essay on codework

[noemata]

03/02/2004 08:34:59, MWP <mpalmer at JPS.NET> wrote:

>There is no special aura to programming. Programming is simply the act of
>composing a set of instructions that streamlines the process of construction
>one is seeking. It doesn't matter in the slightest if the code is short or
>long, elegant or sloppy, simple or complex, as long as it gets the job done.

are there jobs in codework?!

>A work of art that comments on the mechanized codes that govern our lives is
>not necessarily codework, but even if it is, it isn't necessarily subversive
>of such codes. For that one needs good old-fashioned thinking that breaks
>with the prevailing aesthetic standards. Codework in itself will not
>accomplish this any more than any other method of working.

old-fashioned thinking, i like the concept!

>To make something that rises above mere gibberish or self-referential
>solipsism, one needs to bring the resources of the human mind into play. One
>man's noise is another man's salvation. Code should not be viewed as
>offering an oracular vision of the world. Code does not "speak" any more
>than a hammer speaks or a cloud thinks it's a rabbit.

agreed. i've heard some hammers speak though, pretty high also even when hand-
run, and i've seen clouds most definitely of rabbits, yes, for sure. there were 
a bunch of people chasing it, who later turned into a huge ship, i didn't 
understand that, and then into horses, lots, very graceful all of them, you'd 
like them, with dwarfs riding, and why dwarfs? are they knotted?, and suddenly 
all these women turning up, undressing. i can understand those people having 
oracular visions of the world, i'd say YES to codework too.

by the way, a collection of nudes, - http://noemata.net/nudes/ - i leeched from 
Florian Cramer's server some months ago, thank you so much if you're reading, i 
was merely thinking of the pornography of code, as if they represented an ocular 
unclothing, an oracular, naked code, with the male ideas they seem to implicit. 
but again, it's a pun, not a world view, make not to much of it...

best,
BM