Field Notes

Lexicon

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  • AI (aɪ)

    ‘Aieeeee’ wails Hecuba in a 1990s translation of Euripides’ ‘Women of Troy’. Today, the phonetic symbols for the open-mouthed sound that begin the wail remind Sarah-Jane Field of the letters that society has accepted represent a novel and disruptive technology. The Lexicon entry for AI contemplates how the Greek letters αἰαῖ in Euripides evolved to…

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  • Bias

    Bias is inescapable. To state that AI is biased is almost not worth saying. Why do we still seem so surprised by the existence of bias inside our technological tools? This entry explores our habit of naming the obvious whilst avoiding difficulty and nuance – and asks what our persistent shock reveals about us.

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  • Drift

    Kim Shaw mediates between the word ‘drift’ and its changing uses.

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  • Ephemeral

    Sarah Deane addresses the things we make which exist beyond us. Our photographs may remain after we are gone, our words may circulate without us, and the machines we build will carry on regardless. But our bodies won’t.

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  • Image

    From Thomas Nail’s (2019: 10) ‘Theory of the Image’: The image is not a copy or a movement relative to an object or subject; it is not even a copy of a copy without an original. There is no mimesis whatsoever. If we are looking for a new and more fruitful definition of the image,…

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  • Metaphor

    If current theories of reality are pushed to their furthest end, either there is no metaphor or there is only metaphor. This Field Scribbles Lexicon entry moves between the two and arrives at no definitive answer – except, perhaps, that they may be the same claim.

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  • Pattern

    On pattern, patterned behaviour – relief at being legible, the dangers, and why machine learning feels like an affront

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  • Social

    On the word ‘social’ – what we mean by it when we say social media, and whether the platforms are the thing or just the latest manifestation of something deeper and older. Companionship, advertising boards, and a paradigm that encompasses more than the age of the internet.

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  • Surface

    Images x 3

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  • Tautology

    I should be more tolerant and patient, I am aware, but whenever I read or hear someone say ‘AI is not neutral’, I want to cry, ‘Of course it’s not neutral. No media, no form of language ever is. That is a tautological statement!’ ‘Tautology’, apologises Roland Barthes (1972 [2006]: 153) for including the word…

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