Max BenseAn Experimental Syllabus

An experimental syllabus for Information at the Hochschule für Gestaltung, Ulm/class Prof. Max Bense 1

 

The importance that the concept of information has acquired for language is indicated by a syllabus that we were able to see. The plan opts radically for a consideration of texts – from the "simple" functional text to poetry – in terms of the amount of information they contain. This, however, heralds a transposition of literary theory, the immanent tendency of which is one of the basic principles according to which our magazine is made.

 

The Ulm School of Design has expanded its particular tasks and solutions, dedicated to product design and architecture, to include two other essential areas of modern civilisation: visual communication and information. In the Department of Information, special and general problems of texts of all kinds are dealt with, and the novelty lies not only in the close cooperation with the Department of Visual Communication, but also in the fact that general semantics and information theory provide the basic sciences connecting the two branches. Since this is a very young field of teaching and research, the currently available curriculum is a thoroughly experimental one.

 

The Department of Information is divided into two sub-departments: 1. Information Theory, 2. Information Practice.

 

Information Theory

Information Theory works in two phases: a) theoretical information, b) experimental information. Theoretical information comprises the presentation and processing of all theoretical means, that is, the basic sciences necessary for the construction of the theory and practice of information.

 

Syllabus of theoretical information:

1. Logic and logistics, philosophical grammar, semantics, probability theory, statistics, mathematical analysis of language.

2. Basic concepts and theorems of general information theory, transmission theory, translation theory, text theory.

3. Metric information theory, non-metric information theory, determined and undetermined information.

4. General topics in communications engineering.

5. Linguistic and non-linguistic information. The nature, means, transmission and transformation of information.

6. Communication and information schematics.

7. Signs and signals. Series of signs and signal chains.

8. Perception theory and representation theory for signs and signals, ideas and objects.

9. Shapes, structures, elements and their function in information technology, perception theory and representation theory for shapes, structures, elements.

10. General functional theory of transmission and reception.

11. Topics and rhetorics, general aesthetics.

12. Sign aesthetics, information aesthetics, basics of visual semantics and visual communication.

13. Literary metaphysics and literary aesthetics.

 

Syllabus of experimental information:

Experimental information is primarily carried out in seminar-based discursive development work, i.e. attempts are made to practise classical forms of information and to create new ones, not least with a view to finding measures of information.

 

1. Experiments in the field of natural languages (verbal languages and noun-like languages and their transformations).

2. Experiments on the relation between natural languages and constructed languages. Transformation of natural languages and constructed languages into precision languages. (Literature: Frege, Kotarbinski, and Carnap).

3. Experiments on the production of metaphysical contexts to epic contexts. (Literature: among others, Kafka, "The Sudden Walk", Hebel, "The Patient Man").

4. Experiments in epic abstraction (abstract literatures).

5. Experiments in patterning techniques, summarising techniques and montage techniques (in both grammatical-syntactical forms and semantic content). Form concentration and dispersion, theme concentration and dispersion (patterning epic texts into cinematic combinations. Textbook and film script. Condensing a scientific message into an advertising slogan or an indication. Montages from epic and metaphysical texts. Scientific and literary means of presentation in reportage and propaganda.)

6. Experiments on language games, regulation and dispersion. (Literature: L. Wittgenstein, "Investigation").

7. Experiments with syntactical and semantic abbreviations, condensations, distortions, extensions, alienations. (Literature: Benn, Brecht, Arno Schmidt (Calculations)).

8. Experiments with accidental and attributive descriptions, phenomenological reductions and emptying of meaning. (Literature: Husserl, "Ideas").

9. Experiments in thing-style and function-style, fable-style and reflection-style. (Literature: including Hebel, "Schatzkästlein", Ponge, "Le parti pris de choses", Quenau, "Exercises de Style", Diderot, "Description of Pascal's calculating machine", Ortega y Gasset, "Escorial", Benn, "Season", Beckett, "Texts for nothing".

10. Description and report. (Example: "cube", "tap" and "accident").

11. Experiments on mathematical languages, metaphysical languages, literary languages, concrete languages and abstract languages. (Literature: among others Descartes, "Discours", Hegel, "Who thinks abstractly?").

12. Experiments on styles of perception, stimulation, shock, provocation, and imagination.

13. Experiments on mathematical, metaphysical, historical, aesthetic, and technological messages.

14. Object messages, existential messages, categorical language, existential language.

15. Experiments on precision technology, publication technology, and cipher technology in terms of content and form.

16. General cybernetic problems of information and constructive language design.

17. Information and interpretation. Determined and undetermined interpretation. Determined and undetermined meaning.

18. Linguistic information in relation to society and the economy: fetishisation, alienation, reification, class expression, elite expression, saturation (literature: among others, Sartre "What is literature?«, Lukacs »History and Class Consciousness«, Brecht »Organon«, Joyce »Portrait of the Artist as a Youth«, W. Benjamin »Writings«, Ortega y Gasset »The Task of Our Time«, »Revolt of the Masses«).

 

Information Practice

In the information practice, which is set up alongside the information theory and is offered on a half-day and full-day basis, the information tasks and assignments that arise at the school itself and come from outside are processed. At the same time, however, the aim is to use practice to develop and practise all types of texts (from advertising copy to features and reports, from encyclopaedia articles to newspaper features, from local news to editorials, to book reviews, film criticism, etc.) from the point of view of the principles developed in the theory of information for word and text design.