Page 68 - The MoMA/ Guggenheim issue of World of Art magazine (2001)

eLiTe UMbeRTO Eco

umbErto Eco was born in 1932 in alessandria, italy. He is a professor THe fOllOWing iS an exTenSive liSTing Of THe WORkS Of ecO
of semiotics, the study of communication through signs and symbols, at The island of the day before (1995). Postscript to The name of the Rose (1995).
the University of bologna, a philosopher, a historian, literary critic, and The Search for the Perfect language (1995). How to Travel with a Salmon and
an aesthetician. He is an avid book collector and owns more than 30,000 Other essays (1994). apocalypse Postponed (1994). Six Walks in the fictional
volumes. The subjects of his scholarly investigations range from St. Thomas Woods (1994), Misreading (1993). interpretation and Overinterpretation (1992).
aquinas, to James Joyce, to Superman. He lives in Milan.

UMbeRTO ecO eliTe WRiTeR and SeMiOTic PROfeSSOR and PeTRU RUSSU viSUal aRTiST, PUbliSHeR and ediTOR Of WORld Of aRT Magazine
A Conversation on information
A chain-smoking and jovial Umberto eco receives me in his crowded, can cancel by increase or addition.
“by addition, yes. but you know, this business of knowing what is relevant...
untidy but cheerful little office at the institute for Communication studies
by pATRiCk COppOCk bookshelves; a sofa along one wall is full of piles of papers, books and you think - but certainly at the moment there are only a very limited number of
i mean - and this is something that i am quite concerned about - the quality of
at the University of bologna. A bay-window opens out onto a tiny balcony
the stuff you get via the net. You know, in cyberspace, or whatever you want
overlooking the garden of the villa where the institute has its offices
to call it; the information Superhighway... it’s my opinion - i don’t know what
and library. The walls of the office are covered with rows of well-filled
people who have sufficient access, sufficient capabilities, to be able to put stuff
articles, a modest writing desk hidden under even more books and papers.
out there. and that’s a problem as well in itself. because the people who choose
in one corner of the room is an ibM 486 clone with Windows, a new article
to put information out there, those people choose the content of reading for the
or book obviously in progress on the screen. eco offers me a chair in front
rest, do they not?”
of his desk.
eco is silent for a moment.
in advance i had given him a list of some possible issues we might
Yes, i saw you had many questions in the papers you gave me the other day
about all this new technology. i feel obliged to make a formal statement here: i
discuss so he would have some idea of what was on my mind: Computer
am enormously interested in what is happening.
Technology, the internet Community and processes of Cultural Change. i
i am trying to establish all possible services on internet here at my institute,
begin by asking:
(continued from the previous number)
important for the future, even for politics. i want to introduce into our curriculum
if you are reading an american book on a certain subject and you find only
for communication studies some special seminars in this area. Personally, i do
an english or american bibliography, then it is suspect. The author should have
not use those technologies. for a very simple reason. at my age, first, let us also
a larger... and to push young people to work in this direction. i think it is enormously SOURce: HTTP://WWW.cUdenveR.edU/~MRYdeR/iTc_daTa/ecO/ecO.HTMl MaRTin RYdeR
say, at my level of ‘visibility’, my problem is to avoid the message.
“... overview?” “Yes..?”
... yes, overview. but if it is a book on analytical philosophy and there is only an
Otherwise i will be destroyed by the number of messages. My problem is
english bibliography, it is probably unnecessary to also have a Polish bibliography, not to answer the telephone; my problem is to destroy the fax; the unrequested
even though there is a great school of logicians and analytical philosophers in fax as soon as it arrives. even if, or rather, when in the near future, i finally get
Poland. So it all depends on the subject matter; on the state of the art. it should an e-mail account, my problem will be how not to receive anything. because if
be absolutely urgent for us to invent rules for decimation; probably flexible rules, there is something that has to reach me at any cost, it will. There will be some
that change from domain to domain. Otherwise the future will be worse than way by which i will be informed. There are few persons in the world that can
the present, and we can reach a level at which over-information and censure reach me and tell me: look you should pay attention to this or that. now, this is
will identify each other. a personal problem of mine.
“Ok?” “because of your position?”
You see, you can cancel by abundance. You can cancel by subtraction, and you
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