Uncertainty
Science, oracles, society
This research originates from a reflection on the inability to make simple decisions affecting some people in contemporary urban societies. The question of the individual and social navigation of parallel possibilities will be analysed in relation to science, oracles, quantum mechanics and the multiverse theory. Furthermore, the assumption that extremely rational instruments can lead to irrational practices is theoretical background to this study.
Doubt, faith, rational choice
Science is based on postulates, and its definition of truth starts from hypothetical assumptions. Rational positive science presents a direct relation with uncertainty and doubt, whereas religion, magic and 'para-scientific' disciplines are attempting to provide a system of knowledge that avoids uncertainty because of its relation with supernatural forces. Rational choice is, in a contemporary perspective, the base of sociology and economic theory (see Vilfredo Pareto's analysis on individual choice). Nevertheless, the oracular tradition is a contradictory sign and an irrational answer to the limits of rationality.
Magic and software
Procedural text is a composition of words having a pragmatic effect. A common example is software, which is handled by interpreters (augurs). The word Oracle derives from Latin 'orare' which means speaking: the oracular speech is a word having a specific power, either to guess future, or to give a response that influences the future because of the prediction's suggestion. Somehow the prophecy can fulfil itself. If the power of prediction is the prediction itself (so, the words), and actualisation is merely a consequence of a magic sentence (again, words), then also Sibylline speech, whose ambiguity renders realisation, is an oral form of procedural text. Oracles are operating systems triggering a practical result (event). Since effectiveness is the mechanism, the process can be obscure. What magic and informatics have in common, is that they are empiric, recalling 16th century's empiricism acceptation, whereas magic and science shared common methods, and these were considered on the base of their results, rather than on the base of theoretical assumptions.
Decision making
The global world is pretending to offer individuals the possibility to choose between a broader variety than in the past. People can decide their occupation, their residence, their gender; multinationals and supermarkets are providing the same products all over the world, homogenising reality and trying to shadow seasons and local productions. This claimed variety, the big choice, the wares diversity, is somewhat apparent. Slavery is still present, but in a different, merchandised form. Routes and options appear to be almost pre-described, while people's preferences, starting from the digital domain, are becoming a new form of goods.
This reflection generates the following questions: is the lack of will a possible reaction to globalisation? Can it be considered, in this sense, a specific disease of post-industrial civilised urban territories? If avoiding decision making is a way to boycott the system and the self, reacting to instability and refusing any responsibility from the flow of life, is contemporary freeness only apparent and predetermined?
Ubiquity as a decoy
While contemporary society offers individuals this wide variety of possibilities, still social security and sustainability are not granted to citizens. Precariousness becomes a weapon against masses, whereas instability is an instrument to manipulate populations and squeeze human rights. When basic needs are luxury, and time is on sale, war is a permanent and invisible state.
Continuous movement, acceleration and fast communications are modifying natural perceptions of space and time, increasing disorientation and preparing the ground for the multiple possibilities enigma: the question "What will happen?" is iterating and loops endlessly. Since the environment is unlaced from individuals, instinct can stop functioning. The person, incapable of any will, crashes into a crisis. The answer is a legitimate escape, and ubiquity becomes a decoy.
Meta Universe
The Uncertainty Principle (Heisenberg, 1925) affirms that there are no states in which a particle has both a definite position and a definite momentum. A state which only exist for a short time cannot have a definite energy, because it is possible to define the exact position of a particle only in time: the position of a particle in a specific moment is unknown, because it can only be presumed through a probability distribution. According to this description, reality is not essential and unique, but manifold and contingent; any momentum presents concomitant possibilities, and all of them are actual. The uncertainty principle suggests the generative vision of the multiverse theory: there are an infinite number of universes and every possibility is happening, at the same time in parallel dimensions. In this sense predictability has concomitant directions, and the point of certainty and uncertainty is a struggle to define which potential instantiation will take place. A decision is the act of giving a system (or situation) a definite energy and a perspective on a determinate actualisation.
Theory vs imagination
The more abstract a concept, the more visionary and schematic the understanding. Since this work is a theoretical and practical speculation, the intersection of these approaches is going to generate a hybrid practice between science and art, philosophy and narrative, logic and imagination. Twenty-three philosophical tales inspired by quantum mechanics will be an integral part of the theoretical work. Recalling the tradition of imaginary story-telling based on philosophical issues, these tales will depict in a symbolic and metaphoric style the achievements of the research. The influence of time, space and energy in relation to scientific forms of certainty-maintenance and uncertainty exploration, will be transposed into a field of artistic experimentation on linear and non-linear video and interactive cinematic narrative.
The Oracle Machine
This dialectic reflection is proposing and testing a form of inspection which intersects creativity, philological and analytic methods, and participative social practices based on contemporary technologies. A collection of interviews, audio-visual documents, dialogues, and other media notations will be a relevant part of this quest, especially focusing on decision making, numeric traditions, procedural text and parallel dimensions experiences. The progress of this research will be published and constantly updated online on a wiki as a hypertext and a net-art experiment. The website (http://theoraclemachine.net/) will include a forum and a multi-user publishing system to open the discussion to a participative community of undecided people, psychonauts, mystic programmers, passengers and others. The study of ancient books like I-Ching, Cabbala, the Pitagoric tradition and different doctrines and philosophies concerning numbers, symbols, informatics and computational theory will lead to the configuration of different recurring patterns. These abstraction and the comparison of the results will form the basic mechanism of an algorithm, the engine of a simple system of choice generation, 'The Oracle Machine'. This software will be installed in a separate website, theoraclemachine.com: a white page, in a minimal google style, will display the title of the site ('the oracle machine') above a query space. Simply introducing the 'question' and entering return, will activate the oracle. The answer will be displayed within fragments of seconds. The collection of queries, without ip-numbers or other elements of recognition, will be relevant material of this research. The urban tangible version of the software will consist in old telephone booths (and similia) directly inserted in public spaces. A series of Oracles will be installed during a long land trip from Europe and throughout the Middle East and Asia by the author, using Satellites, telephone lines and internet connections and intersecting art, software and territory. There will be no gallery version of the Oracle. All the material collected, including that which is generated by the users, will become an integral part of the research. The user generated content on one website, the collection of queries on the other, as well as the interaction with the art work will constitute a relevant set of data to be analysed. The Oracle Machine is, this way, suggesting a peculiar use of interactive art, the internet and other networking technologies, configuring a new method of social investigation.
Eleonora Maria Irene Oreggia
Amsterdam 2008
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The following is a pre-emptive bibliography or wish-list, an indicative collection of texts i will use as reference during my research. Alpha version.
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