Excerpt
Klein, M., in: G. Leidloff: "l o g - i n / l o c k e d  o u t", in: O. Breidbach, K. Clausberg und K.P. Dencker (Hg.): Video, ergo sum, Hamburg 1999

Citations from the contribution M.Klein: The Evolution of Images between Chaos, Art and New Media,
in: Art@Science, Ch. Sommerer and L. Mignonneau (publishers),
Springer Austria, Jan 98.

Dr. Michael Klein (miki@inm.de)
INM-Institute for New Media (www.inm.de)

What is the discussion of New Media all about? Actually it is only about images but not images understood as visual effects but as visions of cosmos, images not seen as simple mappings of reality but as dynamic processes, images not as static frames but as interactive spaces and images not only seen as image worlds but as world experiences. ...

The design of visions of cosmos is accompanied by mankind’s attempt to survive in a complex environment. Visions of cosmos do not by chance base on image worlds. Seen in an evolution biological way, an explanation for the success of the species Homo Sapiens could be the ability to interpret images on which our space-time orientation as well as our brain function is founded. ...

If we are looking for a possible scheme to understand the evolution of the human knowledge we will find an exciting interplay between images and visions of cosmos over millenniums. ...

It should not be forgotten here that the mapping of reality is not unknown, especially not to the natural scientific theories. The opposite is true, the epistemic-theoretical approach in generating scientific models is of central importance in our context because from my point of view it is the basic of all reflections about virtual words and their interpretations. On the other hand there is nature or our real environment whose inner structure we would like to understand. ...

Over and above that, the fundamental observer problem followed from the Quantum theories, the insoluble integration of the observer into the observed system on the basis of non-deterministic probability waves functions. This is the first time that maybe the most central problem of all epistemology theories in the natural-scientific modelling occurs, the human observer and the question for his contextual role in relation to the observed phenomenon. ...

The change of paradigms from linear to non-linear and therefore potentially unpredictable systems also fundamentally changed the dominance between mathematical analysis and computational science. Non-linear systems are by definition not analytically calculable but need numerical integration to be solved. Thus the computational sciences, the finally image-based multimedia simulations are the only tools to access the non-linear model worlds. All phenomenon and problems of the natural-scientific theories about cosmos mentioned hitherto are now also existing in „human scale“ space-time dimensions by the theory of chaos. ..... The paradigms change coming with this knowledge has essential effects on the role which is given to the (human) observer. Complex images and as such numerically exact analysis of non-linear systems are eventually presented, can now only be interpreted by the human observer. ...

Frequently used but even appropriate as an ordering scheme in relation with New Media is the parallel evolution between technical or scientific knowledge and the corresponding predominant image world. The idea of an evolution of media is at the same time a definition of new media as a complex system in which the technical and conceptual elements of each step of development are foundations for the following steps. ...

Today multimedia computer are the medial carrier of the machine-generated simulated model worlds. The entity of the medium is the binary information. Computer integrate all technical and formal possibilities of the historical evolution steps under one platform. Additionally some more essential and new possibilities of machine-generated images follow up. Computers are the first machines which are due to its digital soul space-time simulators. ...

The multimedial space states of the computer generated simulations are not only mappings or reproductions of our natural environment but they are model worlds of their own. It is for the first time that we have a medium which allows the simulation of dynamic processes, not according to the principle of an illusion of accelerated single pictures but as temporal state spaces or time objects if you will. ...

Independent from any time scale, computers are time microscopes or time telescopes. Graphical-numerical state spaces are the latest form of machine-calculated image worlds. ...

Technologically seen, we presently understand New Media as the electronic media but seen from an information technological point of view we mean the digital media. Today the New Media are consequently: (digital) video or television, (multimedia) computer and the world-wide data matrix of the Internet. The latest step in evolution is the integration of interaction. Machine-calculated image worlds are not only dynamical state spaces but autonomous parallel worlds where the human observer can be in interaction via interfaces. ...

Interactive computer installations realise new worlds of experiences, images as spaces of imagination as the most progressive development step of machine generated illusions of moving images. ...

Our imagination of the image has changed due to the latest developments in the New and Interactive Media from a complete figurative or abstract mapping to a multisensorial interactive space of experience. This does not mean that we generate an additional mapping of a reality, however it looks like. On the contrary it deals with objects in timeless and unrestrained spaces which have never been seen before. In virtual computer-simulated model worlds, we are not bound to physical conditions of reality. Cause-effect coupling or spatio-temporal correlations can be newly defined and can be opened for experience. Especially in the world of experiences of the global data matrix phenomenon like the bifurcation of the me or parallel telepresence of the individual at different locations are not longer impossible anymore. All these possibilities effect our knowledge of images. The image worlds of our natural environment are entangled with the image worlds of artificial model simulations. The reason for the simplicity of this entanglement is to be found in the fantastic capability of the human brain to adept to any complex environment without regarding its source. It seems to be no question that human brains generate worlds. Whether the human brain transforms sensual experiences of the external environment or whether it is in a state of self-referential dreaming it always works as an information processing or pattern generating system. From this point of view the brain system is built from an external world -our reality or any kind of simulation-, an internal world - an information processing network with algorithmic and memorising capabilities- and from interfaces between external and internal world, which enable mappings between external and internal realities. ...

Today these concepts are introduced into the artistic and scientific image worlds. The consequences of this development can rarely be foreseen. To emphasise the possible impact of this development I would like to point out one fundamental problem of the scientific epistemology. All axiomatic natural scientific theories gain their strength from objectivity which is traditionally guarantied with analytical mathematical treatment. But today computer generated visualisations or numerical analysis are often the only chance to handle complex solutions no matter whether we simulate complex theories or whether we evaluate experimental tests. But the human observer is the only instance capable to not only experience but also to interpret images. Until now there is no formal language or objective analytical method to interpret images. For sure the human observer though is a subjective observer. Until today the subjective human observer never was part of any objective theory. Nowadays he became the last resort of truth, what defines the obvious dilemma we are in. Here lies the real challenge of all artistic and scientific understanding of the image worlds and the visions of cosmos of New Media. ...

Now that we learned about the evolution of images and imagination, what is the actual paradigm of the New Media society? ...

The most influential concept definitely is the networking matrix of the Internet built of nodes and dendrites connecting these nodes. The Internet should neither be only seen as a technology nor as a simple new medium. It defines the lifestyle of a generation. The matrix is a highly non-linear digital data-space with complex dynamical processes powered by n-players interaction. We should take the challenges and the chances of the virtual space seriously. ...

The INM-Institute for New Media Frankfurt defines itself as a forum for artistic, scientific and applied questions of New Media. It deliberately assembles artist, scientist, philosophers and information scientists at a hot spot of space time to explore virtual spaces in theory and practise. Our own Networking Community we call: the virtual space explorers.