János Sugár
REFERENCE GENERATOR

FALSE DOCTRINE

The computer came into being thanks only to breaking away from cross references. If it is not compulsory to interdisciplinarily check data, then we have more time to focus on micro-problems, and the direction of the development of civilisation is marked by the solution of problem-details. The results of scientific, technological and cultural specialisation have become elements of daily life, but due to the lack of cross references, more and more serious communication crises, e.g., air pollution, wars, economic depression, have developed.

FORMALLY HERETICAL

Computer technology makes it possible to recreate a lacking cross-referential matrix, since the most diverse types of information are stored in the same way. Due to the high-speed data process, a large amount of complex data is available, easy to handle and accessible for all, continuously.

UNIVERSAL INQUISITION

Since Eisenstein, we have known that two images placed side by side by chance (but ultimately any kind of information) can generate associations and create a third, which can then connect a fourth step, etc. Cross references are momentary connections between two points, between two stations of thought, which fix our linearly unworkable ways in the info-labyrinth.

GLOBAL SYMBIOSIS

The present work connects the data of an open and a closed database via a ìchanceî generator. This is a meditational object which is active and open on the web.

COMPLETING THE CYCLE

In the half-lighted room, there is a table beside the wall, on which there is a computer and a table fan. The fan blows a hanging Christmas tree ornament, which sits atop the computer, and its movements are perceived by an electric eye which controls the ìchanceî generator.

BLAME ANYONE

On the computer screen a Web page is visible, in an on-line Netscape environment, which consists of a 500-word database, from which we can always see one screen-size word, governed by the ìchanceî generator.

At the same time, a video projection is shown behind the table on the wall. The same ìchanceî generator governs a database composed of about 500 images (most of them borrowed from the archives of TIT - Scientific Educational Society), which appear one by one on the wall, in a measure of 2 m by 1.6 m.

The projection can also be arranged so that the words and the pictures are facing each other.

It is important that anyone can send a word from anywhere within the Web network.

If the viewers block the electric eye with their hands, then the system stops at the picture and word currently projected.

Read the statement relating to my work and the description of my Reference Generator. You can send a new, non-contextual reference phrase (a unit of max three words) in an e-mail (sj@dial.isys.hu).