“Between one and zero: noise, ghosts and plasticity” presented by Grant

Symposium:

• ISEA2013: 19th International Symposium on Electronic Art

• NeuroArts-Noise

• Between one and zero: noise, ghosts and plasticity

• Jane Grant

Venue(s):

• The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

• Panel: NeuroArts-Noise

  Keywords: Ghost, Plasticity, noise, neuroscience, memory, synapse, sound art.

  This paper addresses two sonic artworks, Ghost (2011) and Plasticity (2012) that use models of spiking neurons to materialize endogenous and exogenous composition in relation to noise and sonic memory. In the formation of these artworks the exploration of noise is considered in the context of areas of neuroscience, cell switching and cultural theory. Noise appears to be the glue that turns the boundary or limit of the cell into a threshold, no longer indivisible. And that noise, in drawing sound into being, carries with it the root of all information implicit and explicit.

  Intro
  “I’m interested in cause and effect, but only when something happens between the cause and the effect, so that the effect is not really directly related to the cause.”  _Alvin Lucier

  Noise is the undercurrent of matter, of information; mutable and implicit, it draws things into existence. Noise inhabits the space between the signal and its opposite. Noise is the not yet of information, the incipient structure keeping buoyant the code. The signal, stripped of its noise, is fundamentally altered and when detached from its origin cannot hold all that brought it into being. And, whilst it appears important to free the signal from the morass, perhaps the factoring out of noise is an error, particularly in living systems.

  Full text (PDF) p. 114-118

• [View Full Paper/Presentation]

Category:

• Panel