[Beige Records (http://www.beigerecords.com) is an electronic music
recording company and computer programming ensemble. They recently
released "The 8-Bit Construction Set," a 12" vinyl record of 8-bit
computer music. This interview coincided with the 2001 Make-World
festival in Munich.]

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Question: What are "fat bits" and "post data"?

Paul B Davis: "Fat Bits" is a metaphor for escaping the restrictions
which consumer software places on our interactions with computers. We
call the bits that we poke "fat" to describe their expansion beyond the
intentions of Adobe and Macromedia and Microsoft and Avid and Apple and
etc.

Cory Arcangel: Technically fat bits is the term used to describe the
grid mode on a few old paint applications available on the Apple/Mac
line of computers … we use it to describe one of our Nintendo
Projects. I like the term because it reminds me of the days when I used
to stay up late and make animations on my apple computer. Paul might say
something different to this question though…

Post-Data [coined by Joseph Bonn] is the name for our philosophy also
described in our Make-World bio as "intentional computing".

"Intentional Computing" is the process of making work which is aware of
this relationship, and work in which the artist demonstrates a complete
understanding of the machine he/she is composing on [from the CHIP to
the display]. We like to use obsolete computers and file formats because
we feel since they offer limited options we can more easliy understand
the effects they have on the output. On modern computers this
understanding is harder to achieve, and even more diffucult to obtain
when one uses some consumer software …

Joseph P Beuckman: We're interested at the hardware level - before
corporations write their proprietary "anything goes" interfaces.
Computers have personalities, shapes and architectures like a canvas
that influence what we make. We don't want to build a flat white surface
over that and ignore the features of the machine.

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Question: You are well known for making jokes about people like Markus
Popp (this years' winner of Ars Electronica in Electronic Music) for the
tools he uses. What is the background of this and what is important
about choice of tools concerning digital media?

PBD: When you are using a computer, I think the question of tools folds
back in on itself in a few ways … First as if you're using a mold or
some sort of custom fabrication machine - it creates tools. But
secondly, the division between the influence you exert on the computer
and the influence it exerts on you can, with the use of many Microsoft
products for example, become difficult to determine. When we put
together one of our beloved Powerpoint presentations using its Auto-
Content Wizard, who's the tool? The computer, or us, as we mind-
numbingly bend to the whims of corporate design? Another huge danger is
something like Flash where the tool and the delivery system are one and
the same, and it's being promoted even by the art community as a
standard and is taught in art schools. This coming from a company
(Macromedia) who's founder Marc Canter once said: "Artists do not use
computer languages if they can help it." Dragan I believe you would use
your term "Analog-popper" to that.

I think that "Made with Macromedia" gives Macromedia credit on a
conceptual level to anything made with their software. And even people
who make things with MAX and MSP and brag about how you can write your
own objects in C … what's the point of that? If I'm going to bother
writing something in C, I want it to do something cool - not be stuck in
some slow, bloated programming environment on a Macintosh that can send
midi notes to other applications.

Our position is that, because we program everything ourselves, the tool
we truly use is the computer - it's not the software. And likewise our
medium is also not software, it's the computer.

What's happened with Mr. Popp is that, as far as i know, he cannot
program a computer. So his "tools" are the programmers he hires. And, at
least with ovalprocess or whatever it is, their "tools" aren't actually
programming languages, but Director™. This is bad. What it means is
that for all his high-falutin' notions of digital aesthetics and
computer music, it's hard for me to believe that Mr. Popp knows anything
about his chosen medium. His creative interface with computers is purely
secondhand, and even then through the most evil of corporate softwares.
The significance here is immense because he is so widely accepted as a
foremost thinker in the field of computer fine arts. And as a sort of
unwitting Executive Producer, I think Mr. Popp has possibly set an
exciting trend for years to come in terms of career options for
unskilled digital artists. It just proves once again that if you don't
understand the bits, people will fool you all day.

JSB: Factory patches, plugins, templates, incompatibilities, needless
complexity, general standardification, all these things are bad.
Confronting the data where it lives opens the possibility of community
with the data. Hiding behind high-level scripting languages does not
promote meaningful relationships with the bits.

The worst are operating systems and software that provide their naive
users false and meaningless descriptions of the power available in their
computers.

Companies assume that people don't want to learn about their machines
and indeed they don't want people to know about their machines.
Companies are trying to sell *their* interface ideas which mostly have
nothing to do with how the computer works.

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Question: But in what way are you opposed to standardization? Isn't it
great that i am at least supposed to be able to print my MS Office
documents on any computer in the world?

PBD: Certainly data is defined by prior intention … what some people
might call a "format", or maybe even a language to some extent. Without
this everything is garbledygook, like when you open up a Word98 document
in Word95 and there's crap all over the screen. I don't think anyone
cares about people just wanting to use a computer for word processing,
even with the difference between Microsoft Word and the ASCII standard.
Where it gets us is when these same tactics of writing crap software and
then forcing it on everyone are used, is when they are applied to
creative activities. Photoshop, Flash, Director, even java - which i
never understood why there was a need for it, wasn't ANSI C supposed to
be cross platform? - it just compromises the essence of what an artist
does. No one is going to agree that standardization is good in the
context of art - a field that applauds original thinking. And most of
this software barely let's one think at all. If someone wants to have
their activities on a computer standardized, then fine. But if they want
to break from it, it should not be such a huge mess. I'm ok with
acknowledging the division between creative and non-creative computer
activities in this way, because it doesn't interfere with usage
potential - it keeps the bits fat.

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Question: Is there any political implication to your use of technology?
I remember the video where Cory shows how to circumvent the restrictions
of a software by changing its machine code, "cracking" it, having the
needed MC68000 codes written on his arm. It appeared like an agitation.

CA: By having 68000 codes on my arm I was simply pointing out the idea
that as a computer artist I should have a complete understanding of
every work I make down to the actual machine code. Nothing political.

This is the goal …

PBD: I don't think cory had any poltical leanings with assembly language
on his arm, and we don't have any sort of agenda or goals for ourselves,
but I would say (and this might differ from everyone else) that there
are poltical implications of our work. We are inherently supportive of
open-source software, and not supportive of companies who monopolize the
art world with tools that don't allow the creation unmitigated art.
Digital distribution is a concern, and I at least am very skeptical of
copyright covering both art and software. Also government attempts to
regulate internet traffic are very worrisome.

In the USA right now there are some possibilities that what I consider
normal use of computers (cracking software) will be prosecuted as
terrorist activities. This in particular is rediculous, as cracking is
already illegal in terms of copyright. But why? You paid for the
computer, those bits are yours. If some company produces a piece of
software that is degrading the experience you are having with your
machine, you need to be able to change it. You can change a bunch of
bits that might erase an entire program, but yet you can't change one
bit so an icon is modified or a password is removed?

Anyway, i would hope that some of our work would create an awareness
that many of society's ideas about computers aren't grounded in the
truths of the machines or our interactions with them, but of corporate
and government/media attempts to codify, regulate, and profit from most
people's inability to use them for what they were designed for.

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Question: How did your style of working evolve?

PBD: Lots of really bad cocaine, i think.

CA: I think a few years ago we simply applied all the ideas we learned
studying classical instruments to making work on computers. Paul was
trained as a classical pianist, I a classical guitarist, Darius also I
believe rocks a piano [he plays organ at hockey games too!], and Dwayne
(Joe Bonn) plays madd bass and guitar.

The idea behind a classical training is that one must obtain a relative
mastery over the instrument before even attempting to interpert any
composition. For example I had to play only studies and exercises 6
hours a day for 2 years before one professor would allow me to play any
work. So somewhere around 1997 as everyone started fooling on computers
[with no regard to even attempting to understand the tools they were
using] we came to the conclusion that one should obtain a relative
mastery over their software/hardware. [I had been rocking
hypercard/director and things since early versions so I was lucky to
make all the same mistakes people are making now when I was 12…]

We started using fixed architecture machines, computers which are no
longer being developed, at this time becasue it is impossible to keep up
with commercial software and hardware. Imagine trying to play Bach on
the piano if they switched keys around every few years … and charged
you for it! Plus the limited capabilities of these computers allows us
to understand every aspect of the machine. Thus we can [pardon the
phrase] become "experts".

Oh yah, and they are about 15$ and can often be found in the trash.
[even more than "net art" this can be thought of as art anyone can
do…]

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Question: Aren't you often accused of being retro or limiting your
artistic options?

JPB: People assume we are involved in kitchy promotion - trying to
remind 20-30 somethings of when they were 5-12. They generally giggle
when they ask us about it.

CA: No one calls Slash [from Guns'n'Roses] retro when he uses a 1960's
Gibson guitar, or Orbital when they use an 808 and these machines are
actually older than the machines we use … hmmmmm … you figure it
out. But generally we have had very good response from art critics once
they listen to our styles and see that we have good reasons for using
these machines and are not just blindly cashing in on a fad. [Once they
see our love for the sauce!]

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Question: What role does letterpress, hapsichord and vinyl records play
in your work?

JPB: They are our interests.

PBD: For a specific example, I took my starting point as ASCII art and
applied its aesthetics to letterpress printing and came up with what i
call "ornamental portraiture" … using type ornaments to model
grayscale pixels. I see this as different to how aesthetics from other
media, namely print and TV, are just stuck on the computer and called an
"interface" in that I was trying to do the reverse.

With the letterpress I was trying to legitimize computer aesthetics by
applying them to a very traditional printmaking practice seeing that
after thirty years of computer art it's still not widely accepted.

With all things we do there is the same appreciation for the various
media and desire to have total control over our art.

CA:
Harpsichord: frills
Letterpress and vinyl records: paying the bills
Computers: skills

And due to our intense dislike of "mainstream" computer art we are
always looking for ways to bring our ideas out of the box and into
people's homes, thus records, letterpress, silkscreens, game carts, …
and maybe even in the future childrens books.

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Question: You think that computers coming to the mainstream and more
people using them will change people's view on data?

CA: Data is no longer respected. Data is tossed, turned, and twisted by
people who have access to it only through third party Graphical User
Interfaces [like Flash]. This keeps me awake at night.

JPB: I don't think data is that popular or more than 7% of people even
know it exists. I think what people are "excited" about are USB
multimedia-enabled cell-phones that do "e-commerce".

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Question: What is your relation to Computer Science?

CA: I took a few computer science classes but did poorly. Once I forgot
about the exam, went to it 20 minutes late, and then had to ask all the
people around me for a pencil and paper cause I did not bring any. I
think I got like a 40%. I did not get a CS degree because I have no
interest in learning how to write 16bit loops in 6502 assembly, or
learning how to sort efficiently through arrays unless it is to paint a
pretty picture on a processor/system I found in the trash.

JPB: I studied computer science at Southern Illinois University @
Edwardsville. My project was a system of genetic algorithms that
produced short themes. Neural networks were to learn how to grade the
themes for "fitness" or "phatness." It was written in Microsoft Visual
C++ using Microsoft Foundation Classes and never worked.

I ran out of time. About a third of my time was spent writing the
program and two thirds reading about why Microsoft feature A didn't work
with Microsoft feature B. I should have written the program in pure C++
under Linux. I used FreeBSD machines to plot the neural network error
surfaces and that was the smoothes/most enjoyable part of the project.
Window makes me depressed when I use it.

PBD: If I were studying computer science I would have to learn horrible
things like ASP, databases and silly Microsoft API's … these things
make you feel bad when you use them.

Like my dear friend Dragan Espenschied who, whether he knows it or not,
has his soul slowly eaten away when he programs shit javascript for
money because that's what companies pay for. He is a stronger man than
I, I could never do it, and this is what computer science is these days
at university's and I have no interest in it.

I think studying the computer within the context of making art or music
is much better right now, and I should say that I hope to go back to
school at some point and do this because there are so many facets of it
I wish I was better at.

http://www.beigerecords.com/
http://make-world.org/
http://62.245.129.212/aelita/make-world/paper.pdf
http://make-world.org/interview_beige.html