The Technoetic Predicate

Colloquium Presentations 219 T H E A E S T H E T I C S O F T E C H N O L O G I C A L A R T ter Art Gallery in Maribor, Slovenia (24 October–7 November 1998), which linked the gallery to the Web [2]. In both cases, Teleporting an Unknown State combined biological growth with Internet agency. In a very dark room, a pedestal holding earth served as a nursery for a single seed. Through a video projector suspended above and facing the pedestal, remotely located individuals sent light via the Internet to enable this seed to photosynthesize and grow in total darkness. The Web version of Teleporting an Unknown State connected the Kibla Multimedia Center Art Gallery to the Internet. As local viewers walked into the gallery, they saw the installation: a video projector hung from the ceiling and facing down, where a single seed lay on a bed of earth. Viewers did not see the projector itself, only its cone of light projected through a circular hole in the ceiling. The circularity of the hole and the projector’s lens were evocative of the sun breaking through darkness. On the Web, anonymous individuals clicked on a nine-image grid (which consisted of live Webcam feeds) to capture light from the sky of eight countries and physically project this light onto the seed. The central image of the grid showed streaming updated stills of the plant in the gallery. When participants clicked on an image , light from the sky over eight distant geographic locations (Vancouver; Chicago; Cabo San Lucas, Mexico; Paris; Mawson Station, Antarctica; Moscow ; Tokyo; Sydney, Australia) was captured by Webcams at the remote sites and re-emitted through the video projector in the gallery. All Web participants were able to see the process of plant growth via the Internet. During the show, photosynthesis depended on the remote collective action of anonymous participants. Birth, growth and death on the Internet formed a horizon of possibilities that unfolded as participants dynamically contributed to the work. References 1. Eduardo Kac, “Teleporting an Unknown State,” in Carol Gigliotti, ed., SIGGRAPH Visual Proceedings (New York: ACM SIGGRAPH, 1996) p. 28. For a description of the first version of this work, please see: . 2. Peter Tomaz Dobrila and Aleksandra Kostic, eds., Teleporting an Unknown State, exh. cat. (Maribor, Slovenia: KIBLA, 1998). See also David Pescovitz, “Be There Now: Telepresence Art OnLine ,” California Arts Council Web site: . THE TECHNOETIC PREDICATE Roy Ascott, CAiiA-STAR, University of Wales College, Newport, Caerleon Campus, Newport NP6 1YG, United Kingdom. E-mail: . A technoetic [1] infrastructure is forming through which art will lead us to a state of distributed mind. To be an online “body” will imply being part of a global hyperbody. The hypercortex [2]—networked mind—is creating what in Eastern philosophy would be called a “subtle body” [3] amplifying the psychic infrastructure of the planet. The hypercortex will compliment the hyperbody in ways that may endow human beings with an entirely different evolutionary status: that of the “subtle being.” The “subtle art” will embody an interstitial practice located within the connective tissue of apparently disparate disciplines, including biology, art, consciousness research, artificial life (A-Life), engineering and mysticism. The emerging human faculty of cyberception [4] will enable us to enter into both inner and outer worlds more deeply and more richly than our unaided natural senses hitherto permitted . After the death of authorship and the end of history, we can expect the demise of canonical reductionism and the rise of a consensual subjectivity. The primary issue in art during the next 30 years will be consciousness, and the emergence of bio-telematics will determine the precise nature of our cultural translation into technoetic culture. Once the interface moves into the brain, once electronic sensors routinely utilize biological elements, and once semiconductor devices use living microorganisms , the artificial neural networks will join with our own biological neural networks into a seamless, cognitive whole. The mind will be free to seek substrates beyond the human brain. In short, leaving the development of life to nature is not enough: we wish to be implicated in the process of our...