The Technical Murmur: The Aesthetic of Algorithmic Entropy
In the current era of artificial intelligence, the "operational image"—a term originally invented by following Vilém Flusser to describe images made by machines for machines, has undergone a radical shift in cultural utility. No longer confined to the invisible realms of logistics, surveillance, or weaponry, these functional images have migrated into the sphere of contemporary visual consumption. We consume them not for their data, but for their aesthetic value. However, a profound paradox exists at the heart of this consumption: while the algorithm is marketed as a pinnacle of absolute logic and systemic order, its true allure lies in its capacity for uncontrollable randomness.
The world is increasingly governed by invisible, autonomous systems. There is a burgeoning human desire to witness machine vulnerability. We are eager to find "cracks" in the code. We seek these errors to convince ourselves that these systems are still within our reach, that they are not the impenetrable myths they appear to be.
I define this phenomenon as the "Technical Murmur." These are the unintended, ghostly artifacts that emerge when autonomous systems fail or deviate from their programmed intent. The murmur is the anchor point where the human observer infers a "humane" quality from a distant, cold machine. It is a moment of projected sympathy; we see a glitch and mistake it for a heartbeat. This murmur is not a loud, catastrophic failure. Rather, it is a subtle frequency that has always existed beneath the noise of machinic operations. To perceive it, one must listen and look closely. It is the sound of the system breathing, or perhaps, the sound of the system breaking. It is the bridge we build to re-link ourselves to an engineered intelligence that is otherwise impossible to feel.
In the visual world, in a design landscape governed by AI, our cultural anxiety is increasingly rooted in the "fear and stimulus of things out of control." Yes, I proposes that humans are hopelessly fascinated by this potential for destruction. The glitch is a form of the digital sublime, a moment of awe where the machine transcends its utility and reveals a raw, chaotic autonomy.
This fascination suggests that the logical is no longer a tool for perfection, but a stage for a beautiful destruction. There is a strange comfort in the randomness beyond humane control because it mirrors humanity’s own biological unpredictability.
To translate the fascination into visual language, my design strategy employs a minimalist aesthetic to heighten the tension between order and chaos. Minimalism, with its history of rigid grids and vast negative space, provides the perfect sterile space for isolating the technical murmur. In a crowded, maximalist composition, a glitch is merely noise. But within a minimalist framework, a single fracturing of the system becomes monumental.
My work explores the operational image through two distinct lenses:
The External: The cold, objective gaze of machine vision, surveillance, and data mapping.
The Internal: The "latent space" of neural networks, where processing errors and hallucinations occur.
Through a series of reductive experiments, I demonstrate that the most profound expressions of chaos do not require total visual noise. Instead, they are found in the subtle, surgical fracturing of a clean, logical system. By toning down the non-essential, I amplify the murmur of the machinic slippery.
Ultimately, this thesis finds an unusual role of the graphic designer in the age of AI. The designer is no longer the "master" of the machine, nor the architect of perfect systems. Instead, the designer becomes a curator of failure. By embracing "randomness beyond control," we move toward a new visual language, one that sits precariously on the edge of human intent and algorithmic entropy. We do not fix the murmur; we turn up the volume.