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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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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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
[Updated: 12/8/07]
There’s an exciting conversation over at Writer Response Theory about Critical Code Studies. Jeremy Douglass, who recently took on the position of the Software Studies postdoc at UCSD, proposed a Venn diagram to illustrate the relationship between Critical Code Studies and Software Studies. Jeremy seems to be beginning his post doc by trying to firm up some definitions.
For Douglass, Software Studies and Critical Code Studies share some but not all interests.
On the other hand, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, a driving force behind the Software Studies program at UCSD, argues that Critical Code Studies is a central component of Software Studies. Software Studies, by this view, is the uber-field and Critical Code Studies is a set of analytical practices within it.
If we return to Douglass’ original formulation, we find the source of the disagreement (or why Jeremy’s postulation doesn’t fit within Noah’s): Douglass is trying to define the approaches according to the aspect of digital culture that they emphasize:
Software Studies emphasizes computation.
Critical Code Studies emphasizes uncompiled source code.
There might be uncompiled source code that does not get computed (for example, compiled) and there might be processes that occur in computation that were not driven by uncompiled source code. Would it be too simple to say that one analysis emphasizes the executable and the execution while the other emphasizes the language of those executables?
Noah asks what uncompiled source code is not software? Noah doesn’t object here, but rather asks for an example of source code that is not a part of software. From that, I derive the following implication.
Software Studies examines software and related material
Critical Code Studies examines code and related material.
According to this logic, the code is just one of the many aspects of software, so CCS, and more broadly Code Studies, would be a subset of Software Studies.
Subsequently, their debate ensues along the lines of objects of study (what counts as software or code) and approaches (what counts as software studies or critical code studies).
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Extreme Tracking