Reinterpreting Noise:  Transforming Distortion into Meaning

Noise is not merely interference, but an active part of communication. Meaning is not transmitted intact; it is continuously shaped through interaction, context, and misinterpretation. As symbols move across time and cultures, they often lose their original frameworks and become unstable, giving rise to what can be understood as cultural noise. Through visual exploration, including oracle bone script, noise is approached not as error to be removed, but as a generative condition. It enables reinterpretation, complexity, and the emergence of new forms of visual language.

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Thesis Book-intro

Told from a first-person perspective, the book follows the author’s first encounter with noise in communication models and the process of rethinking it beyond interference.

A Transactional Model of Communication

Dean Barnlund questioned the traditional linear communication model in 1970, arguing that noise is part of communication itself. Meaning is shaped through external factors such as culture, environment, and social context.

Cultural Noise

Oracle bone script reveals how cultural noise operates. As it moves beyond its original context, its form remains visible, while its meaning becomes unstable, translated, and reinterpreted.

Noise as Medium and Tool

In the interactive mode, oracle bone script changes from "fixed text" to "variable form", emphasizing that the meaning of symbols is not eternal, but fluid and reconstructible.

The Viewer as Co-Creator

Mirror paper is used to disrupt linear reading. By reflecting the viewer’s image and surroundings, it introduces a shifting layer of interference, turning reading into an interactive and self-aware process.

From Noise to Visual System

Noise is used here as a generative method. Digital processes produce shifting forms, which are then translated into RISO prints, where material inconsistencies introduce new layers of variation.