"During the eighteenth century the general concept of the sign acted as a point of departure for the subdivision of knowledge into aesthetics" "In the early 1950s, in the wake of the new mathematical theory of communication, elements of information theory entered linguistic discourse." (Siegert,2015). Historical comprehension of language was replaced with distinction between "code" and "message".

When understanding communication, it is widely seen that there is usually a speaker, a message, and a receiver. Serres believed in three elements to communicating: "the physical materiality of the channel- in other words, noise". Serres's theoretical adaptation to the French "Le Parasite", alongside having the same meaning in English, means a piece of information, or a noise/ disturbance. "Let there be two stations and one channel connecting both. The parasite that attaches itself to this relation assumes the position of the third." "In Serres's model of communication, it is not the sender-receiver relationship that is fundamental but that between communication and noise." (Siegert,2023). This is necessary for the comprehension of modern, digitalised communication, where the sender-receiver relationship is disrupted in order to pass on a message, within the computer's effort to understand human noise and deliver assistance.

"The Pollak/ Virag telegraph: signal, character set, and sample telegram" (Siegert,2015)

"The telegraph allowed instant communication over vast distances for the first time in human history" (Elon University,2023) this signalled a turning point for development in digital communication. Before the telegram, human communications were bound by physical limitations. Historically, other methods such as language creation, alphabets, postal services, storytelling, drawings, calendars, and signals were used to communicate. In 26-37 AD, "Roman Emperor Tiberius rules the empire from the island of Capri by signalling messages with metal mirrors to reflect the sun." (H,2023). The world became creative in its endeavour for long-distance communication.

In 1792, Claude Chappe invented the world's first Semaphore Telegraph Line. Thus began the gradual innovation towards the internet we know today. Illustrated, "It is an ad for the telegraph developed by Pollak and Virag (a Telegraphy developer) that was able to transmit handwritten messages, but that was able to do so only because it defined handwriting as just another cursive script or cacography." "The Pollak/Virag telegraph handwriting is a signal much like the song of the Sirens. Writing, that elementary cultural technique, emerges out of an operation that concerns the channel (the parasite) itself: It is the filtering out of signals from noise" (Siegert,2023). The beginnings of a human-computer understanding introduced a togetherness, a signalling, and the beginning of computer's hard work in compiling human information and noise, making it something comprehensive for us.

"A Museum Employee in Bhopal with an 1837 Telegraphy Machine"

India was using the Telegraph until 2013. "At its peak in 1985 the service was relaying some 60 million messages a year".(Miller,2013). Although India was the last in the world to get rid of it, the service still sent around 5,000 messages a day in its final year.

Technology moved on, humans wanted something that processed their noise faster.

Japanese Bullet Train, Kingfisher

Biomimicry in the modern world.

Ideas of yesterday work as a base for every idea made today. Hinges on doors are familiarly inspired by bodily joints such as elbows and knee joints. Most vehicles are modelled from birds of flight, streamlined for speed. Illustrated above, the Japanese Bullet Train and the Kingfisher are great examples of this. Train developers were struggling with developing a quiet and quick train. Taking inspiration from the Kingfisher's long beak, "These birds are able to travel between water and air with a little splash while hunting for prey." Once the design changes were applied, "The Noise produced by the train reduced tremendously" "also with added benefits of using 15% less electricity and 10% faster than the original." (Techindulge.com,2023).

In this sense, modern search engines or 'AI' such as Chat GPT work as innovations of the human brain. Answering human questions, artificially sought through layers of data it has access to through the internet.

"Most current AI is built to learn by using artificial neural networks, which emulate many structural aspects of how neurons are organised in the brain." (The University of Queensland, 2023). The modern computer sifts through the artificial network of internet submissions of human noise in the data mid-space in order to curate something helpful to you.

The computer seamlessly goes in and outside of this mid-space to collect and display noise, advertise, instruct, and destruct. People put a lot of faith in what they read, and the computer takes full advantage of this.

Image Still from 'They Live', John Carpenter

'Marry and Reproduce'.

"They influence our decisions without us knowing it. They numb our senses without us feeling it. They control our lives without us realizing it. They live." (imbd.com,2023) Carpenter's film 'They Live'.

Adverts are everywhere, telling us what to do and how to do it. Is it worth listening? It seems the main ideas being pushed by big corporations are: reproduce, buy more, go on holiday, spend more, go to work, and die one day. We see these ideas being pushed onto us, everywhere, daily. In computer's access to everything we see and do means that they can cater to us individually, we are curated adverts depending on our likes (things we interact with on the internet), and our statistics such as age and gender. This means advertising to us becomes more effective and easier. The classic idea of an advert has been twisted, rather than just on the wall of the underground or on a big sign on the Motorway, we now hold it in the palms of our hands, and look into it at our desks at work.

Kim Kardashian Computer Shopping

Kim Kardashian is a walking billboard.

Perhaps the biggest form of advertisement now is the influencer. High-status celebrities have been around since the dawn of Cinema. However, with the accessibility of Instagram, their sought-after luxuries are more seen than ever before. Scrolling through your phone ten times a day, as opposed to a monthly outing to the cinema, means that modern people are seeing a lot more and wanting a lot more.

If you see them covet a new brand of sportswear, or sponsor a gummy bear hair supplement, you can expect millions of women to follow on in the hopes of being a bit closer to being a Kardashian. Pictured, Kardashian is checking out a new computer. This image alone, once published will cause the computer brand millions of more customers. This quick snap at a celebrity event functions as a high-earning advertisement.

As the language of the world changes, culture follows on. If your phone or computer notices you are young and a woman, you will be pushed with adverts about lipstick. The computer understands your likes and dislikes and communicates back to you what it thinks you want or need in order to make money for somebody, somewhere. Highly successful Kim Kardashian communicates with us in the hopes that we will buy a computer, so the computer can communicate with us, we can hand over our data. This enables us to buy more things recommended to us so we can become successful like her one day.

"I hope to have a bigger presence in the tech world. I love coming up with different app ideas, and I have a few more that are coming out. Once you get started and you have this creative bug of ideas that you want to get out, I feel like I've partnered with the right team, and now I have the creative outlet to make that happen. I'm happy that people are into it and perceiving it well. I just want to create more apps."(Kardashian,2015). Kardashian understands the power of the computer, and wants in.

Dall-e/Craiyon generated image of Kim Kardashian On a Computer.

"DALL-E 2 uses sophisticated deep learning AI called a "generative model" (powered by neural networks) to not only create images from natural language, but also understand the relationships between objects in the image." (Kaput,2022) I wanted to challenge DallE- the popularised image generator in creating something I already knew existed on the internet in order to see how accurate it was going to be. DallE Mini has access to every single image on the internet, and utilises this data set in creating realistic images of anything you want. Cutting and sticking millions of images together in a matter of seconds. This image is a reflection of what computers have access to. It has worked quite successfully, and serves as an example of the computer's inner work. The functioning of its brain. Its cogs spinning at a human stimulus. Its attempt at fulfullment. The working together of human and machine.

With programs using this wide of a data set, you can expect a bias in its result. Whether that is branding that pops up within the images created, or a racial, or gendered bias. "AI researchers found that DALL-E 2's depictions of people can be too biased for public consumption. Early tests by red team members and OpenAI have shown that DALL-E 2 leans toward generating images of white men by default, overly sexualizes images of women, and reinforces racial stereotypes." (Johnson,2022)

We can use DallE as a slight look into the Computer mid-space. The Computerised idea of what humans are. The data that makes us up. It seems that unfortunately the computer sees us as default white men, or sexualised women.

It is really an advert within an advert. Sexualised Kim K sporting a computer on a website containing multiple adverts within the screen, which serve to make the website 'free'. DallE is a great resource but it is another example of the modern billboard, it is the computer's clever way of giving, but also receiving. The computer receives information about what you want to see- once you input it into its DallE search, and it receives revenue from displaying things you like. The computer knows you, and seeks to know more.

Smashed Computer Screen

The black mirror

The screen is the dividing line between human and computer.

Does your computer screen have crumbs and finger print marks? Is it out of charge? Do you decorate it with tabs brimmed with todays thoughts? Is it old? Broken?

The computer sees the honest,unfiltered you. The you that scrolls for hours on end. Screen time, a model of modern digital communication. The speaker, the message and the receiver. Fast image and sound, but even faster, computer noise, everything you like, no need to click off. Self contained and 10-seconds long.

The computer is the version of you that you don't like that much.

Visual Representation of Audio 3

Audio is the recording of human noise, once translated into computer noise. Visual sound diagrams indicating sound level are a way of contextualising this process for human comprehension.

Audio 3 on the Sound page demonstrates Google Translate reading aloud a transcript I wrote for this web page. A human input of thought and human noise, translated and read aloud by the google translator assistant, a computerised voice which mimics human sound using computer noise.

This marrying of the two is what makes up our experiences on the internet. Human input and computer effort. This image is the visual representation of this process, and a look into the translating process that the computer endures each time we request assistance.

This follows a modernised Serres' model, 'Le Parasite'. There is a speaker, a message, and a receiver. An influencer, the advert, and the Instagram follower. This is made up and presented to us in the form of a computer-translated image and sound, originally input by humans.

Le Parasite, the disruption, the noise, the technical difficulty is the power behind this process.