Postmodernism Recap From Lectures:

1. Modernism:  "How can I interpret this world of which I am a part" And what am I in it?" scientific method, absolute truth, absolute reality Plumb the depths in order to understand how things work.: “in order to understand what is going on in the world, we have to understand how the inner workings operate.” Modernism = calculation aesthetic

   Postmodernism: "Which world is this? What is to be done in it?" Which of my selves is to do it?" surface over depth, simulation over the real ”Simulation offers us the greatest hope of understanding.  When our world is far too complex for the human mind to build it as a mental construct from first principles, then it defies human intellect to define its truth.” Postmodernism = Simulation aesthetic

   
   Turkle's Computational Aesthetics: calculation versus simulation
   
   
2. Examples
   

1. Browser:  the surface, we can see the code if we go to view source, but most of the time we choose to stay at “surface level”—we view the web through a window and what we see through that window is how the web looks.
   
   
2. HTML code: we might realize that in order to really understand how the web works, we must learn HTML—modernist, plumb the depths in order to find out how something works. 
   
   How can knowing HTML help you understand the Web?
   

3. Different meanings and examples of postmodernism
   
   

Artificial Reality:  Benjamin Woolley’s Introduction to Virtual Worlds

1. What is Olestra?
   
   
2. How does increasing artificialization tie into the ideas behind postmodernism?
   
   Woolley asks:
   
   "What are the extent and limits of the artificial?...Can there by any contact with reality when the fake becomes indistinguishable from--even more authentic than-- the original..."
   
   In a way, we don’t even think of the artificial as artificial but instead we regard it as the real thing.
   
   Example of mistaking the artificial for the real?
   
   Examples that blur the line between the real and the artificial?
   
   
3. Jean Baudrilliad:  Simulation and Simulacra concept of hyperreality
   
   What about the concept of digital?
   
   When the copy is exactly the same as the original, is there an original and a copy?
   
   

Aaron and EMI, Computers, Artificial Intelligence and the Creative Process

1. What is the Church-Turing Hypothesis?
   
   
2. Any task that can be broken down into a finite number of steps...
   
   -Why can we see pictures on the computer? (.gif and .jpg are compression algorithms), a photograph is re-represented to us on the screen through a collection of pixels.
   
   -How we hear music on the computer: computer captures a certain number of samples of a sound. A high quality recording might take 44,000 samples of a soundwave every second. Replaying those samples gives us the illusion of hearing a steady stream of music. Same with watching moving pictures-- we are watching still frames played back at a high rate. TV plays back frames at a rate of 29.7 frames per second.
   
   
3. How do human composers make music?
   
   AI research studying the creative process: creativity in the human mind begins with biochemical algorithms in the brain. Composers collect scraps of melodies, harmonies and rhythms, and then recombine them into a distinctive personal sound.
   
   What is art, What is the meaning behind art, What is the purpose of the artist?
   
   Christina's World
   Art by Aaron
   
   
4. "But Aaron and EMY suggest another possibility: that artistic intent is not so important after all, that there is only the loosest connection between what is going on in an artist's head and the marks that ultimately appear on the canvas or musical staves. If so, then the meaning of art is largely in the eyes and the ears of the beholder."
   
   How is this a postmodern idea?