Order, disorder, noise
Eleonora Montuschi · London School of Economics and Political Science Research Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) · 2010
A few years ago an interesting exhibition took place in Cambridge (and London) under the title 'N01SE'. 2 The title recalls of course the word 'noise' but written as 'N01SE' it also refers to the binary code (with the two numbers 0 and 1) which is the basic language of calculators -from the simplest to the most sophisticated, (eg.contemporary computers).The title of this exhibition could then be read in two ways.On one side, by playing with the word 'noise/n01se', we are presented with the idea that there might be a core of information in any situation of noise, provided that there is a context, an interpretation, a point of view which allows us to identify such information and to decode it.On the other side, we are prompted to reflect critically on the assumptions and goals of the revolutionary field of contemporary digital technologies, whose promise is indeed that of a complete removal of any sort of noise.Is such a promise achievable?At what costs?Should noise, any form of noise, be removed?Is noise inevitably the dark side of any form of information?Is it the opposite of order?Are there contexts in which we can value its presence?Can noise turn into its purported opposite?Attendance at the Cambridge exhibition is what originally prompted some of the thoughts and ideas I explore in this paper. Preliminary thoughts: what is 'noise'?1 A version of this paper was presented at the VIII International Symposium on 'Disorder Systems: Theory and its Applications', Karaburun, Izmir (Turkey), September 2008.I am grateful to the participants in the symposium for their useful comments.I am also grateful to Nancy Cartwright for reading drafts of this paper, to Jordi Cat for some advice on literature sources, to Adam Spray for assistance with picture reproduction, and to the Templeton Foundation for sponsoring research time to write the present version. 2 For an online catalogue of the exhibition see: http://www.