"content":"Note: This text is almost identical with the essay \"Software Art and Writing\"\nwhich, just as McKenzie Wark's essay \"Codework\",ispartoftherecent\nissueoftheAmericanBookReview,vol.22,no.6.Itwaswrittenby\nUlrikeGabrielandmeasaretrospectivereflectionofourworkinthe\njuryforthetransmediale.01softwareartaward.\n\nItisavailableonlineinHTML,PDF,LaTeX&plaintextformatsat\n<http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~cantsin/homepage/index.html#software_art_-_transmediale>\n\n\n-FC\n\n....\n\n\nSoftware Art\n\nFlorian Cramer and Ulrike Gabriel\n\nAugust 15, 2001\n\n\nWhat is software art? How can ``software'' be generally defined? We had to\nanswer these questions at least provisionally when we were asked to be with the\nartist-programmer John Simon jr. in the jury of the ``artistic software'' award\nfor the transmediale.01 art festival in Berlin, Germany.\n\nSince more than a decade, festivals, awards, exhibitions and publications exist\nfor various forms of computer art: computer music, computer graphics,\nelectronic literature, Net Art and computer-controlled interactive\ninstallations, to name only a few, each of them with its own institutions and\ndiscourse. Classifications like the above show that attention is usually being\npaid to how, i.e. in which medium, digital artworks present themselves to the\naudience, externally. They also show that digital art is traditionally\nconsidered to be a part of ``[new] media art,'' a term which covers analog and\ndigital media alike and is historically rooted in video art. But isn't it a\nfalse assumption that digital art - i.e. art that consists of zeros and ones -\nwas derived from video art, only because computer data is conventionally\nvisualized on screens?\n\nBy calling digital art ``[new] media art,'' public perception has focused the\nzeros and ones as formatted into particular visual, acoustic and tactile media,\nrather than structures of programming. This view is reinforced by the fact that\nthe algorithms employed to generate and manipulate computer music, computer\ngraphics, digital text are frequently if not in most cases invisible, unknown\nto the audience and the artist alike. While the history of computer art still\nis short, it is rich with works whose programming resides in black boxes or is\nconsidered to be just a preparatory behind-the-scenes process for a finished\n(and finite) work on CD, in a book, in the Internet or in a ``realtime\ninteractive'' environment. The distribution of John Cage's algorithmically\ngenerated sound play ``Roarotorio,'' for example, includes a book, a CD and\nexcerpts of the score, but not even a fragment of the computer program which\nwas employed to compute the score.\n\nWhile software, i.e. algorithmic programming code, is inevitably at work in all\nart that is digitally produced and reproduced, it has a long history of being\noverlooked as artistic material and as a factor in the concept and aesthetics\nof a work. This history runs parallel to the evolution of computing from\nsystems that could only be used by programmers to systems like the Macintosh\nand Windows which, by their graphical user interface, camouflaged the mere fact\nthat they are running on program code, in their operation as well as in their\naesthetics. Despite this history, we were surprised that the 2001 transmediale\naward for software art was not only the first of its kind at this particular\nart festival, but as it seems the first of its kind at all.\n\nWhen the London-based digital arts project I/O/D released an experimental World\nWide Web browser, the Web Stalker http://www.backspace.org/iod/, in 1997, the\nwork was perceived to be a piece of Net Art. Instead of rendering Web sites as\nsmoothly formatted pages, the Web Stalker displayed their internal control\ncodes and visualized their link structure. By making the Web unreadable in\nconventional terms, the program made it readable in its underlying code. It\nmade its users aware that digital signs are structural hybrids of internal code\nand
"content":"(The following review was commissed by MUTE and will appear in the\nforthcoming MUTE issue, see <http://www.metamute.com>. Josephine Berry\nhas my cordial thanks for editing the text into proper English. The MUTE\npeople were so kind to let me speak about literature and systems theory\non a panel with Robert Coover and Jeff Noon at Tate Modern. See\n<http://www.metamute.com/events/mutetate08042001.htm> for the details.\n-FC)\n\n\n\nCODE: Chances and Obstacles in the Digital Ecology\n\n\nThe recent Cambridge conference CODE amounted to more than a\nstraightforward expansion of its acronym into - in computereze - its\nexecutable \"Collaboration and Ownership in the Digital Economy\". It\nactually got some of its participants collaborating. The most interesting\nidea regarding collaboration came as an off-the-cuff remark from\nJames Boyle, professor of law at Duke University, who compared the\nrecent interest in open digital code to environmentalism. The first\nenvironmental activists were scattered and without mutual ties, Boyle\nsaid, because the notion of 'the environment' did not yet exist. It had\nto be invented before it could be defended.\n\nAfter two packed days of presentations, it could well be that the\nvirus will spread and make artists, activists and scholars in digital\nculture associate 'IP' with 'Intellectual Property' rather than 'Internet\nProtocol', whether they like it or not. Unlike many Free Software/Open\nSource events with their occasional glimpses at the cultural implications\nof open code, the CODE programme covered the free availability and\nproprietary closure of information in the most general terms setting it\ninto a broad disciplinary framework which included law, literature, music,\nanthropology, astronomy and genetics. Free Software has historically\ntaught people that even digitised images and sounds run on code. But\nthat this code is speech which can be locked into proprietary schemes\nsuch as patents and shrinkwrap licenses, thereby decreasing freedom of\nexpression, is perhaps only beginning to dawn on people. John Naughton,\nmoderator of the panel on \"The Future of Knowledge\",illustratedthis\nsituationbydescribinghow,intheUSatleast,itisillegaltowear\nT-ShirtsorrecitehaikuscontainingthefewsourcecodewordsofDeCSS,\naprogramwhichbreaksthecryptographyschemeofDVDmovies.\n\nThereislittleawarenessthatanypieceofdigitaldata,whetheran\naudioCD,avideogameoracomputeroperatingsystemsissimplyanumber\nandthateverynewcopyrighteddigitalworkreducestheamountoffreely\navailablenumbers.Whiledigitaldata,justlikeanytext,canbeparsed\narbitrarilyaccordingtoalanguageordataformat(thefourletters\ng-i-f-t,forexample,parseasasynonymfor'present'inEnglish,butas\n'poison'inGerman),thecopyrightingofdigitaldataimpliesthatthere\nisonlyoneauthoritativeinterpretationofsigns.Thezerosandonesof\nMicrosoftWordarelegallyconsideredaWindowsprogramandthussubject\ntoMicrosoft's licensing, although they could just as well be seen as\na piece of concrete poetry when displayed as alphanumeric code or as\nmusic when burned onto an audio CD. The opposite is also true: no-one\ncan rule out that the text of, say, Shakespeare'sHamletcannotbeparsed\nandcompiledintoapieceofsoftwarethatinfringessomebody'spatents.\n\nThelegalexpertsspeakingatCODEalsoexplainedtheenormousexpansion\ninintellectualpropertyrightsinthelastfewyears.Whilepatentsare\nwidelyknowntoconflictwiththefreedomofresearchandevenwiththe\nfreedomtowriteinprogramminglanguages,theconferencenevertheless\nextendeditsfocusbeyondthisandmadeitsparticipantsawareofIP\nrightsasthenegativesubtexttowhatwasonceconsideredthepromiscuous\ntextualityoftheInternet.Still,itwassurprisingtoseespeakerswith\nverydiverseacademicandprofessionalbackgroundspositionthemselvesso\nunanimouslyagainstthecurrentstateofIPrights.Inanotherinformal\nre
"content":"\n> July/August 'Theme of the Month':\n>\n> Software as art\n>\n> If your artwork is 'software that does something' (such as Mongrel's\n> 'Linker' software) then what issues are involved? Do curators get it?\n> Is it 'enabling others', or artwork in itself? How do you 'show' or\n> distribute it? What about 'user support'?\n\nas a start, you can take a look at\n\nhttp://www.transmediale.de/01/en/software.htm\n\nwhich has the jury statement and nominated projects of the competition for\nsoftware art at this year's transmediale festival.\n\nthe competition for transmediale.02 in february 2002 is underway.\n\ngreetings,\n-a\n\n\n------------------------------------------------\nAndreas Broeckmann - [log in to unmask]\ntransmediale - Klosterstr.68-70 - 10179 Berlin\ntel. 030-247219-07 (fax -09) www.transmediale.de",
"content":"\n>Ittai Bar-Joseph\n...\n>Aren't the definitions and \"regulations\" involving the use of a software\n>artwork part of the concept?\n>If so, is it possible / neccesary / advisable to form a set of rules that\n>define the way software art be dealt with?\n\nas with any artistic practice, fixed rules would not help, but an exchange\nof experiences and a comparison of conditions might help to create a good\nand informed curatorial practice.\n\nsoftware art is only just coming into focus, so it is early days to\ndescribe, let alone critique its presentation. we have developed a\ndescription of software art for the transmediale competition that excludes\napplications of software like director or shockwave; what is interesting in\nsoftware are, in my view, is that it is an artistic practice that takes\ncode as its material and that uses programming as a way to 'shape' the\ncode. the result can be open, algorithmic processes that articulate the\nrigid and the open dimensions of digital processes, they can highlight the\ntechnical or the socio-cultural dimensions of technology and do this in the\nvery 'language' of the digital machines themselves. software might be the\nultimate medium of creativity in a digital environment.\n\nbesides the transmediale.01 site, some examples of software art can be found on\ndigital_is_not_analog.01 - http://www.d-i-n-a.org\n\nReena Jana: Real Artists Paint by Numbers\nhttp://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,44377,00.html\n\n\ngreetings,\n-a",
"content":"\nAndreas Broeckmann wrote:\n\n> we have developed a description of software art for the transmediale competition\n> that excludes\n> applications of software like director or shockwave;\n\nOn what basis was this decision made?\nToday Director is a tool which enables the creation of professional software.\nI think many people (developers included) still refer to Director as an\ninteractive animation / games\napplication, and are quite ignorant when it comes to the more interesting and new\nfeatures that are\nscarcely in use yet. With today's \"imaging lingo\" (new features added in Director\n8), it's possible to\ncreate a Photoshop-like application from scratch.\nCheers,\nIttai.",
"content":"\nAndreas referenced the Reena Jana text in Wired.com. I organized the\nrecent panel and performance event called \"Artists and their Software\" that\nReena's text references, and so this month's topic strikes me as\nparticularly relevant.\n\nThe event went very well. A comment from the audience, however, stuck out\nas something that seems to be a central shortcoming. Many choose to look\nat the coding and the programming and the \"how to\" aspects of\nart-as-software, often overlooking the immensely fertile territory that can\nbe addressed through a broader look at the phenomenon: why is it important?\nWhat implications do this trend have on our general understanding of what\nart-making is all about? How do the values/strategies/principles that\nart-as-software maintain affect the way in which artists and audiences\nunderstand art? Many more broad questions come to mind: why are artists\nattracted to software? How does their awareness of software, and its\navailability, influence their art-making strategies? How do institutions\nneed to respond to this growing interest? Is incorporating software nothing\nmore than a technology fetish? More specific concerns can arise: what\nhappens to \"improvisation\"? How is the notion of chance incorporated in\nthis type of art? What happens to the \"aura\"? What are the boundaries of\nsoftware as an art-making medium? How can artists involve their audiences\nwith software? Can one talk about software-generated art as ever being\n\"finished\"? Do software artists have to be programmers? What is the social\nlife of software?\n\nThe algorithm seems to replace the creative will of the artist, in many\ncases. This is exciting to me not because it is technologically marvelous,\nbut because of what this implies in how the artist and the audience\nunderstand each other.\n\nSoftware is a set of rules. It is the grammar within which a vocabulary of\ncomputer code makes sense. As British sociologist Anthony Giddens has\npointed out, we understand our reality as already existing and seek to\nwrite scenarios that allow us to act out a role within that reality. The\nsoftware seems to be the scenario, but it relies on users to act it out.\n\n\nWhat makes software come alive is precisely its social life: how these set\nof instructions are interpreted and enacted. And understanding this\nprocess of interpretation, of behavior, can fill up pages and pages.\n\nI look forward to more postings this month... thank you!\n\n\nAnthony Huberman\nDirector of Education and Public Programs\nP.S.1 Contemporary Art Center\n22-25 Jackson Ave\nLong Island City, NY 11101\n718.784.2084 ext.24\n[log in to unmask]\nwww.ps1.org",
"content":"\nA few glancing ideas...\n\nMany choose to look\n>at the coding and the programming and the \"how to\" aspects of\n>art-as-software, often overlooking the immensely fertile territory that can\n>be addressed through a broader look at the phenomenon: why is it important?\n\nThere are two views I can think of regarding the use of software as art - one\napplies to off-the-shelf, the other to hand-coded... To me, programs like\nPhotoshop offer few real opportuntiies to redefine its own kind of\ninteractivity, so I relegate it to the category of 'tool', rather than\n'expression'.\n\nI think for one that there are functions and aspects of the technonlgies that\nare not being addressed by off-the shelf software. This is the programming\nargument. There are larger threads here such as engagement with the technical\npart of the electronic culture, which has its own fascinating set of protocols.\n\n\n>What implications do this trend have on our general understanding of what\n>art-making is all about?\n\nWell, it's merely an extension of craft placed within the immaterial milieu if\ncomputers, yes? It's very funny that a great deal of excitement is based\naround artists makign their own code. It is a direct attempt to break with the\ncommonly held public perception that computers are easy and cheap, and thus so\nis the art created with them. Many times I have gotten the \"How long does it\ntake you to create that?\" question.\n\nThis is a very Marxist question. Much of commodification of art has to do with\nuse value ascribed to the degree of labor expended.\n\nIt's an attempt to translate craft to the digital.\n\nMany more broad questions come to mind: why are artists\n>attracted to software?\n\nI'm not sure what you're getting at here. To use a computer, you have to have\nit. It's the yin to the yang of chips. As to why artists are drawn to code, I\nthink it's a tug of war between the traditional breaking of extant boundaries\n(or at least pushing them, which is a ubiquitous theme in art since Modernism)\nand the necessity of having to create code to get a computer to do what you\nwant it to do.\n\nMyself, I tend to be modular in combining functions of many off the shelf\nprograms. So, in this respect, I would count myself as a hybrid under my own\nrubric; a pastiche artist in regards to code.\n\n\n\n\n\nHow does their awareness of software, and its\n>availability, influence their art-making strategies?\n\nI think it's quite relevant to how the work is contextualized in regard to the\nmedium (digital technologies).\n\nHow do institutions\n>need to respond to this growing interest?\n\nFirst, the audience for this art is pretty much a niche at this time. For\nexample, there are a LOT of people out there who still do not know how to\ncreate a folder on their hard drive (trust me), and to them, this art is\nlargely meaningless, or the subtleties are lost.\n\nSecondly, the institution (in my experience with it) is trying to update\nitself, but for the most part, lags far behind the artists. Until recently,\nthe Smithsonian servers only had RealServer 2.0 (we're at something like v.7\nnow). Also, the technical support for the work is quite specialized, which\ncompounds the problems.\n\nShould an institution have a highly trained tech staff for a relatively small\ncollection, or subcontract? What are the relative costs, logistics, etc?\n\nIs incorporating software nothing\n>more than a technology fetish?\n\nNO.\n\n\n\n\n\nMore specific concerns can arise: what\n>happens to \"improvisation\"?\n\nThat'sdependentlargelyuponthemodeofexpression.Inthecaseofoff-the\nshelfsoftware,themodeofimprovistiedtofindingnovelusesforextant\nfunctions,andinthecaseofcoding,thenoveltyofcodecraftandfinding\ninterestingwaystoweavetheconceptintothecode,\n\nTomethisisaveryimportantpoint,formuchofthispost,itseemsthatthe\nconversationhasbeencenteredaroundtechniqueandproduction,andNOT\nCONTENT.Thisisthetechnolpolicdistraction.Inmyopin
"content":"\nsomeofthequestionsthatwereraisedinrelationtomypostinghave\nalreadybeenansweredbyothers,soiwilltrytobebriefwithsomemore\nresponses:\n\nAnthony:\n>Thealgorithmseemstoreplacethecreativewilloftheartist,inmany\n>cases.Thisisexcitingtomenotbecauseitistechnologicallymarvelous,\n>butbecauseofwhatthisimpliesinhowtheartistandtheaudience\n>understandeachother.\n\nformeitisalsointerestingbecausethemachinicprocessthatdevelops\nfromthealgorithmreducestheaspectofintentionalityfromtheartistic\nprocessandputsanautopoieticmachineprocessinitsplace;theaesthetic\ndimensionthenliesnotinthefactthattheeffectis'beautiful'orthe\ncodeisfunctionalor'beautifully written'.aswithanyartisticpractice,\ntherecanbedifferentaestheticmodesaccordingtowhichworksor\nprocessescanbejudged.forme,theoscillationbetweencontroland\nidiosyncracyinacomputer,thissupposedlyprecisemachine,isclosely\nlinkedtotheaestheticexperienceofaworkofsoftwareart.toobserve\nhowthecomputersingsitselftosleep,orgoesintoamindlessdelirium.\nanexampleisAntoineSchmitt's Vexation 1, a programme that sends a small\nwhite ball across a black rectangle, finely balanced between a rule pattern\nand randomness. (http://www.gratin.org/as)\n\n\n>> definition that excludes applications of software like director or\n>>shockwave;\n\nIttai:\n>On what basis was this decision made?\n\nthe idea was to give an award to a piece of original software, rather than\nto an application of software that exists as a commercial product. Susan\nmight be right that there is a 'crafts' idea behind this. another aspect is\nthat we aim to encourage open source projects, rather than the promotion of\nclosed and proprietary softwares. director and shockwave are owned by\ncompanies that can choose to withdraw their product from the market any\nday, making it illegal for people to continue running their scripts. this\nis, obviously, a ludicrous situation, and it cannot happen to you when you\nare using free software.\n\n\n>> How do you 'show' or distribute it?\n\nDave:\n>To interpret this literally: In a code development environment or simulator\n>where you can step forward, halt and continue the instruction sequence and\n>watch what happens?\n>\n>If the idea is to establish that software is an Art form then it would be\n>logical to show it in a similar context and way as other Art: eg in some\n>kind of special space which invokes the necessary awe and aura; in a\n>museum/gallery - virtual or otherwise.\n\ni disagree. long, long gone are the days when you needed an auratic space\nto present something as art - this idea misses the point of a lot of art\nfrom the last 100 years, and we should not continue to buy into the myth.\n'otherArt' also gets shown elsewhere.\n\nDave'sfirstquestionisinterestingandgetsus,ithink,tothecoreof\ntheproblemofsoftwareartforacuratorialpractice.manypaintingsare\nmadetobedisplayedonthewallofagallery,oranoffice,orachurch.\ntheymakesensethere,andtheysometimessufferwhentheyaredisplayed\noutofcontext,somealsowin,butthereoftenisalogictotherelation\nbetweenanartworkandtheenvironmentwhereitisshown.\n\nhow,then,doyou'exhibit'aprocessthatrunsonatinyprocessor?Daniel\nGarciaAndujarrecentlyprintedoutthesourcecodeoftheI-Love-Youvirus\nanddisplayeditonagallerywallinDortmund\n(http://www.irational.org/tttp) - this is obviously just an ironic gesture.\na piece like Vexation 1 you can show on an IMac, it keeps running endlessly\nand is designed as a more or less self-explanatory work. in Adrian Ward's\nSignwave Auto-Illustrator (http://www.signwave.co.uk), the best way to\nexperience it is to interact with the programme on a regular PC which can\nbut need not be your own. pieces by JODI and nn are probably best\nexperinced on your own machine because they play with your emotional\nattachments to what's
"content":"\nAndreas Broeckmann says that\n>software art is only just coming into focus, so it is early days to\n>describe, let alone critique its presentation.\n\nWhile I would agree that it is only just being appreciated in its own right\n(software as art), and it is great that Transmediale have acknowledged this\nart form, aren't there examples of artists developing their own computer\nsoftware during the 20th century which give precedents for making,\nappreciating and exhibiting this kind of work?\n\nThere is a danger that if this 'lost history' of artists programming\ncomputers is not rediscovered, that their multiple and different strategies\nand approaches will be ignored in favour of a more singular definition.\n\nAlso, why was their work not appreciated? Why did it fail to, or succeed in\nfitting into the art world context? Did the artists want it to fit into\nthis context or were they trying to _engineer_ a new kind of context for\ntheir work?\nAs Anthony Huberman puts it:\n>What makes software come alive is precisely its social life: how these set\n>of instructions are interpreted and enacted.\n\nAs such, I really like the critique of different pieces of software & how\nto see them by AB:\n>the best way to\n>experience it is to interact with the programme on a regular PC which can\n>but need not be your own. pieces by JODI and nn are probably best\n>experinced on your own machine because they play with your emotional\n>attachments to what's on it.\n\nWhile appreciating that Transmediale is about what is happening *now*, I\njust wanted to make this point within the broader curating new media\ncontext.\n\nbest wishes\n\nSarah\n\nhttp://www.content-type.org.uk\n~~~~~~format=\"flowed\"",
"content":"\nSo far we have only discussed conventional forms of software eg code\nexecuted as a series of instructions (with fixed conditions for branching),\ndigital states of on/off, logical states true/false etc. This provides\noutput which is entirely predictable (given that you know the input).\n\nMight it be that we could also look to the domains of fuzzy logic and\nNeural Networks or Artificial Intelligence in search of software as Art?\n\nThese technologies allow for grey and uncertain states and produce 'code'\nwhich behaves more like biological systems than adding machines. Such\nsystems can be given the ability to learn and adapt. Their output is not\nentirely predictable.\n\nDave\n\n\nDavid Franklin\nGallery Computing and Electronics\nNational Museum of Photography Film & Television\nBradford, Yorks , UK. BD1 1NQ\nTel: 01274 203389\n\n\n\n\n********************************************************************\nThis e-mail and attachments are intended for the named\naddressee only and are confidential. If you have received\nthis e-mail in error please notify the sender immediately,\ndelete the message from your computer system and\ndestroy any copies. Any views expressed in this message\nare those of the individual sender and may not reflect the\nviews of the National Museum of Science & Industry.\n\nThe NMSI website can be found at http://www.nmsi.ac.uk\n*********************************************************************",
"content":"\nAndreas Broeckmann wrote:\n\n> that we aim to encourage open source projects, rather than the promotion of\n> closed and proprietary softwares. director and shockwave are owned by\n> companies that can choose to withdraw their product from the market any\n> day, making it illegal for people to continue running their scripts. this\n> is, obviously, a ludicrous situation, and it cannot happen to you when you\n> are using free software.\n\nWhat exactly do you mean by 'making it illegal for people to continue running\ntheir scripts'? Do you maybe mean impossible rather then illegal? This sounds so\nstrange to me. And if the makers of director et al choose to withdraw their\nsoftware from the market that does not mean it cannot be used anymore, does it?\nIt would not make sense to sell people software that would become illegal to use\nonce the company does not produce any packets of it (and updates of it) any\nmore. Transmediale's choice for open source projects is a political statement\nand a kind of aesthetic choice too maybe.Your above argumentation against the\nother art codes does not seem to make much sense to me. Or is there more?\n\n\ngreetsz\n\n\n\nJ\n*",
"content":"\n>Andreas Broeckmann wrote:\n>\n>> that we aim to encourage open source projects, rather than the promotion of\n>> closed and proprietary softwares. director and shockwave are owned by\n>> companies that can choose to withdraw their product from the market any\n>> day, making it illegal for people to continue running their scripts. this\n>> is, obviously, a ludicrous situation, and it cannot happen to you when you\n>> are using free software.\n>\n>What exactly do you mean by 'making it illegal for people to continue running\n>their scripts'? Do you maybe mean impossible rather then illegal? This\n>sounds so\n>strange to me. And if the makers of director et al choose to withdraw their\n>software from the market that does not mean it cannot be used anymore,\n>does it?\n>It would not make sense to sell people software that would become illegal\n>to use\n>once the company does not produce any packets of it (and updates of it) any\n>more. Transmediale's choice for open source projects is a political statement\n>and a kind of aesthetic choice too maybe.Your above argumentation against the\n>other art codes does not seem to make much sense to me. Or is there more?\n\nhi josephine,\nthere are people who can explain this much better than i can, but i suggest\nyou read either the software license agreements that most of us click OK\nwithout checking, or the stuff that Richard Stallman has written about\nthese things (www.gnu.org/philosophy); the point is that with most software\nyou buy not the code, but the right to limited usage; that is also why you\nare not allowed to pass it on to friends or copy it - the code is not\nyours, you just pay for the right to use it. that whole legal field is\ncompletely crazy!! read stallman, he is also entertaining.\n\ngreetings,\n-a",
"content":"\nI've only been skimming this one...but I agree with Sarah Thomson when she\nsays\n\n\"There is a danger that if this 'lost history' of artists programming\ncomputers is not rediscovered, that their multiple and different strategies\nand approaches will be ignored in favour of a more singular definition.\"\n\nIt seems that there are (again) so many different kinds of art/and artists\nintentions within this particular thread. For one you have artists such as\nDavid Rokeby...who creates all his own hard and software for his work...but\nwith works such as his Very Nervous System, has also built it as an\narchitecture (both soft and hardware versions) for other artists to use in\ntheir own way - and stretch etc...an 'open system' or sturcture is you\nlike....\nand then there are other artists or groups such as IOD with Webstalker where\nthe very fact that it IS a piece of software is fundamental to its\ncontext/existence et al...\n\nand in answer to Sarah re. examples of artists earlier in the 20th C its worth\nmentioning\nthe artist Harold Cohen who for over 30 years has been developing software to\nthink about drawing/painting the way he thinks about drawing and painting (for\nthose of you not familiar, Harold was a very well known painter in the 60's\nand then moved to the states - san diego now - and has worked with computers\never since)...his philosophy is very much that the program is the artwork, but\nthe program also generates its own artwork (Harold has been present within a\nlot of AI discussion etc etc)...according to Harolds own rules and principles.\nFar fropm being ignored etc...Harold has had shows in many major museums\n(incl. major retrospective at the Tate in London 1983)...and was quite\nvociferous in opposition to artists using readymade software (as opposed to\nwriting their own) when i first met him back in the late 80's...it would be\ninteresting to know his position on this now.....\n\nbest\n\nSusan Collins\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n-- -- dr susan\nhttp://www.susan-collins.net\nhttp://www.inhabited.net",
"content":"\nThis email was delivered to you by The Free Internet,\na Business Online Group company. http://www.thefreeinternet.net\n---------------------------------------------------------------\n> u\n> are not allowed to pass it on to friends or copy it - the code is not\n> yours, you just pay for the right to use it. that whole legal field is\n> completely crazy!! read stallman, he is also entertaining.\n>\n\nJust to back Andreas up on this, most people don't realise that when\nthey buy software, they are buying the right to use it, not buying the software\nper se.\nYou could equate it to hiring a TV/video etc. microsoft, adobe or macromedia\nstill ultimately own it.\n\nAs far as I'm aware, this also applies to products like Director/shockwave that\nallow\nauthoring. I'm not sure what the status of the authored artefact is , but as they\n'allow you' to distribute the software/artwork\n'under license' as a projector etc. doesn't it follow that macromedia have a part\nshare in any artwork made using their software?\n\nMaybe someone can clarify this.\n\n\nTom\n\n\n_______________________________________________________________________\n\n| Dr. Tom Corby | ++44 020 77034027 | [log in to unmask] |\nwww.reconnoitre.net\n_______________________________________________________________________",
"content":"\nThis email was delivered to you by The Free Internet,\na Business Online Group company. http://www.thefreeinternet.net\n---------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n>\n> Might it be that we could also look to the domains of fuzzy logic and\n> Neural Networks or Artificial Intelligence in search of software as Art?\n>\n\nI think you'll find that many artists have drawn upon these areas, not in every\ncase\nto comment on them, but certainly in terms of injecting emergent agency and/or\nunpredictable\nstates/conditions into their work (e.g. Knowbotics research). David Rokeby has\nalready been mentioned, but Stephen Wilson has\na long standing interest in AI as well. A lot of the early interest in computer\nbased art was concerned with simulated agency;\ncertainly many of the exhibits in Cybernetic Serendipity (ICA 1968) were\nconcerned with simulated intelligence.\n\ntom",
"content":"\nremember saying ...i accept\n\n\nd\n-----Original Message-----\nFrom: Josephine Bosma [mailto:[log in to unmask]]\nSent: Wednesday, July 04, 2001 8:22 PM\nTo: [log in to unmask]\nSubject: Re: Software as Art\n\n\nAndreas Broeckmann wrote:\n\n> that we aim to encourage open source projects, rather than the promotion\nof\n> closed and proprietary softwares. director and shockwave are owned by\n> companies that can choose to withdraw their product from the market any\n> day, making it illegal for people to continue running their scripts. this\n> is, obviously, a ludicrous situation, and it cannot happen to you when you\n> are using free software.\n\nWhat exactly do you mean by 'making it illegal for people to continue\nrunning\ntheir scripts'? Do you maybe mean impossible rather then illegal? This\nsounds so\nstrange to me. And if the makers of director et al choose to withdraw their\nsoftware from the market that does not mean it cannot be used anymore, does\nit?\nIt would not make sense to sell people software that would become illegal to\nuse\nonce the company does not produce any packets of it (and updates of it) any\nmore. Transmediale's choice for open source projects is a political\nstatement\nand a kind of aesthetic choice too maybe.Your above argumentation against\nthe\nother art codes does not seem to make much sense to me. Or is there more?\n\n\ngreetsz\n\n\n\nJ\n*",
"content":"\n/// PROPAGANDA /// HTTP://WWW.0100101110101101.ORG ///\n\n\n\n\n# HTTP://WWW.0100101110101101.ORG/home/PROPAGANDA/PRESS\n# HTTP://WWW.0100101110101101.ORG/home/PROPAGANDA/PRESS\n# HTTP://WWW.0100101110101101.ORG/home/PROPAGANDA/PRESS\n# HTTP://WWW.0100101110101101.ORG/home/PROPAGANDA/PRESS\n# HTTP://WWW.0100101110101101.ORG/home/PROPAGANDA/PRESS\n# HTTP://WWW.0100101110101101.ORG/home/PROPAGANDA/PRESS\n# HTTP://WWW.0100101110101101.ORG/home/PROPAGANDA/PRESS\n# HTTP://WWW.0100101110101101.ORG/home/PROPAGANDA/PRESS\n# HTTP://WWW.0100101110101101.ORG/home/PROPAGANDA/PRESS\n# HTTP://WWW.0100101110101101.ORG/home/PROPAGANDA/PRESS\n\n\n\n\n/// From \"Wired\", 27 Jun 2001\n/// http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,44728,00.html\n\n\n\n\nWant to See Some Really Sick Art?\n\n\nBy Reena Jana\n\nNothing sucks more than a computer virus.\n\nYet the contemporary art world, always hungry for the new, the trendy\nand the controversial, is starting to recognize the virus as an art form\n-- perhaps because computer viruses embody all of the above.\n\nThis year's Venice Biennale -- one of the international art world's most\nprestigious events -- served as the launching pad for \"biennale.py.\"\nIt's the art world's interpretation of the destructive \"Melissa\" and\n\"Love Bug\" viruses that grabbed headlines in recent years.\n\nAt the Biennale, which opened on June 10, a computer infected with\n\"biennale.py\" remains on display until the exhibition closes in\nNovember. Viewers can witness someone else's system crashing and files\nbeing corrupted, in real time, as if it were a creepy performance.\n\nThe artsy-fartsy virus was created by the European Net Art Collective\n0100101110101101.ORG, in collaboration with epidemiC, another group\nknown for its programming skills. The virus only affects programs\nwritten in the Python computer language and is spread if someone\ndownloads infected software or utilizes a corrupted floppy disk.\n\nBecause Python is a relatively esoteric language, the artists hope that\nthe source code, which they've printed on 2,000 T-shirts and published\non a limited edition of 10 CD-ROMs, will be the most contagious form of distribution.\n\n\"The source code is a product of the human mind, as are music, poems and\npaintings,\" explained the epidemiC team, which prefers to speak\ncollectively -- and somewhat pretentiously. \"The virus is a useless but\ncritical handcraft, similar to classical art.\"\n\nAdds a member of 0100101110101101.ORG, which also prefers to speak\ncollectively (and anonymously), \"The only goal of a virus is to\nreproduce. Our goal is to familiarize people with what a computer virus\nis so they're not so paranoid or hysterical when the next one strikes.\"\n\nThe artists have created a mini-hysteria over their piece.\n\nMore than 1,400 of the shirts have been sold at $15 apiece. And they've\nsold three CD-ROMs, at $1,500 each (the collectors chose to remain\nunnamed for legal reasons). Yet the potentially damaging code is\navailable for free on the artists' homepages.\n\n\"In theory, we should get sued,\" said 0100101110101101.ORG's\nspokesperson. \"But we've gotten almost no complaints. Well, we've gotten\na few e-mails from security experts who want to know who these asshole\nartists are.\"\n\nLaws like the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act state it's illegal to send\ndamaging code in interstate or foreign communications. But the artists\ndon't feel liable for any damage caused by \"biennale.py\" because they\nsent a warning to major software and antivirus companies including\nMicrosoft and McAfee.\n\n\"We've explained how to disable our virus, so people should know how to\nfix it,\" said the 0100101110101101.ORG spokesperson.\n\nNot everyone's buying this excuse.\n\n\"If a thief leaves a note saying he's sorry, do we feel better? No,\"\nsaid Jason Catlett, the president of an anti-spam group called\nJunkbusters, who has testified before Congress on Internet privacy\nissues. \"Doing things that are socially undesirable in the name of art\ndoes not redeem the act.\"\
"content":"\n\nCodework\nMcKenzie Wark\n\n\nWhat happens to writing as it collides with new media? I was thinking\nabout this recently while looking over an exhibition of William Blake's\nwork at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. On display was not just Blake\nthe artist, Blake the poet, or Blake the quirky revolutionary. Here was\nBlake the media artist.\n\nBlake assembled all of the elements of a media practice. As a writer he\nexperimented with all aspects of the production process. His aesthetic\ndid not stop with the word on the page. Here, I thought, was a useful\nprecursor to name for the new developments in writing that take place on\nthe Internet, developments I will shortly define as \"codework.\"\n\nBut Blake is interesting in this connection only if one embraces all\naspects of his productivity. There's a tendency, in the teaching of\nliterature and the management of its canons, to separate off the authoring\nof the text from the other aspects of writing as a production. It's a\ntendency that full attention to Blake frustrates, given how fully he was\ninvested in the implication of writing in all aspects of its production\nand circulation. Blakes creation did not stop at the threshold of \"text.\"\n\nDigging writing out of the prison-house of \"text\" might just be what is\nneeded to unblock thinking about where the Internet is taking writing.\nThere has always been more to writing than text, and there is more to\nelectronic writing than hypertext.\n\nHypertext may have come to dominate perceptions of where writing is\nheading in the Internet era, but it is by no means the only, or the most\ninteresting, strategy for electronic writing. Hypertext writers tend to\ntake the link as the key innovation in electronic writing spaces. In\nhypertext writing, the link is supposed to open up multiple trajectories\nfor the reader through the space of the text.\n\nExtraordinary claims were made for this as a liberatory writing strategy.\nHypertext has its limits, however. First, the writing of the text stands\nin relation to the writing of the software as content to form. The two are\nnot really brought together on the same plane of creativity. Secondly,\nhypertext tends not to circulate outside of the academic literary\ncommunity. It has its roots in avant-garde American and English literature\nand tends to hew close to those origins. Thirdly, it doesn't really\nrethink who the writer is, in the new network of statements that the\nexpansion of the Internet makes possible. For all the talk of the death of\nthe author, the hypertext author assumes much the same persona as his or\nher avant-garde literary predecessors.\n\nWhat is interesting about the emergence of codework is that it breaks with\nhypertext strategies on all three points. In many codework writings, both\nthe technical and cultural phenomena of coding infiltrates the work on all\nits levels. Codework finds its home in a wide range of Internet venues,\nforming dialoguessometimes antagonistic oneswith the development of\nother kinds of written communication in an emerging electronic writing\necology. Codework also sets to work on the problem of the author, bringing\nall of the tactics of the Internet to bear on the question of authorship.\n\nCodework \"entities\" such as Antiorp and JODI approach the Internet as a\nspace in which to re-engineer all of the aspects of creative production\nand distribution. Antiorp is famousor rather infamousfor bombarding\nlistservers such as the Nettime media theory list with posts that seem to\nparody the sometimes high-serious style of Internet media theory. It was\noften hard to tell whether the Antiorp writing emanated from a human\nsource or from some demented \"bot\"programmedtoproducethesemi-legible\ntexts.\n\nAntiorphasspawnedanumberofalternativeidentitiesandimitators.It\niswithsometrepidationthatonewouldventuretoassigncodeworktexts\ntodiscreteauthors.Itmaybebesttotakethefabricatedheteronyms\nunderwhichcodeworkissometimespublishedatfacevalue,r
"content":"\nKen - I'm sitting here in Florida, and just have to sigh a little \nbit. This is the problem with the digital media scene - it is SUPER \nWHITEBREAD - there is alot more going on.... I'm not attacking you, \nI just wish that the computer \"art/literary\" scene - especially where \nit comes to \"language as code\" - would think about precedents for \ntheater and spectacle outside of the normal discourse that goes on in \nspots like nettime... at the end of the day, the \"visual interface\" \nthat most of digital culture uses to create art/text/etc etc is not \nneutral, and again, this is a Mcluhan refraction of the old inner \near/eye thing, but with a little bit more of a technical twist. \nThere's a great essay that the physicist David Bohm wrote on this \ntopic called \"Thought as a System\" - the idea of progress is a \nconvergence of these \"visual cues\" that hold the eye and hand \ntogether when we think... Multi valent/multi-cultural approaches to \nlanguage and all of the sundry variations its going through right \nnow, are what make this kind of stuff alot more interesting... Artaud \nwas the fellow who invented the term \"virtual reality\" not Jaron \nLanier... think of the media repetitions of the WTC as a scene out of \n\"Theater of Cruelty\" and combine it with how mourning passes through \nthe media sphere a la Princess Diana's death etc etc and you get the \nidea of the whole gestalt of this kind of thing... or even the way \nthat linguistic permutation has evolved out of music and spoken text \n(think of Cab Calloway or Kurt Schwitters or later material like John \nCage's 'mesotics' (I'm writing this off the cuff... did I spell that \nright?), and even the way dj's play with words while spinning music \nin a set - this in itself is one of the major developments of 20th \ncentury culture: the ability not just to accept the linguistic \nregulations of a situation (again, Debord meets Grand Master \nFlash...) - but to constantly change them. This is one of the major \nissues that Henry Louis Gates wrote about in his \"Signifying Monkey\" \nessay a long while ago, but you can easily see the digital component \nof the same system of thought on-line when people play with words as \ndomain names etc etc.... there's shareware like Ray Kurzweil's \nCybernetic Poet \nhttp://www.kurzweilcyberart.com/poetry/rkcp_overview.php3\n\nand hip-hop material like Saul Williams and Kool Keith, and even the \nway the poetry of algorithms became rhythm (there's a great site on \nthe history of drum machines... http://www.drummachine.com/\n\nand out of Australia, there's the global digital poetry site that \nuses algorithms to create text and hyperlinks:\nhttp://www.experimedia.vic.gov.au/~komninos/maysites.html\n\nor even the \"visual thesaurus\" that creates 3-D models of how words \nrelate to one another...\nhttp://www.thinkmap.com/\n\nand even more MAX/MSP based code material from stuff like composer \nKarlheinz Essl's explorations of free jazz and code structures with \nhis \"lexicon-sonate\" programs:\nhttp://www.essl.at/works/lexson-online.html\n\nor nifty stuff like Chris Csikszentmihalyi's \"Robot Dj\" that does \nstuff like cuttin' and scratchin' - after all \"phonograph\" breaks \ndown to \"Sound - writing\" i.e. \"phonetics of graphology...\"\n\nhttp://www.dj-i-robot.com/\n\nsequencing and figuring out different permutations as core aspects of \ncode is an archetypal situation at this point... Alan Sondheim is \nperhaps the equivalent of an MC for Nettime, but again, the field \ncould and should be expanded at this point.\n\n\nthe idea here is to point out\n1) multi-cultural variations in language (Stephen Pinker does a great \njob of describing \"patois\" and cultural change as linguistic \nvariation in his \"How the Mind Works\") as a platform for figuring out \nhow codes evolve out of linguistic systems\n2) multi cultural takes on this are alot more fun... and the parties \nare alot better, and the music is alot better...\n3) what next? Ken - how about a nick name - \"DjO
"date":"Sat, 22 Sep 2001 19:10:42 -0400",
"from":"\"Paul D. Miller\" <anansi1 {AT} earthlink.net>",
"content":"\nHey Ken -\n1) Artaud - relatively decent Artaud sites:\nhttp://www.hydra.umn.edu/artaud/ab.html\n\nhttp://www.antoninartaud.org/home.html\n\nand the Artaud reference can be found in the \"Theater and It's \nDouble\" at the beginning of the section entitled \"The Theater and its \nShadow\"\n\naround p.49 in the edition I have \"la realite virtuelle\" - 1938.... \nin the section called the \"theater and it's shadow\" or something like \nthat... the original context was that humans were inundated with life \nas symbolic reality... both me and Erik Davis deal with this in our \nrespective writings on the topic.\n\n2) There's plenty of room for figuring out how Walter Ong's ideas of \norality and text flow together, his book \"Orality and Literacy: the \nTechnologizing of the Word\" remains a pretty good glimpse into how \nwords became \"the noetic navigation of places\" - but words assign \nplace and meaning on-line, but in the world of stuff like Amos \nTutualoa or John Lee (the black hacker on the cover of Wired a long \ntime ago who was into the whole language as cipher-text etc etc his \ncrew was called \"The Masters of Deception\"), it'd be nifty to figure \nout on how mantras etc etc fit into this too....\n\n3) your idea that \"everything Alan does is a proposition on how to \nread...\" - well, yep, but again, it's the permutations of the process \nthat make reading him interesting. Otherwise, no disrespect to Alan, \nit'd be like listening to the same beat over and over and over... \neven the linguistic origins of jazz (from the French verb \"jazzer\" - \nwhich means to \"have a dialog\") - still pertains to what you spoke \nabout.Some of this relates basically as the \"lowest common \ndenominator\" kind of scenario to the \"sequencing/spatializing\" of the \nword that Ong deals with, but again, there's plenty of stuff like \nthat in electronic music at this point... There's a couple of great \ntreatments of that topic in Robert Farris Thompson's classic \"Flash \nof the Spirit\"...\n\n4) yep, I agree about mixing styles and genres... in academia, there \nare rules and regulations about this kind of thing - and keeping the \nboundaries between \"zones\" in this day and age is getting more and \nmore problematic, but I have a feeling the next generation of folks \nwill all look at this kind of thing as a video game or hypertext of a \nkind of collaborative filtering or something... if you still have \nthat article around (the one on language and whatnot with henry louis \ngates etc etc) we're still working on getting 21C started up - I've \nbeen travelling alot, and that's slowed things down..... Let me know \nif you'd be into re-publishing it or something. I'm going to set up \nthe web version of the magazine first and deal with the print in a \nlittle bit (www.21cmagazine.com is up and running, but again, there's \nonly 24 hours in the day... I have a decent amount of articles from \nvarious folks, but I need about two weeks of down-time - which I'm \ntaking in mid-October - to finalize everything... more on that in a \nbit)\nokay,\npeace from Florida\nPaul\n\n\n\n>Thanks to Paul for\n>his remarks, but i\n>think, as they say,\n>that\n>i want to break it\n>down...\n <...>\n\n\n============================================================================\n\nPort:status>OPEN\nwildstyle access: www.djspooky.com\n\nPaul D. Miller a.k.a. Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid\n\nSubliminal Kid Inc.\n\nOffice Mailing Address:\n\nMusic and Art Management\n245 w14th st #2RC NY NY\n10011\n\n# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission\n# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,\n# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets\n# more info: majordomo {AT} bbs.thing.net and \"info nettime-l\" in the msg body\n# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime {AT} bbs.thing.net\n\n",
"content":"Ken - I'm sitting here in Florida, and just have to sigh a little \nbit. This is the problem with the digital media scene - it is SUPER \nWHITEBREAD - there is alot more going on.... I'm not attacking you, \nI just wish that the computer \"art/literary\" scene - especially where \nit comes to \"language as code\" - would think about precedents for \ntheater and spectacle outside of the normal discourse that goes on in \nspots like nettime... at the end of the day, the \"visual interface\" \nthat most of digital culture uses to create art/text/etc etc is not \nneutral, and again, this is a Mcluhan refraction of the old inner \near/eye thing, but with a little bit more of a technical twist. \nThere's a great essay that the physicist David Bohm wrote on this \ntopic called \"Thought as a System\" - the idea of progress is a \nconvergence of these \"visual cues\" that hold the eye and hand \ntogether when we think... Multi valent/multi-cultural approaches to \nlanguage and all of the sundry variations its going through right \nnow, are what make this kind of stuff alot more interesting... Artaud \nwas the fellow who invented the term \"virtual reality\" not Jaron \nLanier... think of the media repetitions of the WTC as a scene out of \n\"Theater of Cruelty\" and combine it with how mourning passes through \nthe media sphere a la Princess Diana's death etc etc and you get the \nidea of the whole gestalt of this kind of thing... or even the way \nthat linguistic permutation has evolved out of music and spoken text \n(think of Cab Calloway or Kurt Schwitters or later material like John \nCage's 'mesotics' (I'm writing this off the cuff... did I spell that \nright?), and even the way dj's play with words while spinning music \nin a set - this in itself is one of the major developments of 20th \ncentury culture: the ability not just to accept the linguistic \nregulations of a situation (again, Debord meets Grand Master \nFlash...) - but to constantly change them. This is one of the major \nissues that Henry Louis Gates wrote about in his \"Signifying Monkey\" \nessay a long while ago, but you can easily see the digital component \nof the same system of thought on-line when people play with words as \ndomain names etc etc.... there's shareware like Ray Kurzweil's \nCybernetic Poet \nhttp://www.kurzweilcyberart.com/poetry/rkcp_overview.php3\n\nand hip-hop material like Saul Williams and Kool Keith, and even the \nway the poetry of algorithms became rhythm (there's a great site on \nthe history of drum machines... http://www.drummachine.com/\n\nand out of Australia, there's the global digital poetry site that \nuses algorithms to create text and hyperlinks:\nhttp://www.experimedia.vic.gov.au/~komninos/maysites.html\n\nor even the \"visual thesaurus\" that creates 3-D models of how words \nrelate to one another...\nhttp://www.thinkmap.com/\n\nand even more MAX/MSP based code material from stuff like composer \nKarlheinz Essl's explorations of free jazz and code structures with \nhis \"lexicon-sonate\" programs:\nhttp://www.essl.at/works/lexson-online.html\n\nor nifty stuff like Chris Csikszentmihalyi's \"Robot Dj\" that does \nstuff like cuttin' and scratchin' - after all \"phonograph\" breaks \ndown to \"Sound - writing\" i.e. \"phonetics of graphology...\"\n\nhttp://www.dj-i-robot.com/\n\nsequencing and figuring out different permutations as core aspects of \ncode is an archetypal situation at this point... Alan Sondheim is \nperhaps the equivalent of an MC for Nettime, but again, the field \ncould and should be expanded at this point.\n\n\nthe idea here is to point out\n1) multi-cultural variations in language (Stephen Pinker does a great \njob of describing \"patois\" and cultural change as linguistic \nvariation in his \"How the Mind Works\") as a platform for figuring out \nhow codes evolve out of linguistic systems\n2) multi cultural takes on this are alot more fun... and the parties \nare alot better, and the music is alot better...\n3) what next? Ken - how about a nick name - \"DjOul
"from":"\"Paul D. Miller\" <anansi1@earthlink.net>",
"content":"Hey Ken -\n1) Artaud - relatively decent Artaud sites:\nhttp://www.hydra.umn.edu/artaud/ab.html\n\nhttp://www.antoninartaud.org/home.html\n\nand the Artaud reference can be found in the \"Theater and It's \nDouble\" at the beginning of the section entitled \"The Theater and its \nShadow\"\n\naround p.49 in the edition I have \"la realite virtuelle\" - 1938.... \nin the section called the \"theater and it's shadow\" or something like \nthat... the original context was that humans were inundated with life \nas symbolic reality... both me and Erik Davis deal with this in our \nrespective writings on the topic.\n\n2) There's plenty of room for figuring out how Walter Ong's ideas of \norality and text flow together, his book \"Orality and Literacy: the \nTechnologizing of the Word\" remains a pretty good glimpse into how \nwords became in a word \"the noetic navigation of places\" - but words \nassign place and meaning on-line, but in the world of stuff like Amos \nTutualoa or John Lee (the black hacker on the cover of Wired a long \ntime ago who was into the whole language as cipher-text etc etc his \ncrew was called \"The Masters of Deception\"), it'd be nifty to figure \nout on how mantras etc etc fit into this too....\n\n3) your idea that \"everything Alan does is a proposition on how to \nread...\" - well, yep, but again, it's the permutations of the process \nthat make reading him interesting. Otherwise, no disrespect to Alan, \nit'd be like listening to the same beat over and over and over... \neven the linguistic origins of jazz (from the French verb \"jazzer\" - \nwhich means to \"have a dialog\") - still pertains to what you spoke \nabout.Some of this relates basically as the \"lowest common \ndenominator\" kind of scenario to the \"sequencing/spatializing\" of the \nword that Ong deals with, but again, there's plenty of stuff like \nthat in electronic music at this point... There's a couple of great \ntreatments of that topic in Robert Farris Thompson's classic \"Flash \nof the Spirit\"...\n\n4)yep,Iagreeaboutmixingstylesandgenres...inacademia,there\narerulesandregulationsaboutthiskindofthing,butIhavea\nfeelingthenextgenerationoffolkswillalllookatthiskindof\nthingasavideogameorhypertextofakindofcollaborative\nfilteringorsomething...speakingofrules,IseethatMarkDeryis\nnowanassistant(junior)professorofJournalismatNYU...ha!ha!-\ngodhelpthechildrenwhostudyunderhim....Butuh...anyway...if\nyoustillhavethatarticlearound(theoneonlanguageandwhatnot\nwithhenrylouisgatesetcetc)we're still working on getting 21C \nstarted up - I'vebeentravellingalot,andthat's slowed things \ndown..... Let me know if you'dbeintore-publishingitorsomething.\nI'm going to set up the web version of the magazine first and deal \nwith the print in a little bit (www.21cmagazine.com is up and \nrunning, but again, there'sonly24hoursintheday...Ihavea\ndecentamountofarticlesfromvariousfolks,butIneedabouttwo\nweeksofdown-time-whichI'm taking in mid-October - to finalize \neverything... more on that in a bit)\nokay,\npeace from Florida\nPaul\n\n\n\n>Thanks to Paul for\n>his remarks, but i\n>think, as they say,\n>that\n>i want to break it\n>down...\n>\n> >the problem with\n>the digital media\n>scene - it is\n>SUPER\n> > WHITEBREAD -\n>there is alot more\n>going on....\n>Yes, but when it\n>comes to entities\n>like antiorp or\n>jodi, is it\n>all that useful to\n>pose things in\n>this old\n>identity-bound\n>language?\n>\n> >think about\n>precedents for\n>theater and\n>spectacle outside\n>of the >normal\n>discourse that\n>goes on...\n>Yes, but i don't\n>quitehavethe\n>freedomof\n>movementthat\n>you\n>do,Paul.Asan\n>artist,youcancut\n>andmixinaway\n>thatonecan't\n>inscholarship.Its\n>notthemedium,\n>itsthegenre.\n>\n>>thisisaMcluhan\n>refractionofthe\n>oldinner\n>>ear/eyething,\n>butwithalittlebit\n>moreofa\n>technicaltwist.\
"date":"Mon, 24 Sep 2001 12:45:51 -0400",
"from":"\"Paul D. Miller\" <anansi1@mail.earthlink.net>",
"subject":"[Nettime-bold] from hypertext to codework"
}
],
"content":"\nThanks to Paul for \nhis remarks, but i \nthink, as they say, \nthat\ni want to break it \ndown...\n\n>the problem with \nthe digital media \nscene - it is \nSUPER \n> WHITEBREAD - \nthere is alot more \ngoing on.... \nYes, but when it \ncomes to entities \nlike antiorp or \njodi, is it\nall that useful to \npose things in \nthis old \nidentity-bound\nlanguage?\n\n>think about \nprecedents for \ntheater and \nspectacle outside \nof the >normal \ndiscourse that \ngoes on...\nYes, but i don't \nquite have the \nfreedom of \nmovement that \nyou\ndo, Paul. As an \nartist, you can cut \nand mix in a way \nthat one can't\nin scholarship. Its \nnot the medium, \nits the genre. \n\n>this is a Mcluhan \nrefraction of the \nold inner \n> ear/eye thing, \nbut with a little bit \nmore of a \ntechnical twist. \nAlways been \nskeptical about \nthat aspect of \nMcLuhan, but I\nthink Ong is \nuseful here. He \ntalks of \n'secondary orality', \nwhich\nis the orality that \narises within a \nliterate culture, \nbut i think\nthere is also now \na 'secondary \nliteracy', the \nliteracy that arises\nwithin an \nelectro-oral \nworld....\n\n> Artaud was the \nfellow who \ninvented the term \n\"virtual reality\" \nOh really? \nWhere? [scholar \nmode] \"We must \nawaken the Gods\nthat sleep in \nmuseums.\" Yes, \nArtaud is a good \nhandle for \nunderstanding \nthe global media \nevent. My first \nbook already\ncovers all this. \n\n> this in itself is \none of the major \ndevelopments of \n20th \n> century culture: \nthe ability not just \nto accept the \nlinguistic \n> regulations of a \nsituation (again, \nDebord meets \nGrand Master \n> Flash...) - but to \nconstantly change \nthem. This is one \nof the major \n> issues that \nHenry Louis \nGates wrote \nabout in his \n\"Signifying \n> Monkey\"essay\nalongwhileago\nYes,ioncewrote\nanessayon\nGates' signifying \nmonkey and\nSkooly D, who \nhas a great rap \nabout the \nmonkey, the \nfaggot\nand the fat-assed \npimp. Needless \nto say i couldn't\ngetit\npublished...\n\n>AlanSondheim\nis\n>perhapsthe\nequivalentofan\nMCforNettime\nAlanpoststoalot\noflistsanddoes\nalotofotherstuff\nbesides,\nsoidon't think he \nwould want \nanyone to see his \nstuff here as\nrepresentative. \nBut i think that'sa\nnicetakeonit.\nSondheimas\nanMCofsense,\nofaffect,cutting\nandmixingthe\nlettertothat\neffect.Everything\nAlandoesisa\npropositionabout\nhowto\nread.\n\n>butagain,the\nfield\n>couldand\nshouldbe\nexpandedatthis\npoint.\nItsyourjobto\nthinklikethat,\nPaul,someofus\nhavetoworkin\nadifferentkindof\ntime.Itsnotabout\nsloworfast,but\nabout\nrhythms(all\nrhythmsarethe\nsamespeedas\ntheyallgetyou\nthereintheend).\nItsaboutbeing\nuntimely.Mixing\npastand\npresentis\nanotherkindof\nmix.Blakeand\nInteger.Whatisin\nthatedit?Idon't \nsee it as \ninvalidated by the \nother edits it\npasses over in \nsilence.\n\n> 1) multi-cultural \nvariations in \nlanguage \nYou'rean\nAmerican,Paul,to\nwhom\n'multicultural'\nmeans\nmulti-racial.\nThat's fine, but it \nis not the \ndefinition of\nmultiplicity with \nwhich the rest of \nthe world \nnecessarily\nworks. I'mnotso\nkeenonthe\ncompressionof\ndifference\ndowntothis\nnarrowplaneso\nastosqueezeit\ninto\nAmerican\nbandwidth.The\ncelebrationof\nmultiplicity\ngoingonright\nnowisa\nfrightening\nreminderofjust\nhow\nnarrow\nconceptionsof\ndifferencearein\ntheUnitedStates.\n\n>multicultural\ntakesonthisare\nalotmorefun...\nWelltheywould\nbe,butAmerican\nmulticulturalism\nisn't\nmuch of a \nmultiplicity. I find \nit tone-deaf to \n'patois' that isn't\nmintedlocally.\nAndlookatthe\nbasisonwhich\notherkinds\nofmultiplicityare\nannexedtoits\nneeds:the\nappropriation\nof\npostcolonialism,\ntheBlackAtlantic\nandsoon.Allwell\nandgood,butin\nthelongrunjust\nvariationsonthe\nself\nimageofAmerica
"content-type":"text/plai",
"date":"Sun, 23 Sep 2001 14:02:48 -0500",
"from":"McKenzie Wark <mw35@nyu.edu>",
"to":"\"Paul D. Miller\" <anansi1@earthlink.net>",
"subject":"[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> from hypertext to codework"
"content":"Hey Ken -\n1) Artaud - relatively decent Artaud sites:\nhttp://www.hydra.umn.edu/artaud/ab.html\n\nhttp://www.antoninartaud.org/home.html\n\nand the Artaud reference can be found in the \"Theater and It's \nDouble\" at the beginning of the section entitled \"The Theater and its \nShadow\"\n\naround p.49 in the edition I have \"la realite virtuelle\" - 1938.... \nin the section called the \"theater and it's shadow\" or something like \nthat... the original context was that humans were inundated with life \nas symbolic reality... both me and Erik Davis deal with this in our \nrespective writings on the topic.\n\n2) There's plenty of room for figuring out how Walter Ong's ideas of \norality and text flow together, his book \"Orality and Literacy: the \nTechnologizing of the Word\" remains a pretty good glimpse into how \nwords became in a word \"the noetic navigation of places\" - but words \nassign place and meaning on-line, but in the world of stuff like Amos \nTutualoa or John Lee (the black hacker on the cover of Wired a long \ntime ago who was into the whole language as cipher-text etc etc his \ncrew was called \"The Masters of Deception\"), it'd be nifty to figure \nout on how mantras etc etc fit into this too....\n\n3) your idea that \"everything Alan does is a proposition on how to \nread...\" - well, yep, but again, it's the permutations of the process \nthat make reading him interesting. Otherwise, no disrespect to Alan, \nit'd be like listening to the same beat over and over and over... \neven the linguistic origins of jazz (from the French verb \"jazzer\" - \nwhich means to \"have a dialog\") - still pertains to what you spoke \nabout.Some of this relates basically as the \"lowest common \ndenominator\" kind of scenario to the \"sequencing/spatializing\" of the \nword that Ong deals with, but again, there's plenty of stuff like \nthat in electronic music at this point... There's a couple of great \ntreatments of that topic in Robert Farris Thompson's classic \"Flash \nof the Spirit\"...\n\n4)yep,Iagreeaboutmixingstylesandgenres...inacademia,there\narerulesandregulationsaboutthiskindofthing,butIhavea\nfeelingthenextgenerationoffolkswillalllookatthiskindof\nthingasavideogameorhypertextofakindofcollaborative\nfilteringorsomething...speakingofrules,IseethatMarkDeryis\nnowanassistant(junior)professorofJournalismatNYU...ha!ha!-\ngodhelpthechildrenwhostudyunderhim....Butuh...anyway...if\nyoustillhavethatarticlearound(theoneonlanguageandwhatnot\nwithhenrylouisgatesetcetc)we're still working on getting 21C \nstarted up - I'vebeentravellingalot,andthat's slowed things \ndown..... Let me know if you'dbeintore-publishingitorsomething.\nI'm going to set up the web version of the magazine first and deal \nwith the print in a little bit (www.21cmagazine.com is up and \nrunning, but again, there'sonly24hoursintheday...Ihavea\ndecentamountofarticlesfromvariousfolks,butIneedabouttwo\nweeksofdown-time-whichI'm taking in mid-October - to finalize \neverything... more on that in a bit)\nokay,\npeace from Florida\nPaul\n\n\n\n>Thanks to Paul for\n>his remarks, but i\n>think, as they say,\n>that\n>i want to break it\n>down...\n>\n> >the problem with\n>the digital media\n>scene - it is\n>SUPER\n> > WHITEBREAD -\n>there is alot more\n>going on....\n>Yes, but when it\n>comes to entities\n>like antiorp or\n>jodi, is it\n>all that useful to\n>pose things in\n>this old\n>identity-bound\n>language?\n>\n> >think about\n>precedents for\n>theater and\n>spectacle outside\n>of the >normal\n>discourse that\n>goes on...\n>Yes, but i don't\n>quitehavethe\n>freedomof\n>movementthat\n>you\n>do,Paul.Asan\n>artist,youcancut\n>andmixinaway\n>thatonecan't\n>inscholarship.Its\n>notthemedium,\n>itsthegenre.\n>\n>>thisisaMcluhan\n>refractionofthe\n>oldinner\n>>ear/eyething,\n>butwithalittlebit\n>moreofa\n>technicaltwist.\n>Always
"date":"Mon, 24 Sep 2001 12:45:51 -0400",
"from":"\"Paul D. Miller\" <anansi1@mail.earthlink.net>",
"content":"ken,\n\nthis thread was still hanging around ... i want to take issue with your\nclaim that the codework you reference is an example of collaborative,\nnon-identity oriented practice.\n\n>Codework makes of\n>writing a media art that breaks with the fetishism of the text and the\n>abstraction of language. It brings writing into contact with the other\n>branches of media art, such as music and cinema, all of which are\n>converging in the emerging space of multimedia, and which often have a\n>richer conception of the politics of media art as a collaborative practice\n>than has been the case with writing conceived within the prison-house of\n>\"text.\"\n\ni fully respect your examples as artistic/literary practices, but in what\nway are jodi, mez, antiorp/nn, sondheim etc. representatives of open\nprocesses? jodi's work is good _because_ jo&di have the code under\ncontrol, just as mez is an _author_, machine-aided, style-enhanced, yes,\nbut an author. just as antiorp/nn - the most collaborative entity in the\nseries, i guess - poses as one; we all know they are several, but they\nexhibit a clear sense of ideological tightness and closure. the identities\nmay be fictional, but i don't see that any of these breaks out of the\nidentity shell. nn might be the best gamer, but its insults are too much\nfor my stomach. [she'll call me a weak imbecile for this remark, won't you,\ndear?]\n\nwhat you describe are machinic processes, yes, but the kinds of\ncollaborative practices that heico idensen talks about (in the hypertext\nworld mainly) - i don't see them in your codework examples. is artistic\ncodework more authorial than open source programming?\n\ngreetings,\n-a\n\n\n_______________________________________________\nNettime-bold mailing list\nNettime-bold@nettime.org\nhttp://amsterdam.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold\n\n\n\n",
"content":"\nThere is collaboration in a number of ways. None of us (examples you give)\noperate or produce in a vacuum; my work often requires assistance or col-\nlaboration, to the extent that \"my\" becomes suspect. The identities I work\nwith - \"Nikuko\" and others - are also disseminations across other\npractices (IRC, newsgroups, email lists, etc.) and others have also taken/\nused the name. There were also projects created for the trAce online\nwriting group which were all collaborations in the traditional sense; one\nof them, Lost, is still running.\n\nThen there is also a question of nettime; what I place on nettime (and\nthis may be true of others you mention) is what nettime accepts; the\ncollaborative dance/bodywork has no place or room here; this is also true\nfor most of the directory material on the cdroms. An email is almost\nalways signed, leaving its trace; it is a trail which almost literally\nhystericizes its identity function in the full header. And again, this\naffects, if not effects, what any of us are capable of doing in this\nmedium.\n\nAlan -\n\nInternet text at http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt\nPartial at http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html\nTrace Projects at http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm\n\n_______________________________________________\nNettime-bold mailing list\nNettime-bold@nettime.org\nhttp://amsterdam.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold\n\n\n\n",
"content":"Andreas writes,\n\n>i fully respect your examples as artistic/literary practices, but in what \n>way are jodi, mez, antiorp/nn, sondheim etc. >representatives of open \n>processes?... what you describe are machinic processes, yes, but the kinds \n>of collaborative practices that heico >idensen talks about (in the \n>hypertext world mainly) - i don't see them in your codework examples. is \n>artistic codework more authorial than open source programming?\n\n\nWell, isn't this a collaborative process, this discussion? Isn't\nnettime \"collaborative filtering?\" There's some limitations in what\nthe examples given might uphold. Its not as if everything is in\nthe text. I'm more interested in a new way of thinking about the\npractice of writing.\n\nSemiotics and structural linguistics have a lot to answer for. They\ncreated a concept of language as a homogemous plane, which then\nentered into relations with the world as something external.\n\nWhat's interesting about Guattari is the anti-linguistics in which\none thinks of the speech act as an element in a heterogeneous,\ntemporal series. It seems to me timely to think of some of the new\nwriting practices in those terms.\n\nHypertext had its roots firmly in a (post)structural linguistics,\nand it shows in the early works composed under its sign. All the\naction is in the 'text'. There's not a lot of thought about\nthe hetereogeneous assemblages into which it might enter.\n\nk\n\n___________________________________________________\n\nhttp://www.feelergauge.net/projects/hackermanifesto/version_2.0/\n ... we no longer have roots, we have aerials ...\n___________________________________________________\n\n\n_________________________________________________________________\nGet your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp\n\n_______________________________________________\nNettime-bold mailing list\nNettime-bold@nettime.org\nhttp://amsterdam.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold\n\n\n\n",
"content":"I would present as an example of this is the extension of my piece\ntimeascolor by Brad Borevitz earlier this year.\n\nhttp://userpages.umbc.edu/~cotto1/timeascolor.html\nhttp://www.onetwothree.net/art/somethingelse/\n\nwhat i see as interesting in (client-side) net.art is that the text\nand visuals of the artist are sent simultaneously and are inseperable from\nthe perspective of the viewer, possibly in the same way sasseure\nvisualized signified/signifier/sign as a card with two sides. very\ndifferent than seeing a painting and then reading the artist's sketchbook?\n\nI have a short paper that extends this idea - email me personally if you\nwould like to read it.\n\nchristopher otto\n\n\nOn Wed, 31 Oct 2001, McKenzie Wark wrote:\n\n>\n> Andreas writes,\n>\n> >i fully respect your examples as artistic/literary practices, but in what\n> >way are jodi, mez, antiorp/nn, sondheim etc. >representatives of open\n> >processes?... what you describe are machinic processes, yes, but the kinds\n> >of collaborative practices that heico >idensen talks about (in the\n> >hypertext world mainly) - i don't see them in your codework examples. is\n> >artistic codework more authorial than open source programming?\n>\n>\n> Well, isn't this a collaborative process, this discussion? Isn't\n> nettime \"collaborative filtering?\" There's some limitations in what\n> the examples given might uphold. Its not as if everything is in\n> the text. I'm more interested in a new way of thinking about the\n> practice of writing.\n>\n> Semiotics and structural linguistics have a lot to answer for. They\n> created a concept of language as a homogemous plane, which then\n> entered into relations with the world as something external.\n>\n> What's interesting about Guattari is the anti-linguistics in which\n> one thinks of the speech act as an element in a heterogeneous,\n> temporal series. It seems to me timely to think of some of the new\n> writing practices in those terms.\n>\n> Hypertext had its roots firmly in a (post)structural linguistics,\n> and it shows in the early works composed under its sign. All the\n> action is in the 'text'. There's not a lot of thought about\n> the hetereogeneous assemblages into which it might enter.\n>\n> k\n>\n> ___________________________________________________\n>\n> http://www.feelergauge.net/projects/hackermanifesto/version_2.0/\n> ... we no longer have roots, we have aerials ...\n> ___________________________________________________\n>\n>\n> _________________________________________________________________\n> Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp\n>\n> # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission\n> # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,\n> # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets\n> # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and \"info nettime-l\" in the msg body\n> # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net\n>\n\n\n\"christ\"! (O), pher \"ot to\". . .\n\n\n\n\n\n\n_______________________________________________\nNettime-bold mailing list\nNettime-bold@nettime.org\nhttp://amsterdam.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold\n\n\n\n",
"date":"Wed, 31 Oct 2001 23:11:50 -0500",
"from":"christopherotto <cotto1@gl.umbc.edu>",
"to":"McKenzie Wark <mckenziewark@hotmail.com>",
"subject":"[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> from hypertext to codework"
"content":"\nAre people still interested in ART on this list?\nPerhaps they are...\n\n\nSoftware Art After Programming\n\nRichard Wright, April 2004.\n\nFirst published in MUTE magazine, no. 28, Autumn 2004\nhttp://www.metamute.com/look/article.tpl?IdLanguage=3D1&IdPublication=3D1=\n&NrIssue=3D28&NrSection=3D10&NrArticle=3D1397\n\n\nThe history of computing in arts practice is littered with the mental =\ndebris of its half-forgotten debates, unresolved problems and anxieties, =\nand questions that have now become as obsolete as the Commodore 64s and =\nVAX mainframes that accompanied them. Who can remember the art and =\ntechnology projects of the sixties when the question of 'Can the =\ncomputer make art?' allowed a generation of isolated computer artists to =\nposition themselves as a team of intrepid explorers setting out to cross =\na new continent without first waiting to find out whether it could =\nsupport life. Under what conditions was the question ever first =\nconsidered worthy of posing in the first place? Did the computer offer =\ninput into specific art issues, such as arts relation to other forms of =\nscientific knowledge, to language, representation or the abandonment of =\nthe object? Or was it just intuitively realised that 'computer art' was =\nat the forefront of a slow, inexorable computerisation of twentieth =\ncentury society which would eventually demand access to every facet of =\nhuman culture?\n\nAs computer hardware and the programming skills needed to operate it =\nbecame more accessible, the question 'Can the computer make art?' was =\nasked less and less often. By the beginning of the '80s artists were =\nusing the first personal computers to produce more varied kinds of work =\nuntil, with all this activity growing, the question of whether art was =\npossible on a computer lost all sense. There was a moment when the =\nparameters of the question were redrawn, from 'Can the computer make =\nart?' to 'Can a computer be an artist?', redirecting it into issues of =\nsimulated creativity and artificial intelligence. It was at this point =\nthat the first cracks of a coming schism in the community of computer =\nartists became noticeable; this would go on to form the next stage in =\nthe debate. It seemed to a growing number of artists that as the =\ncomplexity of software increased, so many new possibilities for the =\nhuman artist were appearing that the prospect of deferring to a machine =\nartist seemed almost indicative of a lack of imagination.\n\nAlthough the computer seemed to have made its case as a machine of =\ncreative potential, there now emerged the question of how to efficiently =\nleverage all this creativity. By the late eighties, the interactive =\ninterfaces and simplified menu commands of personal desktop systems that =\nhad helped to cause this ground swell of activity had firmly refocused =\nquestions on the artists themselves. Were the pre-packaged functions, =\noptions and parameters of the new art applications sufficient to cover =\nall artistic fields of inquiry, all aesthetic nuances, all personal =\nidioms? Or would it always be necessary to have recourse to the =\nprecision and particularities of programming languages in order to =\nensure that no desire was left uncatered for? 'Do artists need to =\nprogram?' became the burning question at SIGGRAPH panel sessions and =\nelectronic art festivals.\n\nTo some extent this divergence between programmers and program users =\nmasked the fact that they had become two sides of the same coin. As the =\nargument went, the artist-programmer would regard '.software not as a =\nfunctional tool on which the \"real\"artworkisbased,butsoftwareas=\nthematerialofartisticcreation',astheTransmedialeSoftwareArt=\njurystatementwouldphraseitmuchlaterin2002.Ontheotherhand,=\nforprogramusers,programmingwasonlyeverameanstoanend.Yetit=\nwastheirfixationonthisendthathastenedtheiracquiescencetothe=\nmeansoftheirprogramsandthereconfigurationoftheirpracticeby=\np
"content":"\nken,\n\nthis thread was still hanging around ... i want to take issue with your\nclaim that the codework you reference is an example of collaborative,\nnon-identity oriented practice.\n\n>Codework makes of\n>writing a media art that breaks with the fetishism of the text and the\n>abstraction of language. It brings writing into contact with the other\n>branches of media art, such as music and cinema, all of which are\n>converging in the emerging space of multimedia, and which often have a\n>richer conception of the politics of media art as a collaborative practice\n>than has been the case with writing conceived within the prison-house of\n>\"text.\"\n\ni fully respect your examples as artistic/literary practices, but in what\nway are jodi, mez, antiorp/nn, sondheim etc. representatives of open\nprocesses? jodi's work is good _because_ jo&di have the code under\ncontrol, just as mez is an _author_, machine-aided, style-enhanced, yes,\nbut an author. just as antiorp/nn - the most collaborative entity in the\nseries, i guess - poses as one; we all know they are several, but they\nexhibit a clear sense of ideological tightness and closure. the identities\nmay be fictional, but i don't see that any of these breaks out of the\nidentity shell. nn might be the best gamer, but its insults are too much\nfor my stomach. [she'll call me a weak imbecile for this remark, won't you,\ndear?]\n\nwhat you describe are machinic processes, yes, but the kinds of\ncollaborative practices that heico idensen talks about (in the hypertext\nworld mainly) - i don't see them in your codework examples. is artistic\ncodework more authorial than open source programming?\n\ngreetings,\n-a\n\n\n# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission\n# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,\n# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets\n# more info: majordomo {AT} bbs.thing.net and \"info nettime-l\" in the msg body\n# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime {AT} bbs.thing.net\n\n",
"content":"\nThere is collaboration in a number of ways. None of us (examples you give)\noperate or produce in a vacuum; my work often requires assistance or col-\nlaboration, to the extent that \"my\" becomes suspect. The identities I work\nwith - \"Nikuko\" and others - are also disseminations across other\npractices (IRC, newsgroups, email lists, etc.) and others have also taken/\nused the name. There were also projects created for the trAce online\nwriting group which were all collaborations in the traditional sense; one\nof them, Lost, is still running.\n\nThen there is also a question of nettime; what I place on nettime (and\nthis may be true of others you mention) is what nettime accepts; the\ncollaborative dance/bodywork has no place or room here; this is also true\nfor most of the directory material on the cdroms. An email is almost\nalways signed, leaving its trace; it is a trail which almost literally\nhystericizes its identity function in the full header. And again, this\naffects, if not effects, what any of us are capable of doing in this\nmedium.\n\nAlan -\n\nInternet text at http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt\nPartial at http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html\nTrace Projects at http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm\n\n\n\n\n# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission\n# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,\n# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets\n# more info: majordomo {AT} bbs.thing.net and \"info nettime-l\" in the msg body\n# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime {AT} bbs.thing.net\n\n",
"date":"Wed, 24 Oct 2001 17:49:03 -0400 (EDT)",
"from":"Alan Sondheim <sondheim {AT} panix.com>",
"to":"nettime-l {AT} bbs.thing.net",
"subject":"Re: <nettime> from hypertext to codework"
"content":"\n\nAndreas writes,\n\n>i fully respect your examples as artistic/literary practices, but in what \n>way are jodi, mez, antiorp/nn, sondheim etc. >representatives of open \n>processes?... what you describe are machinic processes, yes, but the kinds \n>of collaborative practices that heico >idensen talks about (in the \n>hypertext world mainly) - i don't see them in your codework examples. is \n>artistic codework more authorial than open source programming?\n\n\nWell, isn't this a collaborative process, this discussion? Isn't\nnettime \"collaborative filtering?\" There's some limitations in what\nthe examples given might uphold. Its not as if everything is in\nthe text. I'm more interested in a new way of thinking about the\npractice of writing.\n\nSemiotics and structural linguistics have a lot to answer for. They\ncreated a concept of language as a homogemous plane, which then\nentered into relations with the world as something external.\n\nWhat's interesting about Guattari is the anti-linguistics in which\none thinks of the speech act as an element in a heterogeneous,\ntemporal series. It seems to me timely to think of some of the new\nwriting practices in those terms.\n\nHypertext had its roots firmly in a (post)structural linguistics,\nand it shows in the early works composed under its sign. All the\naction is in the 'text'. There's not a lot of thought about\nthe hetereogeneous assemblages into which it might enter.\n\nk\n\n___________________________________________________\n\nhttp://www.feelergauge.net/projects/hackermanifesto/version_2.0/\n ... we no longer have roots, we have aerials ...\n___________________________________________________\n\n\n_________________________________________________________________\nGet your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp\n\n# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission\n# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,\n# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets\n# more info: majordomo {AT} bbs.thing.net and \"info nettime-l\" in the msg body\n# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime {AT} bbs.thing.net\n\n",
"content":"\nHow We Made Our Own \"Carnivore\"\nBy RSG\n\n\t\"Disobedience to authority is one of the most natural and\n\thealthy acts.\"\n\t--Empire, Hardt & Negri\n\nEthernet was invented at the University of Hawaii. Scientists there in\nthe early 1970s faced a unique problem: How to network different\ncampuses, each on different islands separated by water. The solution was\nto use the free airwaves, to transmit data through the air, or \"ether,\"\nusing radio. There were no wires. Like a radio station, each node sent\nmessages broadly over the sea to other islands. A protocol was developed\nto avoid collision between simultaneous communications. Ever since,\nEthernet has been based on an open transmission model. The protocol\ntranslated well to wire-based networks too, and is now the most widely\nused local networking protocol in the world.\n\nSince Ethernet is based on an open broadcast model, it is trivial for\nlisteners to make themselves \"promiscuous\" and eavesdrop on all\ncommunications, not simply those specifically addressed to them. This\ntechnique is called packet-sniffing and has been used by systems\nadministrators and hackers alike for decades. Ethernet, sniffers, and\nhacking are at heart of a public domain surveillance suite called\nCarnivore (http://rhizome.org/carnivore) developed by RSG and now used\nin a civilian context by many artists and scientists around the world.\n\nHacking\n\nToday there are generally two things said about hackers. They are either\nterrorists or libertarians. Historically the word meant an amateur\ntinkerer, an autodictat who might try a dozen solutions to a problem\nbefore eking out success.[1] Aptitude and perseverance have always\neclipsed rote knowledge in the hacking community. Hackers are the type\nof technophiles you like to have around in a pinch, for given enough\ntime they generally can crack any problem (or at least find a suitable\nkludge). Thus, as Bruce Sterling writes, the term hacker \"can signify\nthe free-wheeling intellectual exploration of the highest and deepest\npotential of computer systems.\"[2] Or as the glowing Steven Levy\nreminisces of the original MIT hackers of the early sixties, \"they were\nsuch fascinating people. [...] Beneath their often unimposing exteriors,\nthey were adventurers, visionaries, risk-takers, artists...and the ones\nwho most clearly saw why the computer was a truly revolutionary\ntool.\"[3] These types of hackers are freedom fighters, living by the\ndictum that data wants to be free.[4] Information should not be owned,\nand even if it is, non-invasive browsing of such information hurts no\none. After all, hackers merely exploit preexisting holes made by\nclumsily constructed code.[5] And wouldn't the revelation of such holes\nactually improve data security for everyone involved?\n\nYet after a combination of public technophobia and aggressive government\nlegislation, the identity of the hacker changed in the US in the mid to\nlate eighties from do-it-yourself hobbyist to digital outlaw.[6] Such\nlegislation includes the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 which made\nit a felony to break into federal computers. \"On March 5, 1986,\"\nreported Knight Lightning of Phrack magazine, \"the following seven\nphreaks were arrested in what has come to be known as the first computer\ncrime `sting' operation. Captain Hacker \\ Doctor Bob \\ Lasertech \\ The\nAdventurer [\\] The Highwayman \\ The Punisher \\ The Warden.\"[7] \"[O]n\nTuesday, July 21, 1987,\" Knight Lightning continued, \"[a]mong 30-40\nothers, Bill From RNOC, Eric NYC, Solid State, Oryan QUEST, Mark\nGerardo, The Rebel, and Delta-Master have been busted by the United\nStates Secret Service.\"[8] Many of these hackers were targeted due to\ntheir \"elite\" reputations, a status granted only to top hackers. Hackers\nwere deeply discouraged by their newfound identity as outlaws, as\nexemplified in the famous 1986 hacker manifesto written by someone\ncalling himself[9] The Mentor: \"Weexplore...andyoucalluscriminals.\nWeseekafterknowledge...andy
"content":"\n> Ethernet was invented at the University of Hawaii. Scientists there in\n> the early 1970s faced a unique problem: How to network different\n> campuses, each on different islands separated by water. The solution was\n\nNonsense.\n\nI fart in your general direction with indignation.\n\nFacts:\n\n1970 - N. Abramson at the University of Hawaii designed ALOHA, ground based\nradio packet network.\n\n1972 Roberts, also of UoH, improved the bandwith by using time slots - \"Slotted\nALOHA\".\n\n1976 - Metcalfe and Boggs of Xerox PARC (Palo Alto, CA) published a description\nof a coaxial cable network, Ethernet.\n\n\n\n=====\nend\n(of original message)\n\nY-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows:\n\n__________________________________________________\nDo You Yahoo!?\nYahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup\nhttp://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com\n\n# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission\n# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,\n# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets\n# more info: majordomo {AT} bbs.thing.net and \"info nettime-l\" in the msg body\n# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime {AT} bbs.thing.net\n\n",
"content":"\n>1) artist-made diagnosic clients created by leading net artists around\n>the world\n\nwhat do these carnivore clients do? the engine replicates network\nsurveillance technology and the clients turn them into pretty images. is\nthere any level of agency involved? these 'diagnostic clients' come across\nas _pure illustration_ and work best as screen-savers. what will be the\ntherapy that follows _this_ diagnosis?\n\ni've said this before: i believe that it is grossly negligent to pretend\nthat somebody who looks at such an illustration understands anything about\nthe political background and impact of network surveillance systems. it is\nall too slick and too pretty. in fact, the project would in my eyes first\nhave to prove that it is not exactly the kind of applied art project that\nthe FBI would commission in order to show how benign and in fact\n_beautiful_ such control systems can be. i realise that the technology that\nyou have developed may be smart and differ from the fbi-carnivore - but\nwhat are the chances that the clients will ever do anything more than what\nthey are doing now, in this important and prize-winning period? (maybe the\nsuccess should have been delayed?)\n\nalex, you have to realise that it would be irritating and politically\ncounter-productive if somebody hyperbolically pushed a project called\nECHELON that would take feeds from all sorts of data streams and turn them\ninto ear-candy.\n\n'Carnivore' - are we talking lions, wolves, dinosaurs? unfortunately and so\nfar, the flock of rsg-carnivores looks like dinosaurs on prozac, painted\npink and blue. the system may have teeth, but at least for the moment, it\nhas a digestive problem, for what comes out are not farts from hell, but\nbaby-poops. 'xcuse the language.\n\nregards,\n-a\n\n\nps:\n\n>instead of stumbling over technical details, perhaps the nettime\n>community can engage in a deeper critique of the software and its uses?\n\nif you are really interested in this critique, why then use this\nfeature-happy promo-language of 'leading net artists around the world'\npasted over the layer of stardom-bound 'rsg' anonymity instead of 'engage\nin a deeper critique of the software and its uses'?\n(maybe you could also point out the ratio of artists living in\nNYC/USA/beyond of this 'around the world' artists group? out of the 11\nprojects mentioned, 2 seem to be from outside the US - belgium and italy;\ni'm sure both these failed imperial powers will be glad to represent 'the\nworld' ;-)\n\n# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission\n# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,\n# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets\n# more info: majordomo {AT} bbs.thing.net and \"info nettime-l\" in the msg body\n# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime {AT} bbs.thing.net\n\n",
"content":"\n[ this carnivore craze seems to find its spiritual ancestor in dancing --\n you snatch a rhythm here, a beat there, a slight movement that denotes --\n a melody. like sniffing packets to then create an assemblage, who knows --\n perhaps we'll learn to read the results somehow, and respond --\n like some huge cardiovascular system, limbic in essence --\n again you can tune in to us on SUNDAY {AT} http://share.ffem.org --\n take it to the grain -- es ]\n\n\nMILLION MERMAID MARCH (Mermaid Parade tomorrow, Saturday)\n\n\n June 13, 2002, New York, NY -- Legalize Dancing NYC (LDNYC) and The Dance\n Liberation Front (DLF) are joining forces to fight NYC's cabaret laws in the\n 2002 Coney Island Mermaid Parade and extending an open invitation to all of\n New York City to join us in the fight for our right to dance!\n\n The two groups are sponsoring a \"Million Mermaid March\" float and inviting\n all Mermaids (as well as Neptunes and other aquatic life forms) to march with\n us in fighting to deregulate dance in New York City.\n\n You can join \"the Million Mermaid March\"atWest16thStreetinConeyIsland\nbetween10a.m.--1:00p.m.onSaturday,June22ndwherewewillbe\ndecoratingvehiclesandourselves.TheMermaidParadecommencesat2:00p.m..\nWeareencouragingeveryonetobringpercussioninstrumentsand/orwhistles.\nTogettoConeyIslandbytraintaketheF,QorWtrainstoStillwell\nAvenue-ConeyIsland(thelaststop)whichwillletyououtonSurfAve.16th\nStreetisacoupleofblocksaway.Beonthelookoutforafterparty\nonthebeach!(w/socaandhiphopfromDannyCasolaro,BK)\n\nWhileitmaysoundslikeajoke,theNYCcabaretlawsareveryrealandhave\nforthelastseveralyearsadverselyaffectedourcity's economy, culture and\n community. These antiquated statutes were originally written during\n prohibition in the 1920s and made it illegal to dance in any establishment\n without a cabaret license--which are now virtually impossible to obtain. The\n cabaret laws were resurrected the in the late-90s by the Giuliani\n administration and were selectively enforced causing hundreds of\n establishments undue economic hardship and damaging NYC'sonce-vibrantdance\nculture.\n\nWeassertthatdancingisafundamentalrightthatneednotberegulatedby\ngovernment;thataflourishingdancecultureisgoodfortheNYCeconomyand\nculture;andthatdancingfosterspositivesocialrelationsmakingfora\nstrongerandhealthiercommunity.Outsideofthedanceregulations,ourgroup\nsupportssafetycodes,capacitylimits,noisestatues,drugandalcohollaws,\nandanyotherlawsinthebestinterestoftheNYCcommunity.\n\nLegalizeDancingNYCiscurrentlyworkingwithCityCouncilmenAlanGerson,\notherpro-danceorganizations(DLF,Yehoodi,Mother,etc.),theNewYork\nNightlifeAssociation,civilrightslawyerNormanSiegel,NYULawProfessor\nPaulChevigny,theBloombergadministration,localbusinessowners,andthe\nNYCcommunityatlargetointroducepro-dancelegislationtotheNewYork\nCityCouncil.Withyoursupport,theselawswillberepealed.Weareplanning\namassiverallyinTompkinsSquareParkforlateSeptembertocoincidewith\nthelegislation.WearealsoholdingafundraiserJuly17thattheSlipper\nRoominManhattan.\n\nFormoreinformationontheMermaidParadegoto:\nhttp://www.coneyisland.com/mermaid.shtml\n\n To join Legalize Dancing NYC and find out what's going on in our efforts to\n legalize dance send a blank email to\n nodancingallowed-subscribe {AT} yahoogroups.com\n\n For more information on the cabaret laws log onto www.nodancingallowed.com\n\n To volunteer to help out with the Million Mermaid March and/or Legalize\n Dancing NYC email NYCandyg {AT} aol.com or call 212-673-4182 and press #2 to leave\n a message.\n\n To read a Village Voice articles about Legalize Dancing go to::\n http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0222/sotc.php (last item
"content":"\n\nOn 6/21/02 7:36 PM, \"Florian Cramer\" <cantsin {AT} zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:\n\n> The bottomline: \"RSG Carnivore\" is a packet sniffer for the purpose of\n> creating aestheticized visualizations.\n\nFirst: A word of appreciation for the technical outline Florian Cramer\nprovided.\n\nDue to the _transcoding_ principle, the net art scene has of course become\ninundated with projects that offer a visual and highly anesthetized\ntreatment/display of data streams, collected by various methods such as user\ninput, network sniffing, search engines, and so on. What seems almost\ncollectively to be lacking in this _artistic_ processing are efforts to\ninvoke an intelligence at the front end: why those algorithms, this\nappearance, these rules? At this juncture, these endeavors may rise from the\nlevel of ability to utility (like the FBI has made very clear). Any critique\nleveled at the increased surveillance of the network must surely start from\nthe base presumption that the bitstream channels knowledge and not pretty\npictures for the screen.\n\n-af\n\n\n\n# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission\n# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,\n# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets\n# more info: majordomo {AT} bbs.thing.net and \"info nettime-l\" in the msg body\n# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime {AT} bbs.thing.net\n\n",
"date":"Sat, 22 Jun 2002 13:02:43 -0400",
"from":"Are Flagan <areflagan {AT} mac.com>",
"to":"<nettime-l {AT} bbs.thing.net>",
"subject":"Re: <nettime> How We Made Our Own \"Carnivore\""
"content":"\n\nThe question that Florian Cramer raises -- whether or not RSC Carnivore is\ntechnically innovative or simply repackaging existing functionality -- is\nvalid. I accept his technological knowledge, amply displayed, based on\nwhich he claims that, indeed, the project is mainly repackaging. However,\nthe critique also strikes me as overly narrow.\n\nThe FBI Carnivore is not just a sophisticated packet sniffing program, but\nit is part of a larger techno-administrational set-up in which the program\nperforms very specific things that no other packet sniffing software does:\nproviding intelligence for secret law enforcement operations. Carnivore\nonly is Carnivore because it's embedded in a framework that allows the US\ngovernment to act upon intelligence gathered through it.\n\nThe difference between Carnivore and other sniffers is that Carnivore can\nget you detained. If you're unlucky these days, indefinitely without a\ntrial. In other words, Carnivore is not just a program, but an integral\nelement of a law enforcement strategy.\n\nAny critique of the an art work dealing with FBI's Carnivore must consider\nhow it addresses the various aspects of the entire process of carnivore,\nie. the all those things that turn the packet sniffing program to Carnivore.\n\n\n>From: Randall Packer <rpacker {AT} zakros.com>\n>Subject: Re: <nettime> How We Made Our Own \"Carnivore\"\n[....]\n>In my mind, it is important to keep in mind that the Carnivore\n>software itself is the focal point of the project. At this early\n>stage, I think the applications being developed are skimming the\n>surface of what is possible. The use of network data to generate\n>real-time visual and musical experiences is clearly in its infancy.\n\nRandall Packer points approvingly to what strikes me as the real problem\nwith RSC Carnivore. Despite iclaims to the contrary -- and including\n\"Carnivore\" in the title is a strong claim to political relevance -- its\nobjectives are primarily aesthetic. Traffic data is taken to be input for\nvisual displays. Their quality is dertimed by the fact that they were\n\"created by leading net artists around the world,\" rather than by the fact\nthat they reveal otherwise hidden patterns in the data streams.\n\nHowever, the claim that we now have \"our own Carnivore\" somehow suggests\nthat we have your own intelligence gathering capacities. It implies that we\ncan somehow turn the tables, that were are not only spied on, but we have\nthe ability to observe back, and to observe in a meaningful way. And with\nmeaningful I mean that the process of observing yields information that\nallows us to act effectively upon the observed.\n\n>From what I have seen, RSA Carnivore offers little in this regard. So,\nperhaps rather than calling the explanatory essay \"How we built our own\nCarnivore\" it seems to have been more accurate to call it \"How to visualize\ndata traffic\". I admit this is less sexy, but at least it doesn't come\ndangerously close to false advertising.\n\nFelix\n\n\n\n\n--------------------++-----\nLes faits sont faits.\nhttp://felix.openflows.org\n\n\n# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission\n# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,\n# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets\n# more info: majordomo {AT} bbs.thing.net and \"info nettime-l\" in the msg body\n# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime {AT} bbs.thing.net\n\n",
"date":"Sat, 22 Jun 2002 21:11:24 -0400",
"from":"elix Stalder <felix {AT} openflows.org>",
"to":"nettime-l {AT} bbs.thing.net",
"subject":"Re: <nettime> How We Made Our Own \"Carnivore\""
"content":"\n\nTable of Contents:\n\n How We Made Our Own \"Carnivore\" \n \"clement Thomas\" <ctgr {AT} free.fr> \n\n Re: [thingist] How We Made Our Own \"Carnivore\" \n Peter von Brandenburg <blackhawk {AT} thing.net> \n\n Re: <nettime> How We Made Our Own \"Carnivore\" \n RSG <rsg {AT} rhizome.org> \n\n Re: <nettime> How We Made Our Own \"Carnivore\" \n Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi {AT} yahoo.com> \n\n Re: <nettime> \"How We Made Our Own \"Carnivore\"\" \n Andreas Broeckmann <abroeck {AT} transmediale.de> \n\n\n\n------------------------------\n\nDate: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 17:18:18 +0200\nFrom: \"clement Thomas\" <ctgr {AT} free.fr>\nSubject: How We Made Our Own \"Carnivore\"\n\nrectificandoque !!\n\ninternet is invented in france by pavu.com and frederic Madre !!\nand we farte the board with olive oil !\n\nIt is Marilyn Monroe who was invented in Hawai !\nand 028 in Toulouse !\n\n- --\nOG\n\n-------------\n\nDate: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 12:44:57 -0400\nFrom: Peter von Brandenburg <blackhawk {AT} thing.net>\nSubject: Re: [thingist] How We Made Our Own \"Carnivore\"\n\nVisita\nInteriora\nTerrae\nRectificando\nInvenies\nOccultem\nLapidem\n\n\nclement Thomas wrote:\n\n> rectificandoque !!\n>\n> internet is invented in france by pavu.com and frederic Madre !!\n> and we farte the board with olive oil !\n>\n> It is Marilyn Monroe who was invented in Hawai !\n> and 028 in Toulouse !\n\n\n------------------------------\n\nDate: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 13:47:54 -0400\nFrom: RSG <rsg {AT} rhizome.org>\nSubject: Re: <nettime> How We Made Our Own \"Carnivore\"\n\n\ntrue, Metcalfe and Boggs's invention was called \"Ethernet.\" but by\nattributing Ethernet to them, you will miss why Ethernet was designed the\nway it was. all the important innovations were Abramson's, particularly\nhis solution to the problem of packet collision. sourcing the Ethernet\ntechnology in radio also explains why it is based on an open broadcast\nmodel and hence can be sniffed.\n\nMetcalfe & Boggs even cite Abramson's work in the introduction to their\n1976 paper: \"The Aloha Network at the University of Hawaii was originally\ndeveloped to apply packet radio techniques for communication between a\ncentral computer and its terminals scattered among the Hawaiian\nIslands...\" (http://www.acm.org/classics/apr96/)\n\nthink before you fart.\n\n- -RSG\n\nhttp://rhizome.org/RSG\n\n\n------------------------------\n\nDate: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 11:03:16 -0700 (PDT)\nFrom: Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi {AT} yahoo.com>\nSubject: Re: <nettime> How We Made Our Own \"Carnivore\"\n\n> true, Metcalfe and Boggs's invention was called \"Ethernet.\"butby\n>attributingEthernettothem,youwillmisswhyEthernetwasdesigned\n>thewayitwas.alltheimportantinnovationswereAbramson's,\n> particularly his solution to the problem of packet collision. sourcing\n> the Ethernet technology in radio also explains why it is based on an\n> open broadcast model and hence can be sniffed.\n\nThis is a bit off nettime topic ... it can be claimed for any bit moving\nprotocol that it descended from a previous older one. Technology learns\nfrom it'shistory.Icouldenumaratetensofdifferencesbetweenethernet\nandAloha--whoeverisinterestedinthisshouldpeekin,say,\nTannenbaum's Computer Networks. I could also prove that ATM is based on\nswitched ethernet. Or Sonet. And that ethernet itself is, in fact, morse\ntelegraph code with immaterial improvements.\n\nSo it'samatterofquantitiesandshades.\n\nButnoonetodayconfusesATMwithethernetandthisisthefirsttimeI've\nheardthatAlohaandethernetareessentiallythesame.\n\n>thinkbefo
"content":"\n>From: Andreas Broeckmann <abroeck {AT} transmediale.de>\n>[...] discuss the technical analysis offered by the Moscow-jury which, \n>from what i understand as a techno-idiot and reading against the grain, \n>basically says that your Carnivore program offers nothing new under the sun??\n\nas stated in our original post, Carnivore Personal Edition is rich with\nnew features not included in its FBI counterpart. Here are a few of\nthem:\n\n1) artist-made diagnosic clients created by leading net artists around\nthe world\n\n2) remote access--meaning clients can access CarnivorePE data streams\nfrom other computers via the Internet\n\n3) full subject targetting--meaning all users are sniffed, not just a\nsingle user\n\n4) full data targetting--all data is sniffed, not just email\n\n5) volume buffering--to avoid packet storms, CarnivorePE can buffer\npacket output to either 1, 5, 20, or 100 packets per second.\n\n6) transport protocol filtering--meaning CarnivorePE can sniff on TCP or\nUDP packets, or both\n\n7) output channels--meaning clients can request one of three output\nchannels: \"carnivore\" for full packet data in ASCII, \"hexivore\" for full\npacket data in hex, or \"minivore\" for packet headers only\n\n8) an open source software license (a dramatic improvement over its\nchief rival, Etherpeek, which isn't open source and costs $1,295)\n\n9) a distributed rather than centralized architecture\n\nmost of these features are also missing in the various other sniffers\navailable including Snort and tcpdump.\n\ninstead of stumbling over technical details, perhaps the nettime\ncommunity can engage in a deeper critique of the software and its uses?\n\n-RSG\n\n# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission\n# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,\n# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets\n# more info: majordomo {AT} bbs.thing.net and \"info nettime-l\" in the msg body\n# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime {AT} bbs.thing.net\n\n",
"date":"Thu, 20 Jun 2002 15:32:59 -0400",
"from":"RSG <rsg {AT} rhizome.org>",
"to":"nettime-l {AT} bbs.thing.net",
"subject":"Re: <nettime> How We Made Our Own \"Carnivore\" [6x]"
"content":"\n* costs of success *\n\ncertainly this hacker tool is well crafted in many ways (2), reading about\nit i first thought 'build for success', but does it's success make it a\n'good' art work, a work one might talk about in a few years in a\nrespectful way? Surely it is symptomatic, but is carnivocre a work of art\nwhich started an own genre, which made oneself look at the possiblities of\nmaking art in a new way, a work of art which made it impossible to\ncontinue to produce an accepted form of art in the old way? i don't say\nthat successful art (or software) is to be dismissed because of it's\nsuccess, but because what it might sacrificed to become successful (3),\nbeeing secondary consumers in the food chains.\n\n\n* conceptual confusion *\n\ni think carnivocre is as rationally planned as it is conceptually\nconfused. it doesn't provide a proper idea about the art context in its\nrelation to software. it provides an interface service. it hardly carries\nan own concept of itself beeing software, nor beeing a piece of art. it is\nneither social, nor critical but includes the discoursive gestures of\nthose features. especially if the techniques you mention are all\nimplemented properly, it is exactly this ambitious featuritis on all\nlevels which make the piece questionable as a piece of art, yes a filter,\nbut art? if it is not conceptual than why does it need such a long\ndescription, if it is conceptual than why does it need to prove to perform\nso well practically? if it is context sensitive then, isn't it first and\nfor all the context of the media art discourse it is produced for\nproviding a romantic version of the strange and beautiful digital\nlandscape of the united states? why then all the reference to be\nfunctional outside of it? and if it will become a wildly used sniffing\ntool, what is it that makes it different from other sniffing tools other\nthen aesthetification of the politics of packet sniffing?\n\n\n* dog shows *\n\nby beeing conformative to all sides and on all levels, carnivocre achieves\nseemingly a high degree of customization. affirmative and critical, open\nsource and mysterious, practical and aesthetical, software and art, it\ngenerates a heterogenous homogenity which has something for everyone but\nsays nothing in general. it doesn't make clear cuts but it boroughs from\nall contexts one might think of as relevant for the targeted market. as\nsuch it is designed like a new car model, a hyperopportunistic piece of\nproject management and it clearly reports more about the culture from\nwhich it derives than about all the sources it tries to nourish itself\nfrom. there is only one slight possibilty, that in another dimension by\nshowing all this, the work tries to overcome itself and all the meaning it\ncarries, beeing a parody of a pastiche (1), sending the observer in a loop\nof salon data art for the purpose of salon data art, to produce a\nbeautifully crafted confused inertia.\n\n\n1) pastiche, A work of art using a borrowed style and usually made up of\nborrowed elements, but not necessarily a direct copy. A pastiche often\nverges on conscious or unconscious caricature through its exaggeration of\nwhat seems most typical in the original model. (Thames & Hudson)\n\n2) my critique on the softwareculture list, from 30Apr02\n\n >>take the case of \"carnivocre\". it seems to include technological\ncriticism, but it is also working on the marketplace of forms, including\nvarious 'styles' from ascii, to distributed networks, global maps,\nsurveillance, programming, p2p, and the beauty of code on the ground level\nof tcp/ip. but finally it is showing the highest perfection on the level\nof project management. the critique is symbolic, as there is no real\neffect outside the art context. the technique is without relevance as\nnoone outside the art context is using it. but to the art system it looks\nlike it comes from the \"other side\",itinterfacesit,makesit\n'understandable'andfulfillstheneedforacriticismwhichdoesn't\nhurt.<<\n\n3)see
"date":"Fri, 21 Jun 2002 03:55:36 +0200",
"from":"Pit Schultz <pit {AT} klubradio.de>",
"to":"nettime <nettime-l {AT} bbs.thing.net>",
"subject":"Re: <nettime> How We Made Our Own \"Carnivore\" [6x]"
"content":"\nRe: <nettime> How We Made Our Own \"Carnivore\" [6x]\n\n\nABSTRAKT: by looking through others' garbage.\n\n\n\n\n\n>>instead of stumbling over technical details, \n\nunfortunately your software is simply.technical\n+ inspired by others software which is simply.permit someone to smile at your genetik garb.\n\n\n>perhaps the nettime\n>community \n\nyes. prove it\n\n\n\n>can engage in a deeper critique of the software and its uses?\n>\n>-RSG\n\n\nit is almost as interesting + elegant as 0101's life sharing\nie. it is almost as interesting + elegant as looking through others' garbage [genetik garbage if you like. sch....\n\ndifference being 0101 aren't americans hence aren't as ugly not terribly dressed\nas rhizome simply.cheap fresh from the ny streets smurfs. [don't despair -\neveryone works the streets more or less. artists just do it more oftenly]\n\n\nnn\n\n\n\n\n\n\n-\n-\n-\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n /_/\n /\n \\ \\/ i should like to be a human plant\n \\/ __\n __/\n i will shed leaves in the shade\n \\_\\ because i like stepping on bugs\n\n\n\n*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--\nNetochka Nezvanova nezvanova {AT} eusocial.com\n http://www.eusocial.com\n\n http://www.ggttctttat.com/!\n n r . 5 !!! http://steim.nl/leaves/petalz\n*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*-- --*--*--*--*--*--*--\n \n# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission\n# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,\n# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets\n# more info: majordomo {AT} bbs.thing.net and \"info nettime-l\" in the msg body\n# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime {AT} bbs.thing.net\n\n",
"date":"Fri, 21 Jun 2002 05:29:00 +0200 (CEST)",
"from":"integer {AT} www.god-emil.dk",
"to":"nettime-l {AT} bbs.thing.net",
"subject":"Re: <nettime> How We Made Our Own \"Carnivore\" [6x]"
"content":"\n\nAm Thu, 20.Jun.2002 um 15:32:59 -0400x schrieb RSG:\n> >From: Andreas Broeckmann <abroeck {AT} transmediale.de>\n> >[...] discuss the technical analysis offered by the Moscow-jury which, \n> >from what i understand as a techno-idiot and reading against the grain, \n> >basically says that your Carnivore program offers nothing new under the sun??\n> \n> as stated in our original post, Carnivore Personal Edition is rich with\n> new features not included in its FBI counterpart. \n\nFBI's \"Carnivore\" is, as far as known, an Ethernet sniffer set up to do\nvery specific/particular tasks, like sniffing only E-Mail of only one\nperson (see: <http://www.howstuffworks.com/carnivore3.htm>). As the FBI\nputs it itself:\n\n \"The Carnivore device works much like commercial \"sniffers\" and other\n network diagnostic tools used by ISPs every day, except that it\n provides the FBI with a unique ability to distinguish between\n communications which may be lawfully intercepted and those which may\n not.\"\n\n\"RSG Carnivore\" has no such encoded sniffing rulesets. It is yet another\nof the many Ethernet sniffing programs out there, except that its output\nis meant for \"Net.art\" visualization front-ends or, to use your\nterminology, \"plugins\". \n\nThe \"RSG Carnivore\" we - i.e. the Moscow read_me 1.2 jury - reviewed was\na simple Perl script wrapper around the well-known standard Linux/Unix\nprogram \"tcpdump\" and another third-party program that converted the\nlatter's binary output into ASCII. \"tcpdump\" did the actual sniffing (or\n\"surveillance\", the \"Carnivore\" Perl scripts only transferred the output\nto the web so that it could be used by Net.art visualization \"plugins\".\nThis, I assume, was also the version of \"RSG Carnivore\" which the ars\nelectronica jury reviewed and awarded.\n\nThe new \"RSG Carnivore PE\" differs from the old \"RSG Carnivore\" in that\nit is not a Linux/Unix, but a Windows program, and that it doesn't need\nto be installed on servers. It is written in Visual Basic instead of\nPerl and uses the third-party software WinPcap\n<http://winpcap.polito.it/> as its sniffing engine, instead of tcpdump. \n\n\nOf the 9 differences you find in \"RSG Carnivore\" as opposed to other\nEthernet sniffing tools, I could validate at least the first:\n\n> 1) artist-made diagnosic clients created by leading net artists around\n> the world\n\nConcerning the rest:\n\n> 2) remote access--meaning clients can access CarnivorePE data streams\n> from other computers via the Internet\n\nTrivial to implement if you combine an ethernet sniffer with a webserver\nor file sharing tool, like\n\ntethereal -x > sniffdata.txt\n\n...and then share this file in Gnutella or a locally running webserver.\n\n> 3) full subject targetting--meaning all users are sniffed, not just a\n> single user\n\nAny network sniffing software I know does this. (Ethereal, dsniff,\nettercap...)\n\n> 4) full data targetting--all data is sniffed, not just email\n\nAs above. \n\nWhat you write sounds reads a hackish prank; a hack to sell\ntrivial/commonplace functionality as extraordinary to people who, due to\ntheir non-technical background, can't judge it. \n\n\nman ethereal:\n\n The following is a table of protocol and protocol fields that are\n filterable in Ethereal. \n\n 802.1q Virtual LAN (vlan)\n[...]\n 802.1x Authentication (eapol)\n[...]\n AOL Instant Messenger (aim)\n[...]\n ATM (atm)\n[...]\n Address Resolution Protocol (arp)\n[...]\n Appletalk Address Resolution Protocol (aarp)\n[...]\n[...]\n Cisco Auto-RP (auto_rp)\n[...]\n\n\n[Skipping dozens and hundreds of protocols]\n\n\n\n> 5) volume buffering--to avoid packet storms, CarnivorePE can buffer\n> packet output to either 1, 5, 20, or 100 packets per second.\n\n\nman ethereal:\n\n -b If a maximum capture file size was specified, cause Ethereal to\n run in \"ring buffer\" mode, with the specified number of\n files. In \"ring buffer\"mode,Etherealwillwriteto\nseveralcaptu
"content":"\n[Note:Thispaperwaswrittenforthecatalogueofread_me1.2/Moscow\nandisalsoreprintedintheusermanualofSignwaveAutoIllustrator.-\nIt's an both an update on an older paper on software art I wrote with\nUlrike Gabriel & attempt to clarify (a) what 'software[art]' is and (b)\nhow software art may differ from older generative art. - The paper is\nalso available at:\nhttp://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~cantsin/homepage/writings/software_art/concept_notations//concepts_notations_software_art.pdf\nhttp://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~cantsin/homepage/writings/software_art/concept_notations//concepts_notations_software_art.html\n-Florian]\n\n\nt\n$Id: concepts_notations_software_art.tex,v 1.1 2002/03/25 01:09:31 paragram Exp $\n\n\nConcepts, Notations, Software, Art\n\nFlorian Cramer\n\nc/o Freie Universität Berlin\nSeminar für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft\nHüttenweg 9\nD-14195 Berlin\ncantsin {AT} zedat.fu-berlin.de\nhttp://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~cantsin\n\nMarch 23rd, 2002\n\nSoftware and Concept Notations\n\nSoftware in the Arts\n\nTo date, critics and scholars in the arts and humanities have considered\ncomputers primarily as storage and display media, as something which transmits\nand reformats images, sound and typography. Reflection of the as such invisible\nlayer of software is rare. Likewise, the term ``digital art'' has been\nassociated primarily with digital images, music or audiovisual installations\nusing digital technology. The software which controls the audio and the visuals\nis frequently neglected, working as a black box behind the scenes.\n``Interactive'' room installations, for example, get perceived as a\ninteractions of a viewer, an exhibition space and an image projection, not as\nsystems running on code. This observation all the more applies to works in\nwhich it is not obvious at all that their production relied on programmation\nand computing. John Cage's1981radioplay``Roaratorio'',forexample,appears\ntobeatapemontageofaspokentextbasedonJamesJoyce's ``Finnegans\nWake'', environmental sounds recorded in several cities of the world and Irish\nfolk music, edited with analog recording technology. Yet at the same time it is\nan algorithmic artwork; the spoken text was extracted from the novel using a\npurely syntactical, formal method (mesostychs of the name ``James Joyce''), and\nthe montage was done according to a random score generated on a computer at the\nParisian IRCAM studios. While the book-plus-CD set of ``Roarotorio'' documents\nthe whole composition extensively, containing the audio piece itself, a\nrecording and a reprint of John Cage'sreading,arecordingandareprintofan\ninterview,aninventoryofthecitieswheresoundwasrecorded,itincludesthe\ncomputer-generatedscoreitselfonlyinaone-pageexcerptandnothingatall\nofthecomputerprogramcodewhichgeneratedtherandomscore.{1}\n\nThehistoryofthedigitalandcomputer-aidedartscouldbetoldasahistory\nofignoranceagainstprogrammingandprogrammers.Computerprogramsgetlocked\nintoblackboxes,andprogrammersarefrequentlyconsideredtobemerefactota,\ncodingslaveswhoexecuteotherartist's concepts. Given that software code is\na conceptual notation, this is not without its own irony. In fact, it is a\nstraight continuation of romanticist philosophy and its privileging of\naisthesis (perception) over poeisis (construction),{2} cheapened into a\nrestrained concept of art as only that what is tactile, audible and visible.\nThe digital arts themselves participate in this accomplicity when they call\nthemselves [new] ``media art''. There'snothingolderthan``newmedia'',a\ntermwhichislittlemorethanasuperficialjustificationforlumpingtogether\nabunchoflargelyunrelatedtechnologies,suchasanalogvideoandcomputing,\njustbecausetheywere``new''ataparticulartime.Ifonedefinesasamedium\nsomethingthatitisbetweenasenderandareceiver,thencomputersarenot\nonlymedia,butalsosendersandreceiverswhi
"content":"\n\nDearFlorian,\n\nThankyouforyourusefulessay,'Concepts, Notations, Software, Art'\nrecentlypostedtonettime.Inthespiritofitbeinganewversionof\nanoldtext,I'd like to suggest a plug-in.\n\nAt the very least, a brief patch may be required if we are not to have\na repetition of the usual scission, in the last few paragraphs, between\nthe simply 'formal' and simply, and woollily, 'social'. (The twentieth\ncentury is dotted with too many of such debates.) I'dliketomaketwo\nshortsuggestions:\n\n1'Formal'operationsdonotoccuralone.Thereisclearlyacurrent\nofartusingcomputernetworksorinstructionswhichbelievesitselfto\nbeprimarilyformalist.However,thisbeliefistheresultofa\nparticularperspectivalismthatcleavestheworkfromit's more messy\nor productive implications and connections. In order to clarify this,\ntwo examples drawn from the text:\n\n\n1.1 Hugo Ball'spoemCarawan.Dowemisunderstandtheworkifitis\nreadinrelationtocertainoftheDadaZurichartists' ostensive\nreference to 'African' speech and symbolism, to further read this in\nrelation to the predatory colonialism of Europe, or in relation to\nBall'sownyearningforamysticallanguageofimmediacy(alongthe\nlinesofthatwhichyouusefullydescribein'Language as Virus')which\ncouldbeaccessedviasuchpoetry?\n\n1.2SolLeWitt.LeWitt's work exists both as a series of instructions,\nand their execution. There are two ways in which we can understand\nthis simple formalist limit to the work as requiring an expansion. \n\n1.2.1 Organisation: the work is addressed to a possible executor - a\nsocius of two or more is thus composed. This at the very least allows\nthe work to be carried out and shown without any trouble to the artist,\none can also note that it is one of the mechanisms which allowed\nconceptual exhibitions to be mounted by post and by phone in across the\nworld in several locations at low cost. (See Katherine Moseley's\nexcellentcatalogue,'Conceptions, the conceptual art document'.)\n\nFurther,ifyouwishtoincludeanauthorisedLeWittinanexhibition\nitisnecessarytocontacthisrepresentativeinordertoreceive\npermissiontocarryouttheparticularsetofinstructionsyouwishto\nhaverealised.Asiscommoninmuchoftheconceptualworkbegunin\nthesixtiesthereisadeploymentofaparticularsetofapparatuses\nwhichdefineroles,oftenbycontract:representative,\nartist/instructor,executor,andsoon.Itisclearthatsuch\narrangementsareimmediately'social'inavarietyofways.Makingthe\nnotaryanexplicitratherthanimplicittransactorofsomeartsystems\nisoneoftheminorwayswhichcertainconceptualworksaddressed\nthemselvestothepoliticalandeconomicdimensionsofsuchsystems.\n\n1.2.2Material'substrate':oneoftheproblemsofanapproachwhich\nallowsforasimpleformalismisthatitreducesthecomponentsofits\nrealisationtoasimple'substrate'throughwhichtheworkisrealised.\nAkindofmatteriscapturedandgivenformbyanidea.Whatmight\nusefullybeproposedinsteadisthatparticularworks,includingthose\nyoudiscuss,operatebyarrangingcombinationsofmaterial,\norganisation,perceptionetc.LeWitt's work here for instance might\nbe seen to operate as a particular realisation of a certain combination\nof the propensities of: postal and fax networks; orthography, geometry,\nand the materials wall/paper and pen/pencil for their actuation;\nalphabetised language, linguistic technologies of description; art\neconomies of desire, command, and authorship, art economies of objects\nand spaces, of publications, or theorisations and naming; the pleasure\nof repetitive exercise and expectation in the person/s of those\nactuating the work, the conditions of employment of gallery assistants\nwho carry out such work; etc.\n\nThe particular compositional terms by which such an arrangement is\nmade, correspond in some way with what is reductively described as the\n'form
"content":"\n> If software art could be generally defined as an art\n\n> * of which the material is formal instruction code, and/or\n> * which addresses cultural concepts of software,\n\n\ni know two projects that indeed address cultural and esthetical and\ntechnical concepts of software\n\nhttp://a-blast.org/~drx/net/mbcbftw/war.wrl \n\n2000\n\nhttp://entropy8zuper.org/olia/herboyfriendcamebackfromthewar.swf \n\n2000\n\n\nbest\n\nolia\n\n\n\n\n# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission\n# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,\n# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets\n# more info: majordomo {AT} bbs.thing.net and \"info nettime-l\" in the msg body\n# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime {AT} bbs.thing.net\n\n",
