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2487 lines
112 KiB
Plaintext
2487 lines
112 KiB
Plaintext
{
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"cells": [
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{
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"cell_type": "code",
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"execution_count": 30,
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"metadata": {},
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"outputs": [],
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"source": [
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"import re, json\n",
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"\n",
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"def text_to_list_of_paragraphs(path):\n",
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" with open(path) as f:\n",
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" text = f.read()\n",
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"\n",
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" return re.split(r\"\\n+\", text)\n",
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" \n",
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"def text_to_list_of_sentences (path):\n",
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" tt = text_to_list_of_paragraphs(path)\n",
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" text = []\n",
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" for para in tt:\n",
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" ss = para.strip().split(\".\")\n",
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" ss = [s.strip()+\".\" for s in ss if s.strip()]\n",
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" text.append(ss)\n",
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" return text\n",
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"\n",
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"los = text_to_list_of_sentences(\"Visceral_Facades.txt\")\n",
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"with open(\"Visceral_Facades_los.json\", \"w\") as fout:\n",
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" print (json.dumps(los, indent=2), file=fout)\n"
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]
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},
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{
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"cell_type": "code",
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"execution_count": 32,
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"metadata": {
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"collapsed": true,
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"jupyter": {
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"outputs_hidden": true
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}
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},
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"outputs": [
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{
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"name": "stdout",
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"output_type": "stream",
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"text": [
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"[\n",
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" [\n",
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" [\n",
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" \"Visceral Facades: taking Matta-Clark's\",\n",
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" \"crowbar to software.\"\n",
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" ]\n",
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" ],\n",
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" [\n",
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" [\n",
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" \"Architecture was the first art of\",\n",
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" \"measurement of time and space.\"\n",
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" ],\n",
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" [\n",
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" \"Ancient megalithic structures such as\",\n",
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" \"Stonehenge are the ancestors of the\",\n",
|
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" \"machine you are reading this text on.\"\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"Whereas computers build up from the\",\n",
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" \"scale of electrons rather than that of\",\n",
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" \"giant lumps of stone and the tasks they\",\n",
|
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" \"complete are abstract and changeable,\",\n",
|
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" \"rather than specific and singular, they\",\n",
|
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" \"both remain physical instantiations of\",\n",
|
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" \"abstract logic into which energy is fed\",\n",
|
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" \"in order to produce results to one or\",\n",
|
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" \"more of a range of potential\",\n",
|
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" \"calculations embodied in their\",\n",
|
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" \"structure.\"\n",
|
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" ]\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
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" [\n",
|
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" \"Nowadays, as films such as Die Hard and\",\n",
|
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" \"novels such as Gridlock are so keen to\",\n",
|
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" \"show us, buildings and\",\n",
|
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" \"telecommunications are profoundly\",\n",
|
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" \"interrelated.\"\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"As architecture is caught up in the mesh\",\n",
|
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" \"of the 'immaterial', of security and\",\n",
|
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" \"communications systems, of gating and\",\n",
|
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" \"processing (think of an airport) its\",\n",
|
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" \"connection to its originary development\",\n",
|
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" \"as geometry realised in synthetic space\",\n",
|
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" \"becomes ever more apparent.\"\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"The proliferation of special effects\",\n",
|
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" \"that effect consciousness of time and\",\n",
|
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" \"distance and the perception of the\",\n",
|
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" \"environment in a context where maximum\",\n",
|
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" \"stratification combines in the same\",\n",
|
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" \"device with maximum fluidity, is\",\n",
|
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" \"presented as an abrupt break with an\",\n",
|
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" \"older style of architecture wherein\",\n",
|
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" \"power can be deciphered by the maximum\",\n",
|
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" \"possession of space.\"\n",
|
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" ]\n",
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"In a short story, Tangents, science\",\n",
|
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" \"fiction writer Greg Bear introduces\",\n",
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" \"four-dimensional beings into a three\",\n",
|
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" \"dimensional shape: something which he\",\n",
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" \"likens to looking at fish through the\",\n",
|
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" \"corner of an aquarium.\"\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"The shape that these fourth dimensional\",\n",
|
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" \"beings appear in is a normal, two storey\",\n",
|
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" \"house.\"\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"The house is gradually, neatly, Swiss-\",\n",
|
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" \"cheesed by a series of cones, columns,\",\n",
|
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" \"and spheres as the dimensions intersect.\"\n",
|
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" ]\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"Possibly, this might be the kind of\",\n",
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" \"effect you'd worry about if you'd\",\n",
|
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" \"invited Gordon Matta-Clark around to\",\n",
|
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" \"your home.\"\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
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" \"An artist who trained as an architect,\",\n",
|
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" \"Matta-Clark was born in New York City in\",\n",
|
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" \"March 1943 and died in 1978.\"\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"His most prolific period, between 1971\",\n",
|
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" \"and 1976, occurred within a rich context\",\n",
|
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" \"of experimental and anti-commercial\",\n",
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" \"dematerialization in both art and\",\n",
|
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" \"architecture, (although certainly within\",\n",
|
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" \"the field of 'authorised' architecture,\",\n",
|
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" \"much of this work remained on a\",\n",
|
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" \"theoretical and propositional basis).\"\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
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" \"Matta-Clark carried out his\",\n",
|
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" \"investigations of architecture and space\",\n",
|
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" \"through performance, drawing, sculpture,\",\n",
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" \"photography, video, film and material\",\n",
|
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" \"interventions known as 'cuttings'.\"\n",
|
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" ]\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"One action carried out in 1974,\",\n",
|
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" \"Splitting, involved taking a simple\",\n",
|
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" \"detached wooden house in Englewood, a\",\n",
|
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" \"New York State dormitory town, and\",\n",
|
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" \"bisecting it.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"The house, already slated for\",\n",
|
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" \"demolition, is cut exactly in two, from\",\n",
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" \"the roof, down the walls and through the\",\n",
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" \"floors to the raised foundation of\",\n",
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" \"building blocks.\"\n",
|
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" ],\n",
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" [\n",
|
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" \"In the short film which documents the\",\n",
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" \"process a shard of sunlight streams\",\n",
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" \"through the split, effacing the wall,\",\n",
|
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" \"energising the new structure.\"\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"The next stage is to take the rear half\",\n",
|
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" \"of the house and, supporting it on\",\n",
|
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" \"jacks, gradually knock away the upper\",\n",
|
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" \"surface of the foundation at an angle of\",\n",
|
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" \"five degrees.\"\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"The back of the house is then tilted\",\n",
|
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" \"away from the other half of the\",\n",
|
|
" \"structure back onto the now sloping\",\n",
|
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" \"foundation.\"\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
|
" \"Throughout the film, Matta-Clark can be\",\n",
|
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" \"seen working away at the building.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"A scrawny longhair in jeans and boots\",\n",
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" \"doing with a simple toolkit the serious\",\n",
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" \"structural re-adjustment that only the\",\n",
|
|
" \"most deranged of do-it-yourselfers can\",\n",
|
|
" \"dream about.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
|
" \"Another short film, Conical Intersect,\",\n",
|
|
" \"made in 1975 documents an intervention\",\n",
|
|
" \"which is even more reminiscent of the\",\n",
|
|
" \"transdimensional interference of\",\n",
|
|
" \"Tangents.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Made during the Paris Biennial in the\",\n",
|
|
" \"area of Les Halles, tellingly close to\",\n",
|
|
" \"the construction of the Centre George\",\n",
|
|
" \"Pompidou - a politically inspired scheme\",\n",
|
|
" \"reminiscent of that other artiste\",\n",
|
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" \"d\\u00e9molisseur, Baron Hausmann - the cut\",\n",
|
|
" \"probes into two adjoining seventeenth\",\n",
|
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" \"century 'mansions'.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
|
" \"Appearing from the outside as a series\",\n",
|
|
" \"of receding circles, the cut punctures\",\n",
|
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" \"the building at the fourth storey and\",\n",
|
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" \"moves upwards towards the sky.\"\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
|
" \"When the outer wall goes through, the\",\n",
|
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" \"film shows the trio of people working on\",\n",
|
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" \"the hole perform a brief can-can on a\",\n",
|
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" \"soon-to-be-demolished section of floor.\"\n",
|
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" ]\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"In a 1976 film, Substrait (Underground\",\n",
|
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" \"Dailies), Matta-Clark explored and\",\n",
|
|
" \"documented some of the underground of\",\n",
|
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" \"New York City.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
|
" \"Grand Central Station, 13th Street and\",\n",
|
|
" \"the Croton Aqueduct are filmed to show\",\n",
|
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" \"the variety and complexity of the hidden\",\n",
|
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" \"spaces and tunnels in the metropolitan\",\n",
|
|
" \"area.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Somewhat reminiscent of the ultra-dull\",\n",
|
|
" \"documentaries made by the Canadian\",\n",
|
|
" \"National Film Board in the same period,\",\n",
|
|
" \"this film develops an intimate concern\",\n",
|
|
" \"with the material qualities of the\",\n",
|
|
" \"structures under investigation, and\",\n",
|
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" \"perhaps provides for the New York sewage\",\n",
|
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" \"system a precursor to the geek art of\",\n",
|
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" \"the internet.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"It is possible to imagine a film of its\",\n",
|
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" \"travels through the nets made by a\",\n",
|
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" \"software worm, being of remarkable\",\n",
|
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" \"similarity.\"\n",
|
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" ]\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"Some of Matta-Clark's work could have\",\n",
|
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" \"only been produced by someone deeply\",\n",
|
|
" \"familiar with the strange reality of\",\n",
|
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" \"realty.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"In Reality Properties: Fake Estates he\",\n",
|
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" \"bought up fifteen minuscule sections of\",\n",
|
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" \"land that had been left over in property\",\n",
|
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" \"deals, or that teetered just off the\",\n",
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" \"edges of architectural plans drawn\",\n",
|
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" \"slightly out-of-whack: a foot strip down\",\n",
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" \"somebody's driveway, and a square foot\",\n",
|
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" \"of sidewalk, tiny sections of kerbs and\",\n",
|
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" \"gutters.\"\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"Buying up this ludicrous empire was\",\n",
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" \"again part of Matta-Clark's project of\",\n",
|
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" \"the structural activation of severed\",\n",
|
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" \"surfaces.\"\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"It is also an example of the\",\n",
|
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" \"idiosyncratic manipulation of rule-based\",\n",
|
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" \"behaviour to achieve different ends.\"\n",
|
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" ]\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
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" [\n",
|
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" \"Along with the dematerialised art that\",\n",
|
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" \"provided a context in which this work\",\n",
|
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" \"can be sensed, the period it was\",\n",
|
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" \"produced in was also the peak of minimal\",\n",
|
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" \"art.\"\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
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" \"Whilst Matta-Clark's work is in part\",\n",
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" \"concerned with formalism, the\",\n",
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" \"application of procedures and the\",\n",
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" \"revelation of structural properties, it\",\n",
|
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" \"is precisely because his work is\",\n",
|
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" \"formally non-reductive and purposely\",\n",
|
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" \"heterogenic that it is profoundly at\",\n",
|
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" \"variance to an art that was only\",\n",
|
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" \"supposed to speak of itself and of the\",\n",
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" \"immaculate connoisseurship of its\",\n",
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" \"audience.\"\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"This is an artwork that is exactly the\",\n",
|
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" \"reverse of autonomous.\"\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"It is openly dependent on a network of\",\n",
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" \"coincidences and interconnectedness: on\",\n",
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" \"being seen by chance passers-by; on the\",\n",
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" \"receipt or avoidance of bureaucratic\",\n",
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" \"permissions; on the functioning of\",\n",
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" \"recording devices; on good weather; on\",\n",
|
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" \"not being discovered when acting in\",\n",
|
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" \"secret; on the theatre of its enaction\",\n",
|
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" \"being an oxygenation of the still\",\n",
|
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" \"smouldering embers of history.\"\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"At the same time as it articulates the\",\n",
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" \"space in sculptural terms it also\",\n",
|
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" \"complexifies it in terms of its\",\n",
|
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" \"placehood, as an object, and within its\",\n",
|
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" \"social, chronological and economic\",\n",
|
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" \"contexts.\"\n",
|
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" ]\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"Knowing that there is freedom in\",\n",
|
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" \"suprise, it is along this fault line of\",\n",
|
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" \"rationality and the non-rational that\",\n",
|
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" \"Gordon Matta-Clark runs his fingers.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"Fingers which he also uses to tease\",\n",
|
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" \"another split - that between art and\",\n",
|
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" \"architecture.\"\n",
|
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" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" \"Comparable to his relationship to\",\n",
|
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" \"minimal art, rather than partaking in\",\n",
|
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" \"the functionalist urban sublime of the\",\n",
|
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" \"glass and steel skyscraper typified in\",\n",
|
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" \"the architecture of Mies van der Rohe -\",\n",
|
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" \"with its interior opened to make it more\",\n",
|
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" \"governable - Matta-Clark's work operates\",\n",
|
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" \"a dis-enclosure of urban space: its\",\n",
|
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" \"malfunctions, voids, shadows.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
|
" \"The tension inherent in such spaces is\",\n",
|
|
" \"portrayed well by Gilles Deleuze in\",\n",
|
|
" \"describing \\\"any-space-whatever\\\" the\",\n",
|
|
" \"half-urban, half-waste lands often used\",\n",
|
|
" \"as sets and exteriors in post World War\",\n",
|
|
" \"Two films: \\\"Any-space-whatever is a\",\n",
|
|
" \"perfectly singular space, which has\",\n",
|
|
" \"merely lost its homogeneity, that is,\",\n",
|
|
" \"the principle of its metric relations or\",\n",
|
|
" \"the connection of its own parts, so that\",\n",
|
|
" \"linkages can be made in an infinite\",\n",
|
|
" \"number of ways\\\" This tension between\",\n",
|
|
" \"particularity and obliteration found in\",\n",
|
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" \"the European bombsite translated well\",\n",
|
|
" \"into the conditions in which Matta-Clark\",\n",
|
|
" \"worked out of necessity and choice:\",\n",
|
|
" \"buildings eviscerated by the progress of\",\n",
|
|
" \"urban restructuring.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"\\\"There is a kind of complexity that\",\n",
|
|
" \"comes from taking an otherwise\",\n",
|
|
" \"completely normal, conventional, albeit\",\n",
|
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" \"anonymous situation and redefining it,\",\n",
|
|
" \"retranslating it into overlapping and\",\n",
|
|
" \"multiple readings of conditions past and\",\n",
|
|
" \"present\\\".\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"As an aside, this too easy lock-down\",\n",
|
|
" \"into textuality implied by the use of\",\n",
|
|
" \"the word 'reading' is of his time, (and\",\n",
|
|
" \"one replicated in perpetuity by artists\",\n",
|
|
" \"hungry for the valorising seal of\",\n",
|
|
" \"textual authority) but it rather\",\n",
|
|
" \"understates the multiple sensory affect\",\n",
|
|
" \"of the work.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"It is this aspect, of working with\",\n",
|
|
" \"material that is in the process of being\",\n",
|
|
" \"made anonymous, generic - yet turning it\",\n",
|
|
" \"into an engine of connotation - that is\",\n",
|
|
" \"particularly suggestive for a context\",\n",
|
|
" \"that, in its apparent dematerialization\",\n",
|
|
" \"seems most likely to resist it:\",\n",
|
|
" \"software.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
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" [\n",
|
|
" \"Software lacks the easy evidence of\",\n",
|
|
" \"time, of human habitation, of the\",\n",
|
|
" \"connotations of familial, industrial or\",\n",
|
|
" \"office life embedded in the structure of\",\n",
|
|
" \"a building.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"As a geometry realised in synthetic\",\n",
|
|
" \"space, it is an any-space-whatever, but\",\n",
|
|
" \"dry-cleaned and prised out of time.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Use of the computer happens at many\",\n",
|
|
" \"levels, both hard and soft.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"A crucial difference with how we\",\n",
|
|
" \"traditionally understand architecture,\",\n",
|
|
" \"rather than what it is becoming under\",\n",
|
|
" \"the impact of information technologies,\",\n",
|
|
" \"is that everything necessarily happens\",\n",
|
|
" \"at human scale.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"That the size, and to a certain extent\",\n",
|
|
" \"the organisation, of people has a\",\n",
|
|
" \"determining effect on the shape of the\",\n",
|
|
" \"building.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Conversely, the axiomatics that channel\",\n",
|
|
" \"and produce the behaviour necessary for\",\n",
|
|
" \"use of computers happen at both human\",\n",
|
|
" \"and subscopic scale.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"The hard organs of the computer: mouse,\",\n",
|
|
" \"keyboard, modem, microphone, monitor,\",\n",
|
|
" \"though all matched to greater or lesser\",\n",
|
|
" \"extents to human form, all snake back to\",\n",
|
|
" \"the CPU.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Whilst what is of interest here is an\",\n",
|
|
" \"investigation of the moment of\",\n",
|
|
" \"composition between user and computer,\",\n",
|
|
" \"and not a reiteration of text-book\",\n",
|
|
" \"schematics, it is worth noting that\",\n",
|
|
" \"simply because they occur at the level\",\n",
|
|
" \"of electrons the axes of software are\",\n",
|
|
" \"impossible to find for the average user.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Just as when watching a film we miss out\",\n",
|
|
" \"the black lines in between the frames\",\n",
|
|
" \"flashing past at 24 per second, the\",\n",
|
|
" \"invisible walls of software are designed\",\n",
|
|
" \"to remain inscrutable.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"However, the fact that these subscopic\",\n",
|
|
" \"transformation of data inside the\",\n",
|
|
" \"computer are simultaneously real and\",\n",
|
|
" \"symbolic; where the most abstract of\",\n",
|
|
" \"theoretical terms to be found in\",\n",
|
|
" \"mathematics becomes a thing, allows the\",\n",
|
|
" \"possibility of a kinaesthetic\",\n",
|
|
" \"investigation.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"An investigation that opens up a chance\",\n",
|
|
" \"for dialogue between the smooth running\",\n",
|
|
" \"of the machine and material that might\",\n",
|
|
" \"be thought of as contamination within\",\n",
|
|
" \"the terms of its devices.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Much of the 'legitimate' writing and\",\n",
|
|
" \"artistic production on information\",\n",
|
|
" \"technology is concerned with expanding\",\n",
|
|
" \"the application of the theoretical\",\n",
|
|
" \"devices used to recognise replication\",\n",
|
|
" \"and simulation, (what constitutes 'the\",\n",
|
|
" \"real') and of those used to recognise\",\n",
|
|
" \"surveillance.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"These themes, carried over most commonly\",\n",
|
|
" \"from debates around photography and\",\n",
|
|
" \"architecture, are of course suggestive\",\n",
|
|
" \"and in some cases useful, but in the\",\n",
|
|
" \"easiness of their translation we should\",\n",
|
|
" \"not forget that they are moving into a\",\n",
|
|
" \"context that subsumes them and is not\",\n",
|
|
" \"marked by their boundaries.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"In acknowledging the distinct\",\n",
|
|
" \"interconnectedness of the symbolic and\",\n",
|
|
" \"material, this is also an approach which\",\n",
|
|
" \"is opposed to the conception of\",\n",
|
|
" \"'virtuality' being taken as the desired\",\n",
|
|
" \"end state of digital technology: taking\",\n",
|
|
" \"virtuality as a condition which is\",\n",
|
|
" \"contained and made possible by the\",\n",
|
|
" \"actuality of digital media.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"To provide the skewed access to the\",\n",
|
|
" \"machines that such an investigation\",\n",
|
|
" \"requires we can siphon some fuel from\",\n",
|
|
" \"the goings-on of Gordon Matta-Clark: use\",\n",
|
|
" \"faults; disturb conventions; exploit\",\n",
|
|
" \"idiosyncrasies.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Faults arise in systems when the full\",\n",
|
|
" \"consequences of technical changes are\",\n",
|
|
" \"not followed through before the changes\",\n",
|
|
" \"are made, or are deliberately covered\",\n",
|
|
" \"up.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"This is an enormous game of hiding and\",\n",
|
|
" \"finding being played by a cast of\",\n",
|
|
" \"millions and one which has wide\",\n",
|
|
" \"ramifications.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Perhaps the most crucial faultlines\",\n",
|
|
" \"being traced at the moment are those\",\n",
|
|
" \"around security: the world of minutiae\",\n",
|
|
" \"that compose the integrity of existence\",\n",
|
|
" \"in dataspace and the way it maps back\",\n",
|
|
" \"onto everyday life.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"The profoundest restructuring of\",\n",
|
|
" \"existence is taking place at the levels\",\n",
|
|
" \"of the electron and the gene.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Technical complexity, commercial\",\n",
|
|
" \"pressure and the mechanisms of\",\n",
|
|
" \"expression management are blocking\",\n",
|
|
" \"almost all real public discourse on the\",\n",
|
|
" \"former.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"They are less able to do so to the\",\n",
|
|
" \"latter.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Whether radical or reactionary,\",\n",
|
|
" \"traditional political structures have,\",\n",
|
|
" \"either deliberately or through drastic\",\n",
|
|
" \"relevance-decay, abdicated almost all\",\n",
|
|
" \"decision making in these areas to\",\n",
|
|
" \"commercial interests.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"From a similar catalogue of stock\",\n",
|
|
" \"characters to that of the artist, the\",\n",
|
|
" \"pariah/hero figure of the hacker has\",\n",
|
|
" \"largely set the pace for any critical\",\n",
|
|
" \"understanding of the changes happening\",\n",
|
|
" \"in and between information technologies.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Picking up a random copy of the hacker\",\n",
|
|
" \"zine 2600 - summer 1996 - the scale and\",\n",
|
|
" \"ramifications of issues being dealt with\",\n",
|
|
" \"in this area becomes apparent.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Subjects covered include: an editorial\",\n",
|
|
" \"on the position of hackers in the legal\",\n",
|
|
" \"system and media; the code of a LINUX\",\n",
|
|
" \"program to block internet sites by\",\n",
|
|
" \"flooding them with connection requests;\",\n",
|
|
" \"a list of free phone carriers in\",\n",
|
|
" \"Australia; acquiring phone services\",\n",
|
|
" \"under imaginary names; the\",\n",
|
|
" \"telecommunications infrastructure in\",\n",
|
|
" \"Prague and Sarajevo; encryption;\",\n",
|
|
" \"consumer data security; catching\",\n",
|
|
" \"passwords to specific multi-user\",\n",
|
|
" \"computer systems; passenger in-flight\",\n",
|
|
" \"communications systems; phreaking smart\",\n",
|
|
" \"pay-phones; starting a hacker scene; the\",\n",
|
|
" \"transcription of part of a court case\",\n",
|
|
" \"involving the show trial of hacker,\",\n",
|
|
" \"Bernie S; plus pages of small ads and\",\n",
|
|
" \"letters.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"(Perhaps noticeable in comparing the\",\n",
|
|
" \"importance of these scenes with that of\",\n",
|
|
" \"art is that the second-order commentary\",\n",
|
|
" \"on the work comes mainly from the\",\n",
|
|
" \"media/legal system rather than just\",\n",
|
|
" \"critics).\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"The faults identified by hackers and\",\n",
|
|
" \"others, where ethico-aesthetic\",\n",
|
|
" \"situations are compounded under sheer\",\n",
|
|
" \"pressure into technical ones, are\",\n",
|
|
" \"implicated in wider mechanisms.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"These technical situations can be\",\n",
|
|
" \"investigated from any point or\",\n",
|
|
" \"development within these wider\",\n",
|
|
" \"mechanisms regardless of the degree of\",\n",
|
|
" \"technical proficiency.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Cracking open technical situations with\",\n",
|
|
" \"the wider social conditions within which\",\n",
|
|
" \"they occur is an increasingly necessary\",\n",
|
|
" \"task.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Doing so in a manner that creates a\",\n",
|
|
" \"transversal relationship between\",\n",
|
|
" \"different, perhaps walled-off,\",\n",
|
|
" \"components, and that intimately works\",\n",
|
|
" \"the technical with other kinds of\",\n",
|
|
" \"material or symbolic devices is\",\n",
|
|
" \"something that remains to be developed.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Tracking the faults, the severed\",\n",
|
|
" \"surfaces, of technology is one way in\",\n",
|
|
" \"which this can begin to be done.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"This intimacy, as well as concerning\",\n",
|
|
" \"itself with the cracks and disjunctures,\",\n",
|
|
" \"the faults in systems, can also become\",\n",
|
|
" \"involved in situations where they appear\",\n",
|
|
" \"to be most smooth.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"For the average user, the conventions of\",\n",
|
|
" \"personal computers appear secure,\",\n",
|
|
" \"rational, almost natural, if a little\",\n",
|
|
" \"awkward and tricky at times.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Like many social protocols, computer use\",\n",
|
|
" \"is a skill which is forgetful of its\",\n",
|
|
" \"acquisition.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Perhaps that user can remember back to\",\n",
|
|
" \"when they first got hold of a machine,\",\n",
|
|
" \"when they were waving a mouse in the air\",\n",
|
|
" \"to get the cursor to move towards them;\",\n",
|
|
" \"afraid to touch the wrong key in case it\",\n",
|
|
" \"damaged something; saving files all over\",\n",
|
|
" \"the place; trying to draw curves in\",\n",
|
|
" \"Pagemaker; putting floppies in upside-\",\n",
|
|
" \"down; trying to work a cracked copy of\",\n",
|
|
" \"CuBase with something missing; learning\",\n",
|
|
" \"how to conform to the machine in order\",\n",
|
|
" \"to make the machine conform to them.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"In computer interface design the form-\",\n",
|
|
" \"function fusion is made on the basis of\",\n",
|
|
" \"averages, a focus grouped reality based\",\n",
|
|
" \"on peoples' understanding of a context\",\n",
|
|
" \"in which it is impossible for them to\",\n",
|
|
" \"function unless they develop the\",\n",
|
|
" \"understanding already been mapped out\",\n",
|
|
" \"for them.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Perhaps in this context, the user will\",\n",
|
|
" \"always be the ideal user, because if\",\n",
|
|
" \"they are not ideal - if, within this\",\n",
|
|
" \"context at least, they do not conform to\",\n",
|
|
" \"the ideal - they won't be a user.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Interface design is a discipline that\",\n",
|
|
" \"aspires to saying nothing.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Instead of trying to crack this\",\n",
|
|
" \"invisibility, one technique for\",\n",
|
|
" \"investigation is to tease it into\",\n",
|
|
" \"overproduction.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Why use one mouse-click when ten-\",\n",
|
|
" \"thousand will do? Why use any visual\",\n",
|
|
" \"information when navigation is perfectly\",\n",
|
|
" \"possible with sound alone? Why just look\",\n",
|
|
" \"at the interface, why not print it out\",\n",
|
|
" \"and wear it? Why read text on screen\",\n",
|
|
" \"when a far better technology is paper?\",\n",
|
|
" \"Why use a cursor when the object you're\",\n",
|
|
" \"actually pointing at can function\",\n",
|
|
" \"perfectly well to indicate the mouse\",\n",
|
|
" \"position?.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"In any other social context, what\",\n",
|
|
" \"because of the arbitrary nature of the\",\n",
|
|
" \"abstract machine appear as protocols,\",\n",
|
|
" \"would be revealed as mannerisms.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"(Take a fast taxi through the ruined\",\n",
|
|
" \"neighbourhoods of cyberspace by\",\n",
|
|
" \"travelling through emulators of old\",\n",
|
|
" \"computers: punch a hole in the surface\",\n",
|
|
" \"of your shiny new machine by loading up\",\n",
|
|
" \"the black hole of a 1k ZX81).\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"When the construction of machines from\",\n",
|
|
" \"the fundamental objects of the hardware:\",\n",
|
|
" \"bits, bytes, words, addresses, upwards\",\n",
|
|
" \"are realised to be synthetic rather than\",\n",
|
|
" \"given, or even necessarily rational -\",\n",
|
|
" \"though produced through the application\",\n",
|
|
" \"of rationalisation, logic - they become\",\n",
|
|
" \"subject to wider possibilities for\",\n",
|
|
" \"change.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Software as an aggregate of very small\",\n",
|
|
" \"sensory experiences and devices becomes\",\n",
|
|
" \"an engine, not just of connotation, but\",\n",
|
|
" \"of transformation.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Some of those transformations in\",\n",
|
|
" \"occurrence can be sensed in the sheer\",\n",
|
|
" \"idiosyncrasy of much software.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"In the Atrocity Exhibition and other\",\n",
|
|
" \"books, J.G. Ballard mixes flat,\",\n",
|
|
" \"technical descriptions of body positions\",\n",
|
|
" \"as they come into composition with the\",\n",
|
|
" \"synthetic geometry of architecture,\",\n",
|
|
" \"automobiles, furnishings, to produce an\",\n",
|
|
" \"investigation of machined erotics.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"He continues and intensifies the\",\n",
|
|
" \"Surrealist stratagem of cutting together\",\n",
|
|
" \"transgressed functionalities in order to\",\n",
|
|
" \"regain entry to the order of the\",\n",
|
|
" \"symbolic.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"To an objective observer, the transitory\",\n",
|
|
" \"point at which a thigh comes into\",\n",
|
|
" \"convergence with a table also suggests\",\n",
|
|
" \"the way in which the original Microsoft\",\n",
|
|
" \"Windows interface was bolted on top of\",\n",
|
|
" \"the old DOS language.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"The tectonic impact of two neural\",\n",
|
|
" \"landscapes performs an operation called\",\n",
|
|
" \"progress.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"The software is tricked into doing\",\n",
|
|
" \"something more than it was intended for.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Instead of dramatic breaks, hacks and\",\n",
|
|
" \"incrementally adaptive mutations are\",\n",
|
|
" \"often the way things are made to move\",\n",
|
|
" \"forward.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"(For instance on Apple computers, the\",\n",
|
|
" \"desktop is already being bypassed by the\",\n",
|
|
" \"absorption of some of the functions of\",\n",
|
|
" \"the finder into various applications.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"From being a grossly over-metaphoric\",\n",
|
|
" \"grand entrance hall, it has become a\",\n",
|
|
" \"back alley).\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"When they work well they are elegant\",\n",
|
|
" \"usable collages.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Often they are botch jobs.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"In both cases, the points at which the\",\n",
|
|
" \"systems mesh, collide, or repel, can, at\",\n",
|
|
" \"the points of confused demarcation,\",\n",
|
|
" \"produce secret gardens, car parks, lamps\",\n",
|
|
" \"that fuck.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Idiosyncrasies can also develop when a\",\n",
|
|
" \"software system is applied to a\",\n",
|
|
" \"situation in toto.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Perhaps most obviously, databases.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"The production of software dedicated to\",\n",
|
|
" \"knowledge organisation and information\",\n",
|
|
" \"retrieval, a field largely seen as the\",\n",
|
|
" \"domain of linguists and computer\",\n",
|
|
" \"scientists, immediately brings with it a\",\n",
|
|
" \"range of problematics that are at once\",\n",
|
|
" \"both cultural and technical.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"The technology underlying search engines\",\n",
|
|
" \"and databases - set theory - is based on\",\n",
|
|
" \"creating classifications of information\",\n",
|
|
" \"according to arbitrarily or contingently\",\n",
|
|
" \"meaningful schemes.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"It is in the application and development\",\n",
|
|
" \"of those schemes with all their\",\n",
|
|
" \"inevitable biases and quirks that the\",\n",
|
|
" \"aesthetics of classification lies.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Attuned to quantifying; organising;\",\n",
|
|
" \"isolating and drawing into\",\n",
|
|
" \"relationships, particular cases of the\",\n",
|
|
" \"possible and working them till they\",\n",
|
|
" \"bleed some kind of relevance, databases\",\n",
|
|
" \"exist firmly on the cusp of the rational\",\n",
|
|
" \"and non-rational.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"When the Subjective Exercise Experiences\",\n",
|
|
" \"Scale locks onto the Human Genome\",\n",
|
|
" \"Initiative processing library stock-\",\n",
|
|
" \"holding data: prepare for something\",\n",
|
|
" \"approaching poetry.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Perhaps in some ways sensing into the\",\n",
|
|
" \"future this destratification of\",\n",
|
|
" \"conventions is the architecture of the\",\n",
|
|
" \"internet.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"This, (almost despite its position\",\n",
|
|
" \"within and between various political,\",\n",
|
|
" \"commercial and bureaucratic formations)\",\n",
|
|
" \"after all, is a network which functions\",\n",
|
|
" \"on a basis of being broken, continuously\",\n",
|
|
" \"finding the shortest route between\",\n",
|
|
" \"nodes: even as a squatter will always\",\n",
|
|
" \"see the empty buildings on any street\",\n",
|
|
" \"before those that are full.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"At these shifting, transitory points\",\n",
|
|
" \"where sensoriums intermesh, repel, clash\",\n",
|
|
" \"and resynthesize are the possibilities\",\n",
|
|
" \"for a ludic transdimensionality.\"\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Knock through a wall, and beyond the\",\n",
|
|
" \"clouds of brick dust clogging up and\",\n",
|
|
" \"exciting your eyes, tongue, palate and\",\n",
|
|
" \"throat, there's another universe: an\",\n",
|
|
" \"empty, unclassifiable complex seething\",\n",
|
|
" \"with life.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"Matthew Fuller, May 1997.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ],\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" [\n",
|
|
" \"I/O/D.\"\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
" ]\n",
|
|
"]\n"
|
|
]
|
|
}
|
|
],
|
|
"source": [
|
|
"import textwrap\n",
|
|
"\n",
|
|
"WIDTH=40\n",
|
|
"def wrap_los (los, width=40):\n",
|
|
" ret = []\n",
|
|
" for sentences in los:\n",
|
|
" llines = []\n",
|
|
" ret.append(llines)\n",
|
|
" for sentence in sentences:\n",
|
|
" llines.append(textwrap.wrap(sentence, WIDTH))\n",
|
|
" return ret\n",
|
|
"with open(\"Visceral_Facades_los.json\") as fin:\n",
|
|
" los = json.load(fin)\n",
|
|
"\n",
|
|
"print(json.dumps(wrap_los(los), indent=2))"
|
|
]
|
|
},
|
|
{
|
|
"cell_type": "code",
|
|
"execution_count": 35,
|
|
"metadata": {},
|
|
"outputs": [],
|
|
"source": [
|
|
"import sys\n",
|
|
"\n",
|
|
"def esc (t):\n",
|
|
" return t.replace('\"', r'\\\"')\n",
|
|
"\n",
|
|
"def dump_lua_table (s,fout=sys.stdout):\n",
|
|
" print(f'text={{}}', file=fout)\n",
|
|
" for pid, p in enumerate(s):\n",
|
|
" print (f'text[{pid}]={{}}', file=fout)\n",
|
|
" for sid, s in enumerate(p):\n",
|
|
" print (f'text[{pid}][{sid}]={{}}', file=fout)\n",
|
|
" for lid, l in enumerate(s):\n",
|
|
" print (f'text[{pid}][{sid}][{lid}]=\"{esc(l)}\"', file=fout)"
|
|
]
|
|
},
|
|
{
|
|
"cell_type": "code",
|
|
"execution_count": 36,
|
|
"metadata": {
|
|
"collapsed": true,
|
|
"jupyter": {
|
|
"outputs_hidden": true
|
|
}
|
|
},
|
|
"outputs": [
|
|
{
|
|
"name": "stdout",
|
|
"output_type": "stream",
|
|
"text": [
|
|
"text[]={}\n",
|
|
"text[0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[0][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[0][0][0]=\"Visceral Facades: taking Matta-Clark's\"\n",
|
|
"text[0][0][1]=\"crowbar to software.\"\n",
|
|
"text[1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[1][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[1][0][0]=\"Architecture was the first art of\"\n",
|
|
"text[1][0][1]=\"measurement of time and space.\"\n",
|
|
"text[1][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[1][1][0]=\"Ancient megalithic structures such as\"\n",
|
|
"text[1][1][1]=\"Stonehenge are the ancestors of the\"\n",
|
|
"text[1][1][2]=\"machine you are reading this text on.\"\n",
|
|
"text[1][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[1][2][0]=\"Whereas computers build up from the\"\n",
|
|
"text[1][2][1]=\"scale of electrons rather than that of\"\n",
|
|
"text[1][2][2]=\"giant lumps of stone and the tasks they\"\n",
|
|
"text[1][2][3]=\"complete are abstract and changeable,\"\n",
|
|
"text[1][2][4]=\"rather than specific and singular, they\"\n",
|
|
"text[1][2][5]=\"both remain physical instantiations of\"\n",
|
|
"text[1][2][6]=\"abstract logic into which energy is fed\"\n",
|
|
"text[1][2][7]=\"in order to produce results to one or\"\n",
|
|
"text[1][2][8]=\"more of a range of potential\"\n",
|
|
"text[1][2][9]=\"calculations embodied in their\"\n",
|
|
"text[1][2][10]=\"structure.\"\n",
|
|
"text[2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[2][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[2][0][0]=\"Nowadays, as films such as Die Hard and\"\n",
|
|
"text[2][0][1]=\"novels such as Gridlock are so keen to\"\n",
|
|
"text[2][0][2]=\"show us, buildings and\"\n",
|
|
"text[2][0][3]=\"telecommunications are profoundly\"\n",
|
|
"text[2][0][4]=\"interrelated.\"\n",
|
|
"text[2][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[2][1][0]=\"As architecture is caught up in the mesh\"\n",
|
|
"text[2][1][1]=\"of the 'immaterial', of security and\"\n",
|
|
"text[2][1][2]=\"communications systems, of gating and\"\n",
|
|
"text[2][1][3]=\"processing (think of an airport) its\"\n",
|
|
"text[2][1][4]=\"connection to its originary development\"\n",
|
|
"text[2][1][5]=\"as geometry realised in synthetic space\"\n",
|
|
"text[2][1][6]=\"becomes ever more apparent.\"\n",
|
|
"text[2][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[2][2][0]=\"The proliferation of special effects\"\n",
|
|
"text[2][2][1]=\"that effect consciousness of time and\"\n",
|
|
"text[2][2][2]=\"distance and the perception of the\"\n",
|
|
"text[2][2][3]=\"environment in a context where maximum\"\n",
|
|
"text[2][2][4]=\"stratification combines in the same\"\n",
|
|
"text[2][2][5]=\"device with maximum fluidity, is\"\n",
|
|
"text[2][2][6]=\"presented as an abrupt break with an\"\n",
|
|
"text[2][2][7]=\"older style of architecture wherein\"\n",
|
|
"text[2][2][8]=\"power can be deciphered by the maximum\"\n",
|
|
"text[2][2][9]=\"possession of space.\"\n",
|
|
"text[3]={}\n",
|
|
"text[3][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[3][0][0]=\"In a short story, Tangents, science\"\n",
|
|
"text[3][0][1]=\"fiction writer Greg Bear introduces\"\n",
|
|
"text[3][0][2]=\"four-dimensional beings into a three\"\n",
|
|
"text[3][0][3]=\"dimensional shape: something which he\"\n",
|
|
"text[3][0][4]=\"likens to looking at fish through the\"\n",
|
|
"text[3][0][5]=\"corner of an aquarium.\"\n",
|
|
"text[3][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[3][1][0]=\"The shape that these fourth dimensional\"\n",
|
|
"text[3][1][1]=\"beings appear in is a normal, two storey\"\n",
|
|
"text[3][1][2]=\"house.\"\n",
|
|
"text[3][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[3][2][0]=\"The house is gradually, neatly, Swiss-\"\n",
|
|
"text[3][2][1]=\"cheesed by a series of cones, columns,\"\n",
|
|
"text[3][2][2]=\"and spheres as the dimensions intersect.\"\n",
|
|
"text[4]={}\n",
|
|
"text[4][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[4][0][0]=\"Possibly, this might be the kind of\"\n",
|
|
"text[4][0][1]=\"effect you'd worry about if you'd\"\n",
|
|
"text[4][0][2]=\"invited Gordon Matta-Clark around to\"\n",
|
|
"text[4][0][3]=\"your home.\"\n",
|
|
"text[4][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[4][1][0]=\"An artist who trained as an architect,\"\n",
|
|
"text[4][1][1]=\"Matta-Clark was born in New York City in\"\n",
|
|
"text[4][1][2]=\"March 1943 and died in 1978.\"\n",
|
|
"text[4][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[4][2][0]=\"His most prolific period, between 1971\"\n",
|
|
"text[4][2][1]=\"and 1976, occurred within a rich context\"\n",
|
|
"text[4][2][2]=\"of experimental and anti-commercial\"\n",
|
|
"text[4][2][3]=\"dematerialization in both art and\"\n",
|
|
"text[4][2][4]=\"architecture, (although certainly within\"\n",
|
|
"text[4][2][5]=\"the field of 'authorised' architecture,\"\n",
|
|
"text[4][2][6]=\"much of this work remained on a\"\n",
|
|
"text[4][2][7]=\"theoretical and propositional basis).\"\n",
|
|
"text[4][3]={}\n",
|
|
"text[4][3][0]=\"Matta-Clark carried out his\"\n",
|
|
"text[4][3][1]=\"investigations of architecture and space\"\n",
|
|
"text[4][3][2]=\"through performance, drawing, sculpture,\"\n",
|
|
"text[4][3][3]=\"photography, video, film and material\"\n",
|
|
"text[4][3][4]=\"interventions known as 'cuttings'.\"\n",
|
|
"text[5]={}\n",
|
|
"text[5][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[5][0][0]=\"One action carried out in 1974,\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][0][1]=\"Splitting, involved taking a simple\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][0][2]=\"detached wooden house in Englewood, a\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][0][3]=\"New York State dormitory town, and\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][0][4]=\"bisecting it.\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[5][1][0]=\"The house, already slated for\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][1][1]=\"demolition, is cut exactly in two, from\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][1][2]=\"the roof, down the walls and through the\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][1][3]=\"floors to the raised foundation of\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][1][4]=\"building blocks.\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[5][2][0]=\"In the short film which documents the\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][2][1]=\"process a shard of sunlight streams\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][2][2]=\"through the split, effacing the wall,\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][2][3]=\"energising the new structure.\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][3]={}\n",
|
|
"text[5][3][0]=\"The next stage is to take the rear half\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][3][1]=\"of the house and, supporting it on\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][3][2]=\"jacks, gradually knock away the upper\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][3][3]=\"surface of the foundation at an angle of\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][3][4]=\"five degrees.\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][4]={}\n",
|
|
"text[5][4][0]=\"The back of the house is then tilted\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][4][1]=\"away from the other half of the\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][4][2]=\"structure back onto the now sloping\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][4][3]=\"foundation.\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][5]={}\n",
|
|
"text[5][5][0]=\"Throughout the film, Matta-Clark can be\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][5][1]=\"seen working away at the building.\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][6]={}\n",
|
|
"text[5][6][0]=\"A scrawny longhair in jeans and boots\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][6][1]=\"doing with a simple toolkit the serious\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][6][2]=\"structural re-adjustment that only the\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][6][3]=\"most deranged of do-it-yourselfers can\"\n",
|
|
"text[5][6][4]=\"dream about.\"\n",
|
|
"text[6]={}\n",
|
|
"text[6][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[6][0][0]=\"Another short film, Conical Intersect,\"\n",
|
|
"text[6][0][1]=\"made in 1975 documents an intervention\"\n",
|
|
"text[6][0][2]=\"which is even more reminiscent of the\"\n",
|
|
"text[6][0][3]=\"transdimensional interference of\"\n",
|
|
"text[6][0][4]=\"Tangents.\"\n",
|
|
"text[6][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[6][1][0]=\"Made during the Paris Biennial in the\"\n",
|
|
"text[6][1][1]=\"area of Les Halles, tellingly close to\"\n",
|
|
"text[6][1][2]=\"the construction of the Centre George\"\n",
|
|
"text[6][1][3]=\"Pompidou - a politically inspired scheme\"\n",
|
|
"text[6][1][4]=\"reminiscent of that other artiste\"\n",
|
|
"text[6][1][5]=\"démolisseur, Baron Hausmann - the cut\"\n",
|
|
"text[6][1][6]=\"probes into two adjoining seventeenth\"\n",
|
|
"text[6][1][7]=\"century 'mansions'.\"\n",
|
|
"text[6][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[6][2][0]=\"Appearing from the outside as a series\"\n",
|
|
"text[6][2][1]=\"of receding circles, the cut punctures\"\n",
|
|
"text[6][2][2]=\"the building at the fourth storey and\"\n",
|
|
"text[6][2][3]=\"moves upwards towards the sky.\"\n",
|
|
"text[6][3]={}\n",
|
|
"text[6][3][0]=\"When the outer wall goes through, the\"\n",
|
|
"text[6][3][1]=\"film shows the trio of people working on\"\n",
|
|
"text[6][3][2]=\"the hole perform a brief can-can on a\"\n",
|
|
"text[6][3][3]=\"soon-to-be-demolished section of floor.\"\n",
|
|
"text[7]={}\n",
|
|
"text[7][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[7][0][0]=\"In a 1976 film, Substrait (Underground\"\n",
|
|
"text[7][0][1]=\"Dailies), Matta-Clark explored and\"\n",
|
|
"text[7][0][2]=\"documented some of the underground of\"\n",
|
|
"text[7][0][3]=\"New York City.\"\n",
|
|
"text[7][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[7][1][0]=\"Grand Central Station, 13th Street and\"\n",
|
|
"text[7][1][1]=\"the Croton Aqueduct are filmed to show\"\n",
|
|
"text[7][1][2]=\"the variety and complexity of the hidden\"\n",
|
|
"text[7][1][3]=\"spaces and tunnels in the metropolitan\"\n",
|
|
"text[7][1][4]=\"area.\"\n",
|
|
"text[7][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[7][2][0]=\"Somewhat reminiscent of the ultra-dull\"\n",
|
|
"text[7][2][1]=\"documentaries made by the Canadian\"\n",
|
|
"text[7][2][2]=\"National Film Board in the same period,\"\n",
|
|
"text[7][2][3]=\"this film develops an intimate concern\"\n",
|
|
"text[7][2][4]=\"with the material qualities of the\"\n",
|
|
"text[7][2][5]=\"structures under investigation, and\"\n",
|
|
"text[7][2][6]=\"perhaps provides for the New York sewage\"\n",
|
|
"text[7][2][7]=\"system a precursor to the geek art of\"\n",
|
|
"text[7][2][8]=\"the internet.\"\n",
|
|
"text[7][3]={}\n",
|
|
"text[7][3][0]=\"It is possible to imagine a film of its\"\n",
|
|
"text[7][3][1]=\"travels through the nets made by a\"\n",
|
|
"text[7][3][2]=\"software worm, being of remarkable\"\n",
|
|
"text[7][3][3]=\"similarity.\"\n",
|
|
"text[8]={}\n",
|
|
"text[8][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[8][0][0]=\"Some of Matta-Clark's work could have\"\n",
|
|
"text[8][0][1]=\"only been produced by someone deeply\"\n",
|
|
"text[8][0][2]=\"familiar with the strange reality of\"\n",
|
|
"text[8][0][3]=\"realty.\"\n",
|
|
"text[8][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[8][1][0]=\"In Reality Properties: Fake Estates he\"\n",
|
|
"text[8][1][1]=\"bought up fifteen minuscule sections of\"\n",
|
|
"text[8][1][2]=\"land that had been left over in property\"\n",
|
|
"text[8][1][3]=\"deals, or that teetered just off the\"\n",
|
|
"text[8][1][4]=\"edges of architectural plans drawn\"\n",
|
|
"text[8][1][5]=\"slightly out-of-whack: a foot strip down\"\n",
|
|
"text[8][1][6]=\"somebody's driveway, and a square foot\"\n",
|
|
"text[8][1][7]=\"of sidewalk, tiny sections of kerbs and\"\n",
|
|
"text[8][1][8]=\"gutters.\"\n",
|
|
"text[8][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[8][2][0]=\"Buying up this ludicrous empire was\"\n",
|
|
"text[8][2][1]=\"again part of Matta-Clark's project of\"\n",
|
|
"text[8][2][2]=\"the structural activation of severed\"\n",
|
|
"text[8][2][3]=\"surfaces.\"\n",
|
|
"text[8][3]={}\n",
|
|
"text[8][3][0]=\"It is also an example of the\"\n",
|
|
"text[8][3][1]=\"idiosyncratic manipulation of rule-based\"\n",
|
|
"text[8][3][2]=\"behaviour to achieve different ends.\"\n",
|
|
"text[9]={}\n",
|
|
"text[9][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[9][0][0]=\"Along with the dematerialised art that\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][0][1]=\"provided a context in which this work\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][0][2]=\"can be sensed, the period it was\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][0][3]=\"produced in was also the peak of minimal\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][0][4]=\"art.\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[9][1][0]=\"Whilst Matta-Clark's work is in part\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][1][1]=\"concerned with formalism, the\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][1][2]=\"application of procedures and the\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][1][3]=\"revelation of structural properties, it\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][1][4]=\"is precisely because his work is\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][1][5]=\"formally non-reductive and purposely\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][1][6]=\"heterogenic that it is profoundly at\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][1][7]=\"variance to an art that was only\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][1][8]=\"supposed to speak of itself and of the\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][1][9]=\"immaculate connoisseurship of its\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][1][10]=\"audience.\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[9][2][0]=\"This is an artwork that is exactly the\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][2][1]=\"reverse of autonomous.\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][3]={}\n",
|
|
"text[9][3][0]=\"It is openly dependent on a network of\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][3][1]=\"coincidences and interconnectedness: on\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][3][2]=\"being seen by chance passers-by; on the\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][3][3]=\"receipt or avoidance of bureaucratic\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][3][4]=\"permissions; on the functioning of\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][3][5]=\"recording devices; on good weather; on\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][3][6]=\"not being discovered when acting in\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][3][7]=\"secret; on the theatre of its enaction\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][3][8]=\"being an oxygenation of the still\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][3][9]=\"smouldering embers of history.\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][4]={}\n",
|
|
"text[9][4][0]=\"At the same time as it articulates the\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][4][1]=\"space in sculptural terms it also\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][4][2]=\"complexifies it in terms of its\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][4][3]=\"placehood, as an object, and within its\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][4][4]=\"social, chronological and economic\"\n",
|
|
"text[9][4][5]=\"contexts.\"\n",
|
|
"text[10]={}\n",
|
|
"text[10][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[10][0][0]=\"Knowing that there is freedom in\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][0][1]=\"suprise, it is along this fault line of\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][0][2]=\"rationality and the non-rational that\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][0][3]=\"Gordon Matta-Clark runs his fingers.\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[10][1][0]=\"Fingers which he also uses to tease\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][1][1]=\"another split - that between art and\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][1][2]=\"architecture.\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[10][2][0]=\"Comparable to his relationship to\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][2][1]=\"minimal art, rather than partaking in\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][2][2]=\"the functionalist urban sublime of the\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][2][3]=\"glass and steel skyscraper typified in\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][2][4]=\"the architecture of Mies van der Rohe -\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][2][5]=\"with its interior opened to make it more\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][2][6]=\"governable - Matta-Clark's work operates\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][2][7]=\"a dis-enclosure of urban space: its\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][2][8]=\"malfunctions, voids, shadows.\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][3]={}\n",
|
|
"text[10][3][0]=\"The tension inherent in such spaces is\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][3][1]=\"portrayed well by Gilles Deleuze in\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][3][2]=\"describing \\\"any-space-whatever\\\" the\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][3][3]=\"half-urban, half-waste lands often used\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][3][4]=\"as sets and exteriors in post World War\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][3][5]=\"Two films: \\\"Any-space-whatever is a\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][3][6]=\"perfectly singular space, which has\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][3][7]=\"merely lost its homogeneity, that is,\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][3][8]=\"the principle of its metric relations or\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][3][9]=\"the connection of its own parts, so that\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][3][10]=\"linkages can be made in an infinite\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][3][11]=\"number of ways\\\" This tension between\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][3][12]=\"particularity and obliteration found in\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][3][13]=\"the European bombsite translated well\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][3][14]=\"into the conditions in which Matta-Clark\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][3][15]=\"worked out of necessity and choice:\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][3][16]=\"buildings eviscerated by the progress of\"\n",
|
|
"text[10][3][17]=\"urban restructuring.\"\n",
|
|
"text[11]={}\n",
|
|
"text[11][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[11][0][0]=\"\\\"There is a kind of complexity that\"\n",
|
|
"text[11][0][1]=\"comes from taking an otherwise\"\n",
|
|
"text[11][0][2]=\"completely normal, conventional, albeit\"\n",
|
|
"text[11][0][3]=\"anonymous situation and redefining it,\"\n",
|
|
"text[11][0][4]=\"retranslating it into overlapping and\"\n",
|
|
"text[11][0][5]=\"multiple readings of conditions past and\"\n",
|
|
"text[11][0][6]=\"present\\\".\"\n",
|
|
"text[12]={}\n",
|
|
"text[12][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[12][0][0]=\"As an aside, this too easy lock-down\"\n",
|
|
"text[12][0][1]=\"into textuality implied by the use of\"\n",
|
|
"text[12][0][2]=\"the word 'reading' is of his time, (and\"\n",
|
|
"text[12][0][3]=\"one replicated in perpetuity by artists\"\n",
|
|
"text[12][0][4]=\"hungry for the valorising seal of\"\n",
|
|
"text[12][0][5]=\"textual authority) but it rather\"\n",
|
|
"text[12][0][6]=\"understates the multiple sensory affect\"\n",
|
|
"text[12][0][7]=\"of the work.\"\n",
|
|
"text[12][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[12][1][0]=\"It is this aspect, of working with\"\n",
|
|
"text[12][1][1]=\"material that is in the process of being\"\n",
|
|
"text[12][1][2]=\"made anonymous, generic - yet turning it\"\n",
|
|
"text[12][1][3]=\"into an engine of connotation - that is\"\n",
|
|
"text[12][1][4]=\"particularly suggestive for a context\"\n",
|
|
"text[12][1][5]=\"that, in its apparent dematerialization\"\n",
|
|
"text[12][1][6]=\"seems most likely to resist it:\"\n",
|
|
"text[12][1][7]=\"software.\"\n",
|
|
"text[13]={}\n",
|
|
"text[13][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[13][0][0]=\"Software lacks the easy evidence of\"\n",
|
|
"text[13][0][1]=\"time, of human habitation, of the\"\n",
|
|
"text[13][0][2]=\"connotations of familial, industrial or\"\n",
|
|
"text[13][0][3]=\"office life embedded in the structure of\"\n",
|
|
"text[13][0][4]=\"a building.\"\n",
|
|
"text[13][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[13][1][0]=\"As a geometry realised in synthetic\"\n",
|
|
"text[13][1][1]=\"space, it is an any-space-whatever, but\"\n",
|
|
"text[13][1][2]=\"dry-cleaned and prised out of time.\"\n",
|
|
"text[14]={}\n",
|
|
"text[14][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[14][0][0]=\"Use of the computer happens at many\"\n",
|
|
"text[14][0][1]=\"levels, both hard and soft.\"\n",
|
|
"text[14][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[14][1][0]=\"A crucial difference with how we\"\n",
|
|
"text[14][1][1]=\"traditionally understand architecture,\"\n",
|
|
"text[14][1][2]=\"rather than what it is becoming under\"\n",
|
|
"text[14][1][3]=\"the impact of information technologies,\"\n",
|
|
"text[14][1][4]=\"is that everything necessarily happens\"\n",
|
|
"text[14][1][5]=\"at human scale.\"\n",
|
|
"text[14][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[14][2][0]=\"That the size, and to a certain extent\"\n",
|
|
"text[14][2][1]=\"the organisation, of people has a\"\n",
|
|
"text[14][2][2]=\"determining effect on the shape of the\"\n",
|
|
"text[14][2][3]=\"building.\"\n",
|
|
"text[14][3]={}\n",
|
|
"text[14][3][0]=\"Conversely, the axiomatics that channel\"\n",
|
|
"text[14][3][1]=\"and produce the behaviour necessary for\"\n",
|
|
"text[14][3][2]=\"use of computers happen at both human\"\n",
|
|
"text[14][3][3]=\"and subscopic scale.\"\n",
|
|
"text[14][4]={}\n",
|
|
"text[14][4][0]=\"The hard organs of the computer: mouse,\"\n",
|
|
"text[14][4][1]=\"keyboard, modem, microphone, monitor,\"\n",
|
|
"text[14][4][2]=\"though all matched to greater or lesser\"\n",
|
|
"text[14][4][3]=\"extents to human form, all snake back to\"\n",
|
|
"text[14][4][4]=\"the CPU.\"\n",
|
|
"text[15]={}\n",
|
|
"text[15][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[15][0][0]=\"Whilst what is of interest here is an\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][0][1]=\"investigation of the moment of\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][0][2]=\"composition between user and computer,\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][0][3]=\"and not a reiteration of text-book\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][0][4]=\"schematics, it is worth noting that\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][0][5]=\"simply because they occur at the level\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][0][6]=\"of electrons the axes of software are\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][0][7]=\"impossible to find for the average user.\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[15][1][0]=\"Just as when watching a film we miss out\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][1][1]=\"the black lines in between the frames\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][1][2]=\"flashing past at 24 per second, the\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][1][3]=\"invisible walls of software are designed\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][1][4]=\"to remain inscrutable.\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[15][2][0]=\"However, the fact that these subscopic\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][2][1]=\"transformation of data inside the\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][2][2]=\"computer are simultaneously real and\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][2][3]=\"symbolic; where the most abstract of\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][2][4]=\"theoretical terms to be found in\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][2][5]=\"mathematics becomes a thing, allows the\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][2][6]=\"possibility of a kinaesthetic\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][2][7]=\"investigation.\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][3]={}\n",
|
|
"text[15][3][0]=\"An investigation that opens up a chance\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][3][1]=\"for dialogue between the smooth running\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][3][2]=\"of the machine and material that might\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][3][3]=\"be thought of as contamination within\"\n",
|
|
"text[15][3][4]=\"the terms of its devices.\"\n",
|
|
"text[16]={}\n",
|
|
"text[16][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[16][0][0]=\"Much of the 'legitimate' writing and\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][0][1]=\"artistic production on information\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][0][2]=\"technology is concerned with expanding\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][0][3]=\"the application of the theoretical\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][0][4]=\"devices used to recognise replication\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][0][5]=\"and simulation, (what constitutes 'the\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][0][6]=\"real') and of those used to recognise\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][0][7]=\"surveillance.\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[16][1][0]=\"These themes, carried over most commonly\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][1][1]=\"from debates around photography and\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][1][2]=\"architecture, are of course suggestive\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][1][3]=\"and in some cases useful, but in the\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][1][4]=\"easiness of their translation we should\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][1][5]=\"not forget that they are moving into a\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][1][6]=\"context that subsumes them and is not\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][1][7]=\"marked by their boundaries.\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[16][2][0]=\"In acknowledging the distinct\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][2][1]=\"interconnectedness of the symbolic and\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][2][2]=\"material, this is also an approach which\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][2][3]=\"is opposed to the conception of\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][2][4]=\"'virtuality' being taken as the desired\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][2][5]=\"end state of digital technology: taking\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][2][6]=\"virtuality as a condition which is\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][2][7]=\"contained and made possible by the\"\n",
|
|
"text[16][2][8]=\"actuality of digital media.\"\n",
|
|
"text[17]={}\n",
|
|
"text[17][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[17][0][0]=\"To provide the skewed access to the\"\n",
|
|
"text[17][0][1]=\"machines that such an investigation\"\n",
|
|
"text[17][0][2]=\"requires we can siphon some fuel from\"\n",
|
|
"text[17][0][3]=\"the goings-on of Gordon Matta-Clark: use\"\n",
|
|
"text[17][0][4]=\"faults; disturb conventions; exploit\"\n",
|
|
"text[17][0][5]=\"idiosyncrasies.\"\n",
|
|
"text[18]={}\n",
|
|
"text[18][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[18][0][0]=\"Faults arise in systems when the full\"\n",
|
|
"text[18][0][1]=\"consequences of technical changes are\"\n",
|
|
"text[18][0][2]=\"not followed through before the changes\"\n",
|
|
"text[18][0][3]=\"are made, or are deliberately covered\"\n",
|
|
"text[18][0][4]=\"up.\"\n",
|
|
"text[18][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[18][1][0]=\"This is an enormous game of hiding and\"\n",
|
|
"text[18][1][1]=\"finding being played by a cast of\"\n",
|
|
"text[18][1][2]=\"millions and one which has wide\"\n",
|
|
"text[18][1][3]=\"ramifications.\"\n",
|
|
"text[18][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[18][2][0]=\"Perhaps the most crucial faultlines\"\n",
|
|
"text[18][2][1]=\"being traced at the moment are those\"\n",
|
|
"text[18][2][2]=\"around security: the world of minutiae\"\n",
|
|
"text[18][2][3]=\"that compose the integrity of existence\"\n",
|
|
"text[18][2][4]=\"in dataspace and the way it maps back\"\n",
|
|
"text[18][2][5]=\"onto everyday life.\"\n",
|
|
"text[19]={}\n",
|
|
"text[19][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[19][0][0]=\"The profoundest restructuring of\"\n",
|
|
"text[19][0][1]=\"existence is taking place at the levels\"\n",
|
|
"text[19][0][2]=\"of the electron and the gene.\"\n",
|
|
"text[19][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[19][1][0]=\"Technical complexity, commercial\"\n",
|
|
"text[19][1][1]=\"pressure and the mechanisms of\"\n",
|
|
"text[19][1][2]=\"expression management are blocking\"\n",
|
|
"text[19][1][3]=\"almost all real public discourse on the\"\n",
|
|
"text[19][1][4]=\"former.\"\n",
|
|
"text[19][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[19][2][0]=\"They are less able to do so to the\"\n",
|
|
"text[19][2][1]=\"latter.\"\n",
|
|
"text[20]={}\n",
|
|
"text[20][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[20][0][0]=\"Whether radical or reactionary,\"\n",
|
|
"text[20][0][1]=\"traditional political structures have,\"\n",
|
|
"text[20][0][2]=\"either deliberately or through drastic\"\n",
|
|
"text[20][0][3]=\"relevance-decay, abdicated almost all\"\n",
|
|
"text[20][0][4]=\"decision making in these areas to\"\n",
|
|
"text[20][0][5]=\"commercial interests.\"\n",
|
|
"text[20][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[20][1][0]=\"From a similar catalogue of stock\"\n",
|
|
"text[20][1][1]=\"characters to that of the artist, the\"\n",
|
|
"text[20][1][2]=\"pariah/hero figure of the hacker has\"\n",
|
|
"text[20][1][3]=\"largely set the pace for any critical\"\n",
|
|
"text[20][1][4]=\"understanding of the changes happening\"\n",
|
|
"text[20][1][5]=\"in and between information technologies.\"\n",
|
|
"text[21]={}\n",
|
|
"text[21][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[21][0][0]=\"Picking up a random copy of the hacker\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][0][1]=\"zine 2600 - summer 1996 - the scale and\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][0][2]=\"ramifications of issues being dealt with\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][0][3]=\"in this area becomes apparent.\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[21][1][0]=\"Subjects covered include: an editorial\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][1][1]=\"on the position of hackers in the legal\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][1][2]=\"system and media; the code of a LINUX\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][1][3]=\"program to block internet sites by\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][1][4]=\"flooding them with connection requests;\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][1][5]=\"a list of free phone carriers in\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][1][6]=\"Australia; acquiring phone services\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][1][7]=\"under imaginary names; the\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][1][8]=\"telecommunications infrastructure in\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][1][9]=\"Prague and Sarajevo; encryption;\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][1][10]=\"consumer data security; catching\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][1][11]=\"passwords to specific multi-user\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][1][12]=\"computer systems; passenger in-flight\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][1][13]=\"communications systems; phreaking smart\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][1][14]=\"pay-phones; starting a hacker scene; the\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][1][15]=\"transcription of part of a court case\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][1][16]=\"involving the show trial of hacker,\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][1][17]=\"Bernie S; plus pages of small ads and\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][1][18]=\"letters.\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[21][2][0]=\"(Perhaps noticeable in comparing the\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][2][1]=\"importance of these scenes with that of\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][2][2]=\"art is that the second-order commentary\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][2][3]=\"on the work comes mainly from the\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][2][4]=\"media/legal system rather than just\"\n",
|
|
"text[21][2][5]=\"critics).\"\n",
|
|
"text[22]={}\n",
|
|
"text[22][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[22][0][0]=\"The faults identified by hackers and\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][0][1]=\"others, where ethico-aesthetic\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][0][2]=\"situations are compounded under sheer\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][0][3]=\"pressure into technical ones, are\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][0][4]=\"implicated in wider mechanisms.\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[22][1][0]=\"These technical situations can be\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][1][1]=\"investigated from any point or\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][1][2]=\"development within these wider\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][1][3]=\"mechanisms regardless of the degree of\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][1][4]=\"technical proficiency.\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[22][2][0]=\"Cracking open technical situations with\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][2][1]=\"the wider social conditions within which\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][2][2]=\"they occur is an increasingly necessary\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][2][3]=\"task.\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][3]={}\n",
|
|
"text[22][3][0]=\"Doing so in a manner that creates a\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][3][1]=\"transversal relationship between\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][3][2]=\"different, perhaps walled-off,\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][3][3]=\"components, and that intimately works\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][3][4]=\"the technical with other kinds of\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][3][5]=\"material or symbolic devices is\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][3][6]=\"something that remains to be developed.\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][4]={}\n",
|
|
"text[22][4][0]=\"Tracking the faults, the severed\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][4][1]=\"surfaces, of technology is one way in\"\n",
|
|
"text[22][4][2]=\"which this can begin to be done.\"\n",
|
|
"text[23]={}\n",
|
|
"text[23][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[23][0][0]=\"This intimacy, as well as concerning\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][0][1]=\"itself with the cracks and disjunctures,\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][0][2]=\"the faults in systems, can also become\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][0][3]=\"involved in situations where they appear\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][0][4]=\"to be most smooth.\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[23][1][0]=\"For the average user, the conventions of\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][1][1]=\"personal computers appear secure,\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][1][2]=\"rational, almost natural, if a little\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][1][3]=\"awkward and tricky at times.\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[23][2][0]=\"Like many social protocols, computer use\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][2][1]=\"is a skill which is forgetful of its\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][2][2]=\"acquisition.\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][3]={}\n",
|
|
"text[23][3][0]=\"Perhaps that user can remember back to\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][3][1]=\"when they first got hold of a machine,\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][3][2]=\"when they were waving a mouse in the air\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][3][3]=\"to get the cursor to move towards them;\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][3][4]=\"afraid to touch the wrong key in case it\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][3][5]=\"damaged something; saving files all over\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][3][6]=\"the place; trying to draw curves in\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][3][7]=\"Pagemaker; putting floppies in upside-\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][3][8]=\"down; trying to work a cracked copy of\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][3][9]=\"CuBase with something missing; learning\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][3][10]=\"how to conform to the machine in order\"\n",
|
|
"text[23][3][11]=\"to make the machine conform to them.\"\n",
|
|
"text[24]={}\n",
|
|
"text[24][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[24][0][0]=\"In computer interface design the form-\"\n",
|
|
"text[24][0][1]=\"function fusion is made on the basis of\"\n",
|
|
"text[24][0][2]=\"averages, a focus grouped reality based\"\n",
|
|
"text[24][0][3]=\"on peoples' understanding of a context\"\n",
|
|
"text[24][0][4]=\"in which it is impossible for them to\"\n",
|
|
"text[24][0][5]=\"function unless they develop the\"\n",
|
|
"text[24][0][6]=\"understanding already been mapped out\"\n",
|
|
"text[24][0][7]=\"for them.\"\n",
|
|
"text[24][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[24][1][0]=\"Perhaps in this context, the user will\"\n",
|
|
"text[24][1][1]=\"always be the ideal user, because if\"\n",
|
|
"text[24][1][2]=\"they are not ideal - if, within this\"\n",
|
|
"text[24][1][3]=\"context at least, they do not conform to\"\n",
|
|
"text[24][1][4]=\"the ideal - they won't be a user.\"\n",
|
|
"text[25]={}\n",
|
|
"text[25][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[25][0][0]=\"Interface design is a discipline that\"\n",
|
|
"text[25][0][1]=\"aspires to saying nothing.\"\n",
|
|
"text[25][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[25][1][0]=\"Instead of trying to crack this\"\n",
|
|
"text[25][1][1]=\"invisibility, one technique for\"\n",
|
|
"text[25][1][2]=\"investigation is to tease it into\"\n",
|
|
"text[25][1][3]=\"overproduction.\"\n",
|
|
"text[25][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[25][2][0]=\"Why use one mouse-click when ten-\"\n",
|
|
"text[25][2][1]=\"thousand will do? Why use any visual\"\n",
|
|
"text[25][2][2]=\"information when navigation is perfectly\"\n",
|
|
"text[25][2][3]=\"possible with sound alone? Why just look\"\n",
|
|
"text[25][2][4]=\"at the interface, why not print it out\"\n",
|
|
"text[25][2][5]=\"and wear it? Why read text on screen\"\n",
|
|
"text[25][2][6]=\"when a far better technology is paper?\"\n",
|
|
"text[25][2][7]=\"Why use a cursor when the object you're\"\n",
|
|
"text[25][2][8]=\"actually pointing at can function\"\n",
|
|
"text[25][2][9]=\"perfectly well to indicate the mouse\"\n",
|
|
"text[25][2][10]=\"position?.\"\n",
|
|
"text[26]={}\n",
|
|
"text[26][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[26][0][0]=\"In any other social context, what\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][0][1]=\"because of the arbitrary nature of the\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][0][2]=\"abstract machine appear as protocols,\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][0][3]=\"would be revealed as mannerisms.\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[26][1][0]=\"(Take a fast taxi through the ruined\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][1][1]=\"neighbourhoods of cyberspace by\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][1][2]=\"travelling through emulators of old\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][1][3]=\"computers: punch a hole in the surface\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][1][4]=\"of your shiny new machine by loading up\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][1][5]=\"the black hole of a 1k ZX81).\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[26][2][0]=\"When the construction of machines from\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][2][1]=\"the fundamental objects of the hardware:\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][2][2]=\"bits, bytes, words, addresses, upwards\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][2][3]=\"are realised to be synthetic rather than\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][2][4]=\"given, or even necessarily rational -\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][2][5]=\"though produced through the application\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][2][6]=\"of rationalisation, logic - they become\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][2][7]=\"subject to wider possibilities for\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][2][8]=\"change.\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][3]={}\n",
|
|
"text[26][3][0]=\"Software as an aggregate of very small\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][3][1]=\"sensory experiences and devices becomes\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][3][2]=\"an engine, not just of connotation, but\"\n",
|
|
"text[26][3][3]=\"of transformation.\"\n",
|
|
"text[27]={}\n",
|
|
"text[27][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[27][0][0]=\"Some of those transformations in\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][0][1]=\"occurrence can be sensed in the sheer\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][0][2]=\"idiosyncrasy of much software.\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[27][1][0]=\"In the Atrocity Exhibition and other\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][1][1]=\"books, J.G. Ballard mixes flat,\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][1][2]=\"technical descriptions of body positions\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][1][3]=\"as they come into composition with the\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][1][4]=\"synthetic geometry of architecture,\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][1][5]=\"automobiles, furnishings, to produce an\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][1][6]=\"investigation of machined erotics.\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[27][2][0]=\"He continues and intensifies the\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][2][1]=\"Surrealist stratagem of cutting together\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][2][2]=\"transgressed functionalities in order to\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][2][3]=\"regain entry to the order of the\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][2][4]=\"symbolic.\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][3]={}\n",
|
|
"text[27][3][0]=\"To an objective observer, the transitory\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][3][1]=\"point at which a thigh comes into\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][3][2]=\"convergence with a table also suggests\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][3][3]=\"the way in which the original Microsoft\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][3][4]=\"Windows interface was bolted on top of\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][3][5]=\"the old DOS language.\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][4]={}\n",
|
|
"text[27][4][0]=\"The tectonic impact of two neural\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][4][1]=\"landscapes performs an operation called\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][4][2]=\"progress.\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][5]={}\n",
|
|
"text[27][5][0]=\"The software is tricked into doing\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][5][1]=\"something more than it was intended for.\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][6]={}\n",
|
|
"text[27][6][0]=\"Instead of dramatic breaks, hacks and\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][6][1]=\"incrementally adaptive mutations are\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][6][2]=\"often the way things are made to move\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][6][3]=\"forward.\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][7]={}\n",
|
|
"text[27][7][0]=\"(For instance on Apple computers, the\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][7][1]=\"desktop is already being bypassed by the\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][7][2]=\"absorption of some of the functions of\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][7][3]=\"the finder into various applications.\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][8]={}\n",
|
|
"text[27][8][0]=\"From being a grossly over-metaphoric\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][8][1]=\"grand entrance hall, it has become a\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][8][2]=\"back alley).\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][9]={}\n",
|
|
"text[27][9][0]=\"When they work well they are elegant\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][9][1]=\"usable collages.\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][10]={}\n",
|
|
"text[27][10][0]=\"Often they are botch jobs.\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][11]={}\n",
|
|
"text[27][11][0]=\"In both cases, the points at which the\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][11][1]=\"systems mesh, collide, or repel, can, at\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][11][2]=\"the points of confused demarcation,\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][11][3]=\"produce secret gardens, car parks, lamps\"\n",
|
|
"text[27][11][4]=\"that fuck.\"\n",
|
|
"text[28]={}\n",
|
|
"text[28][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[28][0][0]=\"Idiosyncrasies can also develop when a\"\n",
|
|
"text[28][0][1]=\"software system is applied to a\"\n",
|
|
"text[28][0][2]=\"situation in toto.\"\n",
|
|
"text[28][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[28][1][0]=\"Perhaps most obviously, databases.\"\n",
|
|
"text[28][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[28][2][0]=\"The production of software dedicated to\"\n",
|
|
"text[28][2][1]=\"knowledge organisation and information\"\n",
|
|
"text[28][2][2]=\"retrieval, a field largely seen as the\"\n",
|
|
"text[28][2][3]=\"domain of linguists and computer\"\n",
|
|
"text[28][2][4]=\"scientists, immediately brings with it a\"\n",
|
|
"text[28][2][5]=\"range of problematics that are at once\"\n",
|
|
"text[28][2][6]=\"both cultural and technical.\"\n",
|
|
"text[28][3]={}\n",
|
|
"text[28][3][0]=\"The technology underlying search engines\"\n",
|
|
"text[28][3][1]=\"and databases - set theory - is based on\"\n",
|
|
"text[28][3][2]=\"creating classifications of information\"\n",
|
|
"text[28][3][3]=\"according to arbitrarily or contingently\"\n",
|
|
"text[28][3][4]=\"meaningful schemes.\"\n",
|
|
"text[28][4]={}\n",
|
|
"text[28][4][0]=\"It is in the application and development\"\n",
|
|
"text[28][4][1]=\"of those schemes with all their\"\n",
|
|
"text[28][4][2]=\"inevitable biases and quirks that the\"\n",
|
|
"text[28][4][3]=\"aesthetics of classification lies.\"\n",
|
|
"text[29]={}\n",
|
|
"text[29][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[29][0][0]=\"Attuned to quantifying; organising;\"\n",
|
|
"text[29][0][1]=\"isolating and drawing into\"\n",
|
|
"text[29][0][2]=\"relationships, particular cases of the\"\n",
|
|
"text[29][0][3]=\"possible and working them till they\"\n",
|
|
"text[29][0][4]=\"bleed some kind of relevance, databases\"\n",
|
|
"text[29][0][5]=\"exist firmly on the cusp of the rational\"\n",
|
|
"text[29][0][6]=\"and non-rational.\"\n",
|
|
"text[29][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[29][1][0]=\"When the Subjective Exercise Experiences\"\n",
|
|
"text[29][1][1]=\"Scale locks onto the Human Genome\"\n",
|
|
"text[29][1][2]=\"Initiative processing library stock-\"\n",
|
|
"text[29][1][3]=\"holding data: prepare for something\"\n",
|
|
"text[29][1][4]=\"approaching poetry.\"\n",
|
|
"text[30]={}\n",
|
|
"text[30][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[30][0][0]=\"Perhaps in some ways sensing into the\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][0][1]=\"future this destratification of\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][0][2]=\"conventions is the architecture of the\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][0][3]=\"internet.\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][1]={}\n",
|
|
"text[30][1][0]=\"This, (almost despite its position\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][1][1]=\"within and between various political,\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][1][2]=\"commercial and bureaucratic formations)\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][1][3]=\"after all, is a network which functions\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][1][4]=\"on a basis of being broken, continuously\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][1][5]=\"finding the shortest route between\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][1][6]=\"nodes: even as a squatter will always\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][1][7]=\"see the empty buildings on any street\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][1][8]=\"before those that are full.\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][2]={}\n",
|
|
"text[30][2][0]=\"At these shifting, transitory points\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][2][1]=\"where sensoriums intermesh, repel, clash\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][2][2]=\"and resynthesize are the possibilities\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][2][3]=\"for a ludic transdimensionality.\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][3]={}\n",
|
|
"text[30][3][0]=\"Knock through a wall, and beyond the\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][3][1]=\"clouds of brick dust clogging up and\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][3][2]=\"exciting your eyes, tongue, palate and\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][3][3]=\"throat, there's another universe: an\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][3][4]=\"empty, unclassifiable complex seething\"\n",
|
|
"text[30][3][5]=\"with life.\"\n",
|
|
"text[31]={}\n",
|
|
"text[31][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[31][0][0]=\"Matthew Fuller, May 1997.\"\n",
|
|
"text[32]={}\n",
|
|
"text[32][0]={}\n",
|
|
"text[32][0][0]=\"I/O/D.\"\n"
|
|
]
|
|
}
|
|
],
|
|
"source": [
|
|
"dump_lua_table(wrap_los(los))"
|
|
]
|
|
},
|
|
{
|
|
"cell_type": "code",
|
|
"execution_count": 39,
|
|
"metadata": {},
|
|
"outputs": [],
|
|
"source": [
|
|
"with open(\"Visceral_Facades_3d.lua\", \"w\") as fout:\n",
|
|
" dump_lua_table(wrap_los(los), fout)"
|
|
]
|
|
},
|
|
{
|
|
"cell_type": "code",
|
|
"execution_count": 12,
|
|
"metadata": {},
|
|
"outputs": [],
|
|
"source": []
|
|
},
|
|
{
|
|
"cell_type": "code",
|
|
"execution_count": 12,
|
|
"metadata": {},
|
|
"outputs": [],
|
|
"source": []
|
|
},
|
|
{
|
|
"cell_type": "code",
|
|
"execution_count": 12,
|
|
"metadata": {},
|
|
"outputs": [],
|
|
"source": []
|
|
},
|
|
{
|
|
"cell_type": "code",
|
|
"execution_count": 12,
|
|
"metadata": {},
|
|
"outputs": [],
|
|
"source": []
|
|
},
|
|
{
|
|
"cell_type": "code",
|
|
"execution_count": 12,
|
|
"metadata": {},
|
|
"outputs": [],
|
|
"source": [
|
|
"with open(\"visceral_facades.lua\", \"w\") as fout:\n",
|
|
" print (\"text={}\", file=fout)\n",
|
|
" for i,p in enumerate(tt):\n",
|
|
" ep = p.strip().replace('\"', r'\\\"')\n",
|
|
" print (f'text[{i}]=\"{ep}\"', file=fout)"
|
|
]
|
|
},
|
|
{
|
|
"cell_type": "markdown",
|
|
"metadata": {},
|
|
"source": [
|
|
"Now with [textwrap](https://docs.python.org/3/library/textwrap.html)"
|
|
]
|
|
},
|
|
{
|
|
"cell_type": "code",
|
|
"execution_count": 4,
|
|
"metadata": {
|
|
"collapsed": true,
|
|
"jupyter": {
|
|
"outputs_hidden": true
|
|
}
|
|
},
|
|
"outputs": [
|
|
{
|
|
"name": "stdout",
|
|
"output_type": "stream",
|
|
"text": [
|
|
"Visceral Facades: taking Matta-Clark's\n",
|
|
"crowbar to software.\n",
|
|
"Architecture was the first art of\n",
|
|
"measurement of time and space. Ancient\n",
|
|
"megalithic structures such as Stonehenge\n",
|
|
"are the ancestors of the machine you are\n",
|
|
"reading this text on. Whereas computers\n",
|
|
"build up from the scale of electrons\n",
|
|
"rather than that of giant lumps of stone\n",
|
|
"and the tasks they complete are abstract\n",
|
|
"and changeable, rather than specific and\n",
|
|
"singular, they both remain physical\n",
|
|
"instantiations of abstract logic into\n",
|
|
"which energy is fed in order to produce\n",
|
|
"results to one or more of a range of\n",
|
|
"potential calculations embodied in their\n",
|
|
"structure.\n",
|
|
"Nowadays, as films such as Die Hard and\n",
|
|
"novels such as Gridlock are so keen to\n",
|
|
"show us, buildings and\n",
|
|
"telecommunications are profoundly\n",
|
|
"interrelated. As architecture is caught\n",
|
|
"up in the mesh of the 'immaterial', of\n",
|
|
"security and communications systems, of\n",
|
|
"gating and processing (think of an\n",
|
|
"airport) its connection to its originary\n",
|
|
"development as geometry realised in\n",
|
|
"synthetic space becomes ever more\n",
|
|
"apparent. The proliferation of special\n",
|
|
"effects that effect consciousness of\n",
|
|
"time and distance and the perception of\n",
|
|
"the environment in a context where\n",
|
|
"maximum stratification combines in the\n",
|
|
"same device with maximum fluidity, is\n",
|
|
"presented as an abrupt break with an\n",
|
|
"older style of architecture wherein\n",
|
|
"power can be deciphered by the maximum\n",
|
|
"possession of space.\n",
|
|
"In a short story, Tangents, science\n",
|
|
"fiction writer Greg Bear introduces\n",
|
|
"four-dimensional beings into a three\n",
|
|
"dimensional shape: something which he\n",
|
|
"likens to looking at fish through the\n",
|
|
"corner of an aquarium. The shape that\n",
|
|
"these fourth dimensional beings appear\n",
|
|
"in is a normal, two storey house. The\n",
|
|
"house is gradually, neatly, Swiss-\n",
|
|
"cheesed by a series of cones, columns,\n",
|
|
"and spheres as the dimensions intersect.\n",
|
|
"Possibly, this might be the kind of\n",
|
|
"effect you'd worry about if you'd\n",
|
|
"invited Gordon Matta-Clark around to\n",
|
|
"your home. An artist who trained as an\n",
|
|
"architect, Matta-Clark was born in New\n",
|
|
"York City in March 1943 and died in\n",
|
|
"1978. His most prolific period, between\n",
|
|
"1971 and 1976, occurred within a rich\n",
|
|
"context of experimental and anti-\n",
|
|
"commercial dematerialization in both art\n",
|
|
"and architecture, (although certainly\n",
|
|
"within the field of 'authorised'\n",
|
|
"architecture, much of this work remained\n",
|
|
"on a theoretical and propositional\n",
|
|
"basis). Matta-Clark carried out his\n",
|
|
"investigations of architecture and space\n",
|
|
"through performance, drawing, sculpture,\n",
|
|
"photography, video, film and material\n",
|
|
"interventions known as 'cuttings'.\n",
|
|
"One action carried out in 1974,\n",
|
|
"Splitting, involved taking a simple\n",
|
|
"detached wooden house in Englewood, a\n",
|
|
"New York State dormitory town, and\n",
|
|
"bisecting it. The house, already slated\n",
|
|
"for demolition, is cut exactly in two,\n",
|
|
"from the roof, down the walls and\n",
|
|
"through the floors to the raised\n",
|
|
"foundation of building blocks. In the\n",
|
|
"short film which documents the process a\n",
|
|
"shard of sunlight streams through the\n",
|
|
"split, effacing the wall, energising the\n",
|
|
"new structure. The next stage is to take\n",
|
|
"the rear half of the house and,\n",
|
|
"supporting it on jacks, gradually knock\n",
|
|
"away the upper surface of the foundation\n",
|
|
"at an angle of five degrees. The back of\n",
|
|
"the house is then tilted away from the\n",
|
|
"other half of the structure back onto\n",
|
|
"the now sloping foundation. Throughout\n",
|
|
"the film, Matta-Clark can be seen\n",
|
|
"working away at the building. A scrawny\n",
|
|
"longhair in jeans and boots doing with a\n",
|
|
"simple toolkit the serious structural\n",
|
|
"re-adjustment that only the most\n",
|
|
"deranged of do-it-yourselfers can dream\n",
|
|
"about.\n",
|
|
"Another short film, Conical Intersect,\n",
|
|
"made in 1975 documents an intervention\n",
|
|
"which is even more reminiscent of the\n",
|
|
"transdimensional interference of\n",
|
|
"Tangents. Made during the Paris Biennial\n",
|
|
"in the area of Les Halles, tellingly\n",
|
|
"close to the construction of the Centre\n",
|
|
"George Pompidou - a politically inspired\n",
|
|
"scheme reminiscent of that other artiste\n",
|
|
"démolisseur, Baron Hausmann - the cut\n",
|
|
"probes into two adjoining seventeenth\n",
|
|
"century 'mansions'. Appearing from the\n",
|
|
"outside as a series of receding circles,\n",
|
|
"the cut punctures the building at the\n",
|
|
"fourth storey and moves upwards towards\n",
|
|
"the sky. When the outer wall goes\n",
|
|
"through, the film shows the trio of\n",
|
|
"people working on the hole perform a\n",
|
|
"brief can-can on a soon-to-be-demolished\n",
|
|
"section of floor.\n",
|
|
"In a 1976 film, Substrait (Underground\n",
|
|
"Dailies), Matta-Clark explored and\n",
|
|
"documented some of the underground of\n",
|
|
"New York City. Grand Central Station,\n",
|
|
"13th Street and the Croton Aqueduct are\n",
|
|
"filmed to show the variety and\n",
|
|
"complexity of the hidden spaces and\n",
|
|
"tunnels in the metropolitan area.\n",
|
|
"Somewhat reminiscent of the ultra-dull\n",
|
|
"documentaries made by the Canadian\n",
|
|
"National Film Board in the same period,\n",
|
|
"this film develops an intimate concern\n",
|
|
"with the material qualities of the\n",
|
|
"structures under investigation, and\n",
|
|
"perhaps provides for the New York sewage\n",
|
|
"system a precursor to the geek art of\n",
|
|
"the internet. It is possible to imagine\n",
|
|
"a film of its travels through the nets\n",
|
|
"made by a software worm, being of\n",
|
|
"remarkable similarity.\n",
|
|
"Some of Matta-Clark's work could have\n",
|
|
"only been produced by someone deeply\n",
|
|
"familiar with the strange reality of\n",
|
|
"realty. In Reality Properties: Fake\n",
|
|
"Estates he bought up fifteen minuscule\n",
|
|
"sections of land that had been left over\n",
|
|
"in property deals, or that teetered just\n",
|
|
"off the edges of architectural plans\n",
|
|
"drawn slightly out-of-whack: a foot\n",
|
|
"strip down somebody's driveway, and a\n",
|
|
"square foot of sidewalk, tiny sections\n",
|
|
"of kerbs and gutters. Buying up this\n",
|
|
"ludicrous empire was again part of\n",
|
|
"Matta-Clark's project of the structural\n",
|
|
"activation of severed surfaces. It is\n",
|
|
"also an example of the idiosyncratic\n",
|
|
"manipulation of rule-based behaviour to\n",
|
|
"achieve different ends.\n",
|
|
"Along with the dematerialised art that\n",
|
|
"provided a context in which this work\n",
|
|
"can be sensed, the period it was\n",
|
|
"produced in was also the peak of minimal\n",
|
|
"art. Whilst Matta-Clark's work is in\n",
|
|
"part concerned with formalism, the\n",
|
|
"application of procedures and the\n",
|
|
"revelation of structural properties, it\n",
|
|
"is precisely because his work is\n",
|
|
"formally non-reductive and purposely\n",
|
|
"heterogenic that it is profoundly at\n",
|
|
"variance to an art that was only\n",
|
|
"supposed to speak of itself and of the\n",
|
|
"immaculate connoisseurship of its\n",
|
|
"audience. This is an artwork that is\n",
|
|
"exactly the reverse of autonomous. It is\n",
|
|
"openly dependent on a network of\n",
|
|
"coincidences and interconnectedness: on\n",
|
|
"being seen by chance passers-by; on the\n",
|
|
"receipt or avoidance of bureaucratic\n",
|
|
"permissions; on the functioning of\n",
|
|
"recording devices; on good weather; on\n",
|
|
"not being discovered when acting in\n",
|
|
"secret; on the theatre of its enaction\n",
|
|
"being an oxygenation of the still\n",
|
|
"smouldering embers of history. At the\n",
|
|
"same time as it articulates the space in\n",
|
|
"sculptural terms it also complexifies it\n",
|
|
"in terms of its placehood, as an object,\n",
|
|
"and within its social, chronological and\n",
|
|
"economic contexts.\n",
|
|
"Knowing that there is freedom in\n",
|
|
"suprise, it is along this fault line of\n",
|
|
"rationality and the non-rational that\n",
|
|
"Gordon Matta-Clark runs his fingers.\n",
|
|
"Fingers which he also uses to tease\n",
|
|
"another split - that between art and\n",
|
|
"architecture. Comparable to his\n",
|
|
"relationship to minimal art, rather than\n",
|
|
"partaking in the functionalist urban\n",
|
|
"sublime of the glass and steel\n",
|
|
"skyscraper typified in the architecture\n",
|
|
"of Mies van der Rohe - with its interior\n",
|
|
"opened to make it more governable -\n",
|
|
"Matta-Clark's work operates a dis-\n",
|
|
"enclosure of urban space: its\n",
|
|
"malfunctions, voids, shadows. The\n",
|
|
"tension inherent in such spaces is\n",
|
|
"portrayed well by Gilles Deleuze in\n",
|
|
"describing \"any-space-whatever\" the\n",
|
|
"half-urban, half-waste lands often used\n",
|
|
"as sets and exteriors in post World War\n",
|
|
"Two films: \"Any-space-whatever is a\n",
|
|
"perfectly singular space, which has\n",
|
|
"merely lost its homogeneity, that is,\n",
|
|
"the principle of its metric relations or\n",
|
|
"the connection of its own parts, so that\n",
|
|
"linkages can be made in an infinite\n",
|
|
"number of ways\" This tension between\n",
|
|
"particularity and obliteration found in\n",
|
|
"the European bombsite translated well\n",
|
|
"into the conditions in which Matta-Clark\n",
|
|
"worked out of necessity and choice:\n",
|
|
"buildings eviscerated by the progress of\n",
|
|
"urban restructuring.\n",
|
|
"\"There is a kind of complexity that\n",
|
|
"comes from taking an otherwise\n",
|
|
"completely normal, conventional, albeit\n",
|
|
"anonymous situation and redefining it,\n",
|
|
"retranslating it into overlapping and\n",
|
|
"multiple readings of conditions past and\n",
|
|
"present\"\n",
|
|
"As an aside, this too easy lock-down\n",
|
|
"into textuality implied by the use of\n",
|
|
"the word 'reading' is of his time, (and\n",
|
|
"one replicated in perpetuity by artists\n",
|
|
"hungry for the valorising seal of\n",
|
|
"textual authority) but it rather\n",
|
|
"understates the multiple sensory affect\n",
|
|
"of the work. It is this aspect, of\n",
|
|
"working with material that is in the\n",
|
|
"process of being made anonymous, generic\n",
|
|
"- yet turning it into an engine of\n",
|
|
"connotation - that is particularly\n",
|
|
"suggestive for a context that, in its\n",
|
|
"apparent dematerialization seems most\n",
|
|
"likely to resist it: software.\n",
|
|
"Software lacks the easy evidence of\n",
|
|
"time, of human habitation, of the\n",
|
|
"connotations of familial, industrial or\n",
|
|
"office life embedded in the structure of\n",
|
|
"a building. As a geometry realised in\n",
|
|
"synthetic space, it is an any-space-\n",
|
|
"whatever, but dry-cleaned and prised out\n",
|
|
"of time.\n",
|
|
"Use of the computer happens at many\n",
|
|
"levels, both hard and soft. A crucial\n",
|
|
"difference with how we traditionally\n",
|
|
"understand architecture, rather than\n",
|
|
"what it is becoming under the impact of\n",
|
|
"information technologies, is that\n",
|
|
"everything necessarily happens at human\n",
|
|
"scale. That the size, and to a certain\n",
|
|
"extent the organisation, of people has a\n",
|
|
"determining effect on the shape of the\n",
|
|
"building. Conversely, the axiomatics\n",
|
|
"that channel and produce the behaviour\n",
|
|
"necessary for use of computers happen at\n",
|
|
"both human and subscopic scale. The hard\n",
|
|
"organs of the computer: mouse, keyboard,\n",
|
|
"modem, microphone, monitor, though all\n",
|
|
"matched to greater or lesser extents to\n",
|
|
"human form, all snake back to the CPU.\n",
|
|
"Whilst what is of interest here is an\n",
|
|
"investigation of the moment of\n",
|
|
"composition between user and computer,\n",
|
|
"and not a reiteration of text-book\n",
|
|
"schematics, it is worth noting that\n",
|
|
"simply because they occur at the level\n",
|
|
"of electrons the axes of software are\n",
|
|
"impossible to find for the average user.\n",
|
|
"Just as when watching a film we miss out\n",
|
|
"the black lines in between the frames\n",
|
|
"flashing past at 24 per second, the\n",
|
|
"invisible walls of software are designed\n",
|
|
"to remain inscrutable. However, the fact\n",
|
|
"that these subscopic transformation of\n",
|
|
"data inside the computer are\n",
|
|
"simultaneously real and symbolic; where\n",
|
|
"the most abstract of theoretical terms\n",
|
|
"to be found in mathematics becomes a\n",
|
|
"thing, allows the possibility of a\n",
|
|
"kinaesthetic investigation. An\n",
|
|
"investigation that opens up a chance for\n",
|
|
"dialogue between the smooth running of\n",
|
|
"the machine and material that might be\n",
|
|
"thought of as contamination within the\n",
|
|
"terms of its devices.\n",
|
|
"Much of the 'legitimate' writing and\n",
|
|
"artistic production on information\n",
|
|
"technology is concerned with expanding\n",
|
|
"the application of the theoretical\n",
|
|
"devices used to recognise replication\n",
|
|
"and simulation, (what constitutes 'the\n",
|
|
"real') and of those used to recognise\n",
|
|
"surveillance. These themes, carried over\n",
|
|
"most commonly from debates around\n",
|
|
"photography and architecture, are of\n",
|
|
"course suggestive and in some cases\n",
|
|
"useful, but in the easiness of their\n",
|
|
"translation we should not forget that\n",
|
|
"they are moving into a context that\n",
|
|
"subsumes them and is not marked by their\n",
|
|
"boundaries. In acknowledging the\n",
|
|
"distinct interconnectedness of the\n",
|
|
"symbolic and material, this is also an\n",
|
|
"approach which is opposed to the\n",
|
|
"conception of 'virtuality' being taken\n",
|
|
"as the desired end state of digital\n",
|
|
"technology: taking virtuality as a\n",
|
|
"condition which is contained and made\n",
|
|
"possible by the actuality of digital\n",
|
|
"media.\n",
|
|
"To provide the skewed access to the\n",
|
|
"machines that such an investigation\n",
|
|
"requires we can siphon some fuel from\n",
|
|
"the goings-on of Gordon Matta-Clark: use\n",
|
|
"faults; disturb conventions; exploit\n",
|
|
"idiosyncrasies.\n",
|
|
"Faults arise in systems when the full\n",
|
|
"consequences of technical changes are\n",
|
|
"not followed through before the changes\n",
|
|
"are made, or are deliberately covered\n",
|
|
"up. This is an enormous game of hiding\n",
|
|
"and finding being played by a cast of\n",
|
|
"millions and one which has wide\n",
|
|
"ramifications. Perhaps the most crucial\n",
|
|
"faultlines being traced at the moment\n",
|
|
"are those around security: the world of\n",
|
|
"minutiae that compose the integrity of\n",
|
|
"existence in dataspace and the way it\n",
|
|
"maps back onto everyday life.\n",
|
|
"The profoundest restructuring of\n",
|
|
"existence is taking place at the levels\n",
|
|
"of the electron and the gene. Technical\n",
|
|
"complexity, commercial pressure and the\n",
|
|
"mechanisms of expression management are\n",
|
|
"blocking almost all real public\n",
|
|
"discourse on the former. They are less\n",
|
|
"able to do so to the latter.\n",
|
|
"Whether radical or reactionary,\n",
|
|
"traditional political structures have,\n",
|
|
"either deliberately or through drastic\n",
|
|
"relevance-decay, abdicated almost all\n",
|
|
"decision making in these areas to\n",
|
|
"commercial interests. From a similar\n",
|
|
"catalogue of stock characters to that of\n",
|
|
"the artist, the pariah/hero figure of\n",
|
|
"the hacker has largely set the pace for\n",
|
|
"any critical understanding of the\n",
|
|
"changes happening in and between\n",
|
|
"information technologies.\n",
|
|
"Picking up a random copy of the hacker\n",
|
|
"zine 2600 - summer 1996 - the scale and\n",
|
|
"ramifications of issues being dealt with\n",
|
|
"in this area becomes apparent. Subjects\n",
|
|
"covered include: an editorial on the\n",
|
|
"position of hackers in the legal system\n",
|
|
"and media; the code of a LINUX program\n",
|
|
"to block internet sites by flooding them\n",
|
|
"with connection requests; a list of free\n",
|
|
"phone carriers in Australia; acquiring\n",
|
|
"phone services under imaginary names;\n",
|
|
"the telecommunications infrastructure in\n",
|
|
"Prague and Sarajevo; encryption;\n",
|
|
"consumer data security; catching\n",
|
|
"passwords to specific multi-user\n",
|
|
"computer systems; passenger in-flight\n",
|
|
"communications systems; phreaking smart\n",
|
|
"pay-phones; starting a hacker scene; the\n",
|
|
"transcription of part of a court case\n",
|
|
"involving the show trial of hacker,\n",
|
|
"Bernie S; plus pages of small ads and\n",
|
|
"letters. (Perhaps noticeable in\n",
|
|
"comparing the importance of these scenes\n",
|
|
"with that of art is that the second-\n",
|
|
"order commentary on the work comes\n",
|
|
"mainly from the media/legal system\n",
|
|
"rather than just critics).\n",
|
|
"The faults identified by hackers and\n",
|
|
"others, where ethico-aesthetic\n",
|
|
"situations are compounded under sheer\n",
|
|
"pressure into technical ones, are\n",
|
|
"implicated in wider mechanisms. These\n",
|
|
"technical situations can be investigated\n",
|
|
"from any point or development within\n",
|
|
"these wider mechanisms regardless of the\n",
|
|
"degree of technical proficiency.\n",
|
|
"Cracking open technical situations with\n",
|
|
"the wider social conditions within which\n",
|
|
"they occur is an increasingly necessary\n",
|
|
"task. Doing so in a manner that creates\n",
|
|
"a transversal relationship between\n",
|
|
"different, perhaps walled-off,\n",
|
|
"components, and that intimately works\n",
|
|
"the technical with other kinds of\n",
|
|
"material or symbolic devices is\n",
|
|
"something that remains to be developed.\n",
|
|
"Tracking the faults, the severed\n",
|
|
"surfaces, of technology is one way in\n",
|
|
"which this can begin to be done.\n",
|
|
"This intimacy, as well as concerning\n",
|
|
"itself with the cracks and disjunctures,\n",
|
|
"the faults in systems, can also become\n",
|
|
"involved in situations where they appear\n",
|
|
"to be most smooth. For the average user,\n",
|
|
"the conventions of personal computers\n",
|
|
"appear secure, rational, almost natural,\n",
|
|
"if a little awkward and tricky at times.\n",
|
|
"Like many social protocols, computer use\n",
|
|
"is a skill which is forgetful of its\n",
|
|
"acquisition. Perhaps that user can\n",
|
|
"remember back to when they first got\n",
|
|
"hold of a machine, when they were waving\n",
|
|
"a mouse in the air to get the cursor to\n",
|
|
"move towards them; afraid to touch the\n",
|
|
"wrong key in case it damaged something;\n",
|
|
"saving files all over the place; trying\n",
|
|
"to draw curves in Pagemaker; putting\n",
|
|
"floppies in upside-down; trying to work\n",
|
|
"a cracked copy of CuBase with something\n",
|
|
"missing; learning how to conform to the\n",
|
|
"machine in order to make the machine\n",
|
|
"conform to them...\n",
|
|
"In computer interface design the form-\n",
|
|
"function fusion is made on the basis of\n",
|
|
"averages, a focus grouped reality based\n",
|
|
"on peoples' understanding of a context\n",
|
|
"in which it is impossible for them to\n",
|
|
"function unless they develop the\n",
|
|
"understanding already been mapped out\n",
|
|
"for them. Perhaps in this context, the\n",
|
|
"user will always be the ideal user,\n",
|
|
"because if they are not ideal - if,\n",
|
|
"within this context at least, they do\n",
|
|
"not conform to the ideal - they won't be\n",
|
|
"a user.\n",
|
|
"Interface design is a discipline that\n",
|
|
"aspires to saying nothing. Instead of\n",
|
|
"trying to crack this invisibility, one\n",
|
|
"technique for investigation is to tease\n",
|
|
"it into overproduction. Why use one\n",
|
|
"mouse-click when ten-thousand will do?\n",
|
|
"Why use any visual information when\n",
|
|
"navigation is perfectly possible with\n",
|
|
"sound alone? Why just look at the\n",
|
|
"interface, why not print it out and wear\n",
|
|
"it? Why read text on screen when a far\n",
|
|
"better technology is paper? Why use a\n",
|
|
"cursor when the object you're actually\n",
|
|
"pointing at can function perfectly well\n",
|
|
"to indicate the mouse position?\n",
|
|
"In any other social context, what\n",
|
|
"because of the arbitrary nature of the\n",
|
|
"abstract machine appear as protocols,\n",
|
|
"would be revealed as mannerisms. (Take a\n",
|
|
"fast taxi through the ruined\n",
|
|
"neighbourhoods of cyberspace by\n",
|
|
"travelling through emulators of old\n",
|
|
"computers: punch a hole in the surface\n",
|
|
"of your shiny new machine by loading up\n",
|
|
"the black hole of a 1k ZX81). When the\n",
|
|
"construction of machines from the\n",
|
|
"fundamental objects of the hardware:\n",
|
|
"bits, bytes, words, addresses, upwards\n",
|
|
"are realised to be synthetic rather than\n",
|
|
"given, or even necessarily rational -\n",
|
|
"though produced through the application\n",
|
|
"of rationalisation, logic - they become\n",
|
|
"subject to wider possibilities for\n",
|
|
"change. Software as an aggregate of very\n",
|
|
"small sensory experiences and devices\n",
|
|
"becomes an engine, not just of\n",
|
|
"connotation, but of transformation.\n",
|
|
"Some of those transformations in\n",
|
|
"occurrence can be sensed in the sheer\n",
|
|
"idiosyncrasy of much software. In the\n",
|
|
"Atrocity Exhibition and other books,\n",
|
|
"J.G. Ballard mixes flat, technical\n",
|
|
"descriptions of body positions as they\n",
|
|
"come into composition with the synthetic\n",
|
|
"geometry of architecture, automobiles,\n",
|
|
"furnishings, to produce an investigation\n",
|
|
"of machined erotics. He continues and\n",
|
|
"intensifies the Surrealist stratagem of\n",
|
|
"cutting together transgressed\n",
|
|
"functionalities in order to regain entry\n",
|
|
"to the order of the symbolic. To an\n",
|
|
"objective observer, the transitory point\n",
|
|
"at which a thigh comes into convergence\n",
|
|
"with a table also suggests the way in\n",
|
|
"which the original Microsoft Windows\n",
|
|
"interface was bolted on top of the old\n",
|
|
"DOS language. The tectonic impact of two\n",
|
|
"neural landscapes performs an operation\n",
|
|
"called progress. The software is tricked\n",
|
|
"into doing something more than it was\n",
|
|
"intended for. Instead of dramatic\n",
|
|
"breaks, hacks and incrementally adaptive\n",
|
|
"mutations are often the way things are\n",
|
|
"made to move forward. (For instance on\n",
|
|
"Apple computers, the desktop is already\n",
|
|
"being bypassed by the absorption of some\n",
|
|
"of the functions of the finder into\n",
|
|
"various applications. From being a\n",
|
|
"grossly over-metaphoric grand entrance\n",
|
|
"hall, it has become a back alley). When\n",
|
|
"they work well they are elegant usable\n",
|
|
"collages. Often they are botch jobs. In\n",
|
|
"both cases, the points at which the\n",
|
|
"systems mesh, collide, or repel, can, at\n",
|
|
"the points of confused demarcation,\n",
|
|
"produce secret gardens, car parks, lamps\n",
|
|
"that fuck.\n",
|
|
"Idiosyncrasies can also develop when a\n",
|
|
"software system is applied to a\n",
|
|
"situation in toto. Perhaps most\n",
|
|
"obviously, databases. The production of\n",
|
|
"software dedicated to knowledge\n",
|
|
"organisation and information retrieval,\n",
|
|
"a field largely seen as the domain of\n",
|
|
"linguists and computer scientists,\n",
|
|
"immediately brings with it a range of\n",
|
|
"problematics that are at once both\n",
|
|
"cultural and technical. The technology\n",
|
|
"underlying search engines and databases\n",
|
|
"- set theory - is based on creating\n",
|
|
"classifications of information according\n",
|
|
"to arbitrarily or contingently\n",
|
|
"meaningful schemes. It is in the\n",
|
|
"application and development of those\n",
|
|
"schemes with all their inevitable biases\n",
|
|
"and quirks that the aesthetics of\n",
|
|
"classification lies.\n",
|
|
"Attuned to quantifying; organising;\n",
|
|
"isolating and drawing into\n",
|
|
"relationships, particular cases of the\n",
|
|
"possible and working them till they\n",
|
|
"bleed some kind of relevance, databases\n",
|
|
"exist firmly on the cusp of the rational\n",
|
|
"and non-rational. When the Subjective\n",
|
|
"Exercise Experiences Scale locks onto\n",
|
|
"the Human Genome Initiative processing\n",
|
|
"library stock-holding data: prepare for\n",
|
|
"something approaching poetry.\n",
|
|
"Perhaps in some ways sensing into the\n",
|
|
"future this destratification of\n",
|
|
"conventions is the architecture of the\n",
|
|
"internet. This, (almost despite its\n",
|
|
"position within and between various\n",
|
|
"political, commercial and bureaucratic\n",
|
|
"formations) after all, is a network\n",
|
|
"which functions on a basis of being\n",
|
|
"broken, continuously finding the\n",
|
|
"shortest route between nodes: even as a\n",
|
|
"squatter will always see the empty\n",
|
|
"buildings on any street before those\n",
|
|
"that are full. At these shifting,\n",
|
|
"transitory points where sensoriums\n",
|
|
"intermesh, repel, clash and resynthesize\n",
|
|
"are the possibilities for a ludic\n",
|
|
"transdimensionality. Knock through a\n",
|
|
"wall, and beyond the clouds of brick\n",
|
|
"dust clogging up and exciting your eyes,\n",
|
|
"tongue, palate and throat, there's\n",
|
|
"another universe: an empty,\n",
|
|
"unclassifiable complex seething with\n",
|
|
"life.\n",
|
|
"Matthew Fuller, May 1997\n",
|
|
"I/O/D\n"
|
|
]
|
|
}
|
|
],
|
|
"source": [
|
|
"with open(\"Visceral_Facades.txt\") as f:\n",
|
|
" text = f.read()\n",
|
|
"tt = re.split(r\"\\n+\", text)\n",
|
|
"\n",
|
|
"import textwrap\n",
|
|
"\n",
|
|
"WIDTH=40\n",
|
|
"\n",
|
|
"for i,p in enumerate(tt):\n",
|
|
" p = p.strip()\n",
|
|
" lines = textwrap.wrap(p, WIDTH)\n",
|
|
" for line in lines:\n",
|
|
" print (line)\n"
|
|
]
|
|
},
|
|
{
|
|
"cell_type": "code",
|
|
"execution_count": 5,
|
|
"metadata": {},
|
|
"outputs": [],
|
|
"source": [
|
|
"\n",
|
|
"WIDTH=40\n",
|
|
"\n",
|
|
"with open(\"visceral_facades.lua\", \"w\") as fout:\n",
|
|
" print (\"text={}\", file=fout)\n",
|
|
" for pid,p in enumerate(tt):\n",
|
|
" p = p.strip()\n",
|
|
" lines = textwrap.wrap(p, WIDTH)\n",
|
|
" print (f'text[{pid}]={{}}', file=fout)\n",
|
|
" for lineid, line in enumerate(lines):\n",
|
|
" print (f'text[{pid}][{lineid}]=\"{esc(line)}\"', file=fout)"
|
|
]
|
|
},
|
|
{
|
|
"cell_type": "code",
|
|
"execution_count": null,
|
|
"metadata": {},
|
|
"outputs": [],
|
|
"source": []
|
|
}
|
|
],
|
|
"metadata": {
|
|
"kernelspec": {
|
|
"display_name": "Python 3",
|
|
"language": "python",
|
|
"name": "python3"
|
|
},
|
|
"language_info": {
|
|
"codemirror_mode": {
|
|
"name": "ipython",
|
|
"version": 3
|
|
},
|
|
"file_extension": ".py",
|
|
"mimetype": "text/x-python",
|
|
"name": "python",
|
|
"nbconvert_exporter": "python",
|
|
"pygments_lexer": "ipython3",
|
|
"version": "3.7.3"
|
|
}
|
|
},
|
|
"nbformat": 4,
|
|
"nbformat_minor": 4
|
|
}
|