bradley newman

The Computational Sublime

Therefore the concept of the computational sublime is introduced – the instilling of simultaneous feelings of pleasure and fear in the viewer of a process realized in a computing machine. A duality in that even though we cannot comprehend the process directly, we can experience it through the machine – hence we are forced to relinquish control. It is possible to realize processes of this kind in the computer due to the speed and scale of its internal mechanism, and because its operations occur at a rate and in a space vastly different to the realm of our direct perceptual experience.

An example of a work that subverts standard technological processes and suggests the role of the computational sublime is that of the Dutch artists Erwin Driessens & Maria Verstappen [19]. Their work, IMA Traveller subverts the traditional concept of cellular automata by making the automata recursive, leading to qualitatively different results to those achieved through direct mimicry of technical CA techniques in other generative works. IMA Traveller suggests the computational sublime because it is in effect, an infinite space. It offers both pleasure and fear: pleasure in the sense that here inside a finite space is the representation (and partial experience) of something infinite to be explored at will; fear in that the work is in fact infinite, and also in that we have lost control. The interaction is somewhat illusory, in the sense that while we can control the zoom into particular sections of the image, we cannot stop ourselves from continually falling (zooming) into the work, and we can never return to a previous location in the journey. The work creates an illusion of space that is being constantly created for the moment (as opposed to works that draw from pre-computed choice-sets). The zooming process will never stop. That there is no real ground plane or point of reference suggests Kierkegaard’s quote of section 2.3 – you are always going, but only from the point of where you’ve been.

from Art, Emergence, and the Computational Sublime by Jon McCormack

Just read this tonight. For myself, it's an example of one of those great pieces of research that hits very close to the bulls eye of what you’ve been pursuing.

I've been hacking at a wall to generate more specifics on my thesis over the past month, as well as sorting out and dealing with personal issues, but I'm seeing some real light that I'll hopefully be able to cast soon. Thanks to those who have been patient with my abstractions.

4:19 AM    October 21, 2005    Comments 0