Fibreculture Journal (Apr 2011)
FCJ-117 Four Regimes of Entropy: For an Ecology of Genetics and Biomorphic Media Theory
Abstract
This essay approaches the definition of media ecology from two opposite perspectives. On one hand, it tests the homogeneity of the biomimetic continuum, which supposes the mediascape as an extension of the biological realm. On the other, it analyses the biodigital continuum, which takes, for instance, digital code as a universal grammar for genetic code. The problematic relation between biological and technological paradigms and between linguistics and genetics is clarified with reference to Erwin Schrödinger’s concept of negative entropy. Four different regimes of entropic density are then suggested to describe the physical, biological, technological, and cognitive domains. On the basis of this ‘energetic geology’, a new ecology of machines is proposed.
