Introduction

[The highest human being, deludes himself]: he calls his nature contemplative and thereby overlooks the fact that he is also the actual poet and ongoing author of life […]. It is we, the thinking-sensing ones, who really and continually make something that is not yet there: the whole perpetually growing would of valuations, colors, weights, perspectives, scales, affirmations, and negations. This poem that we have invented is constantly internalized, drilled, translated into flesh and reality, indeed, into the commonplace, by the so-called practical human beings. Only we have created the world that concerns human beings! – Friedrich Nietzsche [Nie82]

Disclaimer

This chapter is optional. It is not required for learning SuperCollider or any other content of this book. Feel free to skip it.

It’s almost embarrassing for me to reflect on my journey and realize that in some ways, I haven’t moved closer to the objective truth. I recall being around ten years old, pondering my existence and the nature of reality. Perhaps such questioning is inherent to humanity, but I should refrain from attributing our human essence to a singular principle. Admittedly, I now understand more about how things function, but I remain clueless about the true nature of reality.

From this lack of certainty and clearness it seems natural that one starts doubting the direct access to an objective reality. Such thing might be ontological ‘true’ but we can not know and we can not access it. However, then I think about the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics and say to myself: There has to be at least traces of an objective reality. How can it be that mathematics never let’s us down? This ambivalence feels akin to being torn between the philosophies of early and late Wittgenstein or caught between the thoughts of Russell and Nietzsche.

My unease grows when I pair this ambiguity with the recent advances in technology and societal shifts. If contemporary philosophers challenge the validity of metaphysical assertions, how then should we deal with cybernetics—modern technology that steers us into the future while it is backed by metaphysical assumptions, mainly the idea of progress? If philosophy is in fact like poetry as Richard Rorty [Ror16] suggests, i.e. a historical, inexhaustible narrative we literally make sense of, which can be contextualized and re-contextualized in a never ending continuation, then it’s crucial that we maintain our capacity for vivid, life-affirming imaginations. Rorty suggests that instead of seeing some cultural elements as more aligned with reality than others, we might measure the strength and potential of our imaginations, and subsequently, the quality of life they can bring about. In contrast, I think that the convergence of cybernetics and what many term surveillance capitalism confines our imaginative potential. True progress, or the pursuit of a better life, necessitates viewing technology as a determining factor for the horizon of the possible—that which we can imagine. This Husserlian horizon should not be confused with something distant but contingent.

Interestingly, the terms art and technology have a similar origin. Art originates from the Latin word, ars/artem, which means work of art; practical skill; a business, craft. On the other hand, techne is the Greek word for craftsmanship, craft or art. Historically, technology included the creation and study of art, as well as more practically-oriented artefacts. Cave paintings can be seen as a representation of a virtual reality enabling their creators to project their wishes by means of basic technology. Today there is a sense that we lose the craft to machines. Arguable this fear was already present many times in the past. However, examining the intersection of art and technology, it’s challenging to dispute Mark Fisher’s [Fis09] observation that there seems to be a scarcity of genuinely innovative works capable of unveiling new worlds. The craft more and more takes a backseat even before we take generative AI into consideration. However, such critique, if it relies on a nostalgic and aesthetic sense of a better past that actually never existed, can lead to a path into the dark. If we stand with Fisher, this lack of the new is a consequence of (neo-liberal) capitalism. Then we have to take Capitalist Realism [Fis09] seriously but it might be too easy and reductive to blame capitalsm for everything. Fisher’s arguments are certainly influenced by Walter Benjamin’s concept of the loss of aura due to mechanical reproduction [Ben36]. In contrary, Martin Heidegger, with his concept of the essence of technology [Hei54], offers another explanation for this supposedly downfall. But we should recognize that his worries are imbued with romanticism and nostalgia and that his beliefs consequently drove him to nazism. Furthermore, while one can get great insights from Heidegger, he is still embraced by a certain kind of group who uses degeneration as a weapen against the new and anything they mark as other, alien—the enemy, the foreigner. Maybe Niklas Luhmann [Luh86] is more close to the truth and this perceived deterioration is only apparent to those who fail to distinguish between medium and form of modern societies.

In my exploration, I do not aim to provide answers to these questions. Instead, my goal is to delve into and present various theories and viewpoints I find interesting. I hope my approach is playful and inquisitive, inspired by Rorty’s suggestion to treat philosophy as a form of poetry. Through this lens, I seek to uncover and understand the complex dynamics at play in the realms of art and technology. In the spirit of Philosophy as Poetry [Ror16], I urge the reader to take this text not something close to metaphysics but as a narrative or a theory that only tries to help to imagine what technology is or better how it works.