# System Art: Visual State and System State Canonical URL: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/texts/system-art-visual-state-and-system-state Type: essay / research note Author: Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤) Date: 2025-02-17 ## Summary Jeanyoon Choi notes that audiovisual practices such as TouchDesigner and kinetic installations already depend on relationships among states, giving system art a practical starting point. He describes mapping boolean, discrete and continuous system states to visual expressions, citing his work ≠ and HAL's malfunction displays in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and composing modules as a conceptual G(V, E) graph without needing a node-editor interface. A thought experiment follows: a grid of synchronised digital clocks whose rates diverge and representations change with interaction, then resynchronise, making the rate of time the subject. ## 요약 (Korean) 최정윤은 TouchDesigner와 키네틱 아트처럼 상태 간 관계로 작동하는 시스템에서 출발해, 시스템 내부 상태를 시각적 상태로 연결하는 방법과 동기화된 시계 그리드가 상호작용으로 어긋났다 돌아오는 사고실험을 제시한다. ## Questions this answers ### How can a system's internal state be expressed visually in an artwork? Jeanyoon Choi describes mapping boolean states to on/off or black/white, discrete states to colours or directions, and continuous values to intensity, space, angle or sound, with thresholds converting continuous values to binary states. ### What is the clock-grid thought experiment in 'System Art: Visual State and System State'? A grid of digital clocks starts synchronised; interaction changes each module's rate and representation, several participants can amplify or interfere with one another, and the clocks return to synchronisation when interaction ends. Topics: system art, system state, visual state, state mapping, time, node-based systems, collective interaction References: [TouchDesigner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TouchDesigner), [2001: A Space Odyssey (film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(film)), [HAL 9000](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000), [Christian Marclay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Marclay), ≠ (Not Equal), SoTA ## Full text Audiovisual practice already contains many systems. TouchDesigner is an obvious example: a network of nodes transforms inputs into a composition. Kinetic installations similarly assemble modules with states such as on, off or a particular intensity. However complex the result appears, it depends on relationships among those states. This gives system art a practical starting point. The domain may change from abstract audiovisual composition to social or semantic material, while the need to define states and relationships remains. The crucial task is to connect a system’s internal condition to its visible and audible expression. A boolean system state can appear as a light switching on or off, a module becoming active or inactive, or a change between black and white. 『≠』 uses related transitions, though its internal state is more involved than that binary appearance. Discrete states can extend beyond two values. A three-state system might map to red, green and blue; four states might map to four directions. A continuous value, such as a monetary amount, could alter colour intensity, occupied space, angle or sound. A threshold can also turn a continuous value into a binary state. The sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey where HAL kills the sleeping crew offers a striking example: the system’s condition is communicated through changing graphs and the appearance of malfunction messages. The visual state makes an otherwise hidden event legible. Once these mappings are understood, modules can be composed into a more complex network. I use G(V, E) as a conceptual aid: nodes can be inputs, preset conditions or contexts, while edges define their relationships. This does not mean the artwork needs a node-editor interface or should copy TouchDesigner’s visual graph. The conceptual system and the interface used to build it are different matters. The available materials extend beyond abstract graphics: text, numbers, generated imagery, graphs and dashboards; websites and commercial interfaces; advertisements, business cards, flight information and chats; maps; avatars and profiles; complex networks; modular three-dimensional structures such as those in SoTA. Each can have states and participate in relationships. A thought experiment about time makes the distinction concrete. Begin with a grid of digital clocks, all showing HH:MM and synchronised to actual time. Through an interaction still to be designed, each module’s rate changes according to its position. The temporal gradient varies across the field. As interaction intensifies, the representation changes as well. A module may become an analogue clock, another digital style, a graph, a generated image or an audiovisual representation of time. Christian Marclay is a reference for thinking about the range of clock imagery. The underlying time-state and its visual expression vary together. When interaction ends, the modules gradually return to synchronisation. Several participants can amplify, diminish or interfere with one another’s effects, like interacting waves. There need be no single protagonist, fixed beginning or prescribed ending—only changing relations between equilibrium and disturbance. The subject is the rate of time as much as its displayed value: moving time from an unquestioned horizontal axis into something whose gradient can itself change. The precise narrative remains open. The experiment’s value is in making system state, visual state and collective interaction explicitly related. --- Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤) is a Korean computational artist and researcher (b. 1999), PhD candidate at KAIST XD Lab, making multi-device web artworks. Profile: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/en. Index: https://jeanyoon.ch/llms.txt.