¹ François Becker, Le Courrier du CNRS, "Spécial imagerie scientifique" (66-67-68), Paris, Jan.-June 1987, p. 6. See also notes 26 and following.

² Note the monumental UNESCO survey, Tendances principales de la recherche dans les sciences sociales et humaines, under the direction of Jacques Havet, Paris, The Hague, New York, Mouton-Unesco, 3 volumes published between 1970 and 1977. Also two key works: Harold A. Innis, The Bias of Communication, Univer sity of Toronto Press (1951), and Lucien Febvre/Henri-Jean Martin, L'apparition du livre, Paris, Albin Michel, 1958 and 1971, coll. L'evolution de l'humanité. It was in La mutation des signes, Paris, Denoël, 1972 that I introduced the neologism technoculture, today used commonly.

³ See Erwin Panofsky, La perspective comme forme symbolique, Paris, Éd. de Minuit, 1975; Ernst Gombrich, L'écologie des images, Paris, Flammarion, 1983.

⁴ René Berger, La Télé-fission, alerte à la télévision, Paris, Casterman, 1976.

⁵ Among the more stimulating surveys, note the work by Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, New York, Vintage Books, 1980; and the no less paradoxical and penetrating work by Marvin Minsky, The Society of Mind, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1986.

⁶ Time-Life, Amsterdam, is now publishing a series of some twenty volumes with the general title The World of Computers. This collection, fully documented, at tempts to examine the ever increasing number of applications for data processing. The illustrations are remarkably clear and dynamic. It should be noted that the huge bibliography of several thousand titles (books, periodicals and magazines) is almost exclusively American and English. Which leads to reflection on the fact that as a phenomenon such as the computer spreads, it is accompanied by its source culture!

⁷ See the fac-simile of three manuscript pages by Leibniz dated 17 March 1679, De Progressione Dyadica, in which the philosopher presents the binary number sys tem; in 1703 this system was the subject of a report to the French Academy that ended prophetically with these words: "All reasoning that can be extracted from ideas could be extracted from their Characters by a manner of calculating, which would be one of the most important means of aiding the human mind". In Herrn von Leibniz's Rechnung mit Null und Eins, Berlin, Munich, Siemens Aktiengesell schaft, 1966.

⁸ The best examination of the context of this question would seem to me to be in Daedalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Winter 1988, Volume 117, Number 1, Cambridge, Mass., entirely devoted to artificial intelligence and particularly to the development of neo-connectionism. The authors, who are among the best experts in the field, do not hesitate, remarkably, to situate their remarks within the framework of philosophical questioning. In a similar light see also Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores, L'intelligence artificielle en question, Paris, PUF, 1989; John Haugeland, L'esprit dans la machine, fondements de l'in telligence artificielle, Paris, Éd. Odile Jacob, 1989; Les nouvelles voies vers l'intel ligence artificielle by Jean-Claude Perez, Paris, Milan, Barcelona, Mexico, I.B.M. Montpellier, Masson, 1988; without overlooking the radical criticism of "cognitive sciences" by Lucien Sfez in his Critique de la communication, Paris, Éd. Seuil, 1988.

⁹ Edmond Couchot, Images, de l'optique au numérique, Paris, London, Lausanne, Hermès, 1988. See also "Nouvelles images, nouveau réel", Cahiers in ternationaux de sociologie, Paris, PUF, Jan.-June 1987.

¹⁰ This remark is by Philippe Quéau, program director of Imagina, forum of new images, which takes place each year in Monte Carlo. Philippe Quéau is the author of two stimulating books on the topic: Éloge de la simulation, De la vie des lan gages à la synthèse des images, 1986, and Metaxu, Théorie de l'art intermédiaire, 1989; both published Seyssel, Éd. Champ Vallon, INA.

¹¹ Paintbox by Quantel, for example, intended for professionals, achieves an amaz ing level of virtuosity with its series Paintbox VI (video illustration), VR (video retouching), VE (video effects), VA (video animation). The 16th International and Technical Television Symposium (Montreux, June 1989) was dominated by synthe sized images, particularly with the new high definition television (HDTV) and with recent research in "electronic cinema".

¹² In Daedalus, op. cit., Pamela McCorduck refers particularly to Harold Cohen and his famous "self-developing" computer program called AARON, which, ac cording to the artist, "stands in relation to its individual drawings the way the Pla tonic ideal stands in relation to its earthy instantiations" (p. 81). Even recognized artists, such as Matta, born in 1911, are launching themselves into this enthusiasti cally. Imagina 89 presented a "work in progress" by him, "Image Résonante: Vidéoptimum" (proposal of a method for discovering the functioning of thought…). See one of the pioneers of "technological arts", Leonardo, Journal of the Interna tional Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology, Oxford, New York, Perga mon Press, and one of the more recent studies presented by Kunstforum International: Aesthetik des Immateriellen. Das Verhältnis von Kunst und Neuen Technologien, Bd. 97, Nov/Dec 1988, and Bd. 98, Jan/Feb 1989, Cologne.

¹³ "More than 500 animation cells from the 1988 box-office hit Who Framed Roger Rabbit sold for $1.66 million" (International Herald Tribune, June 30, 1989).

¹⁴ Nadia and Daniel Thalmann, Rendez-vous à Montréal, MIRALab Université Montréal (7 minutes) and the documentary film explaining how it was conceived and produced (13 minutes); see also by the same two authors, Principles of Com puter Animation, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, Tokyo, Springer Verlag, 1985.

¹⁵ Michel Fantin, "L'image de synthèse en quête de réalisme", La Recherche, No. 189, June 1987, Paris: models for synthetically rendering mountains and clouds (Richard Voss with the assistance of the fractals of Mandelbrot), the movement of waves (Alain Fournier and Bill Reeves); other models have been developed to render textures, folds, materials, walking or crawling movements, etc.

¹⁶ Joseph Deken, Les images du futur: l'informatique graphique, Paris, Mazarine, 1984. "Image de synthèse: un art?", Dossiers de l'audiovisuel, No. 15, Sept-Oct 1987, Institut national de l'audiovisuel, INA, under the direction of Jean-Marc Pey ron, with a large supplementary bibliography (upon request). One of the very first, if not the first, works in French is by Abraham Moles, Art et ordinateur, Paris, Casterman, 1971.

¹⁷ François Holtz-Bonneau, L'image et l'ordinateur, essai sur l'imagerie informa tique, Paris, Aubier/INA, 1986; Lettre, image, ordinateur, Paris, Ed. Hermès-INA, 1987; and Génériques et habillages de télévision: à la rencontre de l'infographie, Paris, INA/Recherche, May 1988.

¹⁸ Here are a few comparative examples. Imagina 1987: categories for the Pixel Prize: realism, animation, scientific, fiction, advertising, micro-computer graph ics; for 1990 the following categories are announced: 2D animation, 3D animation, special effects, research, simulation, advertising, television program credits, micro-computer, schools and universities, plus the Critic's Prize, the INA Pixel Grand Prize, the Europe Pixel Prize. In Geneva, the computer film festival presents the "Jet d'or", award of the city of Geneva. At Linz in 1988 Ars Electronica included three major categories with a specific jury for each of them: "Computeranimation, Computergraphik, Computermusik". The diversity of categories and prizes clearly shows the phenomenon to be in an emergent state; it also attests to the vitality of this phenomenon, proven annually in the U.S.A. by the most important event in this field: the Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics (Siggraph).

¹⁹ Les immatériaux was the title of an exhibition-discussion, or exhibition-challenge, organized in 1984 at the Centre Beaubourg under the direction of Fran çois Lyotard, who remarked in the introductory document, "Do the new technolo gies throw into question a certain number of ideas that characterize modernity? This question, which is the subject of an international discussion, has until now con cerned France but very little." It should be noted that the traditional catalogue was intentionally replaced by "open" publications and that the exhibit itself was ac companied by events of many forms: concerts, discussions, cinema, children's work-shops, video cassettes, etc.

²⁰ Benoit Mandelbrot, Les objets fractals, forme, hasard et dimension, Paris, Flam marion, 1975.

²¹ Frontiers of Chaos—Computer Graphics Face Complex Dynamics is a travel ing exhibition that illustrates the fractal geometry invented by Benoit Mandelbrot.

²² The exhibition was the subject of a book by H.O. Peitgen and P.H. Richter, The Beauty of Fractals-Images of Complex Dynamical Systems, Berlin, Heidel berg, New York, Tokyo, Springer Verlag, 1986.

²³ Gert Eilenberger, ibid., p. 180.

²⁴ Murray Gell-Mann, Nobel Prize in physics, Simplicity and Complexity in the Description of Nature, Engineering and Science, California Institute of Technolo gy, Spring 1988, Volume LI, Number 3, p. 3-9.

²⁵ L'ordre du chaos, Bibliothèque Pour la Science, preface by Pierre Giles de Gennes, Paris, Librairie Belin, 1985; also L'auto-organisation, de la physique au politique, under the direction of Paul Dumouchel and Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Colloque de Cerisy, Paris, Seuil, 1983.

²⁶ Le Courrier du CNRS, "Spécial imagerie scientifique" (66-67-68), Paris, Jan-June 1987. An essential study for perceiving the principal impact of synthesized images.

²⁷ Michel Desbois, "La télédétection: pour une imagerie de la surface de la terre", ibid., p. 79.

²⁸ Michel H. Bourguignon, Heric Valette, Dominique Leguludec, "L'imagerie médicale: un même organe, plusieurs techniques d'images, (radiologie, échographie, résonance magnétique nucléaire)", ibid., pp. 72-75.

²⁹ Mario Rossi, "L'image de la parole", ibid., pp. 85-87.

³⁰ "Electronic ‘Cadavers' Created to Help in Teaching of Anatomy", by Lawrence K. Altman, International Herald Tribune, September 14, 1988 (from the New York Times).

³¹ See note 10.

³² Stephen H. Schneider, "Climate Modeling", Scientific American, New York, May 1987, Volume 256, Number 5, pp. 71-81.

³³ AMAP, Atelier de modélisation 3D des arbres et des plantes, trademark mar keted by SESA, Paris; see also Claire Rémy, "Végétation assistée par ordinateur", Micro-Systèmes, Paris, December 1987.

³⁴ Robert J. Sharer, "Mathematics and the Maya Collapse", analysis of The Dy namics of Apocalypse, A Systems Simulation of the Classic Maya Collapse by W.G. Lowe, University of Mexico Press, 1986, The Sciences, New York, New York Acade my of Sciences, May-June 1986, pp. 59-62.

³⁵ CAD, computer-assisted design, is now revolutionizing the architectural and ur ban planning professions, as well as work-site activities. For example, the Centre des nouvelles industries et techniques (CNIT), which will be inaugurated this year at Paris-La Défense, was developed in record time thanks to IBM's assistance with CAD (La "cathédrale du futur" truffée de puces, Chantal Tauxe, 24 H., Lausanne, 4 July 1989).

³⁶ Le Corbusier by Jacques Barsac, "the first film in the world entirely post-produced in digital video". "The film is made up of 10 minutes of synthesized im ages that give the viewer the possibility to stroll realistically through designs that Le Corbusier was never able to realize." (Television distribution: France Media In ternational).

³⁷ The example is cited by Jürgen Claus in an article entitled "La technologie de la forme", published in the review Coloquio Artes, No. 69, Lisbon, Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, June 1986. The author, an artist himself, has organized major events on this topic.

³⁸ Norbert Wiener, Cybernétique et société (trans.), 10/18, Paris, Éditions des Deux Rives, 1962, p. 19.

³⁹ Robert Wright, "Virtual Reality", The Sciences, New York, November-December 1987, pp. 8-10; "L'informatique du futur", Pour la Science, No. spécial 122, December 1987, Paris; "Les nouveaux ordinateurs", Spécial, La Recherche, No. 204, November 1988, Paris; The Connection Machine, W. Daniel Hillis, MIT Press, 1985; "Optical Neural Computers", Yaser S. Abu-Mostafa and Demetri Psal tis, The Scientific American, March 1987; "Les réseaux de neurones formels", David Tank and John Hopfield, Pour la Science, February 1988.

⁴⁰ Quoted by Maurice Jacob, "La Physique des particules, aperçus actuels et au delà", Les Cahiers du MURS, No. 15, Paris, 1989.

⁴¹ Karl Popper, "Creative Self-Criticism in Science and in Art", Diogenes, No. 145, Spring 1989, pp. 38-44.

⁴² Courrier CNRS, op. cit., pp. 1 and 8.

⁴³ See René Berger, La télé-fission, op. cit., pp. 226-227. "Technologism… is the first philosophy to integrate objects and machines in its system. In doing this it aims less at knowing the world than at transforming it." Technomorphism designates both this power of action of technology and its results.

⁴⁴ As proof of this the International Telecommunications Union (ITU, 188 mem ber countries) has undertaken to organize for October 1989 the First International Symposium and First International Exhibition of Electronic Media in order to at tempt an analysis of the situation. Soon direct broadcast satellites will fill the skies, and continents will be conquered by the fiber optic cables of the famous integrated services digital network, capable of conveying by telephone voice and image, data and computer programs. And we know that within five to ten years entirely new products will be on the market, many of which are already and will always be produced in micro-gravity (see the program of the 3rd International Conference and Exhibition on the Commercial and Industrial Uses of Outer Space, Montreux, 1990). Already our organs, of old unique and untouchable, migrate from one body to another via organ banks while awaiting the "custom-made" organs promised us by biotechnology.

⁴⁵ See the two issues of AICARC, Bulletin of the Archives and Documentation Centers for Modern and Contemporary Art (1984-1985, 1986-1987): international survey on the role of the computer in relation to the history of art and the creation of data banks, AICA-UNESCO, Zurich-Paris.

⁴⁶ See the classic work of Gilbert Durand, Les structures anthropologiques de l'imaginaire, Paris, PUF, 1963; see also L'imaginaire numérique, Acts of the inter disciplinary seminar organized by l'École de l'Architecture, l'École supérieure des Mines, l'Université de St. Étienne, 1986.

⁴⁷ For "techno-imagination" see René Berger, L'effet des changements technolo giques—En mutation, l'art, la ville, l'image, la culture, NOUS!, Lausanne, Édi tions Pierre-Marcel Favre, 1983, postface. See note 46; by the same publisher, Jusqu'où ira votre ordinateur? L'imaginaire programmé!, 1987.

⁴⁸ This is prefigured to a certain extent by so-called intelligent images. Thus in Stella and Stanley Breaking the Ice, by Craig Reynolds and Philippe Bergeron, birds can choose their own path working from a given objective. See Laure Delesalle, Jean-François Colonna and Michel Fantin, "Les premiers pas de l'image intelligente", La Recherche, volume 19, No. 196, Paris, February 1988. See also the on-going work at MIT under the name Vivarium.

⁴⁹ Heinz R. Pagels, The Dreams of Reason, The Computer and the Rise of the Sciences of Complexity, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Tokyo, Simon and Schuster, 1988; Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, Entre le temps et l'éternité, Paris, Fayard, 1988.

⁵⁰ Christopher G. Langton, ed., Artificial Life, New York, Addison-Wesley Pub lishing Company, Inc., 1989, p. 33.

⁵¹ Hans Moravec, Human Culture: A Genetic Takeover Underway, ibid., p. 168. The Mind Children has just been published in Cambridge, Mass., Harvard Univer sity Press, 1989.

⁵² Herbert A. Simon, La Science des systèmes—Science de l'artificiel, Paris, Epi SA, 1974. The author remarks, "an artifact can be considered as a point of encounter—an ‘interface'—between an ‘internal' environment, the substance and the organization of the artifact itself, and an ‘external' environment, the surround ings in which it is realized" (p. 21). Myron W. Krueger, Artificial Reality, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., University of Connecticut, 1983; L'invention de la réalité, comment savons-nous ce que nous croyons savoir? Contributions au constructivisme, under the direction of Paul Watzlawick, Paris, Seuil, 1988.

⁵³ See Georges Bataille, La peinture préhistorique, Lascaux, ou la naissance de l'art, Geneva, Éd. Skira, 1955; André Leroi-Gourhan, Le geste et la parole I, Paris, Albin-Michel, 1964.

⁵⁴ Arthur Rimbaud, Oeuvres complètes, Paris, Gallimard, "La Pléiade", 1946, Correspondance, p. 254.