ARTS AND APPARATUS - Plea for the Dramatisation of an Interface - In Support of a Dramatics of the Difference

Abstract

In the world of metaphors in and around the net, the relation to life has become remarkable central. Biology as a discipline has occupied a leading role. If we look towards the autonomy of the ethics and aesthetics of the interface/Schnittstelle, which is derived from the other/otherness, we have to meet both critically and with alternative models: life as a leading metaphor, as well as the reduced and flat-dimensional concept of biology/evolution in the tradition of Darwinism or neo-Darwinism. The world of machines and programs has been designed and calculated according to a plan. It is based on numbers and on the logical and systematic relations between numbers. In this sense, it is a coherent and consistent world. The world of the living is not based on such a reliable scheme. The main difference is that it is principally irreversible. Because of outside interference and inherent fluctuations, the many diverse physiological rhythms that are linked in a complex organism never lead back to their original starting point. Organic systems fluctuate near stationary states. Machines and programs cannot have a state.