Laurens paullmann

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A conversation about the virtual and the digital

Essay by Laurens Peter Paulmann History & Theory Studies - AA School of Architecture - 2015 Course: A Genealogy of the Computer by Francesca Hughes

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“Nothing is more destructive for the thinking of the virtual than equating it with the digital“1

Brian Massumi

The virtual today, is almost always considered as being related to the digital. From its very essence, digital meaning related to numbers,2 i it seems to be congruent with the virtual (numbers being thoroughly non-physical). But the digital is the least virtual of everything that is virtual, according to Brian Massumi, due to its accuracy and precision. That is, what he claims to be the opposite of the virtual. He makes the above statement in his essay Line parable of the virtual in opposition to the notion that persists on linking both the term and our thinking of the virtual with the advent of the digital, such as computers, smartphones, televisions, and the likes. Massumi not only critiques this notion on the surface but continues by arguing that the virtual and the digital do have a “remarkably weak connection“3 with each other. The essay was published in 1998 when the digital revolution had already severely influenced our daily lives.4 Long before Massumi’s remarks on the issue, at the end of the 4th Century AD, Saint Augustine described the immaterial realms of our lives, when digital devices were non-existant. Saint Augustines’ writing is proof that the idea of the virtual, being defined as “a power of acting without the agency of matter“5 , in short the “immaterial“6, already existed at that time. But how, then, hat it come to be perceived as so closely linked to the digital, even to the extent that in a 2011 english dictionary most of the definitions of the word virtual and its related terms are associated with computers7 ii?

This writing is a fictional conversation between Massumi, a contemporary, and Saint Augustine set in 2015, with myself as a moderator of this conversation (LP), to showcase how the virtual exists aside, before and without the digital. Furthermore, it is an attempt to speculate how Saint Augustine, a philosopher living during the times of the late Roman Empire (the main writing Confessions, was written between 397 and 400 AD), might respond to the issue of the virtual being equated with the digital: LP: Dear audience, I welcome you to this extraordinary talk about the virtual with some of its most prominent figures. I have the honor to chair this discussion between Brian Massumi (BM), a canadian born philosopher, and Augustine of Hippo (SA), a theologian and philosopher from Hippo Regis (today Annaba, Algeria). A warm welcome to my guests. To start with this conversation, could both of you briefly describe what the virtual is to you? How do you define it? How does it emerge?

SA: Maybe I shall start, since, chronologically, my definitions and thoughts were described much earlier than Brian’s. Although it was never the main topic of my writings, the virtual, or what one could name the virtual, does appear in Book X of Confessions. There I am talking about the two parts that make up myself. It is the body, my outer part and the soul, my inner part. And it is this inner part that, through my senses is offering to me the virtual.8 Through this inner part, the soul, we seek salvation and Gods mercy.9 Herein lies the focus of my book Confessions10 , meaning the virtual is one of the contributors in reaching God, somewhat like a utility or a catalyst.

It is important to say, that an integral part of the virtual is a wonderful storage facility, our memory.

Memory is, and now I quote myself, “a spacious palace, a storehouse for countless images“11 that we

1

Massumi, Brian; Line Parable of the virtual; in „The virtual dimension“; ed. by John Beckmann; Princeton Architectural Press; New York, 1998, p 307

2

Collins - English Dictionary; Harper Collins Publishers; Glasgow, 2011; p 469

3

Massumi, Brian; Line Parable of the virtual; in „The virtual dimension“; ed. by John Beckmann; Princeton Architectural Press; New York, 1998, p 307

4

Massumi, Brian; Line Parable of the virtual; in „The virtual dimension“; ed. by John Beckmann; Princeton Architectural Press; New York, 1998, p 307

5

Friedberg, Anne; The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft; MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2006; p. 8

6

Friedberg, Anne; The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft; MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2006; p. 8

7

Collins - English Dictionary; Harper Collins Publishers; Glasgow, 2011; p 1818

8

Saint Augustine; Confessions; Penguin Books; London, 1961, p 212

9

Saint Augustine; Confessions; Penguin Books; London, 1961, p 213

10

Kenney, John Peter; The Mysticism of Saint Augustine; Routledge, New York 2005; p96, 98, 146

11

Saint Augustine; Confessions; Penguin Books; London, 1961, p 214

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receive mostly through our bodily senses. Everything is well organized in the categories of our senses (seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting) and is awaiting my directions. I am in full control of what will be produced. However, I might have to sort and prioritize the images I see in front of my inner eye when instructing my memory to search the virtual corridors and shelves for information. The more I sort ,the clearer the picture becomes.12 Whenever i search my mind, it will be able to produce an endless amount of images, facts and information generated by the memory. This storage facility is always available and contains everything I ever experienced, felt or recognized through my senses.

BM: I understand Saint Augustines definition of the virtual as heavily dependent on the senses and the extremely expansive storage facility that we feed with instructions. From my point of view the virtual is not so much dependent on the memory and the persons instructions but it is instead a process whereby we have less control, a process going through the three stages the possible, the potential and the virtual.13 Saint Augustine describes a rather clear and straight forward procedure of directing the memory and mind with what to remember. I see it as a much more complex act of images being recomposed, overlaid and transformed with themselves to generate the virtual in the present moment.

A process in motion as opposed to a rigid “spacious Palace“. Only this multiplicity of deformations, although they have a structure to them, a topology,14 can achieve the virtual.15 It is about these deformations rather than clear images as mentioned by Augustine. Deformations that create the virtual, they are the most vague representations of our thoughts.

LP: Brian, I do notice your opposition towards Saint Augustines explanations, but could you explain the three stages further? What is their role within the deformations? And I will add another question right away: How are the deformations controlled or by what are they being influenced?

BM: Ok, I will expand more on the three stages and their relation with the deformations: First we see the possible, which is a catalyst of options of the actual that differ to the actual in their “content and structure“.16 We process images in our imagination and confront them with alternatives. The potential is the overlay of different possibilities and its mixing with new, inactual thoughts. Processes of quantification and transformation of images and other sensations brings us to these three “modes of thought“.17 The possible and the potential leave a “residue“, that is the virtual.18 To compare them to my mentioning of the vague, the possible is the clearest and most precise mode, the potential is “multiple-vague“19 and the virtual is the most vague, the peak of vagueness. That is the reason for its distance to the digital, that I also elaborate in my theories.

LP: Yes, we will discuss the digital further soon. Before, I want to give Augustine the chance to respond to you.

SA: Thank you. I begin to comprehend your explanation, but the procedures you describe are incredibly abstract and, as you stated clearly, incredibly vague. I have to oppose: The images our mind produces and our memory stores are particularly clear and crisp. They are almost a copy of the form that we received them in, for example through our senses. We do however have control of recomposing them and creating new images. Yes, they are immaterial and not always linked to the actual but they are always very clear.

12

Saint Augustine; Confessions; Penguin Books; London, 1961, p 214

13

Massumi, Brian; Line Parable of the virtual; in „The virtual dimension“; ed. by John Beckmann; Princeton Architectural Press; New York, 1998, p 307 ff

14

Massumi, Brian; Line Parable of the virtual; in „The virtual dimension“; ed. by John Beckmann; Princeton Architectural Press; New York, 1998, p 306

15

Massumi, Brian; Line Parable of the virtual; in „The virtual dimension“; ed. by John Beckmann; Princeton Architectural Press; New York, 1998, p 305

16Massumi,

Brian; Line Parable of the virtual; in „The virtual dimension“; ed. by John Beckmann; Princeton Architectural Press; New York, 1998, p 307

17Massumi,

Brian; Line Parable of the virtual; in „The virtual dimension“; ed. by John Beckmann; Princeton Architectural Press; New York, 1998, p 308

18Massumi,

Brian; Line Parable of the virtual; in „The virtual dimension“; ed. by John Beckmann; Princeton Architectural Press; New York, 1998, p 308

19Massumi,

Brian; Line Parable of the virtual; in „The virtual dimension“; ed. by John Beckmann; Princeton Architectural Press; New York, 1998, p 313

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BM: I disagree. Our mind cannot produce clear images. They are in a constant process of transformation. Our imagination is too productive and eager with processing all the information it receives.

SA: But how do you direct them, or control them? What is their purpose? The mind is not the escalation of scenes in front of the Curia Iuliaa where the people bombard the senators with all kinds of vocals and one does not know what is happening.b With our inner part we can balance this tumult and give order, purpose and direction to our actions and thoughts, all possible due to god’s mercy and the faculty he provided us with. There is no evidence for such a random and cluttered mind, that you are proposing. If we assume something is random, it is not random, it is God’s will and direction.

BM: Random is not the right word, there is a procedure I describe. Besides, there is no evidence for the existence of God either, is there?

SA: This is a preposterous remark, that I will not respond to. Your described procedure has no guidance or influencing parameters that ultimately govern your principles. At least you did not mention any.

LP: Okay, before this escalates into a debate on fundamental world views, I would like to sum up your positions and then move on to the core topic of this conversation, the digital vs the virtual.

What divides you the most is the quality of the images that you suggest we produce in our mind. For Augustine it is a much clearer selection and depiction of content and for Massumi a dynamic process of transformation. Lets see how this will play a role in the following discussion.

Augustine, assuming you are not familiar with the contemporary meaning of digital, I will do my very best to recap the last decades of the digital revolution and its preceding industrial revolution in a few sentences: Our lives today are dominated by technological devices, computers, that are in short calculators. They consist of a calculating element (a processing unit) and a memory element. Fed with specific instructions from us, they produce results that derive from the calculation of digits that are then being translated into readable results shown, in most cases, on a screen.20 Another particularity of the computer is, that it can only “do one thing at a time but very fast“.21 I do actually see a similarity with this procedure and your description of the virtual: our mind being both the processing unit and the instructor, and the memory you described obviously being the memory. Moreover you also describe a singular procedure that is happening alone, as opposed to several that run alongside each other.

SA: I am not following. What is a screen? How can I imagine such a device?

LP: It is probably best to show it with the example of a personal computer. It looks somewhat like this (shows modern laptop as example and draws a simple sketch)c. Today this is all happening in the one device that represents all these actions and the results on this screen or monitor. That is a somewhat dynamic painting that can show different things at different times and even different things at the same time. The content of the screen, as described by von Neumann as being part of the input/output element of a computer,22 is what is considered as the digital, including everything the screen produces and everything that is happening behind the scenes, such as the calculation processes. Do you understand the principle?

SA: Since I have never seen such a device, or anything close to it, I do require a moment to absorb the information in its entirety. Is it a magical, cursed machine?

LP: Don't worry, there is no dark magic involved. In principle it follows simple technological steps that create these seemingly complex procedures.

20

von Neumann, John; First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC; University of Pennsylvania, 1945

21

Hughes, Francesca; A Genealogy of the Computer; HTS Lecture Series, AA School of Architecture; London, 2015

22

von Neumann, John; First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC; University of Pennsylvania, 1945

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BM: Maybe it helps, if I link it to my argument: There has been the question about what started calculating first. The human, or is the “human just mimicking the machine“23 ? I briefly respond to that: The human already calculated well before the computer but very simple and tremendously slow in comparison. The specificity of the computer is that it can only calculate and nothing more, whereas the human is also capable of doing other things. It is therefore merely another “method of labour“24 in my opinion. Deterministic. Accurate. No possibility for the random.25 The opposite of the virtual.

LP: What is important, this machine is not perceived in that way by the masses. The general understanding is, that all these calculation processes are immaterial, therefore virtual and therefore it is common to only think of the virtual as being related to the digital.26 It is the most literal and descriptive analogy.

But, Brian, already before you mentioned your objection to this thinking. There is more to it, right? You write in your essay Line parable of the virtual that the digital is part of the possible, and, following your earlier explanations, not virtual. Why is that the case, can you explain?

BM: Yes, that is correct. The problematic with that thought is, also thanks to the strong relation between a computer and vision and what is being represented on screen, the digital is either a precise depiction or analog transformation of the calculation processes going on inside the computer. They are analog transformations, not digital or virtual.27 Everything we see on the screen is almost physical, almost material. It is not matter, but very close. It is two-dimensional but very distinct in its appearance. It does not allow for the so important deformations and overlays I described. They are the very essence of our mind. Recomposition, change in structure, amalgamation. Not calculation.

LP: We have to be careful with the terminology. There is a difference between analog computers and digital computers, in the way they work.28 I assume that is not what you mean, when you talk about the analog?

BM: Right. My definition of the analog is about the transformation of information and content from one medium to the other, but not within the actual calculation process. It is happening after the computers calculation.29 SA: I begin to comprehend the logic. Laurens, you said it already. Your description of what people today consider as digital reminds me very much of what I said our minds are. We see a dynamic painting, onto which we can project whatever we instruct our memory with. This would be an extraordinary device to capitalize on the potential of our mind and memory. How is the hierarchy of memory organized? What are the categories?

LP: In whatever way you want. You have numerous possibilities of organizing in complex hierarchies and categories. Depending on the software, the programme or instructions, you can create different memory organizations.

SA: This is marvelous.

BM: Yes, it is quite something. Yet, something very different from the way our imagination makes use of the virtual. Maybe the lack of knowledge of these devices blinds you in understanding its incapability of being genuinely virtual.

23

Hughes, Francesca; A Genealogy of the Computer; HTS Lecture Series, Session 6, AA School of Architecture; London, 2015

24

Hughes, Francesca; A Genealogy of the Computer; HTS Lecture Series, Session 6, AA School of Architecture; London, 2015

25

Hughes, Francesca; A Genealogy of the Computer; HTS Lecture Series, Session 6, AA School of Architecture; London, 2015

26

Friedberg, Anne; The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft; MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2006; p. 7

27

Massumi, Brian; Line Parable of the virtual; in „The virtual dimension“; ed. by John Beckmann; Princeton Architectural Press; New York, 1998, p 309, 311/312

28

Analog / Digital / Hybrid Computers; Byte-Notes

29

Massumi, Brian; Line Parable of the virtual; in „The virtual dimension“; ed. by John Beckmann; Princeton Architectural Press; New York, 1998, p 309

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SA: I am delighted and overwhelmed by such a tool and its similarity to what I assume our mind works like. What I know my mind works like. Hence, I do not understand your criticality.

LP: As a designer I might be able to provide Augustine with an example. Brian, do interrupt me, in case this does not align with your explanations: Us designers envision an endless amount of ideas in a day. These ideas are in constant transformation with many other influences. Our mind is a creator of ideas and visions, of inventions that have not yet existed before our mind produced them. Whenever we try to produce physical or material images of them, be it on the computer or as a physical model, we are never able to reproduce precisely what we envisioned before. Sometimes because it is in constant development, sometimes because there is no tool in the world to precisely articulate our vision. Our mind is much faster than the physical world. It is the same for simply re-producing these images in our mind again, after they were in our mind before at one point. They will never be the same.

SA: But this would mean there is no memory. Since you are not taking images from your memory but instead creating new ones during the procedure.

BM: That is exactly what I mean.

LP: But the images or sensations need to be stored somewhere, don't they? Even assuming you can never re-create the same one, you need a base for the recompositions. Otherwise there would be constant creation and constant forgetting and on the other hand no remembering. That is indeed very different from a computer. Brian, how does our mind deal with that?

BM: Everything is in constant change. In one moment it is in that state and in the next moment it is in another state. Nothing needs to be stored because we either continue transforming it or we forget it and it no longer is important to us. Different to the computer.

SA: Are you saying a computer does not forget? Is its memory limitless?

LP: There is potentially unlimited memory and, at least we do not know it otherwise, the storage technologies we use have the ability to store for eternity. And, yes that means there is no more forgetting.

SA: Again, incredible. If I were to never forget, I were to never forget my path. My destiny of finding God, whom I can only find when I remember him.30 (Pausing and thinking) If there is no forgetting and no storage limit, the machine can be fed with every individuals mind and memory. This is not a machine. I see much more now about what it can be. It can be God, for he knows everything about every man!31 BM: Maybe. In any case that only supports my argument. Leibniz suggested that such calculating instrument, of course it was not present as a digital computer at his time, could serve for the “calculation of the truth“.32 The results of the computer will become too true, no “brainy vagueness“33 as we have it in the virtual.

SA: Eventually, I might be able to support your argument. For one specific reason: The so called computer and digital, potentially has a power so enormous that it can only lie in God’s hands.

Calculation of the truth? Do you mean a universal truth or fundamental truth?

LP: This is a question, that I think at this moment in time is impossible to answer and will continue to employ great thinkers in decades and centuries to come. Therefore I would like to finish the 30

Saint Augustine; Confessions; Penguin Books; London, 1961, p 230

31

Saint Augustine; Confessions; Penguin Books; London, 1961, p 211

32

Hughes, Francesca; A Genealogy of the Computer; HTS Lecture Series, Session 6, AA School of Architecture; London, 2015

33

Massumi, Brian; Line Parable of the virtual; in „The virtual dimension“; ed. by John Beckmann; Princeton Architectural Press; New York, 1998, p 312

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conversation with this open question and would like to make a suggestion: We should resume with this conversation, maybe not with as much distance in between as your writings since technological development is much faster today, but in 200 or 300 hundred years.

I would like to conclude with, what I think, is some sort of consensus we have achieved. I understand Brian’s view on the virtual as a process that describes it as a medium where the human can be a creator and inventor. A creator of visions and of the new, no matter how small or large, how important or trivial it is. For Saint Augustine the virtual is also of use for the human. But for self-reflection. The virtual is the vehicle for investigating our inner part, our past and our consciousness. One could say, two very different character traits, that, I assume, each of us contain to a certain degree.

But, by the end, we agreed on the initial statement, both these virtual descriptions are not to be confused with the digital. Both of you for your own reasons. With that in mind, I would like to thank you very much for your time. It was an extremely exciting and revealing experience, I think, for all three of us.

SA: I join you in thanking Brian and you for this opportunity to discover things from my future by confronting it with my present, saying, your past. I would be delighted to rejoin a subsequent conversation in some hundred years time.

BM: Yes, that sounds like a good idea. I am looking forward to it. Thank you Laurens, and thank you Augustine.

LP: Great, then all that is left, is to wish you a very good evening and to hope we see each other again in the future!

London, December 2015

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Appendix

Title: The title is a composition of the decimal numbers of the years both guests of the conversation produced their writings, but translated into the computing language binary. The year 397 translates into 0000000110001101 and the year 1998 translates into 0000011111001110.

Used translator: binaryhexconverter.com

Images:

a. The Curia Iulia in Rome

b. Scene from „Julius Caesar - Rom auf dem Weg zur Diktatur“ - Institut für Weltkunde in Bildung und Forschung

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c. Sketch drawn during the conversation to explain the computer to Saint Augustine

Dictionary excerpts: i: Collins - English Dictionary; Harper Collins Publishers; Glasgow, 2011; p 469 digital adj 1 of, relating to, resembling, or possessing a digit or digits (…) 3 representing data as a series of numerical values ii: Collins - English Dictionary; Harper Collins Publishers; Glasgow, 2011; p 1818 virtual adj (…) 3 computing of or relating to virtual storage: virtual memory 4 of or relating to a computer technique by which a person, wearing a headset or a mask, has the experience of being in an environment created by the computer, and of interacting with and causing changes in it virtual human n a computer-generated moving image of a human being, used esp in films as an extra in large crowd scenes virtualize or virtualise vb to transform (something) into an artificial computer-generated version of itself which functions as if it were real virtual reality n a computer-generated environment that, to the person experiencing it, closely resembles reality (…) virtual storage or virtual memory n a computer system in which the size of the memory is effectively increased by automatically transferring sections of a program from a large capacity backing store, such as a disk, into the smaller core memory, as they are required

Bibliography:

1. Saint Augustine; Confessions; Penguin Books; London, 1961 2. Collins - English Dictionary; Harper Collins Publishers; Glasgow, 2011 3. Massumi, Brian; Line Parable of the virtual; in “The virtual dimension“; ed. by John Beckmann; Princeton Architectural Press; New York, 1998 4. Friedberg, Anne; The Virtual Window - From Alberti to Microsoft; MIT Press; Cambridge, Mass., 2006 5. Kenney, John Peter; The Mysticism of Saint Augustine; Routledge, New York, 2005 6. von Neumann, John; First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC; University of Pennsylvania, 1945 7. Hughes, Francesca; A Genealogy of the Computer; HTS Lecture Series, AA School of Architecture; London, 2015

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