Jeremy Levine

Build Your World: Minecraft and Open Source Architecture

Jeremy Levine
To design one’s world, whether in the physical or digital domain, is to to increase one’s sense of agency. For Minecraft, this is an opportunity for architects to address the crises in urban housing. A similar open-source, DIY, and collaborative ethos plays out in architecture projects fabrication systems for non-architects to design and build their own homes, by Teddy Cruz, Alejandro Aravena, and the WikiHouse Project.... READ MORE...
ArticlesDesign

Generative Practice. The State Of The Art

Jeremy Levine
Generative art is often misunderstood and mischaracterized, but it has always played an important role in digital aesthetics. The following is a conversation about the state of generative art with three generative artists and theorists, Leonardo Solaas, Marius Watz, and Mitchell Whitelaw and the author. Is there a generative aethetics which can be separate from the generative process?... READ MORE...
ArticlesDigimag - Issue 57, September 2010

Informational Realism. Quantum Bit In The Cyber Space

Jeremy Levine
It may very well be said that information is the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows, hence the question why nature appears quantized is simply a consequence of the fact that information itself is quantized by necessity. (p.3) Anton Zeilinger, Why the Quantum? It from Bit? A Participatory Universe?, (The Global Spiral, Metanexus Online, March 25, 2002).... READ MORE...
ArticlesDigimag - Issue 56, July / August 2010

The Uncertain Human Quantum Mechanics

Jeremy Levine
Werner Heisenberg's famous 'Uncertainty Principle' articulates the idea that we cannever completely eliminate the influence of the subject from any description of quantumparticles. The reason is simple: because we are part of the very system beingdescribed. It is impossible to accurately predict exactly how an electron will behavewhen we measure it because of the sensitivity of its wave function to our presence orthe presence of a detection device, which we put into place. The act of measurement causes an uncertain change in the thing being measured.... READ MORE...
ArticlesDigimag - Issue 48, October 2009

Non-locality: Myths And Metaphors In Networked Art And Quantum Systems

Jeremy Levine
Quantum particle systems seem to possess the ability to communicate instantaneously with each other, defying our classical understanding of space and distance. This feature of the quantum world, known as non-locality, is often used to describe the World Wide Web, and particularly interactive networked art, which seems to collapses space into mouse clicks and links. But is it really applicable?... READ MORE...
ArticlesDigimag - Issue 47, September 2009

Ephemeral Physicality: Quantum Particles And Digital Art

Jeremy Levine
Just as a quantum particle has both a virtual and a physical dimension, so does a work of digital art, which exists as both invisible code and visual display. The dual nature of matter in quantum mechanics is mirrored by the dual nature of a work of digital art. Just as a photon is both a particle and a wave, a work of digital art is both a set of instructions and the execution of those instructions. Digital art, software art, or any work of art that utilizes media as its medium- is both a set of structural relations (a system of process) and a set of discrete objects in space. This is conceptual dualism rather than physical dualism. But how does one make sense of diametriclly opposite models of the same thing without suffering a bit of cognitive dissonance? Neil's Bohr, one of the father's of quantum mechanics, points the way out: embrace the paradox... READ MORE...
ArtArticlesDigimag - Issue 46, July / August 2009

The Science And Art Of Complex Systems

Jeremy Levine
Within quantum mechanics, reality is an evolving state that includes the interaction of the observer as a component of the system under observation. The same thing can be said of any interactive work of media art. Human behavior contributes complexity to any interactive system of which it is a component, whether it reside in quantum space or cyberspace. Sword of the Stranger di Masahiro Ando.... READ MORE...
ArticlesDigimag - Issue 45, June 2009Science