1 Recombinant Poetics: Emergent Meaning as Examined and Explored Within a Specific Generative Virtual Environment William Curtis Seaman Ph.D. 1999 CAiiA Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts 2 Recombinant Poetics: Emergent Meaning as Examined & Explored Within a Specific Generative Virtual Environment Abstract This research derives from a survey of primary and secondary literature and my practice as a professional artist using electronic information delivery systems. The research has informed the creation of an interactive art work, authored so that emergent meaning can be examined and explored within a specific generative virtual environment by a variety of participants. It addresses a series of questions concerning relationships between the artist, the art work and the viewer/user. The mutable nature of this computer-based space raises many questions concerning meaning production, i.e., how might such a techno-poetic mechanism relate to past practices in the arts, and in particular how might its use affect our understanding of theories of meaning? If the outcome of this part of the research suggests a radical transformation in meaning production as dynamically encountered through interactivity with a generative work of art, then how might the construction of this device inform a new field of practice? The scope of the topic and the secondary questions that flow from the initial speculation focus on the inter-conveyance of text (both spoken and written), image (both still and time-based) and music, as encountered by participants through interactive engagement within an authored and inter-authored virtual environment. The method has been to extend the realm of a series of theoretical positions relative to these areas as they appear in the mainstream literatures on art and interactivity, meaning and understanding. A virtual interactive art work has been developed in parallel to the literature survey and exhibited in Europe and Japan. The conclusions have been drawn by the author on the basis of a series of theoretical positions that examine the operative nature of an art work which is intended to generate emergent meaning. Future research is also discussed that seeks to extend our understanding and use of generative virtual environments. 3 4 Table of Contents Recombinant Poetics: Emergent Meaning as Examined and Explored Within a Specific Generative Virtual Environment Introduction p.16 1.0 Elucidating a Set of Relevant Perspectives p.27 1.1 An Introduction to Concepts Relevant to an Exploration of Emergent Meaning p.27 1.1.1 Issues Surrounding the Definition of Poetics p.34 1.1.2 Approaches p.42 1.1.3 Some Observations about the Sign, Emergent Meaning and Environmental Computer-Based Context p.44 1.1.4 Eco’s Concept of "The Open Work" and "Works in Movement" p.52 1.1.5 A Conflation of Language-Vehicles p.56 1.1.6 Fields of Meaning — An Emergent Approach to the Perception of Context p.63 1.1.7 The Conveyance of Media-Elements — Music as a Language-Vehicle p.78 1.1.8 Environmental Engagement p.84 1.1.9 Virtual Environments p.87 1.1.10 Salient Processes p.91 1.1.11 Baudrillard’s Simulation and Simulacra p.95 1.1.12 The Generation of the Techno-Poetic Mechanism p.98 1.1.13 A "Working" Description of the Mechanism: The World Generator/The Engine of Desire p.98 1.2 Computer-Based Emergent Meaning: Environmental Relations p.102 1.2.1 Emergence p.102 1.2.2 Variable Levels of Abstraction p.111 1.2.3 A Shifting Set of Aesthetic Juxtapositions of Media-Elements p.113 1.2.4 The Dissolution of Meaning as One Potential State of Meaning p.115 1.2.5 A Passing and/or Circulation of Intensities — Deleuze and Guattari p.118 1.2.6 Environmental Patterns — Environmental "Combinatorial Constraints" and the Notion of "Neighboring" Media Elements p.125 1.2.7 An Expanse of Usage: From Wittgenstein's — "The Meaning of the Word is its Use in Language" to the "Machinic Assemblage" of Deleuze and Guattari p.128 1.2.8 A Methodology Informed by Pragmatics p.132 1.2.9 Eisenstein: Montage p.137 1.2.10 New Approaches to Collage/Montage — Gregory Ulmer: The "Object of Post Criticism, Teletheory and Applied Grammatology p.143 1.2.11 Repeatability and Difference p.147 1.2.12 A Mechanism that Embraces Paradox p.150 1.2.13 Inter-Authorship p.151 1.2.14 Appropriation and the Recombinant Sign p.154 1.2.15 Issues Surrounding Navigation p.157 1.2.16 Potentiality, Chance and Probability p.158 1.2.17 Games and Play p.161 5 1.3 Focus Areas Informing the Construction of the Techno- Poetic Mechanism p.166 1.3.1 Re-Embodied Intelligence: An Approach to the Translation of High-Level Artistic Processes into a Computer-Based Operative Environment p.166 1.3.2 Nonsense Logic p.171 1.3.3 Puns p.175 1.3.3.1 Punning Symbolic Logic — The Pun Which Puns on Punning p.182 1.3.4 Specific Ambiguity p.183 2.0 Backgrounds and Strategies p.188 2.1 A Survey of Relevant Literary, Philosophical and Artistic Approaches p.188 2.1.1 The Conceptual Machine p.188 2.1.2 Computer Code as Conceptual Machine p.193 2.1.3 A Specific Example of the Conceptual Machine: The Formula or Recipe as Generative Device p.199 2.1.4 René Magritte p.201 2.1.5 William Burroughs and Brion Gysin p.201 2.1.6 The "Event Scores" of George Brecht p.203 2.1.7 Conceptual Art: A Continuation of the Theme of the Conceptual Machine p.204 2.1.8 Jackson Mac Low p.205 2.1.9 Conceptual Machines Drawn from Differing Branches of Poetics p.205 2.1.10 Conceptual/Physical Machines — Salient Literary and Artistic Processes p.206 2.1.11 Raymond Roussel p.207 2.1.12 Marcel Duchamp p.207 2.1.13 Condensation and Potential — An Enfolded Economy p.210 2.1.14 New Spatial Literary Forms p.212 2.1.15 Stéphane Mallarmé p.213 2.1.16 Raymond Queneau and Georges Perec p.215 2.1.17 J. L. Borges p.215 2.1.18 James Joyce: Experimental Language Use and a Further Examination of the Pun p.216 2.1.19 Fluxboxes p.217 2.1.20 Roy Ascott p.218 2.2 Bridging the Artistic, Philosophical and Literary with the Technological: Conceptual Machines p.221 2.2.1 The Visualised Conceptual Machine Functioning as a Diagram of Processes Leading to the Generation of Emergent Meaning p.223 2.3 A Survey of Relevant Technological Systems and Approaches p.226 2.4 A Survey of Relevant Musical and/or Sonic Approaches p.238 6 2.4.1 Charles Ives p.238 2.4.2 The Futurists p.239 2.4.3 John Cage p.239 2.4.4 Eric Satie p.241 2.4.5 Brian Eno p.243 2.4.6 Operational Music p.245 2.4.7 Propositional Music p.246 2.4.8 Umberto Eco — Returning to the "Open Work" p.247 2.5 A Selection of Hybrid Technological, Literary and Artistic Works — Toward the Definition of a Field: Recombinant Poetics p.249 3.0 The Enfolding of Approaches: p.259 3.1 A Conflation of Language-Vehicles — Image, Music/Sound and Text p.259 4.0 A Specific Techno-Poetic Mechanism Exploring Emergent Meaning: The World Generator/The Engine of Desire p.266 5.0 Analysis of the Mechanism — The World Generator/The Engine of Desire — A Meta-Machinic Assemblage p.274 5.1 Navigational Architectures p.279 5.2 Dream Space p.280 5.3 Desire p.281 5.4 Poetic Construction p.282 5.5 Resonance p.287 5.6 The Complexity of an Environment of Enfolded Media-Elements and Processes p.289 6.0 Conclusion p.294 7.0 Future Research p.297 8.0 Bibliography p.299 9.0 Appendix p.311 7 Acknowledgements I would first and foremost like to thank Roy Ascott for his vision, guidance and inspiration. I am very grateful to him for providing an opportunity for me to undergo Ph.D. research at CAiiA. Roy has worked tirelessly for CAiiA and the Consciousness Reframed conference, as well as for a score of other organisations in which he takes on defining roles. He has gathered together a series of researchers who think, live and breathe their research. His visionary involvement in the creation and definition of the field of interactive art can only be underscored by the heartfelt appreciation of the researchers studying under his tutelage. I would like to make a special thanks to Gideon May, an incredibly brilliant programmer, who worked very hard in conjunction with me to bring to life The World Generator/The Engine of Desire . The work went through many, many iterations before reaching its current state and Gideon’s feedback and programming expertise have been central to the technological development of the project. I would like to thank Mike Punt for his tireless work in helping me to unpack and clarify my project and for the friendship that has arisen as part of this process. I would like to thank Heidi Gilpin for her extensive transdisciplinary knowledge, guidance, friendship and support. I would like to thank David Smith for his smiling enthusiasm and knowledge of literature surrounding computer-based production. I would like to acknowledge the convivial intellectual support and exchange of other researchers at CAiiA including, in particular, Victoria Vesna, Eduardo Kac, Joseph Nechvetal, Jill Scott, Miroslav Rogalla, Joe Lewis, Christa Sommerer, Laurent Mignonneau and Char Davies.