Observer and Participant, one and the same

Ascott argues that in art, just as in science, an observer is now always a participant because the observing process alters the art itself. This is very similar to a chemistry term called the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle which states that it is impossible to know both the position and momentum of any given particle since the observation process alters the very momentum of the particle. Thinking about how the human eye observes anything helped me understand this; to view anything, the eye needs to collect light that is reflected off an object. When the object is as small as a particle, this particle is affected by the light particles, or photons. These photons alter the trajectory of the particle when they bounce off into the human eye. So therefore, by the time the eye gets around to seeing a particle, that particle is already moving in a new direction, making it impossible to know both the position and movement direction of any particle at the same time.

Now all that science babble seems completely unrelated to art until you start considering how your own view of anything changes when you know that other people have already viewed it. Consider an art museum, where people tend to congregate near a certain art piece. Before you even know what the art piece is about, you build preconceptions by knowing that it commands enough attention to have people congregate near it. The people that were observing the art have become participants in the way the art is perceived by future audiences.

This is even more apparent in the internet age, where online art can catalog the amount of people that have viewed it along with comments. As a basic example, YouTube videos that have a "5 star rating" will be generally perceived by a new viwer as interesting even before the video plays, the same goes for a poorly rated video; a viewer will have negative dispositions to a video with a low rating. An ideal critique of any type of art should involve a singular examination without any preconceptions, so that the viewer can truly observe. Regardless of its benefits and problems, observers are now participants in almost every aspect of the digital society.