No subject

[integer at www.god-emil.dk]

>dear all,
>
>i hope you might be interested in the following text that was published in
>read_me 1.2 CD&book in an occasion of the first international software art
>festival read_me 1.2, moscow 2002
>
>olga
>
>
>
>Artistic Software for Dummies and, by the way, Thoughts About the New World Order.
>
>Olga Goriunova, Alexei Shulgin

very.beautiful. thank you for sharing.


so ... - http://www.membank.org/dataset/inter.body/propaganda.html


in which case I understand why Alexei Shulgin is so terrified by `nn`
and I hope he understands there isn't any other way to breathe in + out
simultaneously and without becoming ill.

NN






>What is artistic software?
>
>Artistic software is, first and foremost, software created for purposes
>different than traditional pragmatic ones. Such programs are not seen as
>tools for the production and manipulation of digital objects - from online
>bank accounts to works of art - they are works of art in their own right.
>The emergence of this phenomenon is first of all due to the overall spread
>of software - commercial, proprietary programs as well as open source -
>and its introduction into all spheres of human activity. Software has
>always been seen as a neutral tool, tending to become a transparent medium
>for information processing, and a most comfortable one at that. Software
>and the products created with its help have always been considered not
>only to belong to totally different areas but even to be non-comparable.
>In most cases, an individual piece of software is thought to be completely
>interchangeable with a competing product without any effect on the result.
>Such an approach assumes several stereotypical and false premises. First,
>software is not a "transparent" tool for the creation and processing of
>the digital product. It defines a quite limited space, within a specific
>framework in which people are required to work. Thus it persistently
>forces people to keep to certain, pre-defined rules. In addition to the
>limitations of using computer programs there is also a certain
>predetermined position - a creative, social, even political one - into
>which the software user is put, not so much by the software's creators,
>but by more general power structures: the culture of software creation and
>media culture as a whole. And this, in turn, depends on the dominant
>social rules, which will be touched upon in this article. More and more
>people are finding these limitations not only uncomfortable but also
>boring and authoritarian. Second, the overall "digitalisation" of reality
>makes software, the basis of the functioning of digital space,
>increasingly important as such.
>
>Rationality and Western civilization
>
>The general and recently accelerating change in the world moves toward its
>deeper rationalisation.  The forms, the methods of functioning of the
>society are all becoming extremely technologised. All means of functioning
>of the digital world - networks, software and even design are being
>created in accordance with notions of the rational basis of the universe
>and are the highest representation of the Western idea - the domination of
>the Reason.  The history of Western civilization is, among other things,
>the history of human alienation, the history of rationalisation, the
>history of the loss of the mystical. The changes in the notion of
>Knowledge as the basis of progress can represent this history in the
>simplest terms. Up until the Middle Ages, knowledge was interwoven with
>magic, mysticism and religion. It was not considered, as it commonly is
>today, as something purely abstract which could nevertheless have
>practical applications. Knowledge could not be transmitted solely on the
>theoretical level, outside of ritual practice. It was transmitted only
>through personal and full communication of the chosen with the chosen.
>Even "crafts skills" knowledge could not have been acquired within just a
>couple of years. Knowledge was not detached from other forms of life. The
>situation starts to change during the Renaissance: gradually the
>theorisation of knowledge begins; knowledge separates itself from
>mysticism and religion and acquires high autonomous status. By the end of
>the XVII century the final break of knowledge from other forms of life is
>taking place.  The history of rationalisation is the history of the
>diminishment of the leading role of religion, the history of exclusion of
>morality from all spheres except maybe that of the "life world"
>(Lebenswelt).  Catholicism has introduced rationalised relations between
>man and God (indulgence); Protestantism has rejected ancient rituals and
>their traditional visual attributes and became the peak of the religious
>rationality, logically progressing to "humanistic" atheism.  Gradually
>science took the place of religion. And science oriented itself towards
>the cognition of nature by defining nature in terms of matter's lack of
>inherent value and metaphysical attributes. Examining nature as an
>infinitely reusable object, science began to apply the same notions to the
>human being. Thus all scientifically unverifiable truths and meanings
>could neither be supported nor refuted by all-prevailing Reason.
>
>What now?
>
>- Science, having finally broken away from all its once inherent
>metaphysical goals, is becoming, by analogy with extreme sport, an extreme
>science, endangering the very existence of human beings on earth (nuclear
>and bio-technologies, overall penetration of technology and its use as a
>means of control over the human being).
>
>- The highly rational way of life in such societies as the US, can go out
>of whack from time to time: one of the most convincing examples lies in
>the events of the 11th of September 2001. The growing conflict between
>East and West - which can be seen as a conflict between an extremely
>rationalised western society and the metaphysically oriented eastern one -
>presents one of the most obvious dangers for the current world order.
>
> Culture as content
>
> The type of the society in which the citizens of "developed" countries
>are living has been called informational for a long time already. The
>system of such societies, accordingly, is utterly different from the
>preceding industrial one, which was centered around industrial production.
>Post-industrial society is ruled not by commodity-money relations but by
>informational currents. Or, rather currents of capital and power that are
>spreading (and to a large extent in the form of open or veiled propaganda)
>through networks, in accordance with new laws.
>
> All means and media by which such societies function - networks,
>computers, software and even design - are extremely technologised and are
>created in accordance with the notion of the rational basis of the
>universe.
>
> Culture and its manifestations are also turning into information (and
>even "content"), flowing into information space. Just like any other
>information, cultural information can be digitalised. With its shift into
>computer space, culture begins to function by the same rational rules
>according to which the rest of the system works - by the rules created, in
>particular, by designers and programmers.
>
> The methods of information presentation, storage and functioning, often
>define its content as well. In so far as there is no place for metaphysics
>within information space, the space towards which all spheres of public
>and personal life are moving, the mode of this space's being is
>particularly rational - culture as the custodian of the non-rational
>inevitably becomes sterilized in such space. Morality and "life world" -
>for a long time and very consistently too - have been being rationalised
>under the civilization processes. Within the digital environment this
>process yet intensifies. Existing in the digital realm, human beings are
>following its logic - the extra-ethical logic of the machine.
>
> Art as the custodian of the non-rational
>
> Art is one of the most mobile and diverse systems; it has been changing continuously to the extent that it contradicts itself. It would be interesting, then, to look at the change in the artist's social role:
>
>- Ancient times. There is no artist yet as such - she is an ordinary
>member of the society, additionally performing some religious functions.
>Her work is based exclusively on tradition, her name is not announced, the
>results of her work are part of the mystical ritual.
>
>- The epoch of Renaissance and Humanism: the artist is breaking from the
>religious tradition and begins to glorify the beauty of the human and of
>the surrounding world. The figure of the self-manifesting Genius appears
>on stage.
>
>- The Technological epoch: The beauty of the world becomes easily
>reflectable through technical reproduction media. At the same time the
>ideals of humanism decline - as a consequence of technological progress as
>well. On one hand, art begins to reflect the crisis of human
>self-consciousness (modernism), and on the other, it gets diverted into a
>certain form of commercial activity. Works of art turn into commodities,
>an extensive art-market is created (there appears, in particular, a notion
>of "the original"). During the preceding, humanistic epoch, the artist was
>placed very high in society (artist: demiurge, poet: the ruler of people's
>minds). Therefore, on the new technological level she begins to actively
>participate (and be used) in the political struggle.
>
> The Communication epoch
>
> With the development and fundamental change of communicative space the
>role of the artist is changing again. Artist is not someone who creates
>images anymore; she rejects the idea of representation.
> Information overload becomes a common illness. An infinite number of
>images have already been created; they are kept in unerasable digital form
>in readily accessible databases. On the whole, the existing culture can
>already be represented as information currents that surround people and
>constantly try to penetrate their minds.
> The artist's mission now shifts from creating images to manipulating and
>redirecting information currents. The artist becomes, on one hand, the
>information filter, and on the other, its re-transmitter.
> This new role of the artist, then, in many ways becomes linked with the
>functions of communication and computer technologies: her activity is
>performed by means of networks and computers. The difference is that
>computers work on the basis of "bare" algorithms, while humans apply
>intuition, emotions and other non-rational elements - exactly those
>qualities that are beginning to disappear due to the influence of
>technology that makes everyone work rationally.  Thus design of networks,
>databases, computers and software becomes defining factor in modern
>culture. Software and computers tend to be seen exclusively as pragmatic
>tools for information processing; programmers are usually exceptionally
>pragmatic people whose rational side often prevails over all others.
>Therefore, the artist has to confront pragmatism with the methods she is
>well acquainted with, based on intuition and non-rationality.  Thus,
>artistic software appears.
>
> How does software art save non-rationality?
>
> One might ask, "How can software art be non-rational, if rational
>algorithms are what lies at its basis?"
> Yes, at the basis of each piece of software there are definite
>algorithms, but if conventional programs are instruments serving purely
>pragmatic purposes, the result of the work of artistic programs often
>finds itself outside of the pragmatic and the rational.
> Because the process of the digitalisation of culture and other components
>of social life is inevitable, it is necessary to consider adequate ideas
>and mechanisms for the transfer of those spheres into digital space, to
>find adequate conditions for their functioning within networks. How can we
>put forth such mechanisms, those which would preserve the remaining grains
>of the non-rational and metaphysical, those which could guarantee the
>safety of the society and protect it against further rationalisation?
>Artistic software, non-rational software, perhaps gives some answers to
>this question.
> 
> Appendix. Most common characteristics of artistic software:
>- irony 18%
>- addressing political and social issues 10%
>- interface prevailing over functionality 20%
>- deconstruction 16%
>- non-rationality 25%
>- other 11%
> (data for the beginning of 2002)











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