For the visual feedback loop, our theoretical discussion of cinema serves a few ends. Most simply, the discussion provides applicable concepts of how visual media form relational complexes. The theories posit that the spectator sees images, yet comprehends relations. The individual moving image, in this way, influences and is influenced by like-objects, namely moving images. Though conceptually interesting unto itself, the fundamental relatedness of the image implies a new relational structure when visual forms are recontextualized within different closed systems. In particular, this seems appropriate when discussing the visual feedback loop, as it likens the visual and the physical.
More broadly, Deleuze and Cubitt claim that what is commonly considered specific to the medium of cinema is, in fact, incorrect. Cinema, as an experienced form, is not simply the technology of film nor its technological affordances, i.e. motion, photorealism, etc. Cinema is instead a series of formal and phenomenological criteria that exist outside (possibly above) of these material notions. While this seems a matter of semantics for cinema, this is quite profound when considering forms that exist across and without particular technologies. Again, we arrive at the visual feedback loop.
This revised definition of a medium can easily be confused with the concept of medium specificity–a term used to qualify a unique set of features from a particular technology as the medium’s teleology. For instance, one could argue that relatedness is specific to the medium of cinema, while the potential for photorealistic representation is not; therefore, cinema is defined solely by relatedness. Deleuze and Cubitt make it clear that such a reading is too narrow–representation contributes to relatedness as much as relatedness contributes to representation. Likewise, for transient forms, medium specific is wholly inaccurate. Instead, the theories of Deleuze and Cubitt claim cinema is a desired form–that is, a uniquely experienced and produced object.
Now, the under-articulation of the visual feedback loop generally stems from how the discussion and analysis of media privilege materiality and technology. As a result, in order to accurately define the visual feedback loop, one must surpass its transience and create a flexible mold to categorize the form abstractly. Namely, I offer that visual feedback loop is desired form.
+Definition: the desired form
The term desired form is defined as follows:
(1) A set of formal conditions related to the order and arrangement of physical elements.
(2) A set of sensible phenomena related to the order and arrangement of experiential elements.
(3) The formal set and phenomenological set are mutually arising; the existence of one set necessarily implies the existence of the other.
The desired form defines to a both the material and immaterial portions of a medium. The necessity of this term comes from frequent essentialization of media. The total formal and phenomenological set tend to be distilled into generative subsets of elements. Such a set, mathematically speaking, contains the elements that under the operation or operations of the larger set can recreate the entire set. This means the larger set can be pared down into that which is the bare minimum–elements can be discarded if they are only operative combinations of other elements. The notion of a desired form asserts that the whole set of elements is the only subset of those elements, that is, the trivial subset. To find a generative subset of elements within a form means either (1) the form is not a desired form or (2) the subset is, by definition, non-equivalent to the desired form.
Hence, essentializing a medium into a smaller set of experiential or formal aspects can only be seen as an affront to the expressed form itself. For example, in cinema, if the moving image is simplified into merely (mechanical) representation, it denies a distinction between the profilmic and the photographic. Both could essentially represent the same thing, i.e. visual verisimilitude. A true desired form must be well-defined in the mathematical sense–the final product implies a single and unambiguous means of production. The well-definition of the desired form can be represented as (3): (1) if and only if (2).
While the term desired form allows us to speak of the visual feedback loop as set of conditions that are not tied to a particular technology, the term gains worth when considering modes of remediation and technologically-exclusive media theory (such as cinema’s original material apparatus). As media become more and more distant from their technological constraints, the necessity to speak of the technologically-absent medium–that is, the desired form–will become more necessary.
+The form and materiality of the feedback loop
Feedback can be generally defined by the circumstance where the output of a system is used (at least in part) as input for that same system. Feedback refers to output-as-input and the loop refers to the systemic closure that exists when output is used as input. In a more general sense, the feedback loop constitutes a causal structure, where the system functions based on previous functioning. The result is structure that is reflexive and recursive–the current state is inductively derived from lifespan of the system as well as indicates the (potential) outcome of the system. “Feedback loops [have] long been exploited to increase the stability of mechanical systems” as an inborn method of self-regulation. Since the invention of video, feedback loops have included visual output-as-input. The visual feedback loop also allows for self-regulation, albeit a different type.
We will consider the visual feedback loop as a desired form; it will be to broken down only for taxonomic purposes. The separated components cannot represent or reproduce the function of the whole loop, as Rosalind Krauss claims about video feedback. Furthermore, the aim is to develop specific terminology that avoids invocations of inadequate or antiquated media theories. The scaffold that the thoughts of Deleuze and Cubitt provide is a structural analogue for the purposes of introducing and grounding the importance of this theory in media traditions.
As Hyun-Jean Lee’s thesis outlined, the feedback loop is comprised of a series of components. Lee identifies four varieties of the feedback loop–the physical loop, the electronic loop, the code-level loop, and the psychological loop. These varieties of the loop can be generalized into a set of three components.
(1) The input device
(2) The processing device
(3) The output device
(1) The input device receives information. Data enters the loop from the outside. In this act of reception, the feedback loop generates an inward vector, or, more precisely, continues a one-way cyclic process. A video camera is a prototypical input device in the visual feedback loop. It acts as an eye by receiving in light through its digital aperture. While the properties of light do not change, the input device ostensibly transforms the usually omnidirectional light into a focused beam toward the camera. Hence, the sensible world before the input device is always directed at the input device (from the point-of-view of the system).
(2) The processing device takes the real-world information and translates it into a new digital format. The light perceived by the video camera becomes encoded as a video signal or information array. The light is digitized through the processes of sampling and quantification. First, the image is broken down into discrete parts. Next, each part is assigned a set of values to represent the original information. Despite the process of digitization , the actual methods of sampling and quantizing vary based on the encoding format.
(3) The output device takes the quantized data and re-presents it. The now-digital information is displayed as an image. The processing device digests the input so that it may be in an acceptable format for the output device. The output device assembles the data, such as arranging pixels on a screen.
These three components exist in the four different types of loops Lee categorizes. Since the focus is on the visual feedback loop, the input and output devices are almost universally a digital moving-image camera (e.g. video or webcam) and a screen (e.g. television or projector & screen), respectively. The processing device can vary tremendously, from a simple video graphics array (VGA) to a computer processor.
While Lee’s categories are helpful in speaking of the parts of the feedback loop, they illustrate a essentialized approach. Her explanation of the psychological loop, for instance, illustrates a misunderstanding of Rosalind Krauss’ claim that feedback is a “‘bracketed’ situation”. By this, Krauss means to place a person both physically and psychologically within the physical loop. The spectator-user acts as an intermediary by participating in the loop process. Hence, the psychological loop is always a subset of the physical loop as the physical loop provides the condition for the psychological loop. Lee, on the other hand, claims:
“[M]ost importantly, all the loops described [...] fall under a more intensified psychological loop because of the real-time interactivity between the interactor and the system [...] The directly mirrored feedback and the exact mirroring effects keep the system closed and the viewer self-absorbed. In this situation under real-time feedback, there is little room for subjective reflection on the interaction.”
The psychological loop, according to Lee, exists as the outside the physical loop either in parallel and concurrent or enclosing the physical conditions.
This separation of material and immaterial conditions allows Lee to claim the screen interface of the feedback loop provides the definite characteristic of the loop itself. ((Lee contextually defines interface as the medium in or on which the real and virtual (Lee’s “imaginary”) collide. In the case of the psychological loop, the person forms the boundary object, while for physical loop the screen does.)) Instead of the loop being the final product, it provides a circumstantial context for real and virtual worlds to fluidly interact. The reflexive, durable, and directional situation of the loop is discounted for the transformative and immersive qualities of the interface (which are, for all intensive purposes, achievable without feedback at all).
In response to these issues, I offer few amendments. The first of these is that the loop’s bracketed situation–i.e. requires and includes a person–is only consistent when discussing the loop as an formal experience and not as a physical condition. The standard three-part loop can have an optional fourth component, a person, to close the loop and begin a durable experience. The three-part loop results in a static form that is cut-off from duration for the sake of external meditation (this explored in Chapter 2.1 through Nam June Paik’s TV Buddha). The loop exists either unto itself as a three-part system or with a person as a four-part system. (We will see the former begs for the latter. The three-part loop is a conceptual entity since it requires duration, and so a fourth part, to be validated as exhibiting the phenomena of visual feedback.)
+The phenomena of visual feedback
The four-component feedback loop establishes a complex set of cognitive and physical circumstances. These circumstances are outlined as follows:
/External homogeneity
The visual feedback loop has four-components. As a living-body being-in-the-world, the fourth component–the person–is able to bear witness to the three-component loop without yet being included; the person can elect to enter and exit the loop. While on the outside, the feedback loop is not fully realizable. From an external vantage point, the loop exhibits a particular set of characteristics.
Externally, the loop denotes the static material notion of feedback. The three-components are visible, and so comprehensible in their functional worth. One can inspect these elements, their functions, and their relative positions. Thus, the loop is treated as a static (non-living) body through our ability to objectify and dissect it. It does not need to act as a feedback loop (taking in output-as-input) as much as appear to act as a feedback loop. Externally, the visual feedback loop is a conceptual object.
In this static state, the loop processes nothingness infinitely. A single moment, as much the singular physical space, is comprised of a series of moments that are trivially identical, that is, reflexive. Borrowing from Bergson, the loop expresses temporal homogeneity because of a lack of distinction amongst moments. The loop’s internal time can only be experienced externally; hence, time can only be measured. Again, the loop is externally conceptual since it exists in full without relying on an execution. The production of output-as-input is irrelevant since distinguishing input from output is impossible. The loop is closed and can symbolized as a directed circle moving through the input device and processor, and out of the output device. This external homogeneity forms how we identify with our augmented experience once inside.
/Extended perception and augmented self
Once entering the loop, the spectator-user is confronted with a pair of viewing subjects. Sobchack explains the similar experience in film as the negotiation of viewing. The spectator views the screen which is, in fact, the result of what the camera has viewed. The acceptance of this schizophrenic encounter–the viewing-view/viewed-view–is a precondition to being able to experience of cinema. While the two views unfold together, they are separated in time; the spectator perceives the view of the now-absent camera. Hence, the I/eye unites subjects spatially–the self with the image before it–and temporally–the self with the image antedating it.
The feedback loop relies on a similar concept. In visual feedback, however, the two viewing subjects exist simultaneously; that is, the feedback loop relies on a viewing-view/viewing-view. This is a fundamental axiom of the visual feedback loop–as the subject views, so too is the subject being viewed. Both perspectives are co-temporal while being distinct in space. One viewed object–the output device–demands a second viewed object–the person. This moment fixes a relationship of positions and perspectives, and initializes distributions of power within the loop.
Once a person enters, the joint viewing extends perception. A pair of embodied and hermeneutic relationships proceed:
forward viewing-view: physical self–>virtual self
reverse viewing-view: virtual self–>physical self
Where the negotiation in film is that of the camera and the viewer as distinct perspectives and times, the negotiation in feedback is a re-placing of one’s self physically and virtually; this is a consequence of the actual and perceptual concurrence of subjects. The directed circle (the static notion of the loop) is divided in half: one portion points to the virtual self (the forward viewing-view or the forward arc) and one half points to the physical self (the reverse viewing-view or the reverse arc). The total self, as a result, is constantly in flux–onscreen and offscreen, staring in and staring out. Once a person begins negotiating selfhood, time is no longer solely measured, but inhabited; the homogeneous moment vanishes.
The two arcs rely on a combination of the perception-image and the actual-image. In the former, perception leads toward action; in the latter, perception leads toward recollection. By seeing the self, the loop constructs both a perception-image and an actual-image; the perceptive act relies on both sensory-motor and recollection schema. The forward arc pairs the living-body with a virtual double; as the spectator-user is physically aware, the screen visually over-determines corporeal awareness. Visibility constructs the visual/virtual self; conversely, visuality reconstructs the physical self. The reverse arc returns visual representation into the acting physical body. The spectator-user, as visually constrained, forms embodied versions of visuality.
The visual feedback loop erects a crystalline identity by refracting singular moments and spaces. The entwined selves leads each durable moment into duplication: one which is physical; one which is virtual. As time refracts, so follows space. To understand the virtual self, the spectator-user must correlate the visual world to the physical world.
/Internal heterogeneity
While external duration is trivially homogeneous (each moment is the same moment), internal duration is truly referential, regressive, and heterogeneous. Once a person elects to enter the loop, the physical and virtual selves mutually arise. The refracted identity refracts time. The viewing person and the viewing camera each reflect and reverberate the current moment differently. The former embodies time, while the latter represents it; and the spectator-user experiences both. “[T]he time that endures is not measurable, whether we think of it as within us or imagine it outside of us.” The spectator-user cannot compare the two moments as the measurement of the moments is completely different; viewing leaves a residue on each moment. Simultaneous experiences of the same moments are, instead, two distinct moments existing co-spatially and resulting from a singular origin (the “impersonal and universal” moment). The acceptance of technological augmentation leads to the understanding of this fracturing precisely.
/Contiguous space
Similar to time, space is similarly made crystalline. The virtual world and physical world come from the same origin–the externally knowable space. Inside the loop, the actual space transforms into two distinct world. The virtual world imbues the physical world with new constraints–boundaries, impediments, etc. Likewise, the physical world imbues the virtual world with a sense of geographic place. The continuousness of natural space is partitioned by way of the two arcs. Continuity is replaced with contiguity–worlds are juxtaposed to form a spatial pastiche. Reframing, in film, unifies disparate perspectives into a coherent space. The contiguity of looped space excludes the outside world, making the amalgamated space self-contained and closed.
—
Now that the visual feedback loop has been outlined as a desired form, we move to a series of case studies that illustrate particular aspects of the definition. The first set of examples explores the aesthetic distinction between external and internal duration. The next set explores the two arcs and how they arrange concepts of power. The final example explores notions of space, as well as the practical applications of visual feedback loops.
