|
Artistic Software for Dummies and, by the way,
Thoughts About the New World Order
Olga Goriunova, Alexei
Shulgin
pdf (36 Kb)
What is artistic software?
Artistic software is, first and foremost, software created for
purposes different than traditional pragmatic ones. Such programs
are not seen as tools for the production and manipulation of digital
objects - from online bank accounts to works of art - they are
works of art in their own right.
The emergence of this phenomenon is first of all due to the overall
spread of software - commercial, proprietary programs as well
as open source - and its introduction into all spheres of human
activity. Software has always been seen as a neutral tool, tending
to become a transparent medium for information processing, and
a most comfortable one at that. Software and the products created
with its help have always been considered not only to belong to
totally different areas but even to be non-comparable. In most
cases, an individual piece of software is thought to be completely
interchangeable with a competing product without any effect on
the result.
Such an approach assumes several stereotypical and false premises.
First, software is not a "transparent" tool for the
creation and processing of the digital product. It defines a quite
limited space, within a specific framework in which people are
required to work. Thus it persistently forces people to keep to
certain, pre-defined rules. In addition to the limitations of
using computer programs there is also a certain predetermined
position - a creative, social, even political one - into which
the software user is put, not so much by the software's creators,
but by more general power structures: the culture of software
creation and media culture as a whole. And this, in turn, depends
on the dominant social rules, which will be touched upon in this
article. More and more people are finding these limitations not
only uncomfortable but also boring and authoritarian. Second,
the overall "digitalisation" of reality makes software,
the basis of the functioning of digital space, increasingly important
as such.
Rationality and Western civilization
The general and recently accelerating change in the world moves
toward its deeper rationalisation. The forms, the methods of functioning
of the society are all becoming extremely technologised. All means
of functioning of the digital world - networks, software and even
design are being created in accordance with notions of the rational
basis of the universe and are the highest representation of the
Western idea - the domination of the Reason. The history of Western
civilization is, among other things, the history of human alienation,
the history of rationalisation, the history of the loss of the
mystical. The changes in the notion of Knowledge as the basis
of progress can represent this history in the simplest terms.
Up until the Middle Ages, knowledge was interwoven with magic,
mysticism and religion. It was not considered, as it commonly
is today, as something purely abstract which could nevertheless
have practical applications. Knowledge could not be transmitted
solely on the theoretical level, outside of ritual practice. It
was transmitted only through personal and full communication of
the chosen with the chosen. Even "crafts skills" knowledge
could not have been acquired within just a couple of years. Knowledge
was not detached from other forms of life. The situation starts
to change during the Renaissance: gradually the theorisation of
knowledge begins; knowledge separates itself from mysticism and
religion and acquires high autonomous status. By the end of the
XVII century the final break of knowledge from other forms of
life is taking place. The history of rationalisation is the history
of the diminishment of the leading role of religion, the history
of exclusion of morality from all spheres except maybe that of
the "life world" (Lebenswelt). Catholicism has introduced
rationalised relations between man and God (indulgence); Protestantism
has rejected ancient rituals and their traditional visual attributes
and became the peak of the religious rationality, logically progressing
to "humanistic" atheism. Gradually science took the
place of religion. And science oriented itself towards the cognition
of nature by defining nature in terms of matter's lack of inherent
value and metaphysical attributes. Examining nature as an infinitely
reusable object, science began to apply the same notions to the
human being. Thus all scientifically unverifiable truths and meanings
could neither be supported nor refuted by all-prevailing Reason.
What now?
- Science, having finally broken away from all its once inherent
metaphysical goals, is becoming, by analogy with extreme sport,
an extreme science, endangering the very existence of human beings
on earth (nuclear and bio-technologies, overall penetration of
technology and its use as a means of control over the human being).
- The highly rational way of life in such societies as the US,
can go out of whack from time to time: one of the most convincing
examples lies in the events of the 11th of September 2001. The
growing conflict between East and West - which can be seen as
a conflict between an extremely rationalised western society and
the metaphysically oriented eastern one - presents one of the
most obvious dangers for the current world order.
Culture as content
The type of the society in which the citizens of "developed"
countries are living has been called informational for a long
time already. The system of such societies, accordingly, is utterly
different from the preceding industrial one, which was centered
around industrial production.
Post-industrial society is ruled not by commodity-money relations
but by informational currents. Or, rather currents of capital
and power that are spreading (and to a large extent in the form
of open or veiled propaganda) through networks, in accordance
with new laws.
All means and media by which such societies function - networks,
computers, software and even design - are extremely technologised
and are created in accordance with the notion of the rational
basis of the universe.
Culture and its manifestations are also turning into information
(and even "content"), flowing into information space.
Just like any other information, cultural information can be digitalised.
With its shift into computer space, culture begins to function
by the same rational rules according to which the rest of the
system works - by the rules created, in particular, by designers
and programmers.
The methods of information presentation, storage and functioning,
often define its content as well. In so far as there is no place
for metaphysics within information space, the space towards which
all spheres of public and personal life are moving, the mode of
this space's being is particularly rational - culture as the custodian
of the non-rational inevitably becomes sterilized in such space.
Morality and "life world" - for a long time and very
consistently too - have been being rationalised under the civilization
processes. Within the digital environment this process yet intensifies.
Existing in the digital realm, human beings are following its
logic - the extra-ethical logic of the machine.
Art as the custodian of the non-rational
Art is one of the most mobile and diverse systems; it has been
changing continuously to the extent that it contradicts itself.
It would be interesting, then, to look at the change in the artist's
social role:
- Ancient times. There is no artist yet as such - she is an ordinary
member of the society, additionally performing some religious
functions. Her work is based exclusively on tradition, her name
is not announced, the results of her work are part of the mystical
ritual.
- The epoch of Renaissance and Humanism: the artist is breaking
from the religious tradition and begins to glorify the beauty
of the human and of the surrounding world. The figure of the self-manifesting
Genius appears on stage.
- The Technological epoch: The beauty of the world becomes easily
reflectable through technical reproduction media. At the same
time the ideals of humanism decline - as a consequence of technological
progress as well. On one hand, art begins to reflect the crisis
of human self-consciousness (modernism), and on the other, it
gets diverted into a certain form of commercial activity. Works
of art turn into commodities, an extensive art-market is created
(there appears, in particular, a notion of "the original").
During the preceding, humanistic epoch, the artist was placed
very high in society (artist: demiurge, poet: the ruler of people's
minds). Therefore, on the new technological level she begins to
actively participate (and be used) in the political struggle.
The Communication epoch
With the development and fundamental change of communicative
space the role of the artist is changing again. Artist is not
someone who creates images anymore; she rejects the idea of representation.
Information overload becomes a common illness. An infinite number
of images have already been created; they are kept in unerasable
digital form in readily accessible databases. On the whole, the
existing culture can already be represented as information currents
that surround people and constantly try to penetrate their minds.
The artist's mission now shifts from creating images to manipulating
and redirecting information currents. The artist becomes, on one
hand, the information filter, and on the other, its re-transmitter.
This new role of the artist, then, in many ways becomes linked
with the functions of communication and computer technologies:
her activity is performed by means of networks and computers.
The difference is that computers work on the basis of "bare"
algorithms, while humans apply intuition, emotions and other non-rational
elements - exactly those qualities that are beginning to disappear
due to the influence of technology that makes everyone work rationally.
Thus design of networks, databases, computers and software becomes
defining factor in modern culture. Software and computers tend
to be seen exclusively as pragmatic tools for information processing;
programmers are usually exceptionally pragmatic people whose rational
side often prevails over all others.
Therefore, the artist has to confront pragmatism with the methods
she is well acquainted with, based on intuition and non-rationality.
Thus, artistic software appears.
How does software art save non-rationality?
One might ask, "How can software art be non-rational, if
rational algorithms are what lies at its basis?"
Yes, at the basis of each piece of software there are definite
algorithms, but if conventional programs are instruments serving
purely pragmatic purposes, the result of the work of artistic
programs often finds itself outside of the pragmatic and the rational.
Because the process of the digitalisation of culture and other
components of social life is inevitable, it is necessary to consider
adequate ideas and mechanisms for the transfer of those spheres
into digital space, to find adequate conditions for their functioning
within networks. How can we put forth such mechanisms, those which
would preserve the remaining grains of the non-rational and metaphysical,
those which could guarantee the safety of the society and protect
it against further rationalisation? Artistic software, non-rational
software, perhaps gives some answers to this question.
Appendix. Most common characteristics of artistic software
- irony 18%
- addressing political and social issues 10%
- interface prevailing over functionality 20%
- deconstruction 16%
- non-rationality 25%
- other 11%
|
