Extreme TrackingCritical Code Studies texts in Fibreculture
Ξ February 28th, 2008 | → | by Mark Marino | ∇ CCS, articles |
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.
- Cultural Roots for Computing: The Case of African Diasporic Orature and Computational Narrative in the GRIOT System - D. Fox Harrell
- Continuous Materiality Through a Hierarchy of Computational Codes - Kenneth J. Knoespel and Jichen Zhu
- “Experience and abstraction: the arts and the logic of machines” - Simon Penny
- Art against Information: Case Studies in Data Practice - Mitchell Whitelaw
D. Fox Harrell - Cultural Roots for Computing: The Case of African Diasporic Orature and Computational Narrative in the GRIOT System
Cultural practices and values are implicitly built into all computational systems. However, it is not common to develop systems with explicit critical engagement with, and foundations in, cultural practices and values aside from those traditionally privileged in discourse surrounding computing practices. I assert that engaging commonly excluded cultural values and practices can potentially spur computational innovation, and can invigorate expressive computational production. In particular, diverse ways of representing and manipulating semantic content and distinctive relationships between humans and our (digital) artifacts can form the basis for new technical and expressive computing practices. This idea is developed using the example of the GRIOT system. GRIOT is a platform for implementing interactive and generative computational narratives. Its underlying theoretical bases are in algebraic semantics from computer science, cognitive linguistics, and semiotics. Initial systems built in GRIOT enable generation of poetry in response to user input. GRIOT is deeply informed by African diasporic traditions of orature and socio-cultural engagement.
Kenneth J. Knoespel and Jichen Zhu - Continuous Materiality Through a Hierarchy of Computational Codes
The legacy of Cartesian dualism inherent in linguistic theory deeply influences current views on the relation between natural language, computer code, and the physical world. However, the oversimplified distinction between mind and body falls short of capturing the complex interaction between the material and the immaterial. In this paper, we posit a hierarchy of codes to delineate a wide spectrum of continuous materiality. Our research suggests that diagrams in architecture provide a valuable analog for approaching computer code in emergent digital systems. After commenting on ways that Cartesian dualism continues to haunt discussions of code, we turn our attention to diagrams and design morphology. Finally we notice the implications a material understanding of code bears for further research on the relation between human cognition and digital code. Our discussion concludes by noticing several areas that we have projected for ongoing research.
Simon Penny - Experience and abstraction: the arts and the logic of machines
This paper is concerned with the nature of traditions of Arts practice with respect to computational practices and related value systems. At root, it concerns the relationship between the specificities of embodied materiality and aspirations to universality inherent in symbolic abstraction. This tension in embodied in the contemporary academy, as embodied arts practices interface with traditions of logical, numerical and textual abstraction in the humanities and the sciences.
The computer may be viewed as the reification of a rationalist world view in that the hardware/software binarism, and all that it entails, is little but an implementation of the Cartesian dual. Inasmuch as these technologies reify that world view, these values permeate their very fabric. Social and cultural practices, modes of production and consumption, inasmuch as they are situated and embodied, proclaim validities of specificity, situation and embodiment contrary to this order. Due to the economic and rhetorical force of the computer, the academic and popular discourses related to it, are persuasive.
Where computational technologies are engaged by social and cultural practices, there exists an implicit but fundamental theoretical crisis. An artist, engaging such technologies in the realization of a work, invites the very real possibility that the technology, like the Trojan Horse, introduces values inimical to the basic qualities for which the artist strives. The very process of engaging the technology quite possibly undermines the qualities the work strives for. This situation demands the development of a ‘critical technical practice’ (Agre).
Mitchell Whitelaw - Art Against Information: Case Studies in Data Practice
This paper makes a critical analysis of new media art working with data interfaces and visualisation – data practice or data art. Pursuing the distinction between information and data, it is demonstrated that data art often turns away from information in an attempt to present the data itself. In the process, data art constructs figures of data as unmediated, immanent, material and underdetermined. A critical analysis of these figures underpins reflections on the wider significance and potential of such data practices.