Ernst, Beyond the Archive: Bit

Mapping, 2005
ano 2005
autor Wolfgang Ernst
f.leitura feito
key 13
lido
media Media Art Net | Mapping and Text | Beyond the Archive
files
notas
Ernst, W. 2005 . Beyond the Archive: Bit Mapping. Media Art Net.
ref bib Acedido a 29 de Novembro de 2019 em
http://www.mediaartnet.org/themes/mapping_and_text/beyond-
the-archive/scroll/#top
título Beyond the Archive: Bit Mapping

resumo
conceitos: mapeamento, ciberespaço, abstracção, computação; diagrama;
rede; relações

estrutura
Introdução
Terminology
Mapping as visual metaphor
Mapping as mathematical topology
Digital mapping

Ernst, Beyond the Archive: Bit Mapping, 2005 1

 Dynamic operativity
Heterotopics
Maps and diagrams
Datastreams behind the metaphors

principais pontos
Introdução
mapping
— mapping (de uma perspectiva tecnológica e matemática): mapear um
conteúdo noutro.
— um mapa é um modelo do espaço, não o espaço em si. O espaço existe no
mundo físico; no que toca a operações computacionais trata-se de uma
metáfora.
— o modelo digital de espaço é uma abstracção concebida para a cognição e
computação mental do utilizador; a abundância de memórias representativas
dentro do ciberespaço acontece porque a capacidade humana de navegação
de dados está vinculada a metáforas espacio-temporais. A comunicação feita
entre computadores não necessita deste auxílio.

Terminology
ciberespaço
— não é espacial (físico), é topológico
— não é cartográfico, é matemático

— a principal qualidade do cálculo digital dentro do processamento

computacional é o seu potencial para conceber n dimensões. Já os mapas
ocorrem sempre em superfícies planas; esta metáfora é apelativa mas
enganosa quando se trata de computação.

Ernst, Beyond the Archive: Bit Mapping, 2005 2

 — a cibernética, por outro lado, opõe-se a metáforas espaciais e
cartográficas já que está relacionada com navegação. [ ((( ??? "shipping))) ]
"The ancient Greek «kybernetes» (governor) does not steer vehicles on
territorial ground, but rather a vessel on the liquid element (free floating—
be it the open sea or the open sky" (par.2

— no contexto digital, abstracção significa matematização. Os mapas e

cartografia foram os primeiros dispositivos de abstracção do espaço físico,
que permitiram representá-lo matematicamente e de acordo com as leis da
geometria.

Mapping as visual metaphor

"Mapping is creating visual metaphors for representing information, a toll on
the reduction of data complexity—which in the digital age means mapping
the alphanumeric into the visual." (par.4
Mapping as mathematical topology
"Cyberspace is fundamentally spaceless, or rather a media theorization of
space. It is purely relational, thus not representative in terms of mapping."
(par.6

— o ciberespaço não é um novo lugar para a memória, mas antes a

transformação dos lugares de memória em nós e redes. Deixando de estar
vinculados a uma existência física, as moradas virtuais existem apenas em
topologias matemáticas.

Digital mapping
"Digital mapping opens new horizons for search operations in the «Media Art
Net»: [n]ot just addressing and linking images and texts using alphabetical
addresses, once again subjecting images and sound to words and external
meta-data (the archival classification paradigm), but addressing digital images
down to the single pixel from within, in their own medium, allowing for a
random search (an apparent disorder as an alternative economy of information
—generating the unexpected)." (par.7
Ernst, Beyond the Archive: Bit Mapping, 2005 3
 "Instead of just mapping data banks, computers can be used to make new
types of maps that were previously impossible, such as scans of objects
organized into networks based on their formal similarity." (par.7

contra-argumento??
"As long as the «Media Art Net» defines itself as mediation («Vermittlung»)
and purely verbal contextualization of items in the Internet, according to
McLuhan's law it mirrors an old media in the new one (the content of a new
medium is always the previous one): it conservatively sticks to the archival
paradigm, which is based on inventories and linkage structures between files.
Any archival linking is a freezing of relations, even if it opens up alternative
links. Let us instead try to conceive digital data an-archivally." (par.7
Dynamic operativity
— a principal característica da computação em rede é a sua operatividade
dinâmica.

— os mapas estáticos diferem dos dinâmicos dentro do espaço virtual, uma

vez que os mapas dinâmicos podem ser actualizados automaticamente.

"Whatever is linked to images—to visuality as the privileged channel of

information since antiquity—privileges spatial perception (...). Buci-
Glucksmann interprets maps as readable and visible at the same time, as an
«image-index»—a hybrid? The very term territory, which serves as a referent
for any map, privileges spatial rather than dynamic perception" (par.11

"The question remains: Are there objects which are not mappable at all? What
about «mapping time»? What about the option of genuinely «mapping sound»
by means of acoustic signals; this is symptomatic for the supremacy of the
optical over the sonic. Acoustic mapping would relate to «mapping time.»
Sound is already used to create an acoustic shape of the Internet, an

Ernst, Beyond the Archive: Bit Mapping, 2005 4

 alternative to icons. Since the Net is dynamic, processual, it can more readily
be mapped acoustically than visually." (par.11

Heterotopics
— segundo Michel Foucault, durante o século XIX foram abordadas questões
relativas ao tempo, enquanto que durante o século XX trataram-se questões
relativas ao espaço; durante o século XXI serão tratadas questões que lidam
com topologia: matemática, vectorização do espaço, tão bem como a
materialidade das infraestruturas (cabos, circuitos, processadores).
"Thus we arrive at n-dimensional data clouds: a complete geometrization
and mathematization of all previous metaphorical «archaeologies of
knowledge." (par.12

Maps and diagrams

"A diagram is not «already in itself a map or an overlay of maps,» but a
genuinely different epistemological tool." (par.16

— os diagramas, para além de mapearem um conteúdo noutro (noção de

mapping), representam as relações existentes entre conteúdos.

— segundo Pierce, o diagrama é desenhado para representar e tornar

inteligível a relação entre conteúdos.

"Maps, in terms of this analysis, would be diagrams, not reproducing the

«simple qualities» of their referents, but representing «the relations […] of the
parts of one thing by analogous relations in their own parts.» 27 «The
Diagram not only represents the related correlates, but also—and much
more definitely—represents the relations between them, as so many objects
of the Icon.» For Peirce, the pure Diagram is merely designed to represent and
to render intelligible the form of relation: «Consequently, Diagrams are
restricted to the representation of a certain class of relations; namely, those
that are intelligible.» The diagram equals the statistically based map, as
opposed to representation based maps." (par.17

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 Datastreams behind the metaphors
"The notion of mapping (unless used in its strict mathematical sense as
mirroring a given set of data onto another) is associated with
metaphorization, visualization, anesthetization, whereas the media-
archaeological idea of the diagram is conceptual rather than visual,
topological rather than geographical, non-narrative (data-based) rather than
narrative, connective rather than spatial, concerned with code (software)
rather than images, numbers rather than sensual perception." (par.18

"Beyond the cartographic metaphor, mapping means the setting-into-relation

of data. Digital navigation systems GPS begin to substitute the fixed
traditional maps; dynamism replaces rigidity." (par.19

citações
«Topological operativity is not multi-sensual but strictly mathematic, more
prosaic than poetic.» (par.3

«(...) in our context abstraction means mathematization» (par. 3

«From a media-archaeological perspective, why not accentuate this

man/machine difference in interface design, arriving at a media culture which
at last acknowledges that the logic of computing is not alien to human
intuition, but rather dis-covers (with Alan Turing) human cognition as a
mathematical machine itself?» (par. 5

«According to William Gibson, cyberspace is a metaphorical expression for

networked computing, governed by the so-called «matrix,» a Cartesian
datascape. Essential for Cartesian grids is the fact that mnemotechnical
images, common since antiquity, have been replaced by numbers on the
vertical and horizontal axes. «Mapping» therefore should be taken in its
mathematical, topological sense, in order not to confuse imaginary (iconic)
with symbolic (indexical) operations in cybernetic aggregates and physical

Ernst, Beyond the Archive: Bit Mapping, 2005 6

 networks. «Any map could be a voyage in thought connecting a passage and
a territory» Christine Buci- Glucksmann) LI , but this nice metaphor
mistakes maps for what they cannot be—free floating. Only computing can
actually perform trajectories in n-dimensional calculation. (...) Media-
archaeologically seen, cyber‹space› is not about images, sounds or texts, but
about bits;thus the cartographic or mnemotechnical approach is misleading.»
(par.6

«non-linear cataloging» (par.8

«It was Immanuel Kant who once identified the «mathematical sublime»;
nowadays data visualization corresponds to the sublime, making visible the
invisible of digital data processing Lev Manovich).» (par.13

«Today's revival of mapping means "real time dynamization of data structures

including the ability to reorganize information in relation to the user's choice
and interest"» (par.13

«Non-referential mapping means setting objects into relations (...). «Maps

construct—not reproduce—the world.» Let us then take the digital paradigm
as an analytical basis, where mapping as a dynamic operation substitutes fixed
archival classification.» (par.14

«Mapping serves power.» (par.15

«We are still using spatial metaphors for the representation of cybernetic
processes. Why not teach the user to apply computation directly to linking
data like it is already practiced in data-mining? Even in virtual communication,
there is still hardware, not to be reduced to symbolic operations; the Internet
topology is a structure of physical (not virtual) links between nodes.»
(par.18

Ernst, Beyond the Archive: Bit Mapping, 2005 7

 bibliografia relevante
— Lev Manovich, «Metadata, mon amour. Metadata, images,
standards» related to the event The Evening of Lev Manovich, February 28,
2003, at the media arts festival DEAF '03 in Rotterdam.
— Michel Foucault, «Of Other Spaces,» Diacritics 16  Spring 1986 , pp. 22 27.
— llan Sekula, «The Body and the Archive,» in October 39  1986 , pp. 3 64.

Ernst, Beyond the Archive: Bit Mapping, 2005 8