So interference can appear as a mode of resistance, a means of integrally disrupting and undermining some larger signal flow. This is, as I say, its heroic guise. But interference can also be regarded in less heroic terms – as, for instance, a parasitic attack.
Michel Serres, in his Parasite (1980) 1 plays upon the multiple meanings of the word “parasite” within the French language, which refers not only to social and biological forms of parasitism, but also to the noise within a communication channel – the noise that in the form of interference affects the integrity of a signal. The etymology of the word can apparently be traced back to the ancient Greek parasitos, which means one who eats at another’s table. The prepositional prefix “para” means variously “besides”, “near”, “from”, “against” and “contrary to” (capturing, for our purposes, the whole sense of ambiguous relation between host and parasite), while the suffix “sitos” means literally grain, serving as a metonym for the bounty that the host provides. The term originally designated those who assisted in preparations for sacred festivals in exchange for free grain. It then obtained wider meaning within Greek comedy, referring to characters who ingratiated their way to the tables of the rich, “earning” [their] “dinner through stories told, flattery and the willingness to perform all sorts of services for” [their] “patron.”2 Within this semantic context, the notion of interference gains new implications. Instead of indicating valiant resistance, it suggests wiley opportunism and inveigling. Interference capitalises on a signal, finding means of drawing sustenance and advantage from it. If this should harm the signal then so be it – although obviously it is many ways preferable if the signal survives, however weakened; in this manner continuing to provide free meals, continuing to provide scope for interference.
How can I relate Michel Serres’ conception of the parasite to my conception of multiplexing? The awkwardness, the uncertainty for me relates to the issue of interference. At one level, I am happy with the sense that interference affects all signals. In this sense, there is no need for art as some kind of privileged critical, autonomous agent to interfere with a signal that would otherwise remain monolithically pristine. Interference is integral and inescapable. It appears both as a necessary supplement to any signal flow, but also, more profoundly, as its ground and basis. Claude Shannon spoke tellingly of the signal to noise ratio, suggesting that the signal takes root in the noise. It is not only the noise that parasites the signal. It is also the signal that parasites the noise. All of this serves to complicate any conception of simple opposition between an unaffected signal flow and the agency of artistic interference.
Yet a vital problem remains. Parasitical interference involves literally disrupting some other thing, it involves finding one’s way within it, burrowing inside, attaching oneself intimately to its person – tapping into it, feeding upon it, weakening it and ultimately threatening its life. In contrast, however, I regard multiplexing as a form of commensalism, in which art discovers benefit and a ground for reflection in some aspect of ordinary life – walking, running, etc. – but without intimately disrupting that other space of action. Art both attaches itself and maintains a scrupulous distance. I am not even clear that the energy in this relation flows solely in one direction – that only art benefits from the encounter. I have described, for instance, how the conjunction of the art system and the running system can have creative, non-destructive implications for both. The two systems support one another, prompt one another, frame and lend meaning to one another. This sense of a mutual flow, which has its basis in an ethics of commensalism, is antithetical to Serres’ notion of parasitism, which via its sense of noisy interference links to Shannon’s conception of information entropy, which itself refers back to the second law of thermodynamics; the latter, of course, fundamentally concerned with the unilateral direction of energy flow – from hot to cold, from order to disorder. So how is it possible to conceive a reversible flow? How is it possible to conceive a mode of interaction in which neither pole loses energy, in which thermal excitation affects both?
Perhaps there is a way out of this impasse. In his most pithy definition of the parasite, Serres explains that “[t]he parasite is a thermal exciter.”3 This would seem to suggest a slightly different energetic relation, in which the parasite appears less as a destructive energy sink than as something that excites the host system, forcing it to adaptively respond:
The parasite intervenes, enters the system as an element of fluctuation. It excites or incites it; it puts it into motion, or it paralyzes it. It changes its state, changes its energetic state, its displacements and condensations.4
In this sense, despite its characteristic negative aspect, despite the second law of thermodynamics, the parasite does provide something in return, does find a means of energising the host. It is just that this exchange is structured in terms of a leeching, a bleeding, a disruption of homeostasis. So the difference between parasitism and multiplexing lies perhaps less at the level of the overall flow of energy than in terms of whether or not there is a burrowing within and a bite. The notion of multiplexing envisages modes of association and close imbrication that do not breach the integrity of independent signals.