Jenna Ng sends us the following announcement about an event that considers the threads between the handicraft of needlework and the patchwork of Open Source coding. We look forward to a report from Jenna on the exhibit.
Open Source Embroidery: Craft and Code at HTTP Gallery
An exhibition facilitated by Ele Carpenter
Preview Friday 16th May 6-9pm
17th May 15th June 2008
Open Fridays to Sunday 12-5pm
http://www.http.uk.net/
This exhibition explores the connections between the collaborative characteristics of needlework, craft and Open Source software. This project has brought together embroiderers, patch-workers, knitters, artists and computer programmers, to share their practice and make new work.
The centre-piece of the exhibition at HTTP Gallery is the HTML Patchwork developed in response to the popularity of quilting in Sheffield, the result of a participatory project initiated by Ele Carpenter in partnership with Access Space. The patchwork is built on open principles of collective production and skill-share where each person contributes a part to the whole. The final work is a collectively stitched patchwork quilt of HTML web-safe colours with embroidered codes, and a wiki website, where the makers of each patch identify themselves and write about their sewing process. Each patch is personalised by the sewer, often including embroidered web addresses.
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[by Mez]
doll_tre[ru]mor[s] = <<TREMORS
<tremor name='the_5th_world'>
<fracture>
<fracture name='post2charinscription'>
<polymers>
<polymer var='user' val='YourDollUserName'/>
<polymer var='3rdperson' val='Your3rdPerson'/>
<polymer var='location' val='YourSoddenSelf'/>
<polymer var='spikey' val='YourSpiKeySelf'/>
</polymers>
</fracture>
<fracture name='post2skin'>
<polymers>
<polymer var='user' val='YourPolyannaUserName'/>
<polymer var='msg' val='YourPleading'/>
<polymer var='lastword' val='YourLastword'/>
</polymers>
</fracture>
</fractures>
</tremor>"
TREMOR
The website for N. Katherine Hayles’ latest work New Horizons for the Literary just out from University of Notre Dame Press includes a an essay from David Shapard entitled, “Finding and Evaluating the Code.” Shepard is a Ph.D. student who would no doubt fit in well with our work here at Critical Code Studies.
The article offers useful definitions for Critical Code Studies, particularly revolving around the Electronic Literature Organization’s ELC, volume 1, specifically referencing the works: StudPoetry, Code Movie 1, and carrier (becoming symborg).
This article can be seen as a Critical Code Studies starter kit. See Shepard’s note that:
This essay has only been able briefly to sketch some starting points for accessing and interpreting code. I hope that it will serve as an inspiration for thought rather than a definitive statement on practice or interpretation.
His introduction serves as an abstract:
Lev Manovich’s first Principle of New Media, numerical representation, begins with the axiom “All new media objects, whether they are created from scratch on computers or converted from analog media sources, are composed of digital code” (49). Though this coded representation is sometimes invisible to the user, the complexity of digital representation can be pushed to the foreground; for example, carrier (becoming symborg) switches between different platforms–HTML, Java, Shockwave, and VRML–for different purposes, begging the question of what such a heterogeneous collage shows about the essential unity of a work. Code can be experienced subtly but still have an impact on the user’s experience. Understanding the relationship between these levels can seem like a daunting prospect, but it can yield insights into a work. This essay serves as a guide to levels of code and their components, beginning with some general principles that will apply to any work and ending with an exploration of these ideas in three works that use three different languages.
Christy Dena sends us notice that the latest issue of Fibreculture journal has a few papers.
All in all, an exciting edition, here are some key titles and abstracts.
Abstracts Follow
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This week, Critical Code studies welcomes its latest members, an exciting mix of computer scientists, cyberculture theorists, and electronic artists. Here are the first three: Patrick Burgaud, Greg Elmer, and Elizabeth Swanstrom. More additions later this week. Contact us to join our research group.
Patrick Burgaud
Patrick Henri Burgaud was born in 1947. In 1992, he left education to devote all his time to artistic practice — monumental poetry, land art, visual poetry — his early work focuses on the visual impact of the alphabet.
In 1996 he discovered the potential of data processing. Computer generated poetry opened up a new dimension in his work. Since then, as technology developed, his his research has turned to programmed art, interactivity and net art.
Site: http://www.aquoisarime.net
Greg Elmer
Greg Elmer is the Director of Infoscape Research Lab. He is the Bell Globemedia Research Chair, Ryerson University. He is also a Columnist at The Hill Times.
Elizabeth Swanstrom
Elizabeth Swanstrom is a doctoral candidate in Comparative Literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her interests include literature, digital culture, the history of science, and media theory. She is currently working on “(Me)diation: Network Technology and Emergent Selfhood,” a dissertation which examines the relation between network technologies and subjectivity in 20th and 21st century expression. Home page: http://www.swanstream.org/
Over at the literary theory blog, The Valve, a reader has posted the CCS Bat Signal, summoning CCS into action. The comment comes in a response to a post about Noah Wardrip-Fruin’s new Grand Vet Auto experiment, a reader has suggested:
Why not work out a theory of video game narrative using the logic and idiom of the object-oriented programming languages that are used to create the video games in the first place?
Sounds like a job for Critical Code Studies.
It remains to be seen to what degree Noah will dig into code. While this germ of an idea would certainly fit CCS, more curious is who has posted the challenge. It’s none other than the notorious Luthe Blisset.
Luthe Blisset, or more properly, Luther Blisset is, how should we say, an open source mask, or better — a creative commons alter ego that’s been around since 1994.
Members of the Luther Blisset Project, Eva and Franco Mattes, “a couple of restless con-artists who use non conventional communication tactics,” have gone on to form 0100101110101101.org. One of their projects also invites and informs CCS.
Consider their Biennale.py, a computer virus work of art. They describe the work:
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_______________________________________________
531 - (ch) . amber (ed) k (h) e (a) r (t)nels
07:09am 01/02/2008
_______________________________________________
15($stiff . ening with fea((c))r(eam)!)
5($limb . less f((l))ailings)
53($swelt . (i)ered.fractures
35($uglin((dr))ess(es) (x)
30($denied . (see)d(s)ire
331($snipped-genital-(pup(a))pets x))))))
object
33($rot-cavity-m(f)o((a)rm)ldings)
3($(flesh . g)r(e)ying . orGa(mete)n(Elles))
13($let ((form))
13($get* bindings . b(lind)ody))
($define! force-promise
clammered
($if (not?
clammering
object
(handle-promise-result x)))
hammered
($define! handle-promise-result
amber
($gene (x y)
chambered
((not? (promise? y))
(iambic.pent((up))a)meter
(set-(h)eart(h)! (var x) y) ;
(set-earth! (var x) ()) ; delete y)
exact?, inexact?, robust?, undefined?
get-real-internal-bounds, get-real-exact-bounds
get-real-internal-primary, get-real-exact-primary
make-inexact
real->inexact, real->exact
with-strict-arithmetic, get-strict-arithmetic?
numerator, denominator
floor, ceiling, truncate, round
rationalize, simplest-rationa
make-rectangular, real-part, imag-part
make-polar, magnitude, angle
–
_________________________________
#dn[p]a[per.cut here.]bird#
06:07pm 30/01/2008
_________________________________
BirdF1-TTCTCCAACCACAAAGACATTGGCAC
BirdR1-ACGTGGGAGATAATTCCAAATCCTG
BirdR1-ACGTGGGAGATAATTCCAAATCCTG
BirdR3-AGGAGTTTGCTAGTACGATGCC
BirdF1-TTCTCCAACCACAAAGACATTGGCAC
BirdR1-ACGTGGGAGATAATTCCAAATCCTG
BirdR1-ACGTGGGAGATAATTCCAAATCCTG
BirdR3-AGGAGTTTGCTAGTACGATGCC
TTCTCCA#cut[icle].bird.ACCACAAAG
ACGTGGG#line.here#AGATAATTCCAAAT
ACGTGGG#fe[e]tally.blind#AGATAAT
AGGAGTT#cur[e]ve.d.h.orn[er]y.TGCT
AGGAGTT#bill.on.my.GCTAGTACGATGCC
ACGTGGG#pro[ad]verbial.tab#AGATA
Books of Note and Java for n00bies
One of our projects here at CCS will be to mention books that contribute to Critical Code Studies (adding them to our LibraryThing account). Scott Rosenberg’s Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software offers some strong material history and reflection on development of a specific and open source piece of software, Mitch Kapor’s Chandlor. It gives a glimpse at the shear amount of human and machine activity and conflict surrounding the production of working code, all of which can inform CCS readings.
An excerpt offers one of the already typical moves of CCS, to perform a reading of a “Hello, World” program, especially in a comparative context. Nick Montfort, Michael Mateas, Beth Coleman, and I (among others) have already offered “Hello, World” readings.
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Ξ December 20th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ CCS |
We have a growing body of technoculture critics and codework artists joining the Critical Code Studies collaborative Blog. Check out the full list below and consider joining our efforts or let us know about someone who might be interested in this work.
CCS Bloggers (see their bios here)
* Christian U Andersen
* Sandy Baldwin
* Gregory Bringman
* Patrick Burgaud
* Wendy Hui Kyong Chun
* Christy Dena
* Jeremy Douglass
* Aden Evens
* Daniel Howe
* Mark Marino
* Mez
* Wayne Miller
* David Parry
* Rita Raley
* Amit Ray
* Braxton Soderman
* Paul Swartz
Ξ December 20th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ test |
Announcing the launch of a new collaborative blog titled Critical Code Studies . The blog is dedicated to exploring interpretations of computer code within cultural contexts. Rather than focusing primarily on making code function or even the pursuit of “beautiful” code, critical code studies brings in critical theory to examine the ways in which the lines of code reflect, shape, and reproduce our culture including aspects of class, gender, race, sexuality. These criticisms include both the context for the code’s creation and the ways in which it circulates in culture. Rather than one specific lens, CCS names a growing collection of methodologies for making/finding meaning in code.
Critical Code Studies builds on recent efforts toward software and hardware studies to perform semiotic readings of computer source code. This blog builds off several presentations at the most recent Modern Language Association and Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts conferences. The theme of the SLSA ‘07 “Code” reflects a growing movement toward reading various kinds of codes, including computer source code. As cybercritics become more literate in coding languages and practices, increasingly their analysis of technoculture is including excerpts of the code itself. The texts under consideration may be executable programs, pseudocode, scripts, markup, or even code-like, as all of these inform the way code means.
Blog co-authors include technoculture critics as well as codework artists. A complete list of blog authors is available below and on the site.
The blog offers several resources, including:
Growing Bibliography of Critical Code Studies works
(also indexed under Citeulike)
Links to repositories of code to analyze.
Del.icio.us Feed of bookmarks (tagged critical_code_studies)
http://del.icio.us/tag/critical_code_studies
LibraryThing collection of book titles.
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/critcode
List of related researchers
A review of some influential Critical Code Studies can be found in the electronic book review. http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/electropoetics/codology
To join the community of bloggers, please contact Mark Marino. [mark+c+marino [at] gmail [dotted] com.
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