Feedback is the repetition of process, or the repeated application of process to a specific meaning, matter or motion.

It places us professionally and signals the navigation of noise.

Feedback produces forms in that it turns data into information and filters information for utility.

The act of looping data within a delimited domain of observation produces information.  That is to say, the repetition of any data produces or allows cognitive/linguistic processing, observation and hence significance and meaning for that given data set.

Noise is unrepeatable data, or data, that upon repetition, is unable to be processed or refined into information.  Given that their exists a theoretically infinite set of observational contexts (variations in subjectivity) it is probable that noise is only noise for lack of access to an interpretive framework/observational context.  The problem of noise is not the being of noise but the negotiation of differing and sometimes opposing views or the recognition of noise.  Governments use a form of feedback - the popular voice - to define what noise is.  They also broaden the defining observational context by seeking feedback from the expert voice (health sciences, for instance). 

Politicians who listen to the people are a different breed to the visionaries - those who often look down as much as look ahead. Feedback, however, operates much more powerfully within an acoustic culture simply because it is efficient to hear complaints, or rather, more proactive to complain. As such, problems can be heard as they start - long before their consequences can be seen.

What is it that I am trying to repeat, to have again, to experience as though it were the same as the first? It is an experience, that sense of discovery, enlightenment, wonder and realisation that came with experiencing sensual opening. Connecting to the world through sound brought me closer to it and made me feel a part of it. It seems to me that great art, or my experience of particularly wonderful sound art, provides an experience that whilst inarticulable within language, is repeatable in practice. Al least, that is my contention. Why struggle endlessly with words to do what can be done with sound in a more meaningful and memorable way? What is that words are doing here, in this project that is essentially a practice dedicated to sounding out the art the makes us feel the world? Words make up a path, even if they don't make the scenery.

Tasks tagged with: feedback

good theory identifies what already exists in practice and critiques it. but that is not enough. the theory must be put back into practice (feedback) in order to improve upon it (constructivism?)