Art as a Form of Information
Art is not a medium that many would consider to contain a large amount of information. Some may argue that no definitive details or facts can be gained from art or they may just write it off completely as a subjective medium. However, this is not the case. There is a substantial amount of information found in art.
On a very basic level, art can be used to see into the past. Paintings from the Renaissance, for example, can be used to get an insight into what life was like back then, as seen in this painting:
This is the “Exhumation of the Mastodon” by Charles Willson. This painting gives anyone who looks at it a clear idea of what sort of technology they had in 1806, when it was painted [1]. In this way art can be seen as giving us accurate historical data.
Another example of simple, but very important, information conveyed through art is what important historical figures looked like. There are so many sculptures and paintings of Julius Caesar that we, two thousands years later, can have an accurate idea of what he looked like.
It could be said that we are only seeing the artists interpretation of what Julius Caesar looked like, however, that could be said for any piece of history we encounter; history is always tinted by whoever presents it, no matter what form.
On a different level, art often has its own language embedded within it in order to convey more information to the viewer. This can be seen clearly in Ancient Greek pottery, where there is a huge amount of symbolism to be found. One example is of the image of a man giving a hare to another man, which was used to imply a homosexual relationship. The hare is a symbol courtship [2].
In the image of a Greek vase above you can see a man presenting a hare to another man. The fact that a hare is featured tells the viewer that homosexuality is being presented. As well as this, the hare is active and alive, this tells us that there is passion in the courtship that we are seeing. If the hare was dead, or inactive, then the viewer would know that the courtship had ended or was ending [2]. This is just a small example of the intricacies of symbolism found in art everywhere.
On top of this, art reflects what is happening on a more cultural level. It can be used to examine ideas and theories that were being challenged or brought into the open at the time. An recent example of this would be the emergence of pop art in the 1950s in both Britain and the United States. Andy Warhol, the most well known artist of the pop art world, used his art to convey to the public the rise of the consumerism in the United States [3].
In this way, art can be seen as a medium that captures and stores the cultural aesthetic of the time. This is almost the most important reason why art must be seen as a form of information.
It is clear then that art (in a variety of different mediums) can hold a large amount of information. Art is kept safe, maintained, and curated because the information that it holds is often irreplaceable. There are systems in the art world, in the forms of museums and galleries, that allows this information to be stored, catalogued and accessed. Art itself is ultimately not an information system, however the way in which in the information from art is treated can definitely be seen as information system.
Sources:
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Deirdre Van Wolvelaere
The Development of the Postal System
Postal systems all around the world transport information from one place to another every single day. Last year 158 billion letters were posted through the United States Postal System [1]. That means that 158 billion pieces of information were transferred through an incredibly intricate system.
The postal system is an information system that has been around for thousands of years. Using letters as a form of communication dates back to almost immediately after the invention of writing. However, the development of formal systems to transport these letters from one person to another is said to have been developed by the Egyptians, with the first known postal document dating back to 255BC [2].
Initially postal systems were set up and used almost exclusively by kings and rulers to distribute their rulings and decisions. They used these systems to not only distribute information, but also to gather it. They used the couriers and messengers to obtain information that would help them protect their land. They would often use carrier pigeons as well. Rulers would see their postal system as an intelligence service. In India in 3rd Century BC, for example, the titles “Postmaster” and “Chief of the Secret Service” were synonymous [3].
At this time in history, postal systems were normally not for the general public. People would rely on friends and neighbours to deliver messages. Luckily, these postal systems developed into far more complex postal systems that could be used by regular citizens.
One of the first postal systems to expand their reach to the general public was the Royal Mail in Britain in 1635. The system however was confusing and expensive. The receiver was the one to pay for the service and the total distance travelled was what determined the price, so the system was often abused.
This system remained until 1840 when Royal Mail became a prepaid service. Sir Rowland Hill introduced the system we know today; a prepaid service that relies on weight and size of the object to determine price, regardless of the distance it needed to travel [2].
The first stamp.
This was revolutionary to postal systems everywhere, and has lead us to the worldwide network that we know now. Today postal systems are incredibly complex and extensive. In 2012, there were 5.31 million people working in 642 thousand post offices transporting approximately 353 billion items a year [4].
Sources:
[1] – http://www.statisticbrain.com/number-of-letters-mailed-each-year/
[2] – http://www.upu.int/en/the-upu/history/about-history.html
[3] – Mohini Lal Mazumdar, The Imperial Post Offices of British India. Calcutta, Phila Publications, (1990) p. 1.
[4] – http://www.upu.int/fileadmin/documentsFiles/resources/postalStatistics/results2012PostalStatisticsEn.pdf
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Deirdre Van Wolvelaere
Sharing is Caring
At the beginning of the 15th Century the only way for texts to be copied was by hand. Due to the fact that literacy was minimal at the time writing was a specialist’s profession making the labour costs needed to make copies of books very high. This, in turn, made the price of books very high. Knowledge was a privilege that came at a substantial cost. One of the most important inventions of the second millennium revolutionised our ability to spread information and knowledge, the printing press.
The printing press that I refer to was invented in the middle of the 15th Century by Johannes Gutenberg, a goldsmith from Germany. Many forms of printing press actually existed before Gutenburg’s, most of which originated in China, however, Gutenburg’s was far more efficient and was the first to make his type pieces from an alloy of tin, antimony and lead, the very same that is used in many places today. An added advantage of course was the fact that European languages had a more limited number of characters. Perhaps if it weren’t for this fact, I would be writing about the works of Bi Sheng who invented the world’s first form of moveable type printing over 400 years before Guntenburg.
So what effects did the printing press really have on the world? The ignorance of such a question is abominable for the series of events that proceeded this great invention changed the way we understand the world today.
The printing press spread like hot butter on warm toast.
It has been implicated in the Renaissance, Reformation, the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment. Before the printing press, the spreading of knowledge throughout the world was very slow. This meant that one scientist could make a discovery that may not have been heard of by another scientist for decades. If I ask you to think of the legacy of the human race to be a massive pool of knowledge that is added to by every person that has lived and had some theory, opinion, insight or discovery into a topic, that pool could actually exist in a world with perfectly efficient information systems. The world before the printing press was so grossly inefficient when it came to the spreading of knowledge and information. The printing press changed all that. Not even one hundred years had to pass before printing presses were producing in the region of 150 to 200 million copies.
The effect that the printing press had on religion is interesting. Now that the Bible could be printed and distributed in such large numbers, the dissemination of religion was vast. The Bible is easily the best-selling book of all time, however, the church would later feel the pressure building as now opinions were easily distributed. Martin Luther for example was able to print and distibute his “Ninety-Five Theses”, the initial catalyst for the Protestant Reformation. Science was now also becoming more widespread and questions of the Catholic Church were being asked.
From a financial and economic stand point, the printing press also presented positives for Europe throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. Specialization of jobs in the printing business was on the rise, however, it diverted away from the role of the master printer and gave way to the book seller. This was due to the structures supporting publishing becoming increasingly complex. Copyright was born and huge profits were up for the taking by publishers.
Despite computers and the digitalization of information, the printing press’s legacy, Johannes Gutenberg’s Legacy, lives on in the core of all information systems. The gift of knowledge was given to us by Johannes Gutenberg in the middle of the 15th century, and that gift lives on nearly over 550 years later.
A Look Towards The Future
Communication has always played a very important role between living species. Even plants and fungi have methods of communicating with each other.
The past
Many years ago before the technology of today existed, the most powerful messaging technology was probably the African drum. Drumming was used to pass information across thousands of miles. A drum beat has so many subtleties that a solution was needed to ensure the right message was exchanged. In a language like Kele, for example, a phrase like “Alambaka boli”which means “He watched the river bank” could also mean “He boiled his wife’s mother”. To solve this problem context had to be added to words. For instance, the word “Songe” which means “Moon” would actually be drummed as “The moon looks down at the earth”.
The present
Humans are constantly striving to increase the speed and ease of communication. We’re now at a point where we’re “always on” and panic sets in when we temporarily lose the ability to communicate – for example when we lose the data connection our mobile phone.
Society is continually striving to create fast and efficient communication systems that can add context to plain words. For example the telephone let’s the users add as much context to a long distance communication as they would like.
The future
The future of communications has already begun, instead of radical departures from what we have, we will most likely see incremental improvements. Future communications could go in several different ways. It is very likely that we will carry on creating automated technologies to carry out the tasks we don’t want to do. It’s also possible we will look to create more communication tools that will advise us how to think, and advise us on how to feel. We are likely to see touchscreen technology used in more aspects of our lives; from the bathroom mirror, to the touchscreen table and even the possibility to interact with your living-room touch window.
Scientists are already working to develop Natural User Interfaces, early signs of such technologies are here. Intelligent personal assistants such as Apple’s Siri and Samsung’s S-voice allow us to input text or speak commands with our voice instead of typing. With Kinect and Wii like technologies we can control devices by using gestures.
Several parties such as Google with their Google Glass are developing augmented reality glasses that display information on top of what we see around us
and Microsoft is even working with University of Washington scientists to develop electronic contact lenses with built-in AR displays.
We are likely to see see brain-to-machine communication where we control various computer types with specific brain activity. An important element will probably also be mood-communication: that our mood (reflected in brain wave patterns) will affect our surroundings in order for them to give feedback and for example lift our mood and shape it in various ways.
Alternatively, we may come to realise that our communication tools and platforms, are actually under-developed in comparison to the old African drumming methods. Our current technology could be considered as context vacuums that allow us to express for the sake of expressing, rather than express for distributing meaning.
Source of information:
A History of the Recording and Reproduction of Sound
The ability to record and reproduce sound is one of massive importance. Without this ability, many of the luxuries we’ve come to know and love would not exist – there would be no Vinyls, Cassettes, CDs, MP3s, or any other recorded music. There would be no telephones, movies would all be silent (or with an accompanying band/orchestra – wouldn’t that be cool?), and musicians would be silent once they’re dead.
The industry built around music and sound is BIG – there’s a massive ($16.5b globally in 2012, and that’s just sales!) industry around it. When you include related industries (copyright lawyers, concert/event management and staff, device manufacturers, etc.), the size and reach of the industry as a whole is monstrous. This industry has birthed a great deal of innovation, and has revolutionised the way we live and work and play.
So how did we get here?
Long before sound was being recorded, music was being recorded. This started with written notation (think sheet music – that’s technically recorded music!). The earliest known form of musical notation can be seen in a cuneiform tablet, created at Nippur, Sumer (now Iraq) around 2000BC.
The hydro organ, as depicted by an unknown Hellenic artist
While the ability to record music is huge, the ability to reproduce it is bigger still. The first machines capable of reproducing recorded music can be seen as far back at the 9th century, in a hydropowered organ which would play music stored on interchangeable cylinders automatically. No longer was human effort necessary to make music – this is huge. This Byzantine/Arabian invention marks the beginning of the idea that anyone can listen to music without having to play it themselves (or have it played by any other person).
These machines, however, were massively limited – each could only make the sound of its own instrument. That kinda sucks if you want to want to listen to a piece which requires multiple instruments, or anything with vocals – or, indeed, sounds which are not music. I did say the first machines were invented in the 9th century, but there’s not much evolution in sound recording and reproducing (which is much more interesting for our purposes) until the second half of the 19th century.
An early phonautograph (1859)
Enter the -graphs: phonauto; and phono. In 1857, a Parisian inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville patented the first device that could record all sounds as they passed through the air. His device, the phonautograph, could only record audio for visual examination – it could not reproduce it. For that, we skip a few more years (though not as many as the last jump!) to 1877 and Thomas Edison.
Edison’s was the first, most practical device used for sound recording and reproduction, but he was not the first to design one. That honour goes to one Charles Cros, a French poet, comedy writer and inventor. Cros submitted a sealed envelope containing a letter fully explaining his method to the Academy of Sciences in Paris on the 30th April, 1877. It was not until July 1887 that Edison would invent his own, and the following year that he would be granted a patent for it. Still, Edison’s was the invention to spread across the globe and kickstart an industry.
Emile Berliner with disc-based gramophone
Edison’s device used a cylinder to store sound information, which became a main consumer medium from the late 1880s until around 1910. However, these were bulky and not very easy to manufacture, which prompted an industry move to disc-based storage. Disc-based storage, the invention of which is generally credited to Emile Berliner in 1889, was easier to manufacture, transport and store than was cylinder-based storage, and overtook its cylindrical rival’s sales around 1910. The double-sided 78rpm shellac disc became the primary consumer music format in the early 1910s, and held its position until the late 1950s.
These acoustic methods of recording had limited sensitivity and range (they sounded a bit crap) and modifications had to be made to some instruments to allow that their sound transferred to disc better. This changed with arguably the most important (so far, at least) development in the history of sound recording – what was then called “electrical recording.” This involved the use of a microphone to convert the sound into an electrical signal which was then amplified and passed to a recording stylus. This allowed for a much expanded range of audio frequencies to be captured, and allowed for better capture of quiet or distant sounds.
Electrical recording began early in the early 1900s-1910s, but was quite crudely implemented until developments in radio and electronics converged to revolutionise recording. Electronic vacuum tubes came to use in long-distance telephone circuits, and refinements of this technology became the basis of electronic sound systems until the first transistor-based devices of the 1950s.
Optical recording technology was also a thing – it became (and remains!) the standard movie audio system throughout the world for films distributed on film. This first came to the fore in 1927 with The Jazz Singer – the first of the “talkies.”
A typical Compact Cassette
The next big technologies in sound recording were the magnetic tape and tape recorder. You probably (hopefully?) know what these are! This technology was invented by German audio engineers in the 1930s. With it came major changes in the recording industry and in radio. Now, not only could sound be recorded and reproduced, but it could be erased and re-recorded multiple times on a single cassette. The first commercial tape recorder was released in 1948 – the same year the “LP” vinyl record was introduced by Columbia Records, and its shellac parent was retired.
Magnetic tape transformed the industry and quickly supplanted disc-based recording devices – especially in the consumer market – by the late 1950s. Multitrack recording came quickly in the 1960s, allowing for layered stereophonic (or quadraphonic in the 1970s) recording and playback.
But as the gramophone’s disc replaced the phonograph’s cylinder as the primary consumer medium, so too did the CD replace the cassette and effectively marginalised the LP. In 1982 the CD was released, with a much higher data density, and higher durability and mobility than its competitors. The CD enjoyed great popularity for more than 20 years, but has seen greatly declining sales in the last 5. It appears that the CD will be the last major physical medium of sound, and that all-digital storage and sale of sound will supplant it – see iTunes (or Limewire et al) as the recent modern progenitors to digital distribution of audiovisual media.
A CD – the beginning of the end of physical media?
So, that’s where we are now. 150 years ago, there was no way to make carbon-copiable sound; no way to share sound with others without having to imitate it. Through the last century and a half, the issue of high-quality recorded and reproduced sound has been thoroughly invalidated, and now we take for granted our ability to fully capture audio. Most people can make a decent recording on a phone they carry with them 24/7 – without it even being a touted selling point because it’s become so ubiquitous.
http://www.ifpi.org/global-statistics.php
The Museum of Music: A History of Mechanical Instruments, Charles B. Fowler, Music Educators Journal, Vol. 54, No. 2 (Oct., 1967), pp. 45-49
Information Systems in World War II: A case study in innovation
Information systems are widely thought of as an esoteric discipline, the refuge of pimpled ‘computer geeks’ who play World of Warcraft. But this view is a serious underestimation of the power of information and the systems that control it. Indeed, information systems can alter the course of war. This was the case in World War II.
As the Allied commanders prepared for their 1943 invasion of southern Europe (i.e. Italy), they became convinced that Axis forces in Italy and Sicily were too powerful to defeat in a purely military campaign. So they hatched Operation Mincemeat, possibly the most ambitious and daring mis-information campaign in the history of war. The story of the operation unfolding is a remarkable one. In April 1943, a fisherman off the coast of Spain found a corpse floating in the sea off the coast of Spain, the body was clothed in full Royal Marine uniform. The fisherman brought the body to shore and soon the local German intelligence agent took possession of all documents found on the body. These documents led Nazi commanders to believe that the Allies intended to invade Greece en route to Italy and die Vaterland. The Axis initiated a massive movement of troops to counter, leaving Sicily and Italy less well fortified.
But the Allies had no such intention, the body was that of Glyndwr Michael, a homeless man who died in London with no next of kin. British spy masters conspired to build a fake identity for the man, calling him Captain William ‘Bill’ Martin and forging all required documents. The body was preserved aboard the HMS Seraph until the misleading documents were placed on the body, which was dropped into the sea. The rest is well documented history: the Allies took Sicily with little resistance from the ill-prepared Axis forces, and Italy too fell in time. The Allies took advantage of a gap, or even an arrogance, in Nazi information systems security.
The Allies benefited further from their own superior information systems studies, particularly with regard to the US Signal Corps. The unit was founded at the outset of the US Civil War, gathering and communicating information with air balloons and 
telegraph machines. Later in the Great Wars, these soldiers played a crucial role in documenting the war. Interestingly, noted Hollywood producers, directors, and photographers (such as Darryl Zanuck, Frank Capra, John Huston, and George Stevens) all served in the Signal Corps. Members of the unit landed on Omaha beach on D-Day, forwarding the first films of the invasion on to London by carrier pigeon. Later, the 
footage and pictures taken by the unit in Concentration camps was used to try Nazi war criminals in Nuremberg.
The Signal Corps were early adopters of radar technology, concealing the radar in radio sets. These allowed them to assess the threat of aerial bombardment while in the field. Additionally, the Signal Corps laboratories at Fort Monmouth developed the first FM backpack radio, the SCR-300, in 1941.
Simultaneously, the British were working in Bletchley Park to decrypt Axis codes, specifically the Enigma enciphering machine. Arthur Scherbius, a German engineer, developed his ‘Enigma’ machine, capable of transcribing coded information, in the hope of interesting commercial companies in secure communications.
Soon the German navy was producing its own version, followed by the army in 1928 and the air force in 1933. The high-level intelligence produced at Bletchley Park, code named Ultra, provided crucial assistance to the Allied war effort. The Signal Corps were early adopters of radar technology, concealing the radar in radio sets. These allowed them to assess the threat of aerial bombardment while in the field. Additionally, the Signal Corps laboratories at Fort Monmouth developed the first FM backpack radio, the SCR-300, in 1941.
Quantifying the role of information systems in World War II is a tall order, even here we have just a sample of the systems in use. But it’s indisputable that on more than one occasion information systems, and the men and women behind them, changed the course of war. We would be remiss, however, to not point out that information systems were also the lifeblood of the bombing campaigns that devastated millions of civilians and, arguably, the Holocaust. Like almost any remarkable technology, information systems are equally a tool for good or bad.
Revolutions through time
The notion of information systems can be used as a way of understanding human history. Many academics such as archaeologists, linguists, archaeologists, historians study the origin of languages, writing, and mathematics, the impact of printing and scientific instruments and a lot of other information systems. There is a lot of information on these systems but a grouping method, a typology and a periodisation is needed.
If there was a field known as information systems history it would be a combination of cultural history and the history of technology. Information systems history would describe and analyse the ways in which humans know, ignoring what it is that they know.
The current IT revolution is not the first revolution in the realm of information systems. Although there is debate as to the exact time and place of previous information revolutions, they are as follows:
The first revolution was the development of language. Language is an information system that requires no material artifacts. It greatly extends the ability to classify, remember, and communicate information.
The second revolution centred around the introduction of writing. It included the creation of maps, surveying and geometry, paintings and sculptures. Materials used include “clay, papyrus, parchment, stone, and their respective writing instruments, as well as sundials, water clocks, and other instruments”.
A third revolution involved information-handling, artefacts with many moving parts. The printing press is the best known invention from this time but during this revolution inventions such as clocks, telescopes, astrolabes, and microscopes were also created which had pivotal applications in information systems.
The fourth information revolution, coincided with the Enlightenment and with the political revolutions of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It was characterised by a search for accessibility, accuracy, and efficiency.
The fifth information revolution, occurring over most of the nineteenth century, involved the first application of scientific and industrial techniques on a big scale to the area of information handling. During this revolution pivotal inventions such as the rotary press, photography, the electric telegraph and telephone were introduced.
The end of the fifth revolution helped greatly in paving the way for the sixth information revolution. Radio, television, radar, and magnetic recording are among its best-known devices. Computers which were also invented during this time had an important difference also in that they process information in digital form. The creation of computers can be said to have had as much of an impact on society as the introduction of the printing press.
On the other hand however this had positive impacts on society as the price of books dropped so drastically that common men could now afford to buy books and educate themselves.
Sources of information :
Brandon, D. (2006). Project management for modern information systems. IGI Global.
Dewar, J.A. (1998). The information age and the printing press: Looking backward to see ahead.
http://www.mercurians.org/1998_Fall/Toward-History.htm
School of the Scribe
There came a time in the lives of our ancestors where the complexity and volume of information slowly began to outgrow the power of memory. It was at this pivotal era that the necessity of information systems was truly recognised. So when did this occur, what led to this information overload and how did we deal with it?
Somewhere around the 5th millennium BC, an ancient civilization settled in a historical region in southern Mesopotamia, Modern day southern Iraq. This civilization was known as Sumer (“Land of the civilized Kings”) and over the next 1000 years there came a political growth in the Sumerian’s ancient culture. Trading was getting more complex and with this there was a growing need keep records.
Despite the existence of information systems dating back to 130,000 BC, a new and more efficient means of storing information was needed. Symbols were at this point used universally but it was the conversion of symbols to syllables and phonetic elements in a new system known as cuneiform that gave the ability to start efficiently documenting information. Writing became the most dependable source of documentation the world had ever seen.
Libraries began to form storing more information than had ever been seen before. The ‘Royal Library of Ashurbanipal’ was one of the first ever libraries containing in the region of 20,000 to 30,000 cuneiform tablets.
It is said that Alexander the Great visited the ‘Royal Library of Ashurbanipal’ and was so inspired by it that he decided to create a library of his own. However, he died before he was able to construct this library so his friend and successor Ptolemy constructed it in his honour. The ‘Ancient Library of Alexandria’ was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world.
“He who would excel in the school of the scribe must rise with the dawn”
An old Sumerian proverb that shows the importance of writing to the Sumerian civilisation. In many ways, one could argue that information systems were the means for our race to intellectually evolve.
http://www.art-prints-on-demand.com/a/hungarian-school/imaginary-recreation-of-t.html
https://www.jaars.org/museum/alphabet/galleries/ancientmap.htm
http://library.thinkquest.org/C004203/art/art01.htm
http://apworldhistory101.com/history-of-the-middle-east/ancient-middle-east/
Cave Drawings and the birth of Information Systems
Social networking has become synonymous with modern information systems like Twitter and Facebook. They are the go to method for communicating news, gossip and even work assignments. One could be forgiven for thinking ‘networking’ began with these new technologies. But, in fact, social networking is as old as the human species. The most well-known form of early information system is cave drawings, which first appeared in their most primitive format around 130,000 BC. At this time Homo sapiens had just appeared on the island of Crete, most likely arriving there by boat.
With their new nautical and technological prowess, they appear to have set out to document their skills in cave paintings, possibly in an effort to pass along their knowledge. They used the juice of fruits and berries, coloured minerals, or animal blood to make their paintings, at this point primarily of hunting and killings animals. By the year 30,000 BC, cave drawings were being made wherever man walked the earth. Many of the drawings were artistic beauty in their own right; when Picasso visited the Lascaux caves, he remarked that “we have invented nothing” if our ancestors were creating such art in 17,500 BC. Here, we have a painting of a bison in the Cave of El Castillo, Spain, dating from around 36,000 BC.
Another common painting from this period is of hands out-stretched. It was not until later than full humans were drawn, suggesting that religion played a role in cave art.
Eventually, cave drawings were used to communicate information directly. In this scene from the Alta Caves, Norway from 6,000 BC, a hunter and sailor work together to find prey.
It has been further hypothesised that cave drawings from this period were an early attempt at written language. Often, animals were depicted by their head followed by a wavy line, almost an abbreviation of previously stated information. Similar symbols were used in specific patterns, the basic template II ^ III X II being of seemingly particular importance.
All of this points to our ancestors’ use of primitive tools to record information. Cave drawings may have indeed been our earliest form of information system and cave dwellers our first data scientists, the Real IT Crowd.
The Real IT Crowd 
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