Tableau 2: Future Directions, edited by June O Reilly, Tableau Networks/Cork RTC, 180pp, Pounds 9.99
HOW much information does it take to make a sandwich? I had, never stopped to think about it, until Paul Rothwell posed the question in Tableau 2, hut it seems that I need to know that the bread must be sliced, that a knife is needed, and will he held by the handle; that the bread will not float; that the knife won't dissolve in the butter, and that extraneous factors including the Minister far Justice will not affect the task.
Rothwell concludes in an interesting essay on computing, philosophy and intelligence, that we "must know these things or he very had sandwich makers". But if so much knowledge and common sense is needed for a task that can probably be tackled by a young child what hope of designing intelligent computers that have a smidgen of common sense, and capable of rustling up a BLT?
Rothwell's is just one of the 18 contributions to this second production from the Tableau team at Cork RTC, a multidisciplinary group with an academic and practical brief from a campus with faculties of art and music and science and technology. There is a particular emphasis in Tableau 2 on science, technology, and society, as there was with their first publication two years ago. Most of the contributors are again from the Cork college, although this time there are also some notable international voices.
Paul Davies, the English physicist and science writer, muses on the mathematical nature of science and the problems posed by the fact that we humans have a tremendous desire to see order and patterns in the world around us, whether rock formations, cloud shapes or tea leaves.
I particularly liked "Makinelesmek (Mechanization)", from the Turkish poet, Nazim Hikmet. Written in 1923, it is an energetic exploration of what I can only describe as the man-machine interface, as in "Trak tiki tak! Mechanise me I love it. From Miraslav Holub, the Czech poet and immunologist, comes a poem, "The Pied Pipers", in Czech with an English translation, about the nature of truth and information.
Information, especially information technology, is at the heart of man of the contributions. Jerome O Driscoll explores the educational role for the new multimedia technologies, while John Murphy worries that the Internet will "kill the lecturing stars" and argues that we should not lose sight of "the human factor in education. What worried me here was how easily the concepts of information ,and even data were confused with knowledge and wisdom.
Damien Cussen argues that a philosophical debate could help to bring science and the public together in Ireland where, despite our growing dependence on high-tech jobs, science is still on the social margins. John Malito, a chemist, argues for a greater public understanding of science (not to be confused, he says, with technology). But his well-meaning essay is full of "shoulds" and is not, I think, an approach that will win friends or influence people.
There are contributions on everything from a forgotten Fermoy-born engineer to traditional fiddle playing, and a guest editorial by Ray Johnston, responding to the recent science White Paper. Throughout the hook ,there is a second strand of contributions from artists, notably a series of life drawings by Noel O Callaghan. Tableau 1, reproduced in full, by way of illustration, a mathematical research paper; this time we have something a mite more accessible: "Colourvision for Piano", a hand-written musical manuscript that is John Gibson's response to Diarmuid O Ceallachain's paintings. In the midst of it all, June O'Reilly allows herself a wonderfully impassioned swipe at those who claim the new multimedia technologies are changing art and culture. Not so, she says: the emperor's new clothes are made from silicon, it seems, and it's not so much hypertext, as hyped text.
Unfortunately, that's as close as we get to integrating the various themes and strands. In the end, while I enjoyed and was provoked by many of the essays, the whole was somehow less than the sum of its parts. I would have like the contributions to have been more focused and the theme more coherent. As Paul Davies made me realise, I like an ordered world, but I have trouble, categorising this production. Is it a book, or magazine? Perhaps it is best described, in terms that I hope Tableau will appreciate, as an experiment, a project, a work in progress.
What I would like next is for this multimedia experiment to become interactive. These are interesting times in Ireland, and there is a growing body ,of people here eager to discuss science and society, but who need a forum. What better than Tableau 3. The Debate, a gathering, perhaps, of good sandwich makers?