Amy Alexander:

Centralization causes marginalization of whomever is not in the "center."
Not to mention structural weakness (single point of failure - when the
"center" disappoints, the whole can fall apart.)


beautiful…well said.

marc


> QuickView on Software Art
> Amy Alexander, Florian Cramer, Matthew Fuller, Thomax Kaulmann, Alex
McLean,
> Pit Schultz,
> and The Yes Men, interviewed by Olga Goriunova and Alexei Shulgin.
> http://runme.org
>
>
> Olga Goriunova and Alexei Shulgin: Why are you personally attracted to
> 'software art'?
>
> The Yes Men: We are very interested in software art because of its
potential
> for automation! We can use these technologies to replace the artists. A
> wholesale replacement. Followed by leisure!
>
> Alex McLean: Because making code is empowering, but generally taught very
> badly. The act of programming is portrayed as systematic and uncreative.
> This may be appropriate for working on quality assured credit card
> transaction systems, but why apply it to programming as a whole? Software
> art might give us a place to look at the creation and use of software
> outside of formal business constraints, and the stereotypes thereby
> fostered.
> I'm also repelled by software art, because I see artists trying to employ
> software thoughtlessly. Hopefully software art will draw on its hackerly
> heritage enough to sidestep readymade wizardware.
>
> Thomax Kaulmann: Software art can be a manifold thing. It can look nice in
> source code or at runtime. It can influence culture or can give an
> impression of the present culture.
> Software art is just another art discipline and it is not defined.
> Art is always a matter of intention, there can be different media to
> transport one's vision: stones & hammer, canvas & color, camera & video or
> computers & software. An artist is intrinsically motivated to translate
> his/her ideas to a broader culture, through software as well.
>
> Amy Alexander: Hmm, it's a little like asking "why are you attracted to
> art?" isn't it :-)? I'm not sure verbal answers to such questions can be
> entirely satisfactory or productive. But to give a partial one: I think
> because software art is a mode of non-verbal expression relevant to
> contemporary culture - just as photography, video art, etc., were to the
> times in which they first appeared (and still are.)
>
> Matthew Fuller: Perhaps the conjunction of two highly productive and
> inventive forces, neither of which really wants the other is always going
to
> make for something interesting?
> What is named as contemporary art has responded to networks and
computation
> by taking on certain of the characteristics of networks - the formulation
of
> 'the relational aesthetic' for instance - without actually dealing with
the
> specific technologies.
> On the other hand, software cultures have only very rarely considered
> themselves to or have acted in a manner which is reflexive, in the way
which
> is most usefully and richly developed over the last century and a half or
so
> of art.
> Various conjunctions of these two patterns of activity, their mutual
> interference, seem to be generating some exciting or annoying or
disruptive
> or inventive effects. One cannot claim this for all of the work that
> operates here of course, but it is an opening to new conjunctures.
>
> Pit Schultz: Software art is attracting me because it is carrying a
> seductive promise that possibly software production could be seen as
> cultural production; that writing code has more meaning as making a
program
> run or crash or sell. It might place media art into the history of
> contemporary art with the passage of conceptual art for example.
> It poses questions of artisanship, and pragmatic aesthetics of code, a
kind
> of surplus that is not technological in terms of efficiency.
>
> Florian Cramer: If one defines (as the Read_me 1.2 jury did) software art
as
> art that is either based on formal instruction code or which is a cultural
> reflection of software, then there has been a lot of interesting artwork
> lately in this field that has a attracted me and which justifies to engage
> with this concept. Jodi's work of the past few years, which has radically
> shifted from browser art to manipulations of computer software, is one
> striking example. But aside from that practical observation, I am also
> attracted by theoretical issues, since, being an academic in comparative
> literature, I research the borders and grey
> areas of writing, executable code and art, from the permutational poems of
> the late antiquity to lullist and kabbalistic language speculation to up
to
> the very new situation that instruction code has become a mass commodity
and
> a material appropriated by artists in all kinds of ways. I thus would
never
> limit software art to craftsmanship of programming (i.e. software art as a
> Donald Knuth-style "art of programming"), but consciously take
speculative,
> unclean, or even non-computer-related approaches into account, from
certain
> forms of poetic play and conceptual art to the use of machine code
fragments
> as private languages in artistic "codeworks" like those I collate,
together
> with Alan Sondheim and Beatrice Beaubien, into the "nettime unstable
> digest".
> I should also add that I am a Free Software activist who perceives
operating
> systems (particularly those which don't create artificial frontiers
between
> "users" and "programmers" - i.e. Unix, Plan9, LISP machines) and software
as
> ways of thought and cultures that are in no way aesthetically, culturally
or
> politically "neutral". It thus follows that software and art, as modes of
> both cultural reflection and construction, are closely related to each
> other.
>
>
> Olga Goriunova and Alexei Shulgin: Which viewpoints on the issue you find
> most interesting?
>
> Alex McLean: That of the programmer, because I am one myself, and that of
> people using the software, because there is often great disconnection
> between software creators and their audience.
>
> Amy Alexander: I have a few interests: critical, political and
algorithmic.
> Critical: Software art helps us examine the biases and the influences on
> culture of software at large. Most non-art software pretends to be
neutral
> and objective technology - devoid of human influence. Software art opens
> itself up to examination of its human-created biases and its
> human-experienced influences - so it helps us understand how these factors
> operate in "normal" (non-art) software as well.
> Political: Governments and corporations use software and information
capital
> to exert influence. But artists and others can use software to
> strategically redistribute information capital in a more equitable, useful
> and entertaining manner. (Mi datamine es tu datamine.) In other words, I
> think it's important to realize that data and algorithms are separate
> things. Even proprietary data can often be publicly accessed (search
engine
> databases, etc.) But how it's used is in the algorithm - strategically
> written algorithms can provide a lot of leverage and be very handy as
> tactical media tools.
> And algorithmic for its own sake: the visceral, improvisational nature of
> art and communication through algorithms and coding.
>
> Matthew Fuller:
> Yes, it is the way in which various software art projects reveal the way
> software is embedded within wider currents of social and aesthetic
> composition.
> How does software manifest, reproduce or invent new relations, say of
class,
> or of processes of work and activity? How is it racialised? Is it so
> precisely in its 'universality'? Does it have a way of doing things built
> into it that enhances certain kinds of
> sociability, or act against them? We can ask these questions in a number
of
> careful ways, but also in a manner that acknowledges our embeddedness
within
> software as culture. Part of these discussions are already part of office
> culture, think of the drippy compensatory humour of 'Dilbert' cartoons;
> consumer culture, where it exceeds itself as simple passivity, the
inventive
> intermediate role of 'power users'; and, perhaps most usefully in this
case
> in the way that particular scenes invent new forms of software and new
ways
> of dealing with established forms - think of the now long term tradition
of
> the demo-scene for instance.
> At the same time, it's useful to work from the 'opposite' direction. There
> are some interesting currents that take advantage of the specific material
> qualities of particular kinds of coding culture. Think of some of the
games
> mods or some of the generative code work that really take advantage of the
> idiosyncratic, perverse and particular nature of code practices.
Exploiters
> of bugs. Make the machines stammer, speak in tongues.
>
> Amy Alexander: The algorithm is also very important here. The algorithm
that
> generates the output is an important and subjective thing, and in
commercial
> software, it often hides behind the veil of innocent, technological
> neutrality. An obvious example is Google's PageRank algorithm, which
> determines which sites appear towards the top of Google's results, and
which
> don't appear at all. The algorithm is very biased toward big sites,
> especially if they own lots of other big sites.
> But in their description at http://google.com/technology, Google explains
> that they rely on "the uniquely democratic nature of the web" and that
> "Google's complex, automated methods make human tampering with our results
> extremely difficult." Didn't humans write the algorithm?
> That is a very direct example. Software artists approach the subjectivity
of
> algorithms in different ways; some are more formal; many are more subtle.
> But because software art opens itself up to examination of its
subjectivity,
> and the fact that interface is driven by human-generated algorithms, it
can
> help us think about the broader software context.
>
> Pit Schultz:
> Which viewpoints? The view from the 'folkloristic' aspect of programmers'
> cultures, writing gimmicks. The aspect of generating a tree of knowledge
> out of existing material, by changing the viewpoint to it. The question if
> there's something else than an unlimited numbers of readymades to be
found.
> The archive aspect of an area of production, which is not yet bounded,
> territorialized. Something ambivalent that was already attracting me to
the
> possibility of net.art. A strange attractor for the possibility of
existence
> of such a genre?
>
> Florian Cramer: Georg Philipp Harsdoerffer's "Mathematische und
> philosophische Erquickstunden" ("Mathematical and philosophical
> recreations") from 1636 – perhaps the first attempt to systematically
> combine poetics, mathematics and algorithmics into a playful whole,
Abraham
> M. Moles "First manifesto of permutational art" from 1963, Jack Burnham's
> exhibition "Software" from 1970, Geoff Cox', Adrian Ward's and Alex
McLean's
> 2000 paper "The aesthetics of generative code", Matthew Fuller's 2000
paper
> "It looks like you're writing a letter: Microsoft Word", the (to date:
four)
> jury statements of the Transmediale and Read_me juries, to some extent
also
> Larry Wall's papers on Perl and postmodernism. We could use more cultural
> criticism of software in general, and especially a criticism that sees
more
> than surface screen visual and which doesn't fall into the trap of
> simplistic analogies between structures in software and structures in
> society.
>
>
> Olga Goriunova and Alexei Shulgin: Programmers don't seem to be interested
> in submitting their works to art festivals and competitions. There is a
huge
> body of their work that might be interesting culturally and artistically.
> What are the possible strategies and interfaces that can help to make
those
> works visible in the extended software / art context?
>
> Alex McLean: Yes, programmers don't need institutionalised art festivals
or
> competitions. They have the Internet, and the grass-roots fact-to-face
> meetings that result from their online projects and discussions.
>
> Amy Alexander: Programmers don't need art festivals - hooray! Rewind back
to
> "net artists don't need museums", and multiply by a factor of two (because
> programmers typically don't consider themselves in the "art" field at
all.)
> So a programmer's work might be culturally and artistically interesting,
but
> you have to go where it lives instead of making it come to you. First we
> should ask ourselves, "is this a problem?" Personally, I don't think so.
> Centralization causes marginalization of whomever is not in the "center."
> Not to mention structural weakness (single point of failure - when the
> "center" disappoints, the whole can fall apart.)
> Do programmers feel the urge to be pulled into the "art context?" If not,
> then to do so might be to open a software art zoo and hunt down projects
to
> bring them into captivity - so we can gawk at them without getting our
> fingers dirty. Many authors won't want to be involved in "art"
> contextualizations at all. Others will if the context and culture seems
> inclusive and relevant to them. Programmers (among others) are turned off
by
> artspeak, or if every discussion refers back to postmodern philosophy.
These
> conversations exclude people, and it is in fact possible to have an
> intelligent, culturally relevant discussion without these as the focus.
> Also, it is helpful for non-programmers to read about, learn about, and
> experience geek culture. It is a culture, and it's about people, not
> technology.
> So anyway, hopefully runme.org takes a couple of positive steps: it's, we
> hope, easy to submit work to - you don't have to spend a lot of time
putting
> together a big press kit with lots of artspeak to impress some jury and
> mailing it in … and you can invite someone else's work in, if they're
too
> busy or too shy to submit it themselves… it also tries to respect that
> software art comes from both "software" and "art" genealogies but is its
own
> thing. I think it's a problem when people try to interpret software art as
> strictly "software" or strictly "art." Time will tell if our diabolical
> plans have been successful. :-)
>
> The Yes Men: There are many examples of amazing "outsider art" that isn't
> recognized as
> such by the producer.. So I would think merely pointing them out, or
finding
> them and making contact with the producers is what would be most important
> first.
>
> Alex McLean: Yes, runme.org may be a start, allowing existing communities
of
> people interested in creative aspects of computing to share their view.
>
> Florian Cramer: I personally think runme.org is an excellent step in this
> direction. With its function as a download repository and weblog-style
> interface (as it was pioneered by Free Software websites like Slashdot.org
> and Freshmeat.net), it clearly overcomes some (so-to-speak) interface
design
> issues of the festival/competition/exhibition-oriented art system,
although
> I still think that both channels could and should co-exist. I find the
> exhibitions "I love you" (at MAK Frankfurt 2002 and at transmediale.03
> Berlin) and jodi's "install.exe" (at plug.in Basel 2002 and Buro Friedrich
> Berlin 2003) very successful presentations of software art in the language
> of the traditional art system, and the presentations are necessary to
> address a larger non-geek audience. Since runme.org got headline coverage
on
> Slashdot.org, I am quite optimistic that this is the way to go. In
general,
> Free Software self-organization provides good blueprints to software art
> self-organization.
>
> Pit Schultz: The question is what constitutes the 'software art context'?
> The software repository is known from shareware and other kinds of
> downloadable software tools. Is it applicable to the area of 'art' too?
If
> we talk about context, the question is what kind of 'institutions' make
> software art exists, where are its boundaries? Who constitutes these
> boundaries and how? And of course, is there a history of software art,
> assuming that it exists.
>
> Matthew Fuller: Roland Barthes suggested that a truly interdisciplinary
> object is one
> which is nameable by none of the disciplines that in part contribute to
> making it, or that congregate around it. Such an object is owned by no
one
> set of ideas and approaches. It demands that traditions become strange to
> themselves.
> So what is set in motion when art approaches the irritating subject of
> programming, what happens when the 'art' insistences on being incidental,
on
> being amateur, on being able to go wide-eyed or cunning into any context,
> comes into some relationship with technical
> skill?
> Equally, what happens when computing enters a context wherein every stage
in
> a process has aesthetic effects? What happens when computing's in-built
> judgments about what is 'optimal' or what is 'trivial' are subject to
> question and reinvention, or may even usurp its capacity to rule, to make
> rules? The revaluation of the trivial, of waste, of the past, of what has
> been shat out, and conversely, what it founds - the new - is one of the
> powers of art.
> I don't think that this work then that you ask about, that of programmers,
> needs 'help'. It doesn't need to be 'made visible'. We don't need
gestures
> of sympathy such as those repetitiously awarding Linux the name, 'Art' in
> order to make things possible. What is
> needed are more specific alliances with particular currents of programming
> and other strands of making culture; deranging gestures that bring new
> worlds to light; prison break-outs; sustained and thoughtful work that
makes
> itself available for use.
>
>
> Olga Goriunova and Alexei Shulgin: Software art seems to be quite an open
> field yet, possibly due to the reason it is very diverse and in many
> respects is based on the programmers' culture that is hard to grasp. While
> contextualizing grassroot movements like this one and thus, providing an
> access to
> interesting practices to larger audience, we are at the same time
inevitably
> packaging them for easy appropriation by art institutions. How do you
think
> we can deal with this problem?
>
> Alex McLean: Having people with broad knowledge and experience of
> programming
> languages forming part of art institutions. Critics should become
literate
> in some of the many languages of software art before trying to understand
> its context. Right now I think many art institutions are too software
> illiterate to be of any interest to software artists.
>
> The Yes Men: Yes! Just like the outsider artists… Well, it seems the
> important thing
> is to respect the desires and intentions of the creator… See if they
want
> to be appropriated first. If appropriation involves a compromise of
> integrity, then figure out in each instance how to make the work useless
to
> the dominant narrative…?
>
> Pit Schultz: How did other types of 'immaterial art' deal with this
problem?
> How did early computer graphics deal with it, or certain kinds of Fluxus?
> The question is for me first of all is there a 'style' a kind of common
> 'ductus' which one can see after the years surrounding different forms of
> 'conceptualism'. The suggestion is that there is a difference
> to be made in relation to other forms of art, which are based on the
> postulation that a new 'form' is found, only through the use of a specific
> 'new' medium. The autonomy of media art in relation of contemporary art
has
> to be questioned, on the other hand the way the art operating system
> processes incoming 'new forms' has to be questioned too. Software and the
> net allows to run a 'museum' with much less funds than elsewhere, this
poses
> questions of what defines the needed power relations of representation
which
> are constituting an art form.
> "Software art" insofar is not new, but it reflects, enhances, explores the
> role of software in a post-industrial society and afterwards. What is the
> role of the original, the author, the object, can one apply other basic
> questions of the predecessors of this potential art genre in a new way?
How
> do seemingly successful works function gaining a market? (rhizome list
etc.)
> What kind of criteria they seem to fulfill? Is there any place of
> constituting itself outside of an institutional interest? As with any art
> I'm also interested in the art which hasn't to be called art.
>
> Matthew Fuller: This question might also be posed from a different
> perspective. If art institutions are treated simply as a particular and
> distinct part of a number of interlocking, but also partially
differentiable
> processes and institutions it is useful to use them and take part in them
> for those things that they do well. .
> I also think that in general it is wise to avoid becoming involved solely
in
> one kind of institutional structure. The advantage of the internet and
> other distribution mechanisms is that you can be active in art contexts,
but
> also develop relations to other circuits of distribution: shareware,
module
> libraries, free software, gratis CD ROMs and so on. Work to multiply
these.
> Mongrel for instance always triangulates what it does, using the net,
> streets / communities, and art systems to reinforce each other, but also
to
> make sure that no one mode dominates the others.
>
> Amy Alexander: I don't worry about this. Art institutions (including
> runme.org!) can and
> will appropriate anything they want - the thing about digital projects of
> course is that in general, they're infinitely reproducible - so an
> institution jumping onto the net doesn't interfere with other nodes and
> modes of distribution. It just jumps on the bandwagon. People can decide
for
> themselves which packagings they find most interesting.
>
> Florian Cramer: This is a question that applies to any labeling and
> contextualization of art. Recuperation is inevitable as soon as you call
> something "art", and of course we ourselves do contribute to that
> recuperation. I don't care, and even think it's good to recuperate certain
> things – like, for example: hacker code – to save it from being
overlooked
> or forgotten. It's rather problematic if the recuperation happens the
other
> way round, as problematic exploitation of programmer's cultures through
> artists (like in the RSG Carnivore project and - despite its good
intentions
> - the "CODeDOC" exhibition at
> the Whitney museum).
>
> ______________________________________________
>
> February, 2003.
>
> This document is copylefted under the Open Publication License
> <http://www.opencontent.org/openpub> and may be freely copied and
> used.
>
>
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