Cybernetic Aesthetics and communicative Context

Claudia Giannetti

http://mediaartnet.org/themes/aesthetics_of_the_digital/aesthetics_and_communicative%20Context/

tags: 翻譯

Communication, interaction, and systems交流客燕，互動慕趴，和系統(tǒng)

1. The idea of a scientific analysis of organization systems was first formulated in the early twentieth century by the Russian researcher Alexander Bogdanov. ^[1] His system theory, which attempts to register all organization elements in their entirety, introduced the basic concepts of the open system (with reference to living systems) and of feedback, and made Bogdanov a forerunner of cybernetics and of the systemic theories Ludwig von Bertalanffy would develop two decades later. ^[2]

俄羅斯研究員Alexander Bogdanov（亞歷山大·波格丹諾夫）在二十世紀初首先提出了對組織體系進行科學(xué)分析的構(gòu)想。 [1]他的系統(tǒng)理論試圖全部提出所有系統(tǒng)性的元素唬滑，介紹了開放系統(tǒng)（參考生命系統(tǒng)）和反饋的基本概念红且，并且使Bogdanov（博格丹諾夫）先導(dǎo)的控制論和Ludwig von Bertalanffy（路德維希馮貝塔朗菲）先導(dǎo)的系統(tǒng)理論在二十年后有所發(fā)展僧家。

吳衍彬

2. The first comprehensive contribution to the understanding and dissemination of the theory of self-organization was the result of the research carried out by the physicist and cyberneticist Heinz von Foerster from the late 1950s on, and especially after the publication of his treatise ?On Self- Organizing Systems and their Environment? of 1960. Heinz von Foerster was well acquainted with cybernetics and information theory, and likewise with the basics of Artificial Intelligence (A. Turing and J. von Neumann) and system theory (P. Weiss and L. von Bertalanffy). Taking these theories as his starting point, heproposed that concepts such as those of redundancy, entropy or information (cybernetics) as well as those of self-regulation, autonomy and hierarchic order (system theory) be applied in the examination of organization. As Foerster saw it, every system exists autonomously—according to its own laws—and is organizationally self-contained, meaning its organization is selfreferential, self-maintaining, and recursive. He understood reality to be an interactive construction in which the observer and what is observed are two interdependent sub-aspects. In consequence, objectivity exists merely as an illusion on the part of the subject, even without whom a perception could exist independently. This implies that perception takes place by means of a linkage of observer and system unit, and namely in the domain in which this unit operates. In the 1970s and 1980s the basic concepts of system research, which relate to interaction, self-organization, co-evolution, or the environment, were further developed by a number of scientists, and translated into new theories. ^[3] System theory received an important impetus from the theory of ?autopoiesis? ^[4] developed from the 1970s onward by the Chilean biologist Humberto together with the neuroscientist Francisco J. Varela. This theory linked for the first time two areas until then studied only separately: biology, or the theory of the organization of living organisms, and cognitive theory, which is particularly concerned with the problem of the cognition and perception of phenomena. In 1969 Maturana drew up the thesis according to which the nervous system is a closed system. ^[5]

對自組織理論的理解和傳播的第一個全面貢獻是物理學(xué)家和控制論家Heinz von Foerster從20世紀50年代后期開始笆搓，特別是在他的論文?On Self- Organizing Systems and their Environment?（?論自組織系統(tǒng)及其環(huán)境? ）在1960年出版之后，Heinz von Foerster掌握控制論和信息論瓢谢，同樣掌握人工智能（A. Turing和J. von Neumann）和系統(tǒng)論（P. Weiss和L. von Bertalanffy）的基礎(chǔ)知識。 以這些理論為出發(fā)點驮瞧，他提出冗余恩闻，熵或信息（控制論）以及自我調(diào)節(jié)，自治和等級秩序（系統(tǒng)論）等概念應(yīng)用于系統(tǒng)性的考察剧董。正如Foerster所看到的那樣，每個系統(tǒng)都是根據(jù)自己的規(guī)律自治地存在的破停，并且在組織上是獨立的翅楼，意味著它的組織是自我指涉的，自我維護的和遞歸的真慢。 他將現(xiàn)實理解為一種交互式的構(gòu)造毅臊，其中觀察者和所觀察到的是兩個相互依賴的子方面（sub-aspects）。 結(jié)果黑界，客觀存在僅僅是作為主體方面的幻想管嬉，即使人的感覺是沒有辦法獨立存在的。 這意味著感知通過觀察者和系統(tǒng)單元的聯(lián)系發(fā)生朗鸠，即在該單元運作的領(lǐng)域之間發(fā)生蚯撩。在20世紀70年代和80年代，與相互作用烛占，自組織胎挎，共同進化或環(huán)境相關(guān)的系統(tǒng)研究的基本概念沟启，由許多科學(xué)家進一步發(fā)展，并轉(zhuǎn)化為新的理論犹菇。 [3]系統(tǒng)理論受到了智利生物學(xué)家Humberto（溫貝托）與神經(jīng)科學(xué)家Francisco J. Varela（弗朗西斯科瓦雷拉）一起從20世紀70年代發(fā)展起來的“autopoiesis”==(自創(chuàng)生成”)== 理論的重要推動德迹。 這個理論第一次把兩個領(lǐng)域聯(lián)系起來，直到那時才分別研究：生物學(xué)或生物組織理論揭芍，認知理論胳搞，特別關(guān)注現(xiàn)象的認知和感知問題。 1969年称杨，馬圖拉納撰寫了一篇論文肌毅，論述了神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)是一個封閉的系統(tǒng)。[5]

3. According to this thesis, living systems are autopoietic. ^[6] An autopoietic system operates as a closed system that generates only states of autopoiesis. The most important consequence of an autopoietic organization consists in the fact that everything occurring within the system is subjected to autopoiesis; otherwise the living system would collapse, because changes in the state of the organism and of the nervous system as well as of the medium act reciprocally, and so give rise to continuous autopoiesis. That means that living systems are determined by their structure (?structure-specified?), and that autopoiesis represents their constitutive attribute. The expansion of the cognitive processes(action and interaction) by the nervous system enables, according to Maturana, non-physical interactions between organisms in simple relationships—and therefore communication. ^[7]
   根據(jù)這篇論文列另，生命系統(tǒng)是自生的芽腾。 [6]一個自創(chuàng)生系統(tǒng)作為一個只產(chǎn)生自動生成狀態(tài)的封閉系統(tǒng)運行。 一個自創(chuàng)生組織的最重要的后果在于页衙，系統(tǒng)內(nèi)發(fā)生的所有事情都會受到自動生成的影響; 否則生命系統(tǒng)就會崩潰摊滔，因為生物體和神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)以及媒體狀態(tài)的變化會相互作用，從而導(dǎo)致不斷的自我創(chuàng)生店乐。 這意味著生命系統(tǒng)是由它們的結(jié)構(gòu)決定的（“結(jié)構(gòu)指定”）艰躺，并且自生成代表了它們的構(gòu)成屬性。 根據(jù)Maturana的觀點眨八，神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)的認知過程（行為和相互作用）的擴展使得簡單關(guān)系中的生物體之間的非物理相互作用成為可能腺兴，從而促進了溝通。[7]

4. These non-physical interactions distinguish human beings from organisms that lack a nervous system and in which interactions are purely physical in nature (as in the case of a plant, for example, where the reception of a photon triggers photosynthesis). Communication as interaction is a component of the system, and as a cognitive process does not refer to an autonomous external reality, but is—according to Maturana—a process of behavioral coordination between the observers through structural coupling. In this way, the cognitive domain is characterized by consensual coordinations of actions that enable operations to take place in many different cognitive domains constituting different realization modes of autopoiesis. [^8]
   這些非物理的相互作用將人類與缺乏神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)的生物區(qū)分開來廉侧，并且其中相互作用純粹是物理性質(zhì)的（例如植物的情況下页响，例如，接收光子觸發(fā)光合作用）段誊。 交流作為交互作用是系統(tǒng)的一個組成部分闰蚕，而認知過程并不是指自主的外部現(xiàn)實，而是 - 根據(jù)Maturana - 通過結(jié)構(gòu)耦合觀察者之間的行為協(xié)調(diào)過程连舍。 通過這種方式没陡，認知領(lǐng)域的特點是協(xié)調(diào)一致的行為，使行動能夠發(fā)生在構(gòu)成自創(chuàng)生的不同實現(xiàn)模式的許多不同認知領(lǐng)域中索赏。

5. If one speaks of a ?world? or of ?our culture,? then one would seem to be referring to something external, something independent of humanity, or to ?an? objective reality. Contradicting this view, Constructivist theory holds that an organism creates its world on the basis of its physiological and functional constitution. As Maturana surmises: we create the world by perceiving it.
   如果一個人談到一個<世界>或<我們的文化>盼玄，那么人們似乎指的是某種外在的，獨立于人類的東西潜腻，或者是客觀的現(xiàn)實埃儿。 與建構(gòu)主義理論相反的是，建構(gòu)主義理論認為砾赔，有機體以其生理和功能結(jié)構(gòu)為基礎(chǔ)創(chuàng)造了它的世界蝌箍。 正如Maturana所猜測的那樣：我們通過感知創(chuàng)造世界青灼。

6. Accordingly, three basic conclusions can be formulated from the systemtheoretic perspective. First, it is not permissible to allocate the cognitive phenomena, including language and communication, to any connotative or denotative function of reality which is independent of the observer; second, that which is produced by cultures is the result of interactions between living systems, as well as between living systems and their specific environment (or ?niche,? as Maturana calls it); and, third, neither cultures nor the results, such as art, of creative operations emerge as ?independent? attributes or objective and autonomous realities, but are always dependent on the observer, i.e. on the cognitive system. Therefore they are attributes of the consensual domain in which living systems operate. Only over context- and observer-dependency is it even possible to explain to human perception and cognition the operationality of cognition. ^[8] If this finding is transferred to art, then one could join Werner Heisenberg in saying that whatone views is not the work itself, but the work while being exposed to a particular mode of observation.
   因此，從系統(tǒng)理論的角度出發(fā)可以得出三個基本結(jié)論妓盲。首先杂拨，不允許將包括語言和交流在內(nèi)的認知現(xiàn)象分配給與觀察者無關(guān)的任何內(nèi)隱或外延的現(xiàn)實功能;其次，由文化產(chǎn)生的東西是生命系統(tǒng)之間以及生命系統(tǒng)與其特定環(huán)境之間相互作用的結(jié)果（或Maturana稱之為“niche”）;第三悯衬，創(chuàng)造性操作的文化和結(jié)果（如藝術(shù)）既不是獨立的弹沽，也不是客觀的，自主的現(xiàn)實筋粗，而是始終依賴于觀察者策橘，即認知系統(tǒng)。因此它們是生命系統(tǒng)運行的共識領(lǐng)域的屬性娜亿。只有在情境和觀察者依賴的情況下丽已，才有可能向人類認知和認知解釋認知的操作性。如果這一發(fā)現(xiàn)轉(zhuǎn)移到藝術(shù)上买决，那么人們可以加入維爾納海森堡的觀點沛婴，即任何人的觀點不是作品本身，而是作品在接觸某種特定的觀察模式時督赤。

7. Ken Rinaldo’s A-life installation ?Autopoiesis? (2000) is an example of the application of organization parameters to interactive art. It assigns an important role to the environment and to the observers, since both intervene in the individual or collective behavior of the robots, as if the latter were biological beings. Rinaldo creates two organizational levels in the interactive installation: an internal process of organization generated by the communicative reciprocal relationship among the robots and independent of the environment; and a system of organization that is based on the intelligent sensors employed and heightens the data-processing capacity by registering the presence of foreign elements and immediately generating feedback. Thus, by means of the technological simulation of artificial life, his work experiments with ?organic? autopoietic mechanisms, and underscores the interdependence of the machines, the function of the viewer, and the close relationship to the environment.
   Ken Rinaldo的A-life裝置?Autopoiesis?（2000）是組織參數(shù)應(yīng)用于互動藝術(shù)的一個例子嘁灯。它賦予環(huán)境和觀察者一個重要的角色，因為它們都介入機器人的個人或集體行為躲舌，就好像后者是生物一樣丑婿。里納爾多在交互式安裝中創(chuàng)建了兩個組織級別：一個由機器人之間的交互性相互關(guān)系產(chǎn)生的獨立于環(huán)境的組織內(nèi)部過程;以及基于所使用的智能傳感器的組織系統(tǒng)，并通過注冊外來元素的存在并立即生成反饋來提高數(shù)據(jù)處理能力没卸。因此羹奉，通過對人造生命的技術(shù)模擬，他的作品嘗試了<有機>自動生成機制约计，并強調(diào)了機器的相互依賴性尘奏，觀眾的功能以及與環(huán)境的密切關(guān)系。
   {%youtube 3w53KboB-00 %}
   <p style="text-align:center">?Autopoiesis?（2000）</p>

8. Maturana and Varela’s model of autopoeisis roused controversy at the same time as they stimulated new approaches to problems of cognitive research. Together with the contributions of Heinz von Foerster and, in the area of cognitive psychology, of Ernst von Glasersfeld, the model delivered impulses for a new current known as Constructivism or Radical Constructivism. This mode of thought is decisive insofar as it negates any possibility of being able to understand systems by means of analytic and reductionist methods, since it acknowledges the principle of self-organization to be fundamental. Man is part of a world of his own construction, and his life depends on the interactions formed by this interlocking system, or network.
   This model, however, aims to avoid tendencies toward an orthodox Constructivist attitude. The risk of research concentrating on internal and autopoietic processes of neuronal organization consists largely in the fact that their model conception refers to a closed apparatus with no knowledge of the external. The brain can be viewed as an operational, self-referential system in the sense of a purely internal function; in the cognitive system, however, interior and exterior (environment) are interrelated. Theacquisition of knowledge, education and culture is dependent on individual experiences of life.
   Maturana和Varela的autopoeisis模型在激發(fā)對認知研究問題的新方法的同時激起了爭議病蛉。加上Heinz von Foerster的貢獻，以及在認知心理學(xué)方面瑰煎，Ernst von Glasersfeld的貢獻铺然，該模型推動了一種稱為建構(gòu)主義或激進建構(gòu)主義的新潮流。這種思維方式是決定性的酒甸，因為它承認自組織的基本原則是否能通過分析和還原方法來理解系統(tǒng)魄健。人是他自己建構(gòu)的世界的一部分，他的生活取決于這個互相連鎖的系統(tǒng)或網(wǎng)絡(luò)所形成的相互作用插勤。
   然而沽瘦，這種模式旨在避免正統(tǒng)建構(gòu)主義態(tài)度的傾向革骨。研究集中于神經(jīng)組織內(nèi)部和自創(chuàng)生過程的研究風(fēng)險很大程度上取決于這樣一個事實，即他們的模型概念指的是一種不知道外部因素的封閉設(shè)備析恋。大腦可以被看作純粹內(nèi)在功能意義上的可操作的自我指涉系統(tǒng);然而良哲，在認知系統(tǒng)中，內(nèi)部和外部（環(huán)境）是相互關(guān)聯(lián)的助隧。獲取知識筑凫，教育和文化取決于個人的生活經(jīng)驗。

9. Selfreferentiality does not mean isolation, since the systems can be influenced from outside, even if the manner of this influence is determined by their functional organization. ^[9] Essential to the perception and construction of reality are other processes that produce a model of one’s own body (of the ego), and a spatiotemporal model as well as a model of the place in the time-space. The importance for brain activity of the limbic system—of the emotional and intentional components—makes it clear that the understanding and interpreting of reality are not exclusively the results of neuronal processes.
   自我認同并不意味著孤立并村，因為即使這種影響的方式是由其功能組織決定的巍实，系統(tǒng)也可能受到外界的影響。 [^ 10]對現(xiàn)實的感知和建構(gòu)的基本要素是產(chǎn)生自己的身體模型（自我的模型）哩牍，以及時空模型和時空位置模型(Essential to the perception and construction of reality are other processes that produce a model of one’s own body (of the ego), and a spatiotemporal model as well as a model of the place in the time-space. )棚潦。 邊緣系統(tǒng)的大腦活動的重要性 - 情感和意圖的組成部分 - 明確地表明，對現(xiàn)實的理解和解釋不完全是神經(jīng)過程的結(jié)果膝昆。

10. That which is experienced as reality is socially conditioned, for its construction rests on interaction with other individuals, on consensual domains, on language and culture. In summary it can be said that knowledge is a creative process that depends both on cognition and on interpersonal relationships and interactions with the environment: thus the entirety of knowledge, culture and art is based on the consensus, interactions and networking of individuals constituting society.
    那些被認為是現(xiàn)實的東西是社會條件性的丸边，因為它的構(gòu)建依賴于與其他個人之間的互動，基于共識的領(lǐng)域外潜，語言和文化原环。 總之，可以說知識是一個創(chuàng)造性的過程处窥，既依賴于認知嘱吗，也依賴于人際關(guān)系和與環(huán)境的相互作用：因此，知識滔驾，文化和藝術(shù)的整體基于構(gòu)成社會的個人的共識谒麦，互動和網(wǎng)絡(luò)。

Media art as intercommunicative process

媒體藝術(shù)是互動的過程

11. Albert Einstein once stated that scientific theories are free creations of the human mind, and that he considered it to be the most wonderful thing to be able to use them, nevertheless, to explain the world. The same might be said of art. As a free creation of the human mind, it does not explain an independent world; rather, it takes issue with the experience of the subject in his world, and offers various explanatory models for a context in which the observer and the work partake.
    阿爾伯特愛因斯坦曾經(jīng)說過哆致，科學(xué)理論是人類思想的自由創(chuàng)造绕德，并且他認為能夠使用它們是最奇妙的事情，但是它可以解釋世界摊阀。 藝術(shù)也是如此耻蛇。 作為人類思想的自由創(chuàng)造，它不能解釋一個獨立的世界; 相反胞此，它在他的世界中對主體的經(jīng)驗提出了問題臣咖，并為觀察者和工作參與者的情境提供了各種解釋模型。
12. Vilém Flusser’s thesis states that the function of art is to create other worlds and to enable access to other realities. Anyone who produces a work of art not only expresses with it a part of himself and his environment, but also brings about a dialogue with other observers and a projection of other realities. Because art commits itself to this process, changing the world—expanding human realities (knowledge, experiences, sensations or perceptions)— becomes its cause.
13. From this perspective, every reality is based on experiences and actions of the creator as well as of the viewer, and is thus one argument in a (possible) explanation. As an operation within a consensual domain, the dialogic process can expand this domain and contribute to the emergence of new consensual domains, leading to an expansion of experiences, knowledge and arguments, which can potentially result in an altered cognitive horizon. Accordingly, as a form of communication, art must be ascribed to the domain of cognition that creates the prerequisites of communication. ?Thought, science and art are selfreferential cognitive processes, but they are not self-maintaining: they need the physical-chemical existence of organisms that bring forth cognition, and with it thought, science and art. Whereas autopoietic systems can invariably carry out self-maintenance only in the physical-chemical framework preordained by their environment, cognitive processes are free from these restrictions and obey only internal laws and exigencies.? ^[10]
14. In the art domain, therefore, reference to knowledge does not mean an approach to its possible contents exclusively on the basis of reason; rather, the intention is to emphasize that the co-influence of emotions and sensory experiences in the process of assimilating a work of art is an inseparable part of the dialogic process.
15. In summary, two hypotheses can be set up. One is that since explanations of art are not constitutive, reductionist or transcendental, it is by no means a matter of the search for a single and definitive explanation for the domain of art. The other is that the function of art consists in changing the world, with the latter being understood to mean the expansions of human realities and cognitive domains, and consequently also of the knowledge and experiences resulting from possible interactions and the dialogic exchange in the explanatory context of the cognitive worlds. This leads to the question of how art can execute the communicative process.
16. The branch of aesthetics more closely modeled on communication science examines social processes that develop expressive forms as well as phenomena of aesthetic expression fulfilling communicative functions (communication media, events, or social ceremonies).In art it is possible to distinguish among various modes of proceeding by which the problematic of communication is tackled: through the role of the viewer in the context of the work, through the analysis of the reception, or—as proposed for instance by Fred Forest and the proponents of ?communication aesthetics?—from sociological viewpoints concerned with the influence of art on viewer, society or culture.
17. Art is an especially complex socio-cultural domain because in the process of communication it avails itself of a mainly metaphoric, symbolic and non-trivial language. If there are several domains of reality, and all of them are equally valid, the theories of art aesthetics cannot individually lay claim to universal acceptance; nor can they be viewed as inherent to the object. Sense and meaning do not lie in the work of art itself, and cannot be conveyed through the latter in the expectation that the work will be adequately interpreted. In art, meanings are time-bound, culture-specific, observer-dependent cognitive processes; therefore, works of art cannot speak for themselves.
18. A work of art should indeed invite the observer to enter its domain of reality and take an interest in its view of the world. If one viewer, or a group of viewers, is led to new consensual domains by a work of art, and hence to new cognition, then not only the creative act has been accomplished successfully, but communication has been, too: the spreading of a world-view to a community. Although art-works and communication are separate domains, neither works of art nor systems of art can exist without communication, no more so than art-communication is possible without art; accordingly, art-works serve the coupling of cognition and communication. ^[11] This amounts to a new theoretical position that deviates from the cybernetic model.
19. Communication is no longer understood to mean the transmission of information, and nor is it seen as the transmission of knowledge from one system to another. It replaces the information-technical principle of communication with the model of the construction process within the cognitive systems and between systems. [^13] This process-oriented perspective is observer-dependent, i.e. as part of a network of social systems, every observer or observer community co-constitutessystems, and these naturally include art systems among others. Orientation has shifted from information objectivity to intersubjective interactivity.
20. One consequence is that art is becoming a kind of ?catalyst of society’s cultural reflection.? ^[12] Proposals representing a threat to the existence of a consensus-based cognitive domain can meet with strong emotional rejection within the cultural community. By contrast, twentieth-century art offers countless examples of cases in which with the aid of intentional polemics cognition domains were expanded through the institution of ?art? being forced to criticize itself.
21. The meaning of art and its aesthetics is to be sought in the function it exercises within the given observer communities, as well as in its ability to bring about by means of a language of its own an emotional and conceptual dialogue with the observer and the community.

Interactivity: the interface question

Just as people need the media for communication, technical interfaces enable different systems to be linked. It is a matter thereby of reducing spatio-temporal distances and of optimizing the response time and flexibility of the connection. The resultant re-definition of the positions adopted by both systems—subject and machine—influences the communication process. On the one hand, the subject is no longer merely an operator controlling a tool; on the other hand, the machine undergoes constant growth in regard to the independence of its functioning—in other words, it is no longer a ?simple? tool in the traditional sense.

21. This gradual assimilation of the position and weighting in the humanmachine communication process ^[13] is clearly evident in the ?Interface Model? of William Bricken. ^[14] With it he attempts to minimize the distance between the systems (A) and (B) and at the same time to demonstrate the reciprocal influence exercised on the agents by the interaction processes. This means that every transmission of information influences and defines the linked systems. In ?Interface Model 4? Bricken introduces a further factor: the context. According to Bricken the interface boundaryrepresents the knowledge of the interaction environment on the part of the interacting agents. On being introduced into the interaction process, the parameter of context becomes an influencing factor in the communication process. Context is a component of the interaction between two systems in the measure which they share this parameter, but can be altered in the course of the process.

Context and environment

23. The position of Niklas Luhmann must be recalled to mind in regard to the factors of context/environment. System theory abandoned the idea of a totality constituted of parts in order to introduce the explicit reference to the environment. Luhmann goes one step further by making the structures and processes of a system dependent on their relationships to a specific environment, indicating that these structures and processes are comprehensible only in relation to this environment. This mutual dependence declares that one cannot design or create an interactive system in isolated form, since as a completed element it would a posteriori adapt to a random environment. ?Systems of interaction are formed when the presence of people is used to solve through communication the problem of dual contingency. Presence brings with it perceptibility, and insofar structural coupling to communicatively not controllable consciousness processes.? ^[15]
    Communication, in Luhmann’s view, is in real life an environmentadapted operation. This adaptation, however, is not completely controllable in terms of cognition or, put differently, no communication is capable of checking every single step of the process.
24. Alongside context/environment, time is another significant point of reference both from the perspective of optimizing interaction and recursivity as well as in regard to the response times between two systems. The endeavor to optimize the human-machine interaction process and the response times involved led to an enhancement of the visualization and sensorial perception of computer-processed information.

Translation

25. A further, crucial question is aimed directly at the notion of translation. Abraham A. Moles had already addressed the subject of ?translation? ^[16] as one of the main factors in the human-machine relationship. From the technical viewpoint the interface assumes the function of translating and conveying information between two interconnected systems. As Halbach emphasizes, the problem lies precisely in the notion of ?translation,? because not only does it connect various input and output channels, it also regulates and communicates various coding methods. ?When it is a matter of interfaces of human-machine interaction, then (a) input and output channels cannot be adjusted to each other, since they are precisely what a human being, as an autopoietic system, does not possess, and (b) is it not possible to speak of a translation of the coding method, since the subsymbolic representation forms of the human nervous have not (yet) been decrypted.? ^[17]
    Due to the employment of technical media, interaction based on a human-machine interface denotes a qualitative expansion of communication computer displays and interfaces function as control mechanisms that maintain the equivalence of communication. For this reason, control—conscious or unconscious—is among the most relevant research tasks in the area of interactive systems.
26. Today’s systems convey to the user impressions or sensations that are only partially attributable to his own sensory or motor activities, since the possibilities of interaction and the generation of outputs (for instance, moving three-dimensional images, or sound) are determined by the particular program constituting the user’s field of action. In the measure to which the user cannot completely control the cognitive processes of interactive communication in the simulated environment, part of the control must necessarily be exercised by the system itself.

Models of interactive systems

27. The actions of the observer thus exercise a fundamental and complementary function in interactive systems. The resultant need for synchronous humanmachine reactions, and the interdependence between the context of the subject and that of the systemenvironment, lead to the question of the different typologies of interactive systems and their strategies.
28. Various works of media art deploying reactive systems and digital images at the same time directly or indirectly investigate the changes that the observer, by means of data manipulation over interfaces, can bring about in the work. Three models of interactive system can be roughly distinguished on the basis of media-assisted forms of interactivity: ^[18]
    — Discrete or active systems: although the user can control the content called up, and the sequence in which this occurs, he/she has no influence on the transmitted information, since the management of this information, which demonstrates predictable behavior, is integrated.
    — Reactive systems: the work’s behavior, which is media-assisted and based on feedback structures, results from the direct reaction to external stimuli, for instance user control or altered environmental conditions. Selection methods and recursive events create cognitive situations for the participative user.
    — Interactive systems: open program structuring, over which the receiver can also act as transmitter. Since the user can influence the procedure and appearance of the work, or even add new information in the case of more complex systems, it is a matter of content-related interactivity. Temporal, spatial, or content-based relations are established between interactor and work.
29. Heinz von Foerster makes a distinction between trivial and non-trivial machines in regard to technical specificity. Trivial machines are causally describable and predictable, and conceivable only in non-physical areas such as mathematics. Machines in physical space are always non-trivial, since this space is subject to entropic processes. Two types of non-trivial machines can be distinguished: those which attempt to adjust their behavior to the trivial machines, and those which behave non-trivially. The former are purposeoriented machines, the latter are ones which are potentially suitable for interactivity. ^[19]
30. According to Peter Weibel three different models of interactivity can be drawn up from the viewpoints of behavior and consciousness: synaesthetic interactivity, which consists of interactivity between variousmaterials and elements, such as image and sound, color and music; synergetic interactivity, which takes place between states of energy, as in works that react to changes in their environment; and communicative or kinetic interactivity between different people and between persons and objects.
    In all cases, environment or context are of crucial importance to the human-machine performance. As stated already, the integration of context into the interactivity process means acknowledging it as a conditioning factor in the communication process. Peter Weibel reflects upon the relationship of dependence between observer and context in his interactive installation ?Cartesian Chaos? of 1992.

Art/system

31. Interactivity in art is therefore composed, as Peter Weibel proposes, of three digital characteristics: virtuality, variability, and viability.^[20] On the other hand, the human-machine interface attests to the transformation of a culture based on narratively logocentric and sequential structures into a ?digital culture? that is visual, sensory, retroactive and nonlinear (hypertextual) in orientation. The special potentiality of digital technology (including the telematic) is applied in order to overcome the boundaries of the purely instrumental and so accomplish the transformation into a medium of the imaginary generating cognitively and sensorially experiencable (virtual) environments.
32. On the basis of all these factors associated with media art in general and with interactive art in particular, a crucial shift in the meaning of ?art? towards that of ?system?^[21] is clearly discernible (without wanting to simply replace one term with another).
33. The analysis of interactive systems leads to the conclusion that the interest lies no longer in the production of a work of art that reflects upon world- views through the reproduction or interpretation of ways of seeing, but that the work of art, as a ?system,? attempts to scrutinize the world itself: the realities, the contexts, the life, the biological system of humanity. It is a system that opens up new ?world-views.? Contemporary art creation assisted by processbased methods and systemic models is gainingnew significance in the sociocultural context, and thereby contradicting art’s postulated loss of function in the present-day world. Moreover, the idiosyncrasy of the process as well as the interactive and systemic character of the work produced inevitably entails a transformation of aesthetic paradigms.
34. The systemic practices based on the use of interactive technologies demand an aesthetic theory appropriate to their methods. Endo-physics, which is closely linked with Constructivism, hereby offers ideal foundations for concepts inspiring proposals for an ?endo-aesthetics,?^[22]a theory considered to be suitable for recording the different manifestations of interactive and artificial systems.
    Translation by Tom Morrison
    全網(wǎng)協(xié)作

1. Alexander Bogdanov, Tektología, published in three volumes in Russia between 1912 and 1917. ?

2. Little notice was taken of Bogdanov’s writings during his lifetime, however, and the lack of promulgation meant that it was the Austrian biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s ideas in regard to general system theory which turned into a scientific current the transformation of systemic thought. See Ludwig von Bertalanffy, ?Der Organismus als physikalisches System betrachtet,? in Die Naturwissenschaften, Bd. 28, 1940, pp. 521–531; ?The Theory of Open Systems in Physics and Biology,? in Science, vol. 111, 1950, pp. 23–29; General System Theory, New York, 1968. ?

3. Like, for example, Ilya Prigogine and dissipative structures; Manfred Eigen and hyper-cycles; Hermann Haken and laser theory. ?

4. ?Autopoiesis?—from the Greek ?auto? (self) and ?poiein? (shaping)—means ?self-shaping.? ?

5. ?The nervous system is a closed network of interacting active neuronal elements (neurons, effectors and receptors) that are structurally realized as cellular components of the organism. As such, it operates as a closed network of changing relations of activity between its components; that is, it is constitutive to the organization of the nervous system that any change of relations of activity between its components leads to further changes of relations of activity between them, and that in that sense it operates without inputs or outputs. Therefore, any action upon an environment that an observer sees as a result of the operation of the nervous system is a feature of the structural changes that take place in the nervous system as a cellular network, and not a feature of its operation as such.? Humberto Maturana, ?Ontology of Observing. The biological foundations of self consciousness and the physical domain of existence? in chapter 9 ?Consequences?. See Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living, Boston, 1980. ?

6. ?In the distinction of living systems, this distinction as entities engaged as adequate action consists in bringing them forth (in the praxis of living of the observer), both in conservation of autopoiesis and of adaptation and as a moment in their ontongenic drift in a medium. In other words, I have shown that for any particular circumstance of distinction of a living system, conservation of living (conservation of autopiesis and of adaptation) constitutes adequate action in those circumstances, and, hence, knowledge: living systems are cognitive systems, and to live is to know.? Humberto Maturana, ?Ontology of Observing. The biological foundations of self consciousness and the physical domain of existence? in chapter 8 ?Consequences?. See Humberto Maturana ?

7. Humberto Maturana, La realidad: ?objetiva o construida? II, Barcelona,1996, p. 214. Cf. Humberto Maturana and Francisco J. Varela, The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding, Boston, 1987.
   [8] Humberto Maturana, ?Kognition,? in Der Diskurs des Radikalen Konstruktivismus, Siegfried J. Schmidt (ed.), Frankfurt-on-Main, 1987, p. 114. See Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living, Boston, 1980. ?

8. Humberto Maturana, ?Kognition,? in Der Diskurs des Radikalen Konstruktivismus, Siegfried J. Schmidt (ed.), Frankfurt/Main, 1987, pp. 89–118. ?

9. Cf. Gerhard Roth, ?Erkenntnis und Realit?t: Das reale Gehirn und seine Wirklichkeit,? in Der Diskurs des Radikalen Konstruktivismus, Siegfried J. Schmidt (ed.), Frankfurt/Main, 1987, p. 241. This would be one of the counter-arguments to Maturana’s assertion that cognitive systems are autopoietic (cf. Humberto Maturana, ?Kognition,? in Der Diskurs des Radikalen ?

10. Gerhard Roth, ?Autopoise und Kognition: Die Theorie H. R. Maturanas und die Notwendigkeit ihrer Weiterentwicklung?, in Der Diskurs des Radikalen Konstruktivismus, Siegfried J. Schmidt (ed.), Frankfurt/Main, 1987, p. 282. ?

11. Cf. Siegfried J. Schmidt, Kalte Faszination, Weilerswist, 2000, p. 297.
    [13] Cf. Erich Jantsch, ?Erkenntnistheoretische Aspekte der Selbstorganisation natürlicher Systeme? in Der Diskurs des Radikalen Konstruktivismus, Siegfried J. Schmidt (ed.), Frankfurton- Main, 1987, p. 170. ?

12. Siegfried J. Schmidt, Kalte Faszination, Weilerswist, 2000, p. 288. ?

13. Cf. the text section on ?Man–Machine–Communication? in Claudia Giannetti, ?Art, Science, and Technology.? ?

14. William Bricken, ?An Interface Model,? internal paper of ATARI Systems Research, Ms (draft), 1983, p. 5, cited after Wulf R. Halbach, Interfaces: Medien- und kommunikationstheoretische Elemente einer Interface-Theorie, Munich, 1994, p. 161. ?

15. Niklas Luhmann, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt-on-Main, 1997, p. 814. ?

16. Cf. Claudia Giannetti, ?Information Aesthetics.? ?

17. Wulf R. Halbach, Interfaces: Medien- und kommunikationstheoretische Elemente einer Interface-Theorie, Munich, 1994, p. 166. ?

18. For further suggestions see Fran?oise Holtz-Bonneau, L'image et l'ordinateur, Paris, 1986. ?

19. See Peter Krieg, ?Versuch über Interaktion und Medien,? in Künstliche Spiele, Georg Hartwagner et al. (eds), Munich, 1993, pp. 180–181. ?

20. See Peter Weibel, ?The Unreasonable Effectiveness of the Methodological Convergence of Art and Science,? in Art @ Science, Christa Sommerer/Laurent Mignonneau (eds), Vienna/New York, 1998. ?

21. Fred Forest wrote in 1985: ?Replacer l'art, aujourd'hui, dans les systèmes situés aux divers niveaux d'organisation de la réalité, en faisant sauter les cloisonnements disciplinaires, me para?t une tache nécessaire et à la fois enévitable.? See Fred Forest, ?Manifeste pour une esthétique de la communication? in Esthétique des Arts Médiatiques, Louise Poissant (ed.), Québec, 1995, p. 36. In the catalog for the Interactive Media Festival, San Francisco, 1995, Roy Ascott replaced the notion of art with that of the system. Besides Weibel cf. also Louis Bec. ?

22. Cf. also the text section ?Principles of endo-physics? in Claudia Giannetti, ?Endoaesthetics.?
    ? Media Art Net 2004 ?