net.weight

15.04.08 internet black holes

i’m a bit late in posting this…
via simulation; hubble, an interesting project from the university of washington which monitors internet black holes - ‘situations where advertised paths exist to the destination, but messages - a request to visit a Web site, an outgoing e-mail - get lost along the way.’

30.10.07 deterministic data

Physicists are now referring to the stuff the universe is made from as ‘information’, as apposed to ‘matter’ which was the favourite for quite some time. This interests me as, of course, information is the very stuff I’m trying to get to grips with in net.weight.

The theory states that the universe is determined by indestructible information. This information is contained within matter - which can be broken down. It’s all described in a lovely article about pushing an elephant into a black hole, and what happens to the poor thing during and, possibly, afterwards. (read the article here)
It’s relevance to net.weight is less cruel. Information cannot be destroyed - does this mean that the volume of information grows? Continually multiplies like bacteria?

I’ve already mentioned that photons (which carry the information of the net) have no, or at least a practically immeasurable, mass. I make the assumption then that this information also takes up a practically immeasurable space. It is only measurable by the information you read from it - or rather, the amount of information it holds i.e. bytes.

According to the Big Bang theory ‘all the matter and energy in the universe was at an immense temperature and density’. All matter? Does this mean that all matter - and therefor all information - already exists in the universe, just hanging around wanting to be discovered and quantified by man?

The Deterministic view would be that yes, all this information had been held there and, at the moment of the Big Bang, got flung out across the expanding universe. Deterministic philosophers would have us believe that the path of this information is already set, that the moment each photon, electron, neutron etc… was released from that infinitely dense mass its direction would determine its fate. Causality would ensure that as particles collide their directions would alter, ensuring they would collide with other particles and so on. John F Sowa suggests that the laws of causality (such as they stand) do not apply to the atomic level - but that it is more a combination of random, semi-random and deterministic conditions.

However, I quite like the idea that everything that exists now always existed (in some form of basic information) from the very beginning of time, and that it has been hurtling towards its end along a path which was decided by its position at the moment of the Big Bang. This could mean that the weight of total information is a constant and a percentage of this is the data of the internet. This percentage changes as the internet grows. Where does the other information go, the information that was lost to make room for a thousand new flickr accounts?

20.10.07 information plateau

is there a limit to human knowledge? will there come a time when we, collectively, have amassed all the information we can possibly perceive?
although we are discovering new things all the time, and finding new ways of using things, will there come a point at which we have exhausted our senses (and those senses that we have invented) and we will have detected all we can detect, measured all we can measure and devised all we can devise?
will this happen, or will we continue to learn - to collect more and more information?
i believe (though not pessimistically) that we will reach a plateau of understanding. this of course will not happen for a good long while yet. we’re capable of adapting and enhancing our senses with technology, and this lets us continue to explore our world. what i foresee happening is a more cerebral problem - that there is a limit to what we can comprehend, a limit to the information we can perceive.

13.10.07 vigilance

vigilance is a location-specific installation sited in two vacant shop units at the duke street entrance to the mall in barrow-in-furness.
the form of the work is derived from the curved bow of the vigilant, a vanguard class nuclear submarine built in barrow.
the intention of the work is to make it appear that the submarine has dropped onto the building. however, instead of demolishing it, the building has adjusted itself to accommodate the shape of the hull.

this work was been produced as part of FRED 2007 in barrow-in-furness, cumbria.
28 september - 14 october 2007.
it is also included in VELOCITY, a festival of digital art and culture stretching from barrow to lancaster run by folly.
11 october - 3 november 2007.

the work was produced with financial support from arts council england.

vigilance is a physical manifestation of data collected from the internet (the dimensions of the submarine) with the intention of creating a form with the appearance of mass and the possibility to cause displacement.

04.10.07 VELOCITY

net.weight is to be featured in VELOCITY, an arts festival both online and sited along the coastal rail route around morecambe Bay.
VELOCITY artists are invited to join the discussion.
more info at: VELOCITY.

05.08.07 there is no cat

’You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.’
Albert Einstein, when ask to describe radio.
From the quotations page.

17.06.07 warnings of ‘internet overload’

by Spencer Kelly @ BBC
‘As the flood of data across the internet continues to increase, there are those that say sometime soon it is going to collapse under its own weight. But that is what they said last year.’
read more...

23.05.07 digital dump

photo essay from foreignpolicy.com, courtesy of marc at netbehaviour.org.

18.03.07 simulation

David Upton of simulation has sent me a link to some great information. see here for ‘how much information? for how long?’

07.01.07 new molecules for a faster Internet

from: primidi.com

An international team of researchers has discovered a new generation of optical molecules which interact 50% more strongly with light than any molecules ever tested. These organic molecules, known as chromophores, have been theorized by physicists at Washington State University, synthesized by chemists in China and tested for their actual optical properties by chemists in Belgium. But if they’re excellent candidates for being used in optical technologies such as optical switches and Internet connections, these new materials should not be used before several years—if ever.

read more...

06.11.06 net_sight 2006

balloon servers has been chosen as one of ten best proposals to be presented at net_sight 2006 for mur.at.

22.09.06 visual complexity

referencing over 300 projects visual complexity ‘intends to be a unified resource space for anyone interested in the visualization of complex networks. The project’s main goal is to leverage a critical understanding of different visualization methods, across a series of disciplines, as diverse as Biology, Social Networks or the World Wide Web. I truly hope this space can inspire, motivate and enlighten any person doing research on this field.’

04.06.06 (negative)dataspace

a finite block of dataspace is eaten away as it is used.

31.05.06 questions about volume

so just how big is the internet? that is, how much physical space does it actually use? having still not discovered the answer to the question ‘how many photons does it take to carry a byte?’ (plus the fact that photons have no mass and are pretty small) i’m quite far from being able to measure such a thing in any physical sense.
we can make many assumptions based upon what we know about the amount of data in the internet, but this is not a true physical volume - we can say that it is such-and-such amount of terabytes, but what does that really mean? how big is a byte, and how much space does it take to store it?
the physical size of storage devices also gives us little to go on. computer memory systems get smaller all the time. perhaps there will come a time when they can get no smaller - a point when all the data that can possibly be squeezed into a specific space will be reached? this would then dictate the size of computers and the amount of all data that it would be possible to store (or at least the size and/or number of computers that can hold vast, all-encompassing amounts of data). what if, in order to store all the possible data in the universe, the storage system had to be bigger than the universe?
perhaps data could be more like a space removed from a vast finite block of blank matter. instead of ‘adding to’ each time we store data we take away, and the complex shape of this space dictates the nature and content of the data? when all storage is consumed we are left with a massive empty space that is, paradoxically, full of information.
sculpturally and architecturally this is an intriguing idea. a large space can be as impressive and affecting as a large, solid mass. perhaps a space as large as the internet is as good a way of representing its volume as any? this space would be unfathomable to us. like with the internet we would need a device to interpret the information it holds. we can use our senses to experience the scale of the space but we cannot detect minute fluctuations in pressure or temperature, or the invisible boundaries between data.

05.05.06 balloon servers

11.04.06 spatial ideas 001

thinking about the internet as a spatial entity with it’s own mass, size and shape - and trying not to visualise it merely as a network of interconnected points - is difficult. i’m looking for a progressive approach to objectifying the internet. one that takes into account it’s sculptural properties.
the image of the net as a huge spider diagram is a popular and easy way of illustrating how it operates. these images are often very beautiful but, for me, do not really express how we use the space and how this space could manifest itself.
world mapper is an interesting site i came across a couple of days ago: world mapper
although this falls into the category of information visualisation/representation i thought it interesting how the characteristics of the countries were altered - the swelling and whithering depending on what came in or out.
this would be an interesting format to apply to the internet: perhaps of data flow between servers? each server being represented by an inflatable ball which expands and contracts as information flows to and from it. i imagine thousands of such ballons, all quite close together, vying for space and filling parts of a large room, squeezing against each-other - the noise would be incredible - maybe some would burst?
i like how this idea involves a physical volume. a form would be created from the inflated objects reacting against each-other and their surroundings. maybe use liquid instead of air to give it weight? the object rests on a table or plinth (hey, traditional!) and slowly swells and subsides it’s various parts as it responds to data flow. perhaps this would cause it to creep along the surface until it finally falls over the edge and destroys itself?

03.04.06 sculpture/architecture

sal randolph’s reply to the introduction caused me to think about the differences and similarities between these two words so i thought i’d post this as a new thread.

i, for one, view sculpture and architecture as the same thing. but this is more to do with my approach to sculpture (which has more to do with reacting to, and interacting with, space). sal points out that architecture is a space that you actually use, and i would agree with this. and although a sculpture does not always create a space that you use, the space around a sculpture can very often be affected by it’s presence. this in turn affects the actions of viewers of the sculpture.
this is the space that i am interested in, a sculptural space - an architectural/spatial manifestation - in the internet that affects the viewer’s perception.
i would like to quickly point out that i am not looking for ‘virtual’ spaces in the sense of 3D worlds or 3D representations of networks that you can explore. this ground has been quite thoroughly covered and there is a quantity of people who work in the field of data visualisation and create online artworks about the manipulation and representation of information. what i’m looking to define is a sculptural/architectural approach to perceiving and creating net-based art. it is this approach that is important to the definition of the work. further-more i am not trying to drag net art back into the realms of ‘traditional’ art by using labels like sculpture, i just feel that this is an avenue of net art thinking that would benefit exploration. i would hope that it is beyond the discussion of ‘what to call’ the artwork and more to do with ‘how it happens.’
things to think about:
- the spatial/architectural nature of website navigation.
- the spatial/architectural nature of interaction between user, hardware, software and information.
- the dynamics of the screen.
- mass of information (both in terms of scale and physical property).

31.03.06 about

net.weight is initiated and administrated by rich white.
its purpose is to act as a sounding board for ideas about the internet as a sculptural entity.
discussions could revolve around such topics as the size and mass of the internet, sculptural visualisations (literal, metaphorical etc...) and the sculptural methods used in creating net-based artworks.

30.03.06 introduction

this project began when i started thinking about the phrase ‘net weight’ (a weight excluding that of the packaging or container etc. OED). it led to thinking ‘what, if at all, is the weight of the internet?’ not all the equipment, hardware, wires and cables, but the weight of the information. could there be a way of measuring the mass of the fundamental particles that carry the data? if so my plan is to make an object - a sculpture - that weighs exactly the same as the internet. what form it would take i do not yet know.
after a bit of research i discovered that the particles which carry electrical signals are photons - and they have no mass. however, after a bit more research i stumbled upon radiation pressure and wondered if this could be put into practice to deduce the amount of pressure the photons which comprise the internet might exert upon a surface. this could then be converted to a weight.
that’s just one possiblity though. and i still lack a vital piece of information - how many photons does it take to carry a byte? all i would have to do then is multiply the amount of photons per byte by the amount of bytes which currently make up the internet. this number will obviously not be entirely accurate - the net is constantly changing and i imagine the figure will very quickly become out of date. the resulting number from the calculation would be a snap-shot of a particular moment in time. i then have to work out the radiation pressure of the amount of photons i have just calculated and i have my number… maybe? my physics is a bit shaky.
as well as this idea i thought that there must be other sculptural ideas worth exploring - and that is what this message board is for. by ‘sculptural’ i mean everything from solid, object-based works to more fluid, psychological or spatial ideas in the manner of, say, joseph beuys’ social sculpture or the sculptural behaviour of processes and information systems.
it is early days yet and i still haven’t quite solidified the thinking behind this, i just feel that there is potential here. and it is a potential which i think needs exploring among a group of people, throwing ideas into a pot and seeing what sticks to the sides.