Information (1973)

Information is an exercise in technological reflexivity an early investigation of the material presence of the electronic medium From a technical mistake in which a videotape recorder tried to record itself Viola constructed a study of electronic anarchy a disintegrating and selfinterrupting signal that perpetually reiterates itself He writes Information is the manifestation of an aberrant electronic nonsignal passing through the video switcher in a normal color TV studio and being retrieved at various points along its path The resulting electronic perturbations affected everything else in the studio After this error was discovered and traced back it became possible to sit at the switcher as if it were a musical instrument and learn to play this nonsignal