are seeking to consider these things as a politic. I doubt the value of totalising an apprehension of human interaction and applying it to other kinds of relationships, although I might be tempted to attempt the inverse. Regards Simon On 11/3/09 01:00, davin heckman davinheck...@gmail.com wrote: I do not mean to quibble, but are you saying that since poetics must find their expression in some discernible phenomenon that it cannot escape the digital? I would say that the poetic event can be provoked through digital media and its passage can be marked in digital media, but neither of these are the same as the event itself. If we take it in light of Badiou's writing (and, since I am a lunatic, I may very well be misreading him), an event is what happens when things break away from those things which are bounded by our finite rules. We can always go back, after the fact, and write the equations that can account for the event. But the event itself, happens outside of the set of hypothetical possibilities. And, so, I don't know if this means poetics escapes the digital. I would say that while the digital (or any system of order) must always either incorporate revolution into its system or become a incorporated into the new system, I would say that the event, when it happens, runs contrary to any system of order that cannot contain it at the moment of its occurrence. So, maybe escape is only a fleeting thing. But even fleeting things can alter a person's entire relationship to a system of order. (Look, for instance, at the life of a junkie--all life potentially becomes recast in light of a single event, which is always pursued but can never be reclaimed--an eternity of struggle captured in a single, indelible mark of ecstasy, that is nevertheless written and re-written in the succession of hope and disappointment.) Simon Biggs Research Professor edinburgh college of art s.bi...@eca.ac.uk www.eca.ac.uk www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ si...@littlepig.org.uk www.littlepig.org.uk AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201 -- Pall Thayer artist/teacher http://www.this.is/pallit http://130.208.220.190 http://130.208.220.190/nuharm http://130.208.220.190/panse ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] Prehistoric Digital Poetry, Funkhouser
For those in London there is a talk tomorrow at the Science Museum about what is probably the first example of poetry generation on a digital computer - Loveletters - which was written by Christopher Strachey to run on the Ferranti Mark 1 in 1952. The details are here: http://www.computerconservationsociety.org/20090312.htm The Loveletters simulator that the speaker will be talking about is here: http://www.alpha60.de/research/muc/ Here's an example: JEWEL MOPPET YOU ARE MY IMPATIENT ENCHANTMENT: MY UNSATISFIED LOVE: MY LOVESICK FERVOUR: MY AFFECTIONATE THIRST: MY SEDUCTIVE LOVE. YOURS IMPATIENTLY M. U. C. On 11 Mar 2009, at 08:31, Jim Andrews wrote: A book that should be mentioned concerning digital poetry is Chris Funkhouser's 'Prehistoric Digital Poetry -- An Archaeology of Forms, 1959-1995' ( http://www.uapress.ua.edu/NewSearch2.cfm?id=133757 , 2007, U of Alabama Press). This is the first full-length book on some of the history of digital poetry. There's a related article by Chris at http://tinyurl.com/dbzqks called 'Digital Poetry: A Look at Generative, Visual, and Interconnected Possibilities in its First Four Decades'. That article is part of a book available in its entirety, i think, at http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companionDLS/ ; the book is A Companion to Digital Literary Studies, edited by Ray Siemens and Susan Schreibman. ja ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre Paul Brown - based in the UK March 2009 mailto:p...@paul-brown.com == http://www.paul-brown.com UK Mobile +44 (0)794 104 8228 == USA fax +1 309 216 9900 Skype paul-g-brown Visiting Professor - Sussex University http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/ccnr/research/creativity.html ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] Poetry and/or poetic
I'm intrigued and confused Simon. In my clumsy thinking, discrete phenomena can be described BY the digital (digits) insofar as they're containable, finite state entities, but mightn't it be a perhaps over-exclusivist or distorted leap from there to describe them AS digital (?). I'm also interested in that peculiar tension whereby language's purported characteristics as a discrete system built up with/ of steadfast, definable meanings are challenged to make it an evolving system that messily seeps and oozes emerging meaning. Non-discrete if not indiscreet and probably my definition of poetry/ poiesis/ poetics. darn. interested in the non-binaries. the unfathomable in-betweens. including those perversely spawned by digital systems. can't sets of relations be hypothetical/ ephemeral constructs that allow us to conjecture, without having to smack of finitude forever after? The rest is over my head. Wanted, dead or (preferably) alive! best sjn From: empyre-boun...@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au [empyre-boun...@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Simon Biggs [s.bi...@eca.ac.uk] Sent: 11 March 2009 09:19 To: emp...@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Poetry and/or poetic I am arguing that all language, being a discrete system, is effectively digital, using an expanded definition of language here, including all human languages as well as other phenomena. I am not employing the word digital here limited to its use in computing but in the sense that any discrete system or phenomena can be described as digital. The question remains whether it is possible to signify without or beyond or prior to language. It is unclear if this is possible, but there are certainly cases where it is unclear where the significatory origin of an event lies. There is probable value in taking a relational approach to this, considering all signification to be a function of the relationships between things and that meaning cannot arise where there are no relationships (can anything be situated without a set of relationships?). These relationships (which may themselves be divisible) are discrete (this is probably a tautology) and so are functionally digital systems. Similarly, poetics indicate the dynamics of these relationships. Poetry is a very specific case which I am not addressing here. I am not that familiar with Badiou’s writing. I am rather comfortable with the orthodoxies of postmodernism and apprehend the Zizek’s and Badiou’s of the world as over-bearing in their certainties. In your reference to his writings I am not sure what you are intending to mean when discussing an event and its relationship to our finite rules. What finite rules? In what sense breaking away? Aren’t events the dynamic interaction of things, occuring as a result of their relations? How can something escape those relations and be at the same time of them? I don’t think I understand what you mean here – unless you are seeking to consider these things as a politic. I doubt the value of totalising an apprehension of human interaction and applying it to other kinds of relationships, although I might be tempted to attempt the inverse. Regards Simon On 11/3/09 01:00, davin heckman davinheck...@gmail.com wrote: I do not mean to quibble, but are you saying that since poetics must find their expression in some discernible phenomenon that it cannot escape the digital? I would say that the poetic event can be provoked through digital media and its passage can be marked in digital media, but neither of these are the same as the event itself. If we take it in light of Badiou's writing (and, since I am a lunatic, I may very well be misreading him), an event is what happens when things break away from those things which are bounded by our finite rules. We can always go back, after the fact, and write the equations that can account for the event. But the event itself, happens outside of the set of hypothetical possibilities. And, so, I don't know if this means poetics escapes the digital. I would say that while the digital (or any system of order) must always either incorporate revolution into its system or become a incorporated into the new system, I would say that the event, when it happens, runs contrary to any system of order that cannot contain it at the moment of its occurrence. So, maybe escape is only a fleeting thing. But even fleeting things can alter a person's entire relationship to a system of order. (Look, for instance, at the life of a junkie--all life potentially becomes recast in light of a single event, which is always pursued but can never be reclaimed--an eternity of struggle captured in a single, indelible mark of ecstasy, that is nevertheless written and re-written in the succession of hope and disappointment.) Simon Biggs Research Professor edinburgh college of art s.bi...@eca.ac.uk www.eca.ac.uk www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ si...@littlepig.org.uk
Re: [-empyre-] Poetry and/or poetic
The way I take Badiou's discussion of the event is in the following way. An even is something which happens, but in order to regard it as an event as opposed to all the other things which happen all the time, but which are not considered events. Another way to think about it is that even stasis, a predictable trajectory, and so-called AIs (trajectories enhanced by algorithms) are situated along the stream of time. They happen, and they yield predictable results. The predictable results can be contained within a set of possible outcomes. But none of these things are events, because, if you consider them within their set, they are quite clearly bounded, they are finite, we can find the edges. And though we might experience such things as happening over time, we can also see the conclusion from the beginning. The event, in Badiou's work, is subjective in character. Not because of some kind of inherent human subjectivity (although I would not necessarily rule this out), but that subjectivity is produced where consciousness perception of the event. Something does happen at the point where the situation defies the expectation (where it differs from the situations described above). For Badiou, the event happens prior to its explanation. It is a revolutionary moment--and he describes four truth procedures--art, love, politics, science--through which events take place. A lot like Heidegger might say, being is something that is experienced precisely at the point where the partitions break down. I don't know that I would call Badiou a Heideggerian but I do think that his idea on this point does resonate strongly with Derrida's interest in openness and D+G's various discussions of Becoming. Another affinity would be between deCerteau's discussion of tactics, versus the grid-like structures of modernity. Thinking about this alongside electronic literature is productive, because my experience of the digital has been one of boredom. Machines are always neat until you figure them out. Games are cool until you figure out how they go (I don't even care about winning them). But where things get exciting is when someone figures out how to make a machine do something it isn't supposed to do. Hackers have been doing this with computers. But poets have been doing this to language for a lot longer. And when I see a poet try to test their are on a machine which is ruled by numbers... it's impressive. Especially if they can make the language of the machine into the language of the human. (And, those two languages are a bit different in their theory, origin, evolution, and daily use). Peace! Davin Heckman On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 5:19 AM, Simon Biggs s.bi...@eca.ac.uk wrote: I am arguing that all language, being a discrete system, is effectively digital, using an expanded definition of language here, including all human languages as well as other phenomena. I am not employing the word digital here limited to its use in computing but in the sense that any discrete system or phenomena can be described as digital. The question remains whether it is possible to signify without or beyond or prior to language. It is unclear if this is possible, but there are certainly cases where it is unclear where the significatory origin of an event lies. There is probable value in taking a relational approach to this, considering all signification to be a function of the relationships between things and that meaning cannot arise where there are no relationships (can anything be situated without a set of relationships?). These relationships (which may themselves be divisible) are discrete (this is probably a tautology) and so are functionally digital systems. Similarly, poetics indicate the dynamics of these relationships. Poetry is a very specific case which I am not addressing here. I am not that familiar with Badiou’s writing. I am rather comfortable with the orthodoxies of postmodernism and apprehend the Zizek’s and Badiou’s of the world as over-bearing in their certainties. In your reference to his writings I am not sure what you are intending to mean when discussing an event and its relationship to our finite rules. What finite rules? In what sense breaking away? Aren’t events the dynamic interaction of things, occuring as a result of their relations? How can something escape those relations and be at the same time of them? I don’t think I understand what you mean here – unless you are seeking to consider these things as a politic. I doubt the value of totalising an apprehension of human interaction and applying it to other kinds of relationships, although I might be tempted to attempt the inverse. Regards Simon On 11/3/09 01:00, davin heckman davinheck...@gmail.com wrote: I do not mean to quibble, but are you saying that since poetics must find their expression in some discernible phenomenon that it cannot escape the digital? I would say that the poetic event can be
