Limits of Language, Limits of Worlds

Abstract

Abstract of Language, Limits of Worlds sets the stage for the articles that follow. It gives the general rationale for the discussions that formed the impetus for the selection of subjects for papers which include the inherent limitations of expert languages, the need to integrate visual literacy with all literacies that make up a language and its culture, the need for a vibrant cross-disciplinary discourse and the need for exploration of the relationship of theory to practice. mediating link between theory and practice, is the human essence -- grounded in human feeling, experience, and intersubjective agreements that cannot be 'universalized' in the logic of the formula. Richard T. Dyro, Semiotician, Life as a Process of Learning, 1982 Introduction The topics for this issue emerged in what one can consider a unique experiment for a beginning academic interdisciplinary discourse. During past semesters the focus of a seminar was to establish an understanding of the differences between the visual literacy competencies needed for machine vision and the production of communicative art objects. A group of researchers in masters and doctoral programs of various disciplines in the arts and sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign shared this common seminar. It was moderated at times by Seth Hutchinson, faculty member in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Beckman Institute, and two faculty members of the School of Art and Design, Len Singer, professor of industrial and product design and human factors specialist, and Dietmar Winkler, professor of visual design. Participant backgrounds ranged from specializations in communication and advertising, graphic and industrial design, studio arts and art education, and (electronic and time-based) narrative media to psychology and robotics. There was a natural crossover between disciplines, and the diverse group shared its sources, among them Nelson Goodman, Ernst Gombrich, Rudolf Arnheim, for example, as well as texts on perception, optical illusion, optics, neural nets and other related subjects. Certainly, there was awareness of issues in perception and communication framed by the b>avioral and social sciences, but it seemed as if the expert languages of robotics as well as art considered these external and not central to either the making of art objets or to machine vision. Theory and Practice From the very beginning it became clear that theory and practice in art are separated to such an extent that the principles of form making, although applicable and useful to the practice are finally not a measure of either uniqueness, quality or communicative effectiveness or impact, with the result that even if all principles are properly and correctly applied, the communication may be anything other than useful or functioning or a unique and compelling aesthetic statement. In Umberto Eco's vision the universe is made up of chaos and cosmos, of understandable order and of natural, and for the present moment seemingly confusing and not compr>endible, disorder. To combat this destabilizing and debilitating chaosmos, each discipline has organized itself around specific theories that at least for a short time harden the elasticity of knowledge so that they are enabled to anchor application and implementation in practice. Because of the internal struggles for supremacy, all disciplines are notorious for their inability to share knowledge with another. While an interdisciplinary network is needed from which a multifaceted view of the same world can emerge that is less stilted and segregated, the specialist is ignorant of other branches of knowledge. Finally the specialist is utterly incapable of forming a judgment on the role and importance of his own knowledge within the context of human knowledge and culture. Jurgen Habermas identifies the expertise complex as a danger and without broad critical thinking skills, yielding each succeeding generation of professionals so entrenched