Multiplexing, the process of combining multiple component signals within a single overall signal, depends upon a more fundamental feature of electronic signal processing, modulation. Modulation involves varying one or more properties of a carrier signal via a modulating signal. Aspects of amplitude, phase and frequency are systematically varied to encode supplementary layers of information. This enables a base signal to carry additional signals. Once the overall signal reaches its destination the different signal layers can be decoded as distinct sets of information. Modulation is what enables, for instance, an analogue telephone signal to carry digital information via the intercession of a modem (modulator/demodulator).
The difference between multiplexing and modulation is that modulation affects a carrier signal so that it can support additional layers of information, while multiplexing involves combining one or more modulated signals into a larger signal flow. Modulation directly modifies a base signal whereas multiplexing provides a means of combining already complex (modulated) signals. There are two basic forms of multiplexing: time or phase based multiplexing, in which different signals are interleaved and transmitted within a single channel; and frequency based multiplexing, in which multiple signal sub-channels run in parallel along different frequency bands within the overall signal flow. While modulation serves as a fundamental means of encoding (and decoding) information – motivated by the need to articulate information within a particular signal medium – multiplexing focuses upon enabling the efficient transmission of multiple signals within a single transmission pipeline. So while they share a common concern to first integrate multiple signal strands into a single signal flow and then, at the point of reception, to disaggregate that flow into multiple discrete signals, they have different orientations. Overall, modulation has a semantic emphasis – it is directed towards adding additional meaning to a signal. This involves intervening within and altering a base signal. Multiplexing, on the other hand, has a pragmatic emphasis – it is directed towards bandwidth efficiency. The signals are not altered – rather their flow is cunningly choreographed, signals are ingeniously combined and interleaved.
This explains why I employ the metaphor of multiplexing to describe my current practice. It is not as though art appears as a form of modulation, subtly altering the nature of my ordinary activities (in the manner of a more ordered, semantically inclined form of interference). Rather art appears as an already complex signal that becomes attached to the equally complex character of walking, running, etc. They are linked. They discover an association. But not in a way that integrally disrupts either. Very importantly, the two are not juxtaposed. It is not a matter for me of establishing a montage of conflicting elements, but rather of enabling a field of sidelong glances and scrupulous indirection. For example, I go outside to take a few photographs just before I go for my run. This appears not as an imposition but as a wayward expansion of what would be otherwise a merely intermediary moment. The images have nothing to do with the run as such. They are just views of my backyard or the morning sky through the trees. Similarly, when I return from my run, I can stand around gasping for a while or I can take another few photographs. This work of combination, expansion and interleaving demands delicacy and tact. The running and the photography (and the writing of the blog entries) have to retain their distance, their discrete space and discreet manner within the overall texture of my actions.