Field guide to information: taxonomy, habitat, plumage

I'm trying to find a way of talking about new media that acknowledges its epistemological, structural and ontological parameters. Talking about hypertext does this to an extent, but for me hypertext is not the fundamental phenomenon; its possibility arises from the parameters of the information system we are using. Consequently I want to explore new media as a type of information. But before I can look at new media, I need to understand the concept of information itself. What is information? Some sort of human artefact, it seems. Information may be hard to define but its ability to determine human lives seems to be increasing. This cartoon depicts a psychological condition that could get more serious as the Twenty-First Century wears on. Some kind of cyborg or android has captured the man, who is being forced to vomit information by being transformed into a cyborg himself. I myself have been employed to spew information on demand, and it can get pretty ugly. This paper is a reflective exercise that attempts to map some territory rather than draw conclusions. In the first section I will explore ways of conceptualising information. In the second part I'll explore digital information. In the third part I'm going to talk about a digital artwork that uses remote sensing data as an example of the phenomena that arises when we embody information within a digital ontology.