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 A 
n aniconic turn is stirring the contemporary  visual and media arts. Less and less is present to perception;more and more is latent, in quiet surfaces that seem to be “hid-ing something in the image” [1]. The latent image waits to be“unfolded,” either subjectively, by the viewer, or by the forceof its interior logic. Figural images are increasingly being sub-ordinated to information, performativity, communication andother relatively nonvisual contents. This contemporary an-iconic tendency, which is a general movement in the arts of in-formation societies, occurs particularly with computer-basedart. One of the origins of this aniconic tendency in contem-porary art is the influence of Islamic art and thought on West-ern modernism.Fascinating subject though it is, the Islamic genealogy of  Western modernism is not my focus in the present essay. It does, however, inform my claim here that the parallels betweentendencies in contemporary computer art and tendencies inclassical Islamic art are not happenstance but the manifesta-tion of historical connections. In turn, this Islamic genealogy of Western modernism should make it possible to examinecontemporary computer-based art in light of the impressive variety of philosophical questions and aesthetic solutions foundin the varied works of Islamic art of past centuries. Without sug-gesting that Islamic art is a monolith, I want to apply histori-cal findings on Islamic art to questions about contemporary  visual and media arts [2]. I intend to reveal a genealogical con-nection that has lain more or less latent since the wave of trans-mission of Islamic knowledge to Europe in the 12th century.Invention, refinement and lively debate characterize the in-tellectual golden age of Islam, which may be dated from theestablishment of the Abbasid caliphate in what is now Iraq (forconvenience, I will continue to refer to the region as Iraq inthis paper)in 750 to the Mongol invasion in 1258. In the newcapital of Baghdad, the caliph Al Ma’mun (reign 813–833)founded the
Beit al-hikmeh 
(House of Wisdom), a massive li-brary and center for translation and scholarship. Especially in the first two centuries of this period, philosophers andtheologians intensely argued such issues as the nature of mat-ter, the relationship between cause and effect, and the com-prehensibility of the will of God. Their arguments, whileultimately subject to the political interests of the states they served, are literally set in stone in the great Islamic monumentsof their time and later eras—works that raise questions about image and latency.Contemporary aniconic art isbuilt not around the image, noreven the rejection of the image (it is not iconoclastic), but around animplicit set of information (for ex-ample, the database and the algo-rithm). The image is a selectiveunfolding of implicit information,and information is in turn a selec-tive unfolding of implicit experi-ence [3]. By the latter I mean that all information is a selective actu-alization of historical events—statistics reflect a selectivearrangement of material experience; software reflects the la-
©2006 ISAST
LEONARDO, Vol. 39, No. 1, pp. 37–42, 2006
37
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE
Infinity and Accident:Strategies of Enfoldment inIslamic Art and Computer Art 
Laura U. Marks 
Laura U. Marks (educator), School for the Contemporary Arts, Simon Fraser University,Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada. E-mail: <lmarks@sfu.ca>.
 ABSTRACT
C
omputer art and Islamicart, the two largest bodies ofaniconic art, share a surprisingnumber of formal properties,two of which are explored here.The common properties ofcomputer art and classicalIslamic art can be understoodin light of moments in the historyof Islamic philosophy. In thesetwo cases, Islamic Neoplaton-ism and Mu’tazili atomism areshown to parallel, respectively,the logic of relations betweenone and infinity, and the basicpixel structure, that inform somehistorical monuments of Islamicart as well as some contempo-rary works of computer art. It issuggested that these parallelsare in part a result of Islamicinfluences on Western mod-ernism and thus that the geneal-ogy of computer art includesclassical Islamic art and thephilosophies that informed it.
Fig. 1. Mihrab, Mosque of Sultan Hassan, Cairo.(Photo © Alfred Molon)
 
bor of programmers; the evening newson television is a selective presentationof certain events; even poetry is the ac-tualization in words of a swath of mate-rial and psychic experience, the rest of  which remains virtual. It may be addedthat what is unfolded into information orimage can be considered actual, while what remains enfolded remains virtual[4]. Enfoldment-unfoldment implies that the relation between two elements, suchas soul and matter, particle and wave, im-age and information, or information andexperience, is one not of dichotomy but of implicit relation [5].In computer art, the image is the mereskin of an artwork whose underlyingstructure and raison d’être lie elsewhere:in its algorithm and database. Similarly in Islamic aesthetics, generally speaking,the visual image is an expression of a di- vine “logic” that may or may not be madeperceptible. Both are characterized by their variety of strategies for unfoldingthe perceptible image from the imper-ceptible elements that drive it [6].Several formal and structural proper-ties common to both classical Islamic art and computer art can be identified. Fun-damental to them all is:1.A logic of enfoldment and unfold-ment. From it follow, though not always obviously,2.Aniconism: a tendency against priv-ileging the representational image.3.Latency: a tendency for the work’sunderlying structure to remain in- visible or latent, perhaps to be man-ifested over time or to be teased out by the attention of observers.4.Algorithmic structure: a structurebased on a series of instructionsthat manipulate information to pro-duce actions or images.5.An emphasis on performativity rather than representation: the work of art plays out in time, un-folding image from informationand information from experience,folds from information, such as the flori-ated Kufic writing of the Sh’ite Fatimidsof 12th-century Egypt [7]. On the otherhand, a belief that the relationship be-tween the worldly and the Divine can-not be understood rationally but can beapprehended mystically may give rise tofantastical figurative painting, as in thecourts of 16th-century Persia, with theirSufi-inflected Sunni orthodoxy [8].In the intellectual hotbed of the Ab-basid caliphate in 8th- to 10th-century Iraq, several radically different philoso-phies clashed and interwove, with impli-cations for the entire subsequent history of Islam. These include, among others,the Greek-influenced Neoplatonism of the
 falasifa 
and the atomism sharply de-bated between the Mu’tazili rationalistsand the Ash’ari dogmatists (known assuch after the Mu’tazili reformer Abu’lHassan al-Ash’ari, d. 935) [9]. All thesetendencies variously struggled and throvein the intellectual climate of translation,synthesis and Islamization of receivedknowledge that was vigorously cultivatedby the Abbasid caliphs. These argumentshad direct implications for politics and were inherited, institutionalized andtransformed by later thinkers and the po-litical powers behind them.Islamic art does not exhibit a uni-fied discourse; its styles reflect historicalchanges, both gradual and abrupt, in pol-itics, theology and technology.Therefore,the examples I use cannot be taken as em-blematic of all Islamic art, nor of direct correspondences between belief and ma-terial form. Some Islamic monumentsclearly index the theological and philo-sophical leanings to which their patronsor society adhered. For example, the Al-mohads of 12th-century North Africa, whose name derived from
al-muwahhidun,
“confessors of the unity of God,” viewedthe suggestion that God has attributes asblasphemous. This theological view wasreflected in their austere and (rare in Is-lamic history) iconoclastic art and archi-tecture. Almohad art tends to prune away all attributes in order to approach the(unattainable) Divine Essence. Ibn Tu-mart (reign 1080–1130), the Almohads’ascetic and bellicose leader, adopted asevere version of Ash’ari theology, ledmilitary campaigns in Spain and North Africa and cracked down on all formsof sensual pleasure. The Almohads de-stroyed the ornaments with which theirpredecessors had decorated their mosquesand whitewashed their polychrome dec-oration. The Great Mosque in Ibn Tu-mart’s birthplace of Tinmal, Morocco(1035), is a fortress-like structure whoseonly ornament, other than the
mihrab 
in the carrying out of algorithmsand/or the attentive recognition of observers.6.An ease of translation among me-dia. Because the perceptible imageis animated by underlying informa-tion, the image may show up in a va-riety of media (e.g. in Islamic art:stone, wood or paper; in computerart: 2D images, sound or commandsto motors).7.An emphasis, in seeming contrast to the logic of enfoldment and un-foldment, on the discreteness anddiscontinuity of information: Worksthat emphasize their own image orother manifest qualities may dis-avow awareness of the informationsource of these qualities.Not all these properties can coexist.Nor are all the beliefs that underlie themcompatible.
M
ULTIPLICITY 
E
NFOLDEDIN
U
NITY 
 A basic premise of Islam, shared by all be-lievers, is
Tawhid 
, or the absolute unity of God. The world’s multiplicity exists only as a function of the One. This basic doc-trine is stated in the Qur’an and was ini-tially developed by Islamic philosophersin a synthesis with Greek, Syriac andByzantine thought.How can art indicate this relationshipbetween the unknowable Infinite and themultiplicity of the palpable world? I be-lieve it can be demonstrated that eachof the various theological tendencies inIslam holds a different position on theform of mediation between the unifiedand unknowable God and God’s percep-tible creation; and that to each of thesepositions in turn corresponds a different practice of Islamic art, which is in turnhistorically variable. For example, a be-lief that one may rationally inquire intothe nature of God may be reflected in art- works that emphasize the way image un-
38
Marks,
Infinity and Accident 
Fig. 2. External mihrab,Mosque of Sultan Hassan,Cairo. (Photo © Samirah Alkassim)
 
(the prayer niche on the
qibla 
 wall, the wall facing Mecca) consists in the pointedarches in the outer courtyard and multi-lobed arches in front of the qibla wall.The absence of visual or tactile diversionseases the visitor into a contemplativestate.I note that similar radical aniconismcharacterizes some works of computerart that abjure the graphical interface infavor of a visually ultra-minimal indexpage. One example is a program pro-duced by the artist-hacker organization0100101110101101.org, known for intro-ducing a benign computer virus as a workof art at the 49thVenice Biennale in 2001.Their recent project,
life_sharing,
makesthe artists’ entire hard drive,from textsto private e-mail, open to any on-line vis-itor. Using a free Linux-based operatingsystem and a list of directories, but with-out a single image interface, the visitorenters the guts of 0100’s computer. Thisproject attempts to strip away all inter-faces in order to confront the user withthe infinitely extensive plane of digitalmemory.Other examples of Islamic art can begiven in which ideology and aestheticsare closely aligned. Yet in most Islamic works of art, historical styles commingle,serving local political purposes yet not necessarily evincing a single unalloyedtheological view. Neoplatonism and atom-ism, though in principle opposed, his-torically coexisted. Similarly, Islamic art often evinces qualities corresponding si-multaneously to both of these, and in-deed other, philosophies, as do the twolate and well-known monuments of clas-sical Islamic architecture that furnish my central examples. The effect is admittedly somewhat ahistorical. The first is themihrab of the Sultan Hassan Mosque,from 14th-century Mamluk Cairo; thesecond, the dome of the Hall of the TwoSisters from the Alhambra in Granada of 14th-century Nasrid Andalusia.
I
SLAMIC
N
EOPLATONISM
:
∞
I
S
E
NFOLDEDIN
1
 Absolute unity is also a Neoplatonist doc-trine, associated especially with Plotinus, who argued that the One generates theuniverse through emanation of the light of reason. Abu Yusuf Ya’qub al-Kindi (d.866), Islam’s first systematic philosopher,adapted Plotinian thought to monothe-ism by replacing the principle of emana-tion with divine creation ex nihilo, in which God is outside time but creation isfinite [10]. Abu Nasr al-Farabi (d. 950),by contrast, developed an emanationist theory of the structure of being, whereby of prayer in that direction. Mats spreadfor prayers at home act as needles drawntoward the magnetic presence of God.Prayer in Islam, in short, performs thepresence of the One Infinite God as thebeckoning absence that directsprayer inphysical, temporal, directional space.The mihrab of the much-admired Sul-tan Hassan mosque in Cairo, completedin 1356, spectacularly enacts the rela-tionship between that unknowable, infi-nite One and the multiplicity that strivestoward it (Figs 1–3). At the base of thespandrel supporting the dome of theniche, a very modest “Allah” is inscribedin black letters. From this vanishing point radiate rays of colored marble, black, white, green, red and yellow. As their dis-tance from the word “God” increases,these marble stripes metamorphose frac-tally, the border of each tangling withthe adjacent one. It is a virtuosic render-ing of a typical application of Mamlukmarble encrustation. At the edge of themihrab the rays resolve into an exceed-ingly ornate pattern of oblongs androundels of precious marble and in-scriptions in gold. As from the decep-tively simple word for God at the centerspring ever-more elaborate forms, theSultan Hassan mihrab
 performs 
the rela-tionship between 1 and infinity.The infi-nite multiplicity of the world unfoldsfrom the infinite unity of God, and, asa viewer’s eye travels back to the navelof the niche, unity re-enfolds multiplic-ity. The pleasure, both spiritual and aes-thetic, of contemplating it lies in themarvelous inventiveness by which multi-plicity is shown to spring from unity.It must be said that patronage as muchas theological inspiration informs thedazzling effects of the decoration of theSultan Hassan mosque. In Mamluk Cairo,as Yasser Tabbaa writes, skilled stone-masons (often from Syria) competed with one another to achieve ever-more-dazzling effects with polychrome inlay,and the effect would have been to glorify God, the First Being, by thinking about Himself, gives rise to a Second Being andFirst Intellect, which in turn generatesa third, until a tenth, Active Intellect me-diates between the celestial and earthly realms [11]. A logic whereby the multi-plicity of creation unfolds from the infi-nite unity of God also characterizes thethought of the Ikhwan al-Safa (Brethrenof Purity), a Neopythagorean secret so-ciety in 10th-century Basra that authoreda popular pamphlet. In the mathemati-cal universe of the Brethren of Purity,God is the First Principle of all things just as 1 is the first principle of all num-bers. Thus the relationship God:Universeequals the relationship of 1 (indivisibleunity) to other numbers (multiplicity).Most Muslim thinkers did not advocatetrying to come face to face with the Di- vine. Rather they held that beauty is en-gendered in the sophisticated, dialecticalrelationship between unity and multi-plicity. The Baghdadi literary theorist  Abu Bakr ‘Abd al-Qahiral-Jurjani (d.1078) wrote that in all arts and crafts, “themore widely differed the shape and ap-pearance of their parts are and then themore perfect the harmony achieved be-tween these parts is,” the more “fascinat-ing” and praiseworthy the resulting work will be [12]. The best art invites a medi-tation upon the subtle relationships be-tween unity and multiplicity. For art, asfor philosophy, by this criterion thereis no compulsion to collapse the infin-ity of forms to 1 but rather a desire todemonstrate the sophisticated relation-ship between them. The influence of Neoplatonism on some Islamic monu-ments has been noted by Gülrü Neci-poglu in her authoritative work
The Topkapi Scroll 
and also by Asli Gocer [13].In Islam, God is not represented by anicon but indicated through a trajectory.The holiest place in a mosque is themihrab. It functions both like a compass,indicating the direction of divine pres-ence, and like a lens, focusing the energy 
Marks,
Infinity and Accident 
39
Fig. 3. Close-up, externalmihrab, Mosque of SultanHassan, Cairo. (Photo ©Samirah Alkassim)
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