Re: [-empyre-] Meillassoux / Harman
Dear All, Ok - so if the academic banter is to continue - lets make it somewhat jovial. @Edurado No-ones really being disrespectful or denying the importance of conceptual art. The flurry of activity both in conceptual art and it's twin contemporary; systems art was directly aimed at formalism (and especially Greenberg). So considering that OOO privileges unified objects beyond all context and relational construction, it does - in my opinion - arrive at a formalist Greenbergian standpoint where the artwork transcends its context. (in discussions with Harman earlier this year, we agreed as much, although I'm more of a Fried guy). So what I'm saying is, don't be surprised if we criticise conceptual art because of this reason. There are other links too, regarding qualities, style, irreducibility, etc., and I posted something about them here [http://robertjackson.info/index/2012/05/homemade-philosophy-bogosts-carpentry-and-greenberg/] But clearly, I'm the first to admit that any OOO/Greenberg semblance hybrid cannot repeat the traps that Greenberg found himself in. We aren't idealists. Nor do proponents of OOO privilege the type of work that the formalist critic did. We don't privilege one unit - or a set of units - and insert quality into them, rather it must work the other way round; that bad, vacuous, art without quality is the result of bad construction. What we take for being mundane, must be filled with depth, at all times - and not because of a conceptual twist of attitude which makes it so, but because all units are aesthetically equivalent. @Rob If we're still going down this route of opposing a realist flat ontology because its "market friendly", then I doubt there's anything I can say to make this conversation move forward. All I can suggest is, don't expect (or choose to not expect) a movement - which in it's current iteration is not even a few years old - to be held responsible for this or that regime of power. Yes it's fun to try and ruin those who wax lyrical about a new methods and approaches, but you can't dismiss all future iterations of what is still a very young set of approaches (I'm usually bemused in conferences when someone tells me that 'OOO is over' and then someone else says 'everyone's doing OOO' - when in reality, hardly anyones actually read any of it). Regarding Duchamp - the legacy of Duchamp isn''t just irony or negative valences, he did something more fundamental to art production, the remnants of which the mainstream artworld is unable to shake off. He brought the necessary art object into line with its contingent reception. For this, we can be thankful, but its now indirectly responsible for some of the most boring art-come-participatory-events going, precisely insofar as the art market is obsessed with making contingent spectators the standing reserve for its own mediocre games. I'm not saying that OOO has an alternative to this, (I have a few ideas) but lets, at least, see if there is one. best Rob On 28 Jun 2012, at 05:47, Eduardo Navas wrote: > Dear Ian, > > Perhaps the irony of your comment and critical position between conceptual > art and OOO is that you appear to do to conceptual art what you claim Simon > and others are doing to OOO. I would suggest that if you are to dismiss > conceptualism as you have been doing in the last few posts that you also put > the time in understanding the history of conceptual art and its importance. > Or at least be more respectful of a field that is clearly not your > specialization, and learn something from others in the process. > > Anyone who has spent enough time studying the history of contemporary art is > likely to be skeptical of your comments on conceptualsim just like you are of > other people’s questioning of OOO who are not as familiar with it as you are. > > I hope the discussion turns more insightful in the next few posts. > > Cheers, > > Eduardo Navas > > > On 6/27/12 12:11 PM, "Ian Bogost" wrote: > >> Simon, this conversation is a fool's bargain and I refuse to continue it. >> You suggest that what is worth doing—but not even doing, just reading, >> even—only *will have been* worthwhile after enough time has passed that it >> can be judged on the historical scale. This gambit amounts to a rationalist >> economics for intellectual work at best, and a terrorism against it at worst. >> >> As for OOO, you'd see the links to Latour and Heidegger even more clearly if >> and when you choose read the works that make those connections very >> explicitly. The same is true for its take on toasters. I won't hold my >> breath. >> >> Good luck with your conceptual art. >> >> Ian >> >> On Jun 27, 2012, at 3:59 AM, Simon Biggs wrote: >> >>> Hi Ian >>> >>> Maybe I'm a little old, but 10 to 15 years seems, in terms of human >>> thought, extremely recent. I have read some OOO texts though, during that >>> short period of time. I've also had a little time
Re: [-empyre-] to jacob & homay
Hi Everyone. I know this thread is closed, but I wrote this for Furtherfield for Turing's birthday - contains links to Homay's work and other articles. Forgot to tell everyone on here! [http://www.furtherfield.org/features/articles/why-arent-we-reading-turing] many thanks Rob On 16 Jun 2012, at 09:07, shu lea cheang wrote: > hi, all > > first i take a bow for much support of my work on this list. > a quick note to say, if you need to teach BRANDON, please write to guggenheim > (or me) > to obtain the password for the website, if somehow they still have not got it > back online by this fall. > a recent interview at Rhizome about this work > http://rhizome.org/editorial/2012/may/10/shu-lea-cheang-on-brandon/ > > I have been reading all the post with great interest...but was caught between > macbeth and kurosawa with Moving Forest 2012 in london. to be launched june > 22 with 12 day prelude, 12 hour performance and a CODA.http://movingforest.net > I have also invited Zach and Micha to participate in the project. (and yes, > all of you can join) > question: where/who are the queers in the insurgency? > > ah, sorry for the diversion... > > indeed, my entry here follows Zach's question, > " how Turing's scientific and computational research could be infused with > his erotic desires. " > and jacob and homay's research notes. > Speaking of non-human and turing machine, check back on Blade Runner's turing > test. > "Is this testing whether i am a replicant or a lesbian? Mr. Deckard" > Much cross references can be made here. > My own I.K.U. movie which picks up where Blade Runner left us in the elevator, > cast a transsexual to play Deckard in fully expressed (not repressed) xxx > desire. > UKI as I.K.U. sequel dumps defunct (machine/code) replicants admist code > hackers > I have been very interested in the parallel development of code/body viral > writing. > > do want to add on to Zach's virus book list also > Jussi Parrika 's 'Digital Contagions" > and Matthew Fuller's interview with JP > http://www.spc.org/fuller/interviews/jussi-parikka-interview-on-digital-contagions/ > > thanks all > quite notes for now > > sl > > > > > > ___ > empyre forum > empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au > http://www.subtle.net/empyre ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] to jacob & homay
Hey all, I'm really sorry if I'm slightly hijacking the thread here, but I too have been working with Turing in my thesis on the non-human formalisation of computability theory. I would be extremely interested to hear more from Homay's article on this (I consider myself as a bit of layman when it comes to queer theory, so please put up with my ignorance!) I really, really would love to hear these positions. I work in the digital aesthetics, SR/OOO and computer science, so this thread is like a candy shop for me. In fact my thesis (should I ever get it finished) is about how issues like the uncomputable, undecidability and other unsolvable problems factor into aesthetic works, and how it does so implicitly or explicitly. My contribution (or intervention as one would put it) is to suggest that undecidability - or Turing's formulation of the decision problem - is more general than is usually advertised in computer science. It occurs not just between humans aping for knowledge from some homogenous totality that is 'computation', but is everpresent in-between formal language systems themselves. It is not just the case that human knowledge has little complete mastery of computation; even computable systems have no mastery over other computable systems such is the complexity of them. Networks do not operate as fluid modes of informal flux; they are creaky and impure formal systems, comprised of modular compositions, operatively rubbing against others. Uncomputability in-between formal systems of an equivalent language is the reason as to why glitches and especially viruses occur - its linked to what the exploit programmer Halvar Flake recently called the "weird machine" - A weird machine is the unexpected state of a computing system which was not expected nor intended by the original author, but is nonetheless algorithmically recognisable in the formal language. If a language is shown to be undecidable, its permanently ambiguous, and thus it will always recognise something it can never expect/compute. I have more detailed thoughts regarding this in a recent talk for those interested: [http://robertjackson.info/index/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/particmaterial.pdf] It seems to me that human rationality is usually pitted in contrast with machines which are viewed either as; dumb surface tools reduced to the depths of human communication - or - artificial systems which (may) have the capacity for sentience - or - material based historical notation devices. Why aren't they just looked as what they are and all the weirdness they contain? We shouldn't be too quick to align some previous philosophical system or political agenda and use it to dissect something or other - I think it's much more fruitful (and dare I say more honest) to build a philosophical system from the weirdness of things and systems. I read Turing along these lines; a great philosopher, not just a great mathematician and engineer, A lot of popular literature (Martin Davis for instance) likes to separate the decision problem from Turing's later work on machinic intelligence (the Turing test is about the interrogator failing to decide on an input query!) and his forays into morphogenesis - but I don't think this can be done - I think the surprising irreducible quality of machines emerges throughout the Turing corpus. I don't really have an opinion regarding the links between Turing's sexuality and his work, but I do find it interesting that Turing's original formulation of the Turing test, was an interrogator trying to decide which messages were from a man or a woman (and then you substitute the man for the machine leaving the undecidable choice between a machine and a woman). I'll stop - wrote too much again - sorry thanks for hosting this important thread - look forward to the contributing debate. best Rob I think the important element here, especially when one is talking about viruses, glitches On 15 Jun 2012, at 18:14, micha cárdenas wrote: > Here's one of those videos we're submitting to MIX that is part of Shu > Lea Cheang's viral code spam performance: > > https://vimeo.com/37978993 > > > On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 10:08 AM, Zach Blas wrote: >> hi all-- >> >> i’ve also been busy with micha putting together a curated set of >> videos for mix nyc, a queer experimental video festival. >> >> since this week is broadly on the topic of computation and the >> nonhuman in queer media art & theory--and since it’s the last day on >> this topic, i’d really like to bring in jacob and homay. while >> michael, jack, and ian have really heated up the discussions on sr and >> ooo, homay and jacob have different approaches to these topics that >> i’d like to not let get completely side-lined. >> >> jacob, micha and i for awhile have been interested in viruses. i was >> thinking about viruses in relation to your work on uncomputability. in >> the exploit, galloway and thacker talk about viruses
Re: [-empyre-] Search, privacy, data - the abuse of encapsulation
Hey all, Thanks for the comments Gabriel. > <<< encapsulation and the broader one of abstraction, which is inevitable > for dealing with computational complexity (and complexity in general). > Taking this into account, could the issue be not only technical or > political, but also epistemological? > > Is there any way of circumventing the forced removal of complexity of > a system if this removal is what makes it understandable (operational, > engageable) as the system in the first place? > > Is it practical for the users to take control of abstractions > themselves (e.g. choosing what and how to encapsulate)? Or does it > suffice to build up awareness about them?>>> [GABRIEL] I should have mentioned the other three properties of OOP alongside encapsulation. As Gabriel states there is abstraction, which is indeed quite broad, but also inheritance and polymorphism. OOP in essence is simply constructing new forms of methods and algorithms from old parts, like a dumping field and then making those parts discrete to aid a stable system. Abstraction is highly accountable too in it's own way. It is the programmatic representation of an object (say a data set which can be recalled in SQL of a list of employees, only certain features of the employees are recorded to modify in the system) in so far as only a certain modification of the instantiated object actually exists. This definitely brings up epistemological issues in terms of how human intelligence takes representational advantages of certain features, while excluding others in some Heideggerian way I suppose. There is a political issue in terms of how companies and users who use systems to abstract certain features worth knowing about, are always relying on those abstractions from day one. There are technical issues as well as issues concerning knowledge. But its worth pointing out with encapsulation one other important detail that does not concern human influence (at least not always). OOP encapsulation is constructed so that the content of the software object is not only hidden from human users, but also from other software objects too. The entire thing is discrete, and so other parts of the system can also be hidden from others within the same system. If one wishes to enact political action engineering surprises within systems (which I would wholeheartedly endorse) one could approach a OOP methodology this way. What surprises are lurking in between technical systems, rather than just relationships between human communicative culture and a computer? Taking control means understanding at arms length, because the computer does the actual work. The bits are the bits. "Understanding" in some ways is always already a computational act in the form of an abstraction, trying to compress phenomena down to a few stable ideas. > What role does the removal of complexity of the system at hand plays > in its alienation from circuits of > productions-distribution-consumption – all the while inscribing it in > its own history of programmed obsolescence (an older iPhone being > always shittier than a newer one)? Obsolescence is quite a hot topic at the moment, especially for media archaeologists (or anarchaeologists) and those interested in creative uses of old technology. It's odd, because the founding gesture of discovering computation is one of a general purpose in universal terms. A computer is a fixed system which can be programmed to simulate any corresponding machine. This is a separate topic though which is beyond a simple commentary. The point I'd like to finish with though (and it links into Tero's previous reply) is that there is a big big difference between heavily encapsulated programs or software and heavily encapsulated programs or software that tell you its the right way of doing things, via its encapsulation. Apple's products are exemplars which do just that IMO. This isn't a new thing either, Apple have been preaching their 'correct' way using technologies since the Macintosh; Here's the right way to print this, here's the right way of sharing things on Facebook. Everything is so clean, so fresh and useable. The design ethos is a religion. Jobs was explicit, and unabashedly fascist about this, "We know the best way of doing this, that's why you buy our products - be honest." This is why humans are so sanguine, unfortunately iPhones do work really well, because the infrastructure of the recreational and working world require it to. This requires more than an active interest when the veil slips from time to time. Remember the Apple motto from the late Steve Jobs? "It just works!" We should all be more interested in the motto Apple usually neglects to say, i.e they never say "Here's how it works." best Rob On 29 Feb 2012, at 14:34, Gabriel Menotti wrote: > And finally, trying to stretch “encapsulation” in different directions: > >> Whilst others disagree, I am of the opinion that >> computing
Re: [-empyre-] Search, privacy, data - the abuse of encapsulation
Hi All, It's a sincere pleasure to be having this discussion with like-minded people. A thousand thanks to Gabriel for the invitation. I'll follow on from Tero's wonderful introduction and Andy's fantastic follow-up with ten quick points (technical, historical and theoretical) of my own concerning the unsettling privatisation of platforms. 1.) Platform applications have become the primary mode of accessing online information and communication in recent years. However, they are increasingly characterised by the forced removal of complexity implemented through the logic of encapsulation that closes off access to source code. This is an old story. 2.) In Object Oriented Programming, 'encapsulation' is defined as a paradigmatic logic which programmers use to conceal functions and methods which in turn restrict a user's access to the program's units. Although it didn't originate with OOP, it's original purpose was to prevent a computer program from bugs, exterior abuse, and it's environment. As computers (especially personal ones) became increasingly more complex, encapsulation methods were required to 'encapsulate' that complexity so the user need not be concerned with the inner workings of the program in question. Think of a cashpoint machine; when we wish to take our money out of the machine, we're not expecting to witness the nefarious complexities of someone transferring numbers, hardwiring physical money to our hand, understanding the interest gained on that account, etc ; the interface closes off certain functions that do not need to be made public, so that the user has a simple experience and saves time in the use of that program. This is why the rise of OOP is linked with GUI's. 3.) In the last 25 years or so the logic of encapsulation has been fundamentally and consistently abused for the sake of proprietary benefit. This is a major problem. 4.) The problem here is not encapsulation per se (even open source software is encapsulated) but the abuse to which it is subjected. Paraphrasing Dymtri Kleiner, an artist many of you may know, the issue isn't technical but political. Whilst others disagree, I am of the opinion that computing is an independent real process: it is not the logic of encapsulation which is the issue, but its proprietary use and abuse which should worry the masses. Don't blame the algorithms themselves! 5.) Tero's introduction highlights a major update of this abuse. Proprietary interfaces are incredible ideological pieces of machinery, designed to conceal necessary methods and functions away from the user. It doesn't matter if Google start spouting off self-congratuatory throws of "This stuff matters", the abuse of encapsulation for proprietary benefit already puts the user in a lower ground position in the technical sense, It's been going on for years. Making the interface more personable and user friendly like most other functions of encapsulation, is designed to save the user time and direct attention away from their abuse. 6.) Following Zizek, the worst part about this entire level of abuse is that, most of the target market already know they are being abused. Human animals in the Western world are very sanguine creatures. We must never forget that, nor start beating ourselves up about it. There is an even more fundamental theoretical reason as to why ideology works so well in this forced removal of complexity, but suffice to say this is a philosophical conversation best left elsewhere (unless someone wants to know - in essence, the interface isn't just a technical feature of human existence). 7.) The forced removal of complexity works for the proprietor (and never the consumer) and this occurs in three main principles which need attention (I'll end on these three issues). 8.) Data mining: The first principle concerns the production of public data; the public 'waste' so to speak. Private data is purged from the ideological interfaces we deal with day in, day out, because the logic of encapsulation is to conceal the private as per the programmer's intention. One way of making the consequences of this abuse visible to users, is to highlight what will happen when such large private databases are made public. This is always some danger attached to large companies holding private data of ours, not so much in the proprietary abuse, but the heightened fallout when that data is unexpectedly released in public, or has become lost. The impact of private data (and it's sheer volume) is becoming more and more insecure, and this should worry us. But again this is linked to our sanguine nature. 9.) Infrastructure, complexity and use: The problem with iPhones is that they aren't shitty enough. Again, this is linked to the logic of encapsulation, and the ability to save us time, as per the Western infrastructure of career enforcement and obsession with social attention 'sharing'. Platforms are part and parcel of this simplifi
