----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
Thanks, Quinn,
I'd like to pick up this question of digital objects as memory aid or
receptacle, specifically the role of or status of computer source code.
For the past eight years, I have been working in the realm of Critical Code
Studies, which applies humanities-style hermeneutics to the interpretation
of the extra-functional significance of computer source code. More
recently, I've been saying simply that CCS is the study of culture through
code and the study of the culture of code.
For the past 5 years, I have been collaboratively reading one digital
object with two other scholars, Jeremy Douglass (UCSD) and Jessica Pressman
(SDSU). Our object: William Poundstone's electronic narrative Project for
Tachistoscope {Bottomless Pit}.
(
http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/poundstone__project_for_tachistoscope_bottomless_pit.html)
The finished (?) project -- or part of it -- will be published this Spring
by University of Iowa Press.
My role in the collaboration has been to explore the Flash files (primarily
the .fla), first using decompiled .swf files and then using the original
files shared with us by Poundstone himself. For those not familiar with
Flash, the .swf is the animated file you encounter on the website; the .fla
is the file the author worked in while developing the piece in the Flash
authoring environment.
One of my discoveries in the proecess of analyzing his code has been the
remnants of Poundstone's creative process. For example, (and here I'm
simplifying for clarity) Poundstone's carefully arranged levels of visual
effects (1 movie per effect) have been given different numbers than the
number of the levels on which they appear in the code (e.g., the movie
"level 3" is used for effect called "level 4"), suggesting that they have
been moved in the process of creation. (Poundstone is fastidious about his
coding, as illustrated by his careful naming and numbering.) For another
example, the library of assets in the .fla also contains numbered versions
of sound files that are never used in the final .swf.
The .fla file (decompiled or original) therefore becomes a material site of
the memory of the creation of that project, a set of remnants, footprints,
of a creative process. If he had used a source repository or other version
control system, imagine how much more information would be available.
The code has become imprinted with cues for memory as well as discarded
artifacts, and perhaps this suggests one of code's larger roles as
hypomnema, as reminder. In fact, if we take into account Wendy Chun's
correction about the difference between source code and executable code,
this role of source code as reminder seems to become more primary. Consider
the role of comments, which most obviously take on this function of
reminding -- but again, I see this role more broadly across many aspects of
code from function and variable naming conventions to the structure of code
across multiple sections or methods or files to its very existence in a
level higher than machine language.
So, for now, I'd like to raise this inquiry as a question to you all as to
what is the role of source code to memory within the circulation of digital
objects. I look forward to your thoughts.
Best,
Mark
On Mon, Oct 27, 2014 at 6:00 PM, <empyre-requ...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
wrote:
> Send empyre mailing list submissions to
> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> http://lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/empyre
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> empyre-requ...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> empyre-ow...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of empyre digest..."
>
>
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Start of Week 4: Digital Objects and MEMORY (Quinn DuPont)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 20:42:49 -0300
> From: Quinn DuPont <isaac.q.dup...@gmail.com>
> To: empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> Subject: [-empyre-] Start of Week 4: Digital Objects and MEMORY
> Message-ID: <etPan.544ed879.507ed7ab.8b2@MacBookPro.local>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> For the fourth and final week of the exciting month on digital objects, I
> offer the following provocation on our theme, MEMORY:
>
> ?I hesitated // before untying the bow?? so begins William Gibson?s
> unravelling of his youth, his relationship to his father, his draft-dodging
> (Agrippa). A fitting material metaphor for a digital memory that would
> require cracking cryptographic code to untie; memory encased in code.
> Gibson?s poem is thus like our myriad digital detritus: snapshots from
> holidays, videos of cherished family events, but also ?sexting? and
> pornographic home video sent to loved ones while away (and if you are
> famous and female, subject to hacking by those cruel males at /fappening).
> But, digital objects don?t just produce mementos (an archive?as cultural
> feedback? Ernst, 2002), they also aid thought and memory, a part of the
> long history of rationalization identified by Bernard Stiegler (most
> recently, 2011;2012;2014). According to Stiegler, we?ve encountered waves
> of Weberian rationalization at the hands of digital code: the first was the
> invention of alphabetic writing, the second was the inven
> tion of printing. Similarly, in Of Grammatology Derrida was enamored by
> the discovery of other digital codes?the discovery of evolutionary memory
> in the form of DNA and the so-called cybernetic revolution with its looping
> feedback. Later, and just as famously, Derrida would point directly to the
> archive; but, with the prevalence of ?born-digital? objects, have we moved
> beyond the decidedly material, fixed sense of ?archive? as a noun
> (Kirschenbaum, 2014)? Working through this provocation, from October 26th ?
> 31st we might explore questions such as:
> * If not mementos or rationalization, how else do digital objects shape
> our mnemonic lives?
> * If ?the Internet never forgets,? how might be create an amnesiac? And
> should we?
> * The method of loci (or ?memory palace?) was an ancient mnemonic device
> that associated a discrete figure with a mental idea. To the protest of the
> ancient Greeks, this method was largely made obsolete with writing. Digital
> objects?the iPhone as outboard brain?seem to cast another stone against
> this old method, but in a post-human future, how might we resuscitate this
> form of memory??
>
>
> Our excellent discussants this week are:
>
> -Mark C. Marino-
>
> Mark C. Marino is a writer and scholar of digital literature living in Los
> Angeles. He is an Associate Professor (Teaching) at the University of
> Southern California where he directs the Humanities and Critical Code
> Studies ?(HaCCS) Lab (http://haccslab.com). His creative works include?
> ?Living Will,??
> (http://markcmarino.com/tales/livingwill.html)?
> ?a show of hands,??
> (http://hands.literatronica.net/src/initium.aspx)?
> ?Marginalia in the Library of Babel,??
> (http://www.cddc.vt.edu/journals/newriver/07Fall/marino/)?
> ?The Ballad of WorkstudySeth,??
> (http://www.springgunpress.com/markmarino/markmarino/seth/)?
> ?@occupymla,??
> (http://markcmarino.com/wordpress/?page_id=117) and?
> ?Reality: Being @spencerpratt??
> (
> http://betabeat.com/2013/01/how-the-hills-spencer-pratt-became-an-unlikely-participant-in-a-complex-piece-of-twitter-performance-art/
> ).
>
> He is an editor of Buzzademia, a Like-Reviewed scholarly journal for
> Buzzfeed-style scholarship. He was one of ten co-authors of 10 PRINT
> CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10 (http://10print.org). He is the Director of
> Communication of the Electronic Literature Organization (
> http://eliterature.org). His complete portfolio is here:
> http://markcmarino.com
>
>
> -Attila Marton-
>
> Attila Marton is an Assistant Professor in Information Management at the
> Copenhagen Business School. His overarching research interest addresses
> questions about the future of our past and the changing structure of social
> memory brought about by the particular characteristics of digital objects.?
>
>
> -Christian Pentzold-
>
> Christian is a Post-Doc researcher and lecturer at the Institute for ?
> Media Research at the Technische Universit?t Chemnitz and an Associate ?
> Researcher at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet & ?
> Society, Berlin. His work is based in communication research and ?
> sociology and it links to insights coming from economics, linguistics, ?
> socio-legal studies as well as science and technology studies. He has ?
> done research in the fields of computer-mediated communication, media ?
> policy and regulation, creative industries, media cultures as well as ?
> qualitative media analysis. Currently, his projects thus look at ?
> convergent multimodal discourse, internet-assisted cooperation, ?
> governance of digitally networked environments, mediated memories and ?
> the exploitation of entertainment programs like television formats and ?
> social games. In spring and summer 2015, Christian is going to be a ?
> Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of Culture, Media & ?
> Creative Industries, King?s College London.?
>
>
> -Sean Rupka-
>
> Sean Rupka is currently a doctoral student in the department of Political
> Science at the Graduate Center - City University New York. Focusing on the
> imbrication of trauma, memory and history, Sean?s interdisciplinary work
> draws on film, literature and historical theory to discuss the politics of
> trauma as it relates to the (in)coherence of modern subjectivity, and the
> political implications of trauma?s transmissibility. Sean has presented
> multiple times in this area, drawing from a range of films covering
> genocide and warfare, the works of Kafka, Blanchot, and Walter Benjamin
> discussing both reconciliation and legacies of resistance. He has a
> forthcoming publication on the conceptual history of philosophy.
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre mailing list
> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>
>
> End of empyre Digest, Vol 119, Issue 23
> ***************************************
>
--
Writing Program
University of Southern California
http://markcmarino.com
http://haccslab.com
_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
