daisyimhalfcrazy
Reflections on Computational Art Theory
10 posts
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
daisyimhalfcrazy · 6 years ago
Text
Multimedia report proposal
What it the overarching area of research?
The title of the work in this early phase, is ‘‘Data mappings and topologies of the future’‘.
What are the key questions or queries you will address?
How speculative aesthetic and critical data mappings using material and temporal expressions can show how excessive and flows of capital, technology and material are reshaping geography, space and time, thereby inviting us to contemplate our role in a world in upheaval. Additionally, by demonstrating the discrepancy in use of social media platforms between geographic areas of the global extremes,  how objective conventions of space, knowledge and data representation in online platforms are inflected by political and social power structures.
So, given the fact that big data can be structured and re configured in order to provoke distorted knowledge, I aim to unveil this condition through critical work.
Why are you motivated to undertake this project?
The motivation stems from two major factors: The first is that I want to get a profound knowledge on how to obtain and manipulate�� big data existing on the web and how to turn data into by-products of aesthetic value.  Secondary, how these data can be further visualised, sonified and felt in a semiotic way, to convey messages about socio-political imbalance of power.
What theoretical frameworks will you use in your work to guide you?
For this project, I will draw inspiration from urban theorists working on the field of future and technology, as Stan Allen and Paul Virilio, will reference on the work of important mapping artists such as Emma McNally, Marcin Ignac and data artists as Ryoji Ikeda.
How will you document your project?
This will depend on the finaI outcome, as fundamental part of the research for the piece is going to be, which is the best medium/s used that will more accurately convey in the most efficient way the message to the audience.
Most probably because of my background in sound art I feel more familiar experimenting with an audio-visual composition, consisted of algorithmic manipulated big data, visualised as complex networks. The documentation then will result as video frames with sound.
Timeline for project milestones:
01/04 - 08/04 : research and experimentation with javascript and python APIs 08/04 - 15/04 : research data visualisation technics and tree diagrams 15/04 - 22/04 : research theoretical frameworks 22/04 - 29/04 : generate material for the visualisation 29/04 - 06/05 : writing the multimedia report 06/05 - 13/05 : finalising the project
Annotated Bibliography of 3-4 sources:
The Politics and Policies of Big Data: Big Data, Big Brother? Published by Routledge Research in Information Technology and Society) , 2018
‘’Big data is typically viewed as a technological phenomenon of the information age. Three Vs are often invoked to describe Big Data—volume, Velocity, and Variety—referring to the unprecedented scale of data sets, the unprecedented speeds at which data are being produced, and the unprecedented range of data types and forms. Beyond technology and analysis, Boyd and Crawford (2012) identified a third crucial component of Big Data—mythology, or “the widespread belief that large data sets offer a higher form of intelligence” (p. 663). This component draws attention to the techno-utopian view that Big Data are “objective” and untainted by human foibles (Pentland, 2014). The mythology of Big Data blinkers us to the fact that the algorithms that enable Big Data mining, storage, and analysis are ultimately produced by human beings and are subject to the same social forces that govern all aspects of human behavior. For instance, a Big Data tool for criminal risk assessment used in the United States was found to disproportionately predict Black defendants as criminals “at almost twice the rate as White defendants” (Angwin, Larson, Mattu, & Kirchner, 2016, para. 16). Racial bias against Blacks and Asians was also coded into facial recognition algorithms used by Google Photos and Nikon cameras. (Crawford, 2016).’’
 CITIZENS” MEDIA MEETS BIG DATA: THE EMERGENCE OF DATA ACTIVISM,2016
‘’…But the informational state and its computational politics require “corporate collaboration” (MacKinnon, 2012) to implement laws and regulations: as the Snowden leaks made evident, governments increasingly rely on “private sector entities as regulatory agents, turning private centres of power to state purposes” (Braman, 2009).
‘’… Access to data is power, thus data and infor-mation has become an increasingly impor-tant currency in contemporary politics, as shown by the WikiLeaks and Snowden cases. In recognition of the crucial role of access to information in contemporary society, hackers and hacktivists (the term is a portmanteau of “hackers” and “activists”) increasingly take ac-tion to counter-act the power of governments in shaping the internet and limiting freedom of expression. Hackers can be seen as the “im-mune system” of the Internet: by exposing vul-nerabilities, they push the internet to become stronger and healthier, wielding their power to create a better world (Elazari, 2014). The very same technology that allowed governments and corporations to amass and exploit digital data about private citizens now offers citizens the opportunity to target governments” and companies” data and computer systems. Ac-cording to Deiber (2010), WikiLeaks was just “a symptom of a much larger trend (…) the means to engage in cyber espionage have ex-panded dramatically because of the shift to networked infrastructures and social networ-king habits. (…) Cyberspace has brought us the world of do-it-yourself signals intelligence.” In such a scenario, there emerge grassroots practices that bring progressive citizens to the core of the “data revolution”.
  Agnes Deunes
"I believe that the new role of the artist is to create an art that is more than decoration, commodity, or political tool—an art that questions the status quo and the direction life has taken, the endless contradictions we accept and approve. It elicits and initiates thinking processes... My concern is with the creation of a language of perception that allows the flow of information among alien systems and disciplines, eliminating the boundaries of art in order to make new association and valid analogies possible."
Reference list of 8-10 sources:
 1. Saskia Sassen, Globalization and its discontents. Essays on the New Mobility of People and Money (New York: New Press, 1998)
 2. D. Paul Virilio, The Information Bomb. London: Verso, 2000
 3. Rob Kitchin, “Big Data and Human Geography Opportunities, Challenges and Risks,” Dialogues in Human Geography
 4. Adam D. Kramer, Jamie E. Guillory and Jeffrey T. Hancock, “Experimental
5. Evidence of Massive-Scale Emotional Contagion through Social Networks,”
6. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2014).
 7. T.J. Demos, “The Politics of Sustainability: Contemporary Art and Ecology,” in F. Manacorda, ed., Radical Nature: Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet 1969–2009
 8. Tom Corby1, Gavin Baily2 and Stefano de Sabbata3, Codex: Mapping Co-Created Data for Speculative Geographies, University of Westminster, February 2016
 9. Casey Reas Chandler , Form and Code in design art and architecture, MIT Press, p. 119-146
 10.  Hartmut Bohnacker,  Generative Design visualize program and create with processing, Princeton Architectural Press; 01 edition (1 Oct. 2012), p. 412-457
0 notes
daisyimhalfcrazy · 6 years ago
Text
On Bill Viola / Michelangelo Life Death Rebirth exhibition
Recently, one of our lecturers Atau Tanaka suggested us to visit an ongoing exhibition combining works of new media artist Bill Viola and drawings from the reknown Michelangelo.
Searching online for some feedback about the exhibition, I came across numerous negative comments mainly focused on comparing the two artists from different eras and suggesting that the level of artistry of Michelangelo is far superior to Bill Viola. To be honest I was quite convinced, up until watching online some of his talks.
Tumblr media
Truth to be told, modern tools for artistic expression offer many facilitations causing many artists to produce superficial works of art. Furthermore, the networked societies of our modern times allow for work to be easily promoted regardless the level of substantiality. Browsing through social media pages, vanity and ego prevail in all forms of expression and especially art.
On the contrary, the works of Bill Viola exhibit high levels of consciousness and intimacy, acting as a reflection of his inner world. The exhibition is set in a sequencial way where the visitor experiences large scale video projections juxtaposed with personal drawings from Michelangelo in an effort to find some common grounds regarding life death and rebirth. And the connection was quite clear to me. The works of Bill Viola were characterized by the sense of fluidity, as to him existance(from birth to death) is a fluid concept. This idea stems from greek philosophy, as has been summed up by Heracletus in his cryptic utterance:
- ‘’ποταμοῖσι τοῖσιν αὐτοῖσιν ἐμβαίνουσιν, ἕτερα καὶ ἕτερα ὕδατα ἐπιρρεῖ.’’ "Ever-newer waters flow on those who step into the same rivers."
Time for Bill Viola is apprently another equally important element, as most of his videos if not all appear in slow speed loops. Speaking about time on his works, he has written: ‘’once you begin to work with time as an ephemeral material, you have entered the domain of conceptual space. A thought is a function of time, not a discrete subject. It is a process of unfoldment, an evolving thread of the living moment.
Awareness of time brings you to a world of process. ‘‘
Tumblr media
The most striking work was the Nantes Triptych made  in 1992  consisting of a Three-channel colour video triptych, depicting moments from the birth of the child to the death of an old human and in between, atmospheric, aetherial video material of humans inside tanks of liquid. It was quite shocking to experience both the birth and the death of a human and I was astonished by the fact that It was the first time that I had witnessed these two fundametal states of human existence regardless the fact that I am 27 years old. The projection in between rises great questions about what is life and how ephemeral we all are.
Concluding, I found the exhibition quite rewarding and the atmosphere created both from the video material as well as the sound recordings he was using, totally fit my sense of aesthetics and deep inner values that I would like to express as well. In spite of the negative criticism I would definately suggest to pay a visit and experience it yourselves.
0 notes
daisyimhalfcrazy · 6 years ago
Text
Week 4: Computational Art and Sensing Practices
Tumblr media
We can all agree we experience an emerging era of shifting grounds, where the term reality is broadened; it consists not only from the physical, but also digital and virtual, all interconnected in a weaved patchwork of information. The transmission of this complex info from the physical environment to the virtual landscape is accomplished through sensing, measurement and treating of data, thus data harvesting has interestingly become an important source of feed across multidisciplinary professions. Environmental, urban, remote sensing are simply mediators between the two, the catalyst process where data are gathered, stored, monitored and interpreted in order to control physical, political or socio-economical shifts across different scales; facilitating a newfound power of control in scales human alone could not access and assess critical information.
From the extreme conditions of the polarized north we closely observe with the latest technological means, how this territory can’’ multiply and fluctuate as a concatenation of milieus, processes, and subjects.’’ Even the slightest change on this location is observed by a multidisciplinary team and each observation is recorded and a multiplicity of data relating this place to the rest of the earth via indications of climate change. It is interesting to observe how a very located set of phenomena can actually portray the condition of another scale.
Interesting questions arise, such as whether  sensing practices are able inform us about environmental change and motivate us to participate in a resilient ecological citizenship.
How important, though, is the scale of the sensing experiment, be it remote of a massive territory or simply with the use of soft robotics as the expansion of one’s vision, or touch, strategically interfere with our own understanding of the sensing data? And how the mediation of these data can be interpreted by artists to contribute to a paradigm shift through the exposure of the outcome of such interpretational work?
Issues that I can relate with and inspire the works that I am eager to examine further.
0 notes
daisyimhalfcrazy · 6 years ago
Text
Complexity and working with Trees
In my early years I used to travel a lot and visit new places. I would take my camera and capture different moments of my trips.What always fascinated me was the complex structures of different elements of nature and landscapes.
I was particularly interested in fractal structures such as trees.Below are some of my early photographs:
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Starting my MA in computational arts I was very keen on the idea that I could explore the structures of algorithms found in nature.For this purpose, I have come across two very important books:The Nature of Code by Daniel Shiffman and The Beauty of Numbers in Nature. While the first source is a more technical appoach working with processing and transferring my knowledge in openframewoks, the latter served as a storytelling book, a smooth introduction to the mathematical patters of nature.
I was very pleased to participate in Creative Coding’s class Complexity which provided me even more tools from my journey. Starting with simple structure here are some of my outcomes from my “digital” trees:
fractal tree
Tumblr media
Barnsley fern
Tumblr media
L-system Tree
Tumblr media
And the journey continues....
0 notes
daisyimhalfcrazy · 6 years ago
Text
Week 1: Computational Art as Critical Technical Practice
0 notes
daisyimhalfcrazy · 6 years ago
Text
Term 1 Project:Computing with impossibility
A group project by: Ioannis Gkigkelos, Abi Price, Katarina Popovic.
Tumblr media
The terror of ‘no error’
We are ever more fascinated by our machines. And by numbers.  And by the possibility for the numbers to simulate reality. Ultimately, by our ability to predict and put everything in order, a process in which computers are essential. “Our information age utopia is an error-free world of efficiency, accuracy, and predictability.” (Nunes, 2011, 4)In Error, Glitch Noise and Jam in New Media Cultures, editor Mark Nunes states in the intro, we are basically borrowing this expectation of perfect order or the absence of the mistake. Unfortunately, what hides behind this obsession of order is actually the objective of total control, loss of privacy, basic freedoms to decide along with human rights in which ‘Big data meets Big brother’ systems are possible at the social level as high as the state you happen to be a citizen of.
“Singularitarians believe that the world is “knowable” and computationally simulatable and that computers will be able to process the messiness of the real world just like they have every other problem that everyone said couldn’t be solved by computers.” (Ito, 2018)
The problem with this seemingly hopeful idea is that it is profit and progress driven, or as Ito formulates it, it is “the natural evolution of the worship of exponential growth applied to modern computation and science.”(Ito, 2018) In such an environment an unpredictable change, an ‘accident’ or an (unaccounted for) error becomes an enemy.
As Newton’s III law declare – For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. One part of the world is largely fascinated by the order, but the other part is not. For the artistic community, the disturbance is one of the golden opportunities to open the other doors. It is almost as if the more control one tries to have, the more that particular system is interesting to be mined by the artistic community. The great example of the ‘unacceptable’ in the established state of things was the urinal Duchamp displayed in 1917, kind of marking the death of ‘art as it should be’ once again, a few years after 1913 when his Nude Descending a Staircase stirred the Art scene in New York.
Not only the ready-made was born and the concept of the non-retinal art, but it opened a whole new field of artistic practice and research. Similar happened to the perfect Cartesian coordinate system. Fed by small deviations, in the works of Georg Nees, we watch it produce interesting graphics outcomes with many variations (depending on the type of ‘anomaly’ introduced). Disturbing the expected (or – purposeful) order is the birth of a possible new order. And the error is detrimental to opening new possibilities for machine creativity. This is the field that caught our curious eye- what happens when the system is dancing on that thin line between the possible and impossible, between stability and instability in the program that finds a way to execute code it previously accepted as possible.
The Beauty in Numerical Instability
The artifact we have produced during our research is based on the variation of the code for the spiral example from Mastering OpenFrameworks: Creative Coding Demystified (2013, 50-55) where a line is drawn between the previous and the current position of a point. Current position rotates at an angle “a” and “a” is incremented by a variable “b” which is also incremented by a variable change, and those values are initially doubles (the numbers with many decimals). However, the instability is introduced by changing the type of variables from doubles to floats. In the images below, you will see the stable variant on the left side, and on the right side, the unstable one. In the image no1, notice the regular spiral form on the left side and many diverse shapes on the right side (circles, octagons, rectangles…) and connections.   Experimenting with the rate of change of b (bchange1, bchange2) we realized that decimal numbers except 0.5 produced another kind of instability (image no2). Now the stable spiral shapes would rotate around the center of the canvas producing a new pattern. So we set out to play with doubles and floats only on the bchange1, bchange2 variables (image no3).
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
As time progressed this rotation of the two spirals would get out of control and produce another chaotic pattern as in the left picture below while on the right picture the pattern would stay the same. The end result is somehow surprising since our stable example this time produces more instability than our unstable one. (image no4)
According to the deterministic chaos theory, the minimal interventions in the initial variables in a system produce a very complex result. And this is exactly what we have observed in this process.
Is this error or possibility?
Playing with instability in the code allowed us to see more than we could have expected, giving way to possibilities that we perhaps wouldn’t have thought of executing before. Also, it drew us away from intention and towards discovery instead.
“We have also seen several times that creative behavior from a program was reported when something went wrong – a misconception by the programmer, a syntax error that fortuitously produced a viable program, etc. …The crux of this view is that their behavior surprises their creator, and there does seem to be some link between surprising behavior and creativity. “(Partridge and Rowe, 1994, 151)
Rather than seeing it as a ‘mistake’, an error in the system comes with the field of possibility that following Deleuze’s philosophy of the virtual as conditions from which the experience emerges, Tim Barker describes as a potential:
“The error is potential in a sense that it is not pre-formed or pre-programmed by the artist. It can only be described as potential, which is inherent in the machine… It is only by allowing the capacity for potential errors, by moving away from the territory of the preconceived aesthetics of errorless machines, that we may provide the opportunity to think the unthought, to allow digital technologies to become-other.” (Nunes, 2011, 52)
Just as during the Cage’s 4’33’’ (1952) composition and in Rauschenberg’s White Painting (1951), the empty, void or the ‘unexpected’ is to be filled by the audience’s intervention, the system is expected to fill the instability potential with an outcome it executes out of the human eye or intervention.
Control – Surrender Axis
We can also look at this process from the perspective of the role of the artist, where Brian Eno (Edge, 2011) talks about creation process moving away from that of an architect knowing exactly what the final product will look like to approaching it as a gardener. After initially setting up the system, we let go of part of the control, relying on the dynamics of the system to finish the work. The actual computer is given part of the creation of the artwork. Surrender, in Eno’s words, is what we go to galleries and church for – to be taken away. This, as an artistic practice, means incorporating this field of ‘impossibility’ that opens new dimensions for research and creation. In our example, after planting our ‘seeds’ we had no access to the process. Once the ‘build ’was done, the outcomes were surprising and much different from the ‘stable’ example. What is truly impressive is there was nothing a program ‘looked at’ or was being previously fed with. It got the simple code and all of a sudden we were in the area of computer agreeing to something it is ‘almost impossible’ to do. So we basically surrendered our intentions to the machine and waited for the outcome. And the system delivered an array of aesthetical outputs.
Conclusion
Given the meaning of the word ‘to err’: ‘to wander’ off the beaten path, the machine actually has shown a significant amount of flexibility, basically adjusting the impossible to become possible and displayed. Going back to the modern social objective of the perfect predictable order (without the threshold of flexibility the perfect order simply crashes) we can conclude that the research into the (im)possibility has a larger field of implications then purely aesthetic and software ones. Due to the negative nature in which the ‘error’ is assumed to be in the computer system as well as in our cultural and political framework, highlighting the instability, ‘mistake’, process of surrender and the computational system’s sensitivity seems to be a bright torch to lit as a contribution to keeping things real in the current AI and Singularity one-truth overhype.
References
Nunes, M. editor, (2011)  Error: Glitch, Noise, and Jam in New Media Cultures. New York London: Continuum Books.
Ito, J. (2018), Resisting Reduction: A Manifesto (Designing our Complex Future with Machines). [online] Available from https://jods.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/resisting-reduction [Accessed December 2018].
Partridge, D. and Rowe, J. (1994) Computers and Creativity. Oxford, England: Intellect.
Perevalov, D. (2013) Mastering OpenFrameworks: Creative Coding Demystified. Packt Publishing.
Edge (2011) Composers as Gardeners. [online] Available from https://www.edge.org/conversation/brian_eno-composers-as-gardeners [Accessed November 14th, 2018].
0 notes
daisyimhalfcrazy · 6 years ago
Text
Computational Art and Witnessing
For this week’s class we did a workshop regarding digital witnessing. In the first phase, we were asked to split in groups of two and do some sort of bodily awareness exercise, where we we would focus on touch and raise our awareness towards the physicality of that moment.
In the second phase, we take out our phones and one would observe the other through it ,creating a sense of digital contact zone. In that exercise I was the one to be objerved through the camera. I felt increadibly vulnerable and ashamed and after some seconds I covered my face. Through the mobile device, I felt I was some sort of spectacle to be observed.
Chemical attack in Douma, Syria
During the spring of 2017, media attention was drawn again towards the crisis in Syria. Testimonies of gas attacks launched from dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime against its citizens were released to media and the web. Those included video footage,digital witnesses as well as maps of the supposed attack .
Children caught in Syria 'chemical attack'- BBC News
youtube
In response, Usa and its allied forces including United Kingdom decided to launch an air strike targeting locations where chemical weapon research centers were supposed to be based.
Syria air strikes: US and allies attack chemical weapons sites - BBC News
youtube
Russian authorities  on the other hand, denied those assumptions and implied that this was a staged event from rebell forces in Syria. Footage was released showing the canisters and Russian media suggested that those were proofs of their own claims.
Moreover, analysts from the west suggested that the Surian regime having already won the war would not jeopardise losing its status-Quo by drawing negative attention.
Former commander of British Armed Forces Jonathan Shaw over Syria  - Sky News
youtube
Computation and witnessing
Forensic Architecture, an independent research agency based at Goldsmiths, University of London  was also involved in this case. Using an open-source software called Blender they build 3D models of the attack sites and the canisters themselves . Computational tools such as spatial analysis were used to reinforce the claims that the bombs were dropped from helicopters pointing at the totalitarian regime. Whereas projects such as the Left to die Boat pinpoint the the lethal causalties of the agents of power, in this case they might actually serve in favor of them in the sense of allowing for western intervention and generation of multiple new conflicts. This  case generates a lot of questions regarding those methods:
Can distant witnessing and computation methods actually provide a clearer picture of the events that occur around us?
Is computation by itself a point of authority and a more effective medium to respond to crisis in distant places?
Is it actually possible for agents other than those in political power to help us make sense of the world around us?
As Adam Curtis states in his documentary Oh Dearism :
“These days there is another problem with watching the news. Night after night we are shown pictures of terrible things which we feel we can do nothing about. Images of civil war, massacres and starving children which leave us feeling helpless and depressed to which the only response is :Oh Dear.”
Oh Dear...
0 notes
daisyimhalfcrazy · 6 years ago
Text
Research interests for Term 1
Research interest :
-Artificial Intelligence
-Generative Computation
-Chance, Random, Chaos
-Computation and Politics
-Glitch, Error
KEY words and aspects :
-Ryoji Ikeda,Codex,Brian Eno,Panopticon by Foucault,emergence,the century of the self, japanese noise
Ways I would like to work :
  -AudioVisual Installation
  -Data Visualisation
  -Sonification
   -speculative project
0 notes
daisyimhalfcrazy · 6 years ago
Text
An article of our choice
For this week, we have been given two sources from Leonardo and Jar journals in order to find an article that we are interested in. Researching different topics and articles for both of the sources, I came to the conclusion that Jar tends to be too much subjective and gave up on the idea of using it as a source for inspiration. On the contrary, Leonardo seemed to fit perfectly my needs for knowledge, as it manages to deliver articles and journals that combine the scientific and the art world in a meaningful way.
The article that caught most my attention was A Concise Taxonomy for Describing Data as an Art Material.
Part of the reason why I have choosen to do this masters degree is that I want to explore new materials for expression and I am specifically interested in using data to make art. Data is an immense territory for exploration and I am not certain where to start with. This article proves very useful because it suggests ordering of data for use in the arts.
The main categories according to the article are:
Of living: Biological; Environmental
Of non-living: Object
Of social context: Commercial; Personal; Social; State
Of license: Closed; Open; Shared
Of time/space: Live; Real-time; Geospatial; Static; Temporal
Of type: Anecdata; Causal; Generated; Metadata; Processed;
Retrieved; Streamed
Of disclosure: Anonymized; Identifiable; Unknown
datamatics by Ryoji Ikeda
Tumblr media
These categories and their relevant explanations will be able to act as a point of reference for my future works as the nature of the data I will use will highly influence the outcome.
0 notes
daisyimhalfcrazy · 6 years ago
Text
Computational Art Introductions
Reflections on the article :“A Fish can’t judge the Water” by Femke Snelting
A fish can’t judge the water. The title in this text also provides us with its core argumentation. We use software in our daily tasks that it has almost become an action of the background. As a fish is born in water and survives only in water can only function under the limitations of its enviroment . In this manner, the fish cannot question its enviroment.It accepts it as it is.
When it comes to humans we use software for our daily routine, our job, our artistic expression. Software is a powerful tool to expand our intellingence but also limits us to a specific discourse that we might not always realize or are not able to question. One might argue that when it comes to artistic creation, limitation can prove usefull in the way that always need to start with some bourders in order not to get lost in a set of infinite choices.Although this maybe true there are some implications that we might miss.
A commercial software is made by a set of programmers for a software company for a specific reason meaning that creations through it although how numerous they might be are limited in a specific form.
Software comes under a licence agreement. Licencing has a very strong impact on how we use software. This means that in most cases in order to use it and give it to other people to use you need to purchase a licence. If somebody doesnt have the financial means of purchasing a software he has two options.
As Neuton described for every action there is a counter action. Against this monopoly of software distrubition two counter movements have emerged. One of piracy and one of open source software. Piracy is quite an ambigious project as it can be perceived from both negative and positive view point. A very strong argument against piracy is that programmers and all the people involved need the financial capibity that derives from software purchase. On the opposite side having high price margins for software that are especially involved with the arts inticies a political aspect that people with no means to afford a software are not able to experiment with new types of technology if they dont have the financial means. This limits the set of users to the ones that have the financial capability of using different sorts of software while others from a lower social status are prohibited access. In this way people with lots of creative ideas but low income cannot access information that other can.
While piracy can lift the limitations of personal income it still urges us to use software that limits our artistic creation.A better alternative is the open source software movements. Users and programmers are able to cocreate, modify and engage in a constant dialog regarding the software they use. This way social status limitations are lifted and also software becomes a result of collective effort. A kind of cybernetic neo-Marxism. The only side effect of these kinds of software is that user friendliness can be sacrificed for more liberty. And this reflects on a bigger idea regarding the bipole between security and liberty. Do we want live a secure life confined by society and fear or do we want to be free? I believe as artists we should always strive for more liberation.
As a new artist or better, amateur(in love with art) that wants to explore new worlds I do want use software that can reflect on my chaotic perception of the world and urges me to keep experimenting rather than following a preconceived formula of creation. An example of this is openFrameworks which is based on programming language c++ . Through c++ we can have accessibility to a vast number of applications from everyday tasks to complex art with the negative things can become very complex and we might lose to much time for things . What makes openFrameworks a great tool is that it uses but also gives the freedom to alter the source code as well experiment with new forms of creation using the computer as a medium rather than a tool as Casey Rees describes in the book form and code. Artists have always had the urge to experiment and novel art always comes from breaking the given boundaries ,
Tumblr media
Concluding this text works as a kind of manifesto towards the liberation of new media artists encouriging us to rethink the way that we use premade software. Although I believe that at some points it goes over the top disregarding the use of commercial software it gives us a good starting point to question our given means for artistic exploration and encourages use to embrace open source software culture.
0 notes