----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
Much of our conversation thus far has been bound up with digital
objects/quasi-objects/objectiles. Before we wrap the week up, I’d like to
look a little more closely at (a slight reformulation of) Daniel’s last
question, namely:
*Where does our illustrious digital MATTER reside?*
At the heart of this question lies a certain amount of ambiguity regarding
how to (where to) even begin attributing materiality to the digital. From
forensics to actor networks, it is hard not to resort to the physical when
trying to account for the materiality of digital objects and processes. In
an effort to push this line of questioning beyond the physical, and drawing
upon the works of Kirschenbaum and Drucker that were cited in the
introduction, a question that I would like to put to the group is:
Is digital materiality something that can be properly accounted for if we
approach it as (merely) a matter of interpretation?
Jan’s account of digital matter and mysticism seems in some ways to espouse
this approach to materiality. I guess I wonder: if digital MATTER is a
matter of interpretation, what work does asserting this type of materiality
do for us? If, as Rollin Leonard (below) states in exasperation, is is " just
a sense that you get in your own head," is thinking and looking and
talking about it still worth it? (Of course I would side with Drucker's
reasoning behind her own engagements with materiality, but I'm wondering
what the group thinks...?!)
If digital materiality is *not* merely a matter of interpretation, then I
am lead to the following line of thought/questioning, which I am also
interested in putting forward to the group:
In a series of interviews that I recently conducted as part of my doctoral
research, several of the respondents drew upon touch, and metaphors of
touch, as a means of talking about the materiality and perceived
immateriality of the digital. Through the proliferation of haptic devices,
rising popularity of 3D printers, and increasing awareness of our
“cyborgian” status, touching “the digital” seems eminently possible. To
this end, I would like to ask the group, what role does “touch” play in
attributing materiality to the digital? How might touch be leveraged as a
means of locating the whereabouts of this material?
For those who are interested, I have included brief excerpts from
interviews that I conduced with Phil Thompson :-) and Rollin Leonard below.
These excerpts speak to the two lines of thought that I’ve picked up on
above in ways that I find particularly interesting and engaging.
Ashley – Given what you've said about the sculptural qualities of your
digital works <http://www.pjdthompson.co.uk/index.php/project/insertions/2/>,
where or what would you locate as the materials that compose these
sculptures?
Phil Thompson – I think potentially in two places. First, I think that
you're obviously dealing with an image on a screen. Even though that image
may not be material, it has a materiality that you can alter it with. This
is especially if you're talking about "curve". Also, with iPads and other
haptic things, touch - *touching the screen and touching the objects* - is
something has very much been brought back into computing. This is an
incredibly sculptural way of working with anything. Even though it's an
image, it involves a very sculptural method. Then, at the same time, I
would also locate this sculptural material as being within the file that is
saved. If I save a file in a difference format, I know that it's going to
be different and I know that its' going to, in a way, be a different thing.
It's this kind of thing-ness that is interesting to me. It occupies a
different space within a hard drive, and I know that when I open it in
different programs it's going to corrupt differently in each program. So,
there's something very unique about every file, which is exposed each time
it's opened in each program.
Ashley, in reference to Crash Kiss (2012) <http://vimeo.com/47861307> –
What would you say are the materials that you used to create this work?
Rollin Leonard – I don’t know… I guess it’s kind of hard to point to
something that’s properly material… In that work I guess I’m treating
pixels as it if they are material… yeah if there’s material in that image
it would have to be the pixels.
Ashley – LOL. Do you feel reticent to say that there’s something material
about the images?
Rollin – I don’t know – it might just be a bad definition. It reminds me of
people getting hung up on metaphors. They’ll hear a metaphor, and they’ll
confuse it for being an actual description of a process. This kind of thing
happens, for example, in the sciences when someone is trying to describe
something. Science news reporting relies heavily on metaphor to help the
general public understand scientific concepts which are abstract. […] These
analogies are useful and help you understand, but it’s just not how things
actually are. So, I wouldn’t say that there is a materiality to pixels. I
would just say that our sense of interacting with them has some analogous
feelings to moving around, like, blocks, but there’s not a real materiality
to them.
Ashley – I don’t know if you can answer this, but I’m curious to hear your
take on why not…?
Rollin’ – Well, I guess it depends on how you define materiality. If
materiality is just a sense that you get in your own head then I guess
sure, they do, but if we’re working with a more broad, or no, a more
specific, definition of what material is… I feel like blocks of Plexiglas
are material and pixels are just data that is expressed a certain way… I
guess it’s more data than it is material. OH you asked why I think that. I
don’t know how to support that, how to form an argument for that. I just, *I
can’t hold a pixel in my hand.* The way that I understand it, there’s some
kind of information held somewhere and it’s expressed as a little clusters
of red, green, and blue on a screen. The pixel itself isn’t the cluster of
light and the material isn’t the cluster of light because it goes away when
you turn off the machine. It doesn’t have a huh…I don’t know maybe I’m
being too strict about my definition of what material is… *it just doesn’t
feel right*!
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