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The Many Worlds of Art, Science and the New TechnologiesAuthor(s): Don ForestaSource: Leonardo, Vol. 24, No. 2, Connectivity: Art and Interactive Telecommunications (1991),pp. 139-144Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1575283 .

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The Many Worlds of Art, Science

and the New Technologies

Don Foresta

John Wheeler, Director of the Center for Theo- retical Physics at the University of Texas at Austin, called "meaning-objective reality-the joint product of those who communicate" [ 1 ]. With this definition he summarized one of the important philosophical principles, the role of communication, to emerge from our century's most profound scientific revolution, that of quantum physics.

At the turn of the century, classical physics was the center of a debate over apparently contradictory definitions of light, which was described in turn either as particle or as wave. Niels Bohr, one of the world's most eminent physicists and founder of the Copenhagen School of Quantum Phys- ics, resolved the problem through the theory of complemen- tarity [2] by stating that light could be either particle or wave depending on the method of experimentation used to define it. It is appropriate under certain circumstances to see light as a particle and under others to see it as a wave. The definition of light thus becomes a process involving the experimental method used to define it as well as the observer, human or mechanical. The means of measurement used to record phenomena participate in their definition so that an event in time becomes intermingled with the observer and the act of observation, all three elements forming an inseparable system. Bohr's school of quantum physics profoundly changed the definition of matter by denying the existence of any underlying reality discernable by human beings. Matter itself exists, according to the Copenhagen School, only if observed, and no reality exists outside the act of measurement.

This is one of the more extreme conclusions derived from

Fig. 1. Niels Bohr's quantum definition of matter parallels the Buddhist teacher Dignaga's description of reality dating from the sixth century.

Quantum Physics Buddhist Teaching

quantum physics. Slightly less intimidating is the position that objective reality independent of ourselves exists but cannot be perceived objectively. Our very act of perception influences the reality we are attempting to observe. The object perceived is analyzed by the same mind doing the perceiving, and it is therefore defined in a highly subjective system of perception and analysis. Through our own measuring systems-our individual minds-we are constantly inventing reality and are incapable of seeing it objectively.

The quantum system of communication, of interaction between observed and observer, of processing information and

ABSTRACT

We are in a period of radical transformation resulting from the revolutionary changes in scientific perception in our century. One of the most important transformations has to do with the role of communication in the definition of matter and reality. As a reaction to their changing environment, many contemporary artists are using the newly available tools of three of today's most important technologies-video, computers and communications technology-in their search for new forms of creative expression. Video art has evolved from artists' use of the tools of television for their own creative ends. Computers offer unlimited possibilities for image generation and the manipulation of vast quantities of information in the creative process. Communication technology allows interactivity in both these fields as well as the creation of new work spaces that eliminate distances between collaborators.

of recording changing states, is a cybernetic system. We know that we act in a cybernetic fashion as we perceive, react, perceive the results of our reaction and act again. The act of perception involves ourselves, the object being observed, and our evaluation of the object. This feedback loop is understood today as the foundation of much physical and psychological activity. It is interesting to note that Buddhist thinkers many centuries ago developed a definition of reality involving the same triad (Fig. 1). As the fifth century teacher Dignaga described it, "By the Understanding [the mind] it [reality] is enclosed in a 'threefold envelope' of a cognizer, cognized and cognition. These three items do not represent opposed forms of reality, but only contrasting attitudes toward one and the same reality" [3]. The subject and the object become one, linked by the measurement performed. The method of observation-means of measurement-is a system of communication between the observer and the observed, the medium linking the two and determining in part the final form of perception. This dynamic process, in which we ourselves participate, replaces the notion of an independent object existing outside of ourselves. The definition of matter as 'process' replaces that of matter as the 'object' of classical mechanics.

Communication-its theory and its form-is thus at the very heart of existence, bringing to the fore the problem inherent in the measurement process. As Bohr states, "A close connection exists between the failure of our forms of

Don Foresta (educator), 27, rue du Rhin, 75019 Paris, France.

Received 10 September 1990.

? 1991 ISAST Pergamon Press plc. Printed in Great Britain. 0024-094X/91 $3.00+0.00 LEONARDO, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 139-144, 1991 139



perception, which is founded on the impossibility of a strict separation of phenomena and means of observation" (this is the measurement problem) "and the general limits of man's capac- ity to create concepts, which have their roots in our differentiation between subject and object" [4] (this is the perception-of-measurement problem). Or as Heisenberg states, "What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning" [5]. Here we recognize an element of subjectivity in our mode of inquiry, and the inevitable presence of ourselves in the results. The experiments we devise to find the information that we need, to prove the theory we hold, reflect our already-arrived-at worldview. We try to limit that subjective content by using the tool of objectivity, however imper- fectly. Objectivity must be understood as a tool or method of operation, as a goal rather than something that really exists. It is an important, indispensable tool in science, as it is in other profes- sions, but it does not exist in itself as some magical substance bequeathed to the privileged few through education or election.

As Wheeler stated, we define our world though communication. The various acceptable definitions-subjective worldviews of others-are combined with our own, and we arrive at a joint determination of how we organize reality. The social and political difficulty has always been to enlarge the number of acceptable definitions that we are willing to combine with our own to pro- vide consensus. The multiple or statisti- cal definition of reality is scientifically acceptable, and it has found its counter- part in a limited sense in certain human societies defined as democracies based on participation. The consensus arrived at by a given group of human beings could be considered as an 'attractor' as defined in chaos theory [6]: the averaging of the activity of a complex system-in this case, society. The attractor or averaging charac- terizes society's long-run behavior; this formula is the base from which we func- tion, our definition of reality.

ATTRACTORS AND OTHER PARADIGMS

The question of whether there is a rational pattern to life, a pattern that exists outside of ourselves and that we are capable of understanding, has ex- isted as long as human culture. Can we

find or understand the meaning of life, or at least the logic that exists in its various interactions? Is the harmony of the universe something that exists independent of us, or is it something that we construct little by little during our search for it? Our era is probably as incapable as any other of answering these questions definitively, but we will continue to ask them, understanding, perhaps better than before, to what extent we are ourselves a part of the an- swer, and that each person's solution, rather than being objective, is an inti- mate part of himself or herself. Know- ing that we participate in the creation of the reality around us, that we can affect the final form of our era's 'attractor', we should wish to project the better part of ourselves into that creation, the part that adds to rather than sub- tracts from the universe, that part of our being-consciousness-that we attempt to perfect. In this sense, each one of us is our most important work of art, participating in the artwork that is our world, the cultural construct that is our collective worldview.

New discoveries can lead to what science historian Thomas Kuhn called a paradigm shift [7]. Certain new givens can challenge previously-agreed- upon interpretations of nature, forcing new formulations and leading eventually to a fundamental change in scientific definitions. Such a paradigm shift will have repercussions in other areas of human endeavor and will grow into a sometimes radical change in worldview. The new view emerges from an older paradigm; the search takes place within that older structure until something happens to show that it no longer ex- plains all the givens that it helped to find. At this point, the scientist, in order to take into account the new givens, creates a new paradigm that changes the way his or her profession sees phenomena. The new worldview completes and enlarges the older one on which it is based.

It is natural that, up until now, measurement should have had so prominent a place in our thinking. We have chosen to make it so by the same act through which we have given science its over- whelming domination in the modern era, by according to it the exclusive right to define our universe. Being of the same nature, science and measurement are preponderate-though not the only-manifestations of the mind's mechanism. We have now arrived at the inevitable point in our logic at which, by giving such prominence to measure-

ment, the entire universe has come to

rely solely on this act. This has troubled many in and outside the field of physics, and many attempts have been made to resolve the problem.

Mathematician Hugh Everett defined what is known as the 'many-worlds' interpretation of quantum reality [8], which inspired the title of this article. Everett arrived at this interpretation by trying to overcome the exaggerated em- phasis on the measuring act. He con- cluded mathematically that reality consists of trillions of simultaneous worlds, each unknown to the others. Evaluating this theory, physicist Nick Herbert stated that

Everett's many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory, despite its extrava- gant assumption of numerous unob- servable parallel worlds, is a favorite model of many theoretical physicists because, of all the quantum realities, it alone seems to solve the measurement problem with no arbitrary canoniza- tion of the process of measurement [9].

Quantum relativity, the attempt to resolve the differences between quantum theory and Einstein's relativity theory, goes one step further, providing a mathematical basis for the idea that those parallel worlds do in fact communicate.

When we are forced to regard this

universe, our creation, and to try to eliminate the exaggerated place accorded to measurement, we are faced with an absurd poetry of trillions of worlds existing side by side, which then becomes a sort of new parable, fright- ening and inspiring at the same time, an Alice in Wonderland of many worlds, many possible interpretations of being existing in parallel at the same moment in time. This is in fact a rather accurate picture of reality. Much of human activity is a search for consensus among the many points of view existing among individuals, particularly during periods such as our own, when so much

rapid change requires so much redefi- nition. Each of us represents a world, a definition of the environment from our own subjective perspective. The con-

cept of consensus, the world defined by the totality of its definitions, brings us back again to John Wheeler, a former professor of Everett's, and to his idea that reality is the sum of all those that communicate. Are we closer to a new myth or a new reality? Whatever it may be, it is becoming the

guiding paradigm for the reorganiza- tion of our social systems.

140 Foresta, The Many Worlds of Art, Science and the New Technologies



ARTISTS AND THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES

Marcel Duchamp expressed the same idea in a simple yet profound way in his work Trois stoppages-4talon. This work is part of a series of metre works he did by dropping meter-long threads from a distance of one meter and then preserv- ing the results by making new wooden metersticks whose measuring edges duplicated the paths of the fallen threads. By creating new 'standard meters', he recognized simply that there are many ways of measuring the world, that each of us, in his or her own way, is a measure of humanity, a standard meter. The

subjectivity of perception provides each individual with a measure of the world; the communication of these various measures defines reality. Each one of us is like an artist, continuously creating our own personal worldview, often un- aware of just how subjective it is. Hera- clitus believed that the world was 'one and many at the same time'; the tension held in this opposition is the tension inherent to life [10]. The one and the many can be understood as our individual personal world versus the rest, the sum of all the other personal worlds.

Just as we individually need to make sense of each group of sensual givens in order to act and to survive, so by communication do we create other concepts by which we live with our fellows. Each society constantly recreates itself through communication, which con- tinually redefines the collective reality. In describing this century's changing view of natural science, Heisenberg wrote, "One has now divided the world not into different groups of objects, but into groups of connections" [11 ]. This makes very clear the basic difference between the 'object' of the mechanical universe and the 'interactive process' of the era that we now are entering.

Gary Zukav, in his book The Dancing Wu Li Masters, calls the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics "extra- ordinarily aesthetic" mathematically, with its textual description reading like "mythical poetry" [12]. Many artists today recognize this poetry and are working, much in the same spirit as many scientists, with emerging scientific ideas to define new realities, taking into account the importance of communication, the ideas of process and interactivity and the collective definition of reality. Art and science are

joining in defining a potential new paradigm of global dimensions. For per-

haps 20 years now, artists have been experimenting with communications technology, trying to create new en- vironments for interactive work, overcoming long distances and cultural differences to see whether it is in fact possible to redefine creative reality. They have been active in exchanges by satellite, in experimentation with telephone systems, in interactive work with drawing, texts and photos, and in art for television and radio. Much of this work involves traditional kinds of artistic production with different distribution systems. Other artists have applied them- selves to developing systems through which others can communicate. Some of the work has become genuinely interactive, a collaboration over thou- sands of miles.

This network of interacting creators resembles a huge geodesic dome in which each point is connected to and communicates with several others, much like Buckminster Fuller's interlocking tetrahedrons. The organization is hori- zontal, rather than hierarchical, among equally weighted centers, so that there is an independent interdependence. This schema of the network corre- sponds nicely to the mythological one of Indra's Net, which describes the universe as a net of pearls, in which each pearl reflects all others [13]. In this image we begin to find a potential structure for future social and political rela- tions and the skeletal outline of new institutional forms. The possibility of many worlds existing in parallel is duplicated by artists' networks. Their electronic interconnectedness consists of each artist's world, which exists in itself and through its relation to other worlds that help define it. A new world springs into existence each time creative centers change, and reality can be seen from another perspective. The network is like colored threads running around the world, except that they are not necessarily constant, and they can be recreated, broken up and recreated again, in never-ending configurations and patterns.

In our century, first with cinema and now with video, we have developed sophisticated means of recording real time, duration as we experience it, or edited time as another form of abstraction. All visual representation, be it primitive symbols or the higher forms of visual art, has until now consisted of fixed images. We have had a rough approximation of recorded time in music and other performing arts, and for this reason the recorded image is

closer to the performing arts than to the plastic arts in both its creation and its appreciation. Using the new tools of technology, art is realizing that reality is no longer defined as an object but rather as a process-again duplicating science. Creating is a process, and the experiencing of the work is a reenact- ment of that process. Part of the experience of and satisfaction in view- ing a video tape is that we can share the process of creation with the artist, seeing and understanding what he or she was in fact doing technically and appreciating the work further for the knowing. There is a parallel to music and to the appreciation of a musician's technical prowess, the mastery of the instrument, and the development of the work over time. The creative act involved here is the making of a tape; the act does not engender an art object in the traditional sense.

This kind of creation is based on communication through the juxtapos- ing of images. The artist working with systems of electronic recording recreates reality by putting together images in a way that will provoke our concep- tual powers to search for a meaning. The work is a record of reality in the sense that the images are real. The montage of these fractions of reality is the new reality that takes on meaning as we interpret the sense of the flow of images. Our brain does the same thing in a rather free-wheeling fashion as we dream. Our dreams are pure fabrica- tions of the various unrelated images stored in our brain. Never-existing spaces, places and people are invented nightly, as in film and video. As Einstein said,

The words or the language, as they are written or spoken do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The physical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs which are more or less clear images which can be voluntarily repro- duced and combined. Then from a psychological viewpoint this combina- tory play seems to be the essential fea- ture in productive thought [14].

Thus Einstein described his thought process as the manipulation of images. This concept of mental process repli- cating art is remarkably close to a description of the making of a film or video, a form of creativity that de- pends on reproducing and combining images. Duchamp adds another element of time when he describes his painting Jeune Homme Triste dans un Train as depicting two parallel move- ments, the train and the young man,

Foresta, The Many Worlds of Art, Science and the New Technologies 141



and as a series of successive fixed images of the movement, like still frames in cinema or in video, the representation of continuous movement in a discontinuous fashion, a recognition of the calculus of the mind-art repli- cating mental process.

Abstraction in much of modern art, through the manipulation of form or of time, is the space left for the observer, the room for participation in and application of other subjectivities, in order to discover the multiple meanings that can exist in a work of art. We have ambiguity at the service of thought- images that provoke through their re- organization of reality and time. This notion is relatively new in Western art, but it is an old idea in the East. Pieces of recorded reality are rearranged like the elements of nature in a Zen garden, to create a new reality, a new space, waiting for the observer to give it life.

Artists have begun to see in many of the new technologies possibilities for creating innumerable realities that were only dreamt of a short time ago. The manipulation of time and space, process, duration and interactivity have all become important underlying elements in the art of our century. They have become an integral part of artjust as they have for some time been the very heart of science. Marshall McLuhan described the research role of the creator in this changing climate: "The serious artist is the only person able to encounter technology with impunity, just because he is an expert aware of the changes in sense perception" [15]. Artists understand that the arrival of these new technologies and the scientific developments that engendered them meant profound change. They understand the new technologies as new systems, because they see in them their multi-layered application to the changing human environment. The technologies represent a new paradigm that raises new questions and calls for new approaches rather than a collec- tion of single-purpose tools.

Technology creates tools for specific purposes responding to specific demands. The artist finds other uses for them by making them do things beyond what they were originally constructed to do, and in doing so advances the human application of the technology. The artist socializes machines and technology by discovering esthetic uses for them, sometimes creating new demands for machines to which en- gineers must respond. This fact has been demonstrated over and over again

in the field of electronics. Artists first entered there in a spirit of play, the safest and surest way of overcoming our natural intimidation by a complex technology. The second step has been the mastery of the technology through experimentation and production. Finally we find the artist actually inventing or collaborating in the invention of new systems in order to respond to creative needs. Every artist of note working with technology has passed through these stages, and this will continue to be the case for each new technological system invented. Each of these stages has its concrete results that clearly identify the different levels of evolution of this form of creativity. In the first phase both the artist and the public are surprised by the results, amazed by the nearly ac- cidental discoveries of the artist-images, forms or processes never before seen. The second phase demands more sophistication on the part of both artist and spectator; here the technology is mastered and consciously used by the artist to achieve what he or she has set out to create. Here the artist generally begins to understand the limitations of the technology and starts to move to phase 3, developing extensions of the technology to satisfy his or her creative demands. At this point, the artist and the work become socially more mean- ingful; the integration of the technological system into the human environment has begun. It is no longer a passive tool serving predetermined human needs but an active system evolving as humanity evolves. It is now an integral part of human culture.

This kind of art is also a part of the process of defining reality, because it is founded entirely on communication. The artist uses different mental tools than the scientist, moving from concept-his or her worldview-to analysis-his or her individual work-rather than the reverse, to define the world. The truly great artist is one who has a highly developed and profound personal mythology, a view of the world created with much imagination and in great depth. Each work will then be a manifestation of that world, permitting us to experience the image of humanity in its environment as conceived by the creator. The artist therefore con- tributes his or her world to the total definition, in the same way that we all do, but to a greater extent. Each work is a model of reality that is used as a standard against which specific judg- ments are made and perceptions ac- cepted or rejected.

THE ART OF COMMUNICATION

Reality defined as communication im- plies constant becoming. The worldview of a group changes subtly over time as the knowledge of its members changes and is communicated, and through the addition and subtraction of living beings. The same is true when the group expands psychologically by accepting new members from other groups who add new givens to the equa- tion. Individuals, groups or ideas that were considered outside the paradigm or opposed to it are now assimilated into it. This merging of apparent op- posites is forever present in the 'becoming' [16] described by the East and symbolized by the principles of yin and yang [17]. Communication is one becoming the other. It overcomes the clear- cut division between poles. As D. T. Suzuki says, "Knowledge is to enter right into the object itself and see it... from the inside"; and Eric Fromm adds that this kind of knowledge "is the cona- tive or creative way of seeing reality. In this experience of the immediate, unre- flected grasp, man becomes the 'creative artist of life' which we all are and yet have forgotten we are" [18]. The intuitive insight of Fromm's 'creative artist' lies in the recognition of the role that each of us has in creating a reality whose harmony and equilibrium are affected by our individual actions. Through this insight we see the world expanding, increasingly illuminated as more and more of the planet, through the incorporation of diverse points of view, passes into the light of day.

We are now entering the era of total international communication, a world wired by cable and satellite, which will eventually permit instant exchange between all peoples of the planet. Com- munication, as we have seen, has always defined our sociopolitical paradigm and therefore our institutions. Tech- nology is extending that interaction to larger and larger groups of people, and we are beginning to witness the creation of institutions on a global scale.

Artists are now using the new networks in wider and wider systems of exchange, participating in the creation of these institutions, experimenting with form and content, which will have an inevitable impact on their final util- ity. Just as we define reality through communication, artists are creating a new reality by trading their standard meters on a global scale, participating in the perceptual training that is their




vocation. Their role has not changed from what it was in the past, but the scale and the speed are new. As communication systems grow, cultural evolution spreads more and more rapidly from small villages to cities, from re- gions to nations, and finally across con- tinents. In the new electronic environment we now understand the world as a whole. The shared intellectual space of communication need no longer be limited to shared physical space.

All communication is based on the concept of shared space, mutual perception, mutual becoming. Under nor- mal situations when we communicate with someone we are in the same physical space, creating a cybernetic system with the other person. We do this regularly with the telephone, the first technological extension of that space. We have a shared audio space, where two people can converse as though they were in the same place, even though they lack the visual information that makes communication easier. They can speak normally because at least their voices, and therefore their minds, are sharing the same space. In modern communication we are attempting to extend this concept of shared space electronically by adding more dimensions to it (Fig. 2); this is the only way to guarantee genuine communication over long distances and to eliminate the physicality of space.

This means that a new social space is being created, a space allowing expanded human interaction and creativity. One of the first examples of this artistic effort was the 1977 Satellite Arts Project of Kit Galloway and Sherrie Ra- binowitz (Color Plate A No. 2), which eliminated geography entirely by putting people separated by long distances together in the virtual space that is the television image. Dancers on the two coasts of the United States worked sep- arately in recreated spaces in each of their studios. Their images were then mixed electronically to form another space, the virtual space of the perform- ance piece. Working together, they created a piece within and adapted to this new space.

We can extend the idea further by extrapolating from future holographic technology. A hologram is a three- dimensional image projected in space without the need for a screen. If we imagine a musician in Tokyo recorded in moving holography and transported by satellite, we could actually have that musician playing for us on stage in Paris. If we push the potential of the

Interactive virtual space

Fig. 2. The shared space of communication becomes increasingly enlarged through the application of emerging technologies. 'A' and 'B' will never be in the same physical space, but they will approach a virtual representation of it.

technology even further and imagine the audience transported back to the musician, which would allow him or her the necessary interaction with it, we will have duplicated a concert situation over long distance. Such a situation will be possible in the not-too-distant future; this interaction poses serious questions about reality and is already forcing us into new definitions of it. Is the musician really there? The interaction is certainly real, the concert situation totally real, except that it all takes place in virtual space.

Electronic space already destroys geography through transmission, grav- ity and the horizon through the elimi- nation of the proscenium stage, time through editing. We actually see dancers moving upside down, turning in space, or suspended in movement. We recognize that we are dealing with a new space quite different from the physical space we are accustomed to. This new arena can be stored, trans- mitted and manipulated at will. The television screen is a window that allows us a glimpse into this new space, which we instinctively sense as being larger than the small rectangle before us. Further work in virtual reality is allowing us to pass through that window and enter the space ourselves, and to manipulate objects or circumstances in it. The manipulation of the real, through its passage into the virtual, is the surrealist's dream, and the recrea- tion of space is one of the most important underlying psychological concepts of these new means of creation. The concept of virtual reality being created by artists is mirrored in quantum physics, forcing us to think of reality beyond the terms of concrete tangible substance. Virtual particles, the potential existence of subatomic particles, must be taken into account mathematically if

calculations of particle activity are to be accurate [ 19]. A real existence must be accorded to them. Each of our worlds is a virtual world, a reflection of the real world through the mirror of our existence. They too must be accorded real existence, for it is the communication of these virtual worlds that defines the real world.

Much human effort takes place through a system of multiple cybernetic processes exchanging multiple realities, adding new dimensions to each of the individual realities. Reality, if it exists at all, is larger than any of our individual powers of comprehension. We recognize the limitations of what science calls our 'observer-created reality', and we constantly redefine what we understand as real. This is the appeal of art. The individual artist defines what is real for himself or herself, and we either reject that reality as outside of our own definitions or we measure ourselves against it, subtly change and perhaps grow. By extending the process electronically, the network becomes something akin to the circuits of the brain that contribute to the interpretation of reality, where each part of the human memory, represented by the several people participating, adds to the understanding of an event.

Communications systems in them- selves have no language. They have technical parameters that influence the form of any language invented, but a language itself develops solely through real use by human beings expressing real needs. As we build electronic networks and begin to interact regularly with all parts of the planet, we must pay serious attention to the form and content of communication, since it will develop into the global language that will become our common possession. Content will dictate form and form will

Foresta, The Many Worlds of Art, Science and the New Technologies 4 1~~~~~~~~~~~~ 143



influence the perception of content, in an expanding spiral of increasing sophistication. If the content is not

intellectually substantial, the form will never rise above a shadow of its potential. The language will remain simplistic and incapable of intelligently communi-

cating the subtlety of human thought. The most striking example of this de-

ficiency today is contemporary television. What we see today as international television is an example of a medium

deprived of substantial content, in which the intellectual level is purposely kept low, in a state of perpetual baby- talk. It aims to communicate to the 'masses', that nebulous amalgam that has been used to justify much of the unfortunate history of our century, and therefore television has settled for some vaguely defined lowest common

denominator, which generally is an in- sult to the intelligence of the average viewer. The artist has been excluded from television as being irrelevant to that medium's objectives. Video art is demanding, and often does require some specialized background, but it can indeed help television to discover the upper reaches of its potential and its dignity. Through the work of artists, this most sophisticated means of electronic communication can finally have a content worthy of its technical com-

plexity, a content that will expand its

form, providing us with a visual lan-

guage that challenges our intelligence rather than dimming it. The artist's role in perceptual training, as discussed by McLuhan [20],justifies the presence of the artist in television, as well as in other

communications networks, to help in the exploration and development of the electronic language of our future institutions. The artist can add a chal-

lenging level of human interaction to those networks, humanizing them and

giving the language greater depth. The new international communi-

cations network-the new visual space that we will all occupy more and more-includes not just television but

telephone, telex, radio and computer technology, both hardware and soft- ware, all coming together into a system that is rapidly finding its own logic and

creating an already identifiable cul-

tural, social and political envelope, bril- liant not in its present content but rather in its potential. This new world of instant communications has grown up in a haphazard fashion responding to short-term consumer demands, to the needs of governments, the military, and the multinational commercial and industrial sector. The electronic and communications industries have created this new communication land-

scape in a linear and evolutionary fashion, by responding to perceived needs and market demands. This was appropriate in that it provided new and better services as well as the means to pay for them. We have now reached the point at which all these various services, systems and technologies, when pulled to-

gether in a logical pattern, are creating a new means of cultural expression available on a world-wide basis. It is time for all of us, governments, schools, in-

dustry and citizens of the world, to real- ize what has been built, to take responsi-

bility for it and to develop it positively for better human understanding and

creativity.

References and Notes

1. Quoted in Johns Hopkins Magazine 37, No. 5 (October 1985) p. 24.

2. Niels Bohr, Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature (New York: AMS Press, 1978) pp. 10-11.

3. Th. Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic, Vol. 1 (New York: Dover, 1962) p. 533.

4. See Bohr [2] p. 96.

5. Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy (New York: Harper and Row, 1958) p. 58.

6. James Gleick, Chaos: The Making of a New Science (New York: Viking, 1987).

7. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revo- lutions (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1970) p. 116.

8. Nick Herbert, Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics (London: Rider, 1985) p. 172.

9. See Herbert [8] p. 174.

10. Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Beyond (Lon- don: Allen and Unwin, 1971) p. 62.

11. See Heisenberg [5] p. 107.

12. Gary Zukav, The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics (New York: William Mor- row, 1979) p. 107.

13. See Zukav [12] p. 255.

14. Quoted in Raymond Williams, ed., Human Communication and Its History (London: Thames and Hudson, 1981) p. 74.

15. Marshall McLuhan, UnderstandingMedia (New York: Signet, 1964) p. 33.

16. Junjiro Takakusu, The Essentials of Buddhist Philos- ophy (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1947).

17. Ernest Wood, Zen Dictionary (New York: Pen- guin, 1957) p. 122.

18. Eric Fromm, D. T. Suzuki and Richard De Mar- tino, Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis (New York: Harper and Row, 1960) p. 133.

19. Timothy Ferris, "Beyond Newton and Einstein", New York Times Magazine (26 Sept. 1982) p. 70.

20. See McLuhan [ 15] p. xi.




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