# posts

title: Introduction
category: introduction
writingfield:
<div>Software has taken command of our daily life. It is omnipresent and most of our Western society would come to a halt without it. At the same time software has become so ordinary, that it is often overlooked. Software is taken for granted while it is increasingly entangled in our life and continuously adopts new tasks. Our computers seem to become smarter through new kinds of algorithms. This leads to new challenges in understanding software – not only from a scientific point of view but also from a cultural, political and social perspective. Software has also found its way into the art and vice versa, but there are still gaps in the relation between the two. I assume that the interaction between software and art can be productive and helpful for the research in both of the disciplines. <br></div><div><br></div><div>The question that I am asking is: How can artistic methods be used to elicit critical reflection on software as a cultural object beyond the interface? The current perception and use of software are significant parts of this research, especially in contrast to the original culture around software, that included hacking and that required every artist to write their own software. This publication explores the multiple layers of software with a particular focus on the assumptions and imaginations that arise around and through software.</div><div><br></div><div>I consider poetry as a reference to the emotional, subtle and artistic expression that software can have. This work is not about considering the code of software as poems or as literature. It points to the non-neutral and imaginative character that software already has and that can be used for further artistic engagement. It also embraces the potential non-functional attributes of software and acknowledges the metaphors that software uses. It reflects on the different layers of interpretation and execution that software can have and leaves the result open for interpretation. Poetic software provides the possibility to create new artistic software, that is beyond the interface and beyond the expected mode of operation or depiction of software. Poetic software does not need to function but comes with an inherent call for statements about issues of software. <br></div>


title: Software is not neutral
category: thesis
writingfield:
<div>Software comes with an embedded bias. Software is made by humans and therefore the creators enforce their perspective on software.</div>


title: Software can be non-functional
category: thesis
writingfield:
We can get a spark of what execution of code means and how software really acts and performs when it fails or when it is taken out of its context (Winograd and Flores 1995). In the following, I want to argue that for a serious engagement with software it is also necessary to look at the non-functional and the stuff that is in-between the pixels and conducting paths. We expect software to run seamlessly, but what if software fails or malfunctions? What, if software has no function? <br><br>“Most people notice infrastructures only when they are put in the wrong place or break down. This means that public knowledge of them is largely limited to their misplacement or malfunction.” (Parks 2009)<br><br><div>While The Alliance for Code Excellence imagines »[a] world where software runs cleanly and correctly as it simplifies, enhances and enriches our everyday life is achievable« (Constant 2018, p. 11) I argue that the malfunctioning of code can also be something positive that is revealing and holds a value. The interruption of a seamless flow, makes undeniable apparent, what could not be seen before. We can use things without being immediately aware of their presence, but the “breakdown” makes them visible. So the malfunctions “reveal[e] to us the nature of our practices and equipment, making them 'present-to-hand' to us, perhaps for the first time.” (Winograd and Flores 1995, pp. 77–78)</div><br>The way how software is set up, can embrace the fact that software is failing or not. In the case of seamless software that tries to hide failure, the user does not get any insight. In contrast, when the setup is embracing its unstable character, the user knows that there is a potential for crashes. It means that engagement is undeniable. At the point when it crashes, you are able to get a glimpse of the inner workings of software and possibly be able even to fix it. <br><br><i>The imperfection of software</i><br><div>Digital systems are often considered to be perfect, without the inconsistency and noise that analog systems contain. Instead, also digital applications become inaccurate. This is also a result of the dependencies and glitches as pointed out before. Software can even have the same noise as non-digital objects have. When Casey Reas wrote about the new Processing1 he pointed out the high precision that computers have compared to similar art-forms like Sol LeWitt practiced it. »[…] [M]achines can draw lines with absolute precision so all the imperfections in a physical drawing are removed, giving the rendering different characteristics than those intended by LeWitt.« (Reas 2019) In reality, it turned out that after a few month processing produced the same inaccuracies (glitches) as a drawing by LeWitt would show. This was due to updates and changes in the language.</div><div><br></div><div>Constant, 2018. The Techno-Galactic Guide to Software Observation.<br></div><div>Reas, C., 2019. {Software} Structures by Casey Reas et al. [online]. Available from: https://artport.whitney.org/commissions/softwarestructures/text.html [Accessed 28 Feb 2019].</div><div>Winograd, T. A. and Flores, F., 1995. Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design. New ed. Boston: Addison Wesley.</div><div>Parks, L., 2009. Around the Antenna Tree: The Politics of Infrastructural Visibility. [online]. Available from: http://www.flowjournal.org/2009/03/around-the-antenna-tree-the-politics-of-infrastructural-visibilitylisa-parks-uc-santa-barbara/ [Accessed 28 Feb 2019].<br></div><br>


title: Slow Turtle
category: exercise
writingfield:
<div>Slow Turtle is a server that responds to Slow Lorris. <br></div><div>Slow Lorris is the name of a well-known cyberattack. It is a Denial of Service Attack, that sends many very slow requests towards a server. Some server software is brought to it's limits due to the many slow requests. Slow Turtle is a server that responds as slowly as Slow Lorris and therefore does not go down.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div><img class="textimage" src="/img/Screenshot_2019-03-31_at_00.17.40.png"></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>


title: PSP: Software Minigame
category: exercise
writingfield:
A minigame published on the PlayStation Portable. <br>As your computer breaks down, you get caught on the CPU. Meet Kittler and convince him that Software exists, to edit the maze and break free. <br>


title: Palm & Fingers
category: exercise
writingfield:
My Palm stays calm while I am trying to write. <br><div>I am reflecting on the interaction with software while I am writing.</div><div><br></div><div><img class="textimage" src="/img/Palm_Graffiti_gestures.png"></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><br>


title: Minimal writing
category: exercise
writingfield:
What is the most&nbsp;simple <a class="linkTo" href="11">→ Minimal writing</a>&nbsp; writing application that exists?<br>Can I reveal poetic values?<br>


title: Software Depicting Software
category: exercise
writingfield:
<div>A piece of software that looks up images of software online. <br></div><div>How does software depict itself?<br></div>


title: My iPod is bored
category: exercise
writingfield:
Through many different new technologies, the iPod has become an obsolete
 device. It is left only with its memory. So it discovers itself, 
playing with its own memory. <a class="linkTo" href="23">→ memory</a>&nbsp;<br>


title: Pin Printer
category: exercise
writingfield:
<div>The pin printer uses 9 pins in a vertical order to print to paper. Through the holes in the paper, it gets dragged through the machine. <br></div><div>I use the pin printer to publish this very same publication in an interactive way. Like a classical Terminal it lets you navigate trough the publication by typing commands (like you would do in the shell). It interactively reacts to user input.<br></div>


title: Software is physical
category: thesis
writingfield:
<div>Space is a recurrent scheme in computation. Computer Science tries to shrink and expand at the same time. It is almost like a play that can be observed on different layers. The »compression of space« into the size of a microchip is opposed with the exploding need for power or, to remain within the metaphor of space, disk space (Kitchin 2011, p. ix). The expansion of the digital does not remain within the computer, but it is actively becoming part of our real space. »[S]oftware generates behaviors and opportunities, and traffics in meanings, readings, and interpretations« (Kitchin 2011, p. ix). To figure out these exact moments of influence and these borders between computers and the real world might be very hard to accomplish, if not impossible. As Hu points out, the material and the digital world are interwoven more deeply than we think. For example, the imagination of the internet as a cloud manifests in the real world as cables that get placed across oceans, and buildings that hold thousands of servers (Hu 2016, p. 6). Therefore it becomes clear that a separation between the digital and the material world does not make sense. <br></div><div><br></div><div><img class="textimage" src="/img/mapofinternetandrails.png"><span class="imgsub">The internet in its physicality. Cables are following old railroad routes. (from Hu 2016, p. 3)</span></div><div><span class="imgsub"><br></span></div><div><span class="imgsub"><img class="textimage" src="/img/satellite_target.jpg"><br></span></div><div><span class="imgsub">The software of satellites manifests in the form of calibration targets in the dessert (Google 2019).<br></span></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Kitchin, R., 2011. Code/Space - Software and Everyday Life. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.</div><div>Hu, T.-H., 2016. A Prehistory of the Cloud. Reprint edition. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.<br></div><div><br></div><br>


title: The user is not a consumer
category: thesis
writingfield:
Nowadays the software that is required to use a machine comes pre-installed and ready to use. Software can be downloaded from centralized marketplaces: App Stores. This causes an immense dependence on the producers, who are in return depending on owners of these marketplaces (including their platform framework and policies). These producers have developed an infinite selection of apps, which is another example of the »explosion« of software that was previously mentioned. The flood of applications causes software to become a mundane occurrence. The danger here is that we take software for granted. When we have a problem, there is an app for it. Nobody thinks about the possibility of editing software and adjusting it to one’s need. This is not only because usually it is not possible to edit the software due to DRM but also because the average user is not a user anymore. Instead, people are being educated by companies to be consumers instead of users let alone creators.1 It is in the companies’ interest to make their clients dependent on their product. Therefore companies are not interested in opening up their products, but they are instead locking it up. They are then slowly feeding their clients with updates and new fancy features. This is great for users who just need to get their job done and who want to be in contact with technical struggles as little as possible. On the other hand, it means that for one, the use of software is dictated by companies and secondly that if you want to engage with your software more in-depth you cannot do so. Often you cannot look at the source code, reuse parts of it or modify the program to your needs. <br><br>Of course, there is also software that embraces an open and reusable character. This also provides an excellent source for discussion about software. The problem is that such software often requires other programs and more technical knowledge. The average user is not willing to invest that kind of effort. There are also other kinds of software, that embrace the user as an active agent, while still enabling a simple use on the surface. For example, the MediaWiki software allows for accessible editing on the browser, while still providing an infrastructure to extend the functions easily. <br>


title: Software is emotional
category: thesis
writingfield:
The perception of software is anything but neutral. Software tells stories, through its metaphors, its contents, its performance. The digital medium offers new ways of telling stories. This becomes obvious not only due to different structures, like the form of the database as Lev Manovich points out but also because of the different modes of intervention software takes in our life (Manovich 1999, p. 82). The medium keeps evolving at inexorable speed and so does software, leaving space for new ways of how to tell and what to tell about computation. <br><br>That humans tend to anthropomorphize not only their surroundings but also computers and technology, in general, has been a well-researched topic among computer sciences &amp; psychology. Among others, “The media equation” had shown, that we as humans consciously and unconsciously anthropomorphize computers (Reeves and Nass 2003). In addition to that humans have a vivid and diverse imagination about invisible processes. This includes software. Often digital media black-boxes certain processes and therefore provides much space for imagination and narratives that can be constructed around it (Finn 2017, p. 229). Narratives have been used for the purpose of marketing, and there have been attempts to create relatable stories within applications. A popular example is Joseph Weizenbaum’s Eliza, a digital application, that acted as a therapist, chatting with the user. This piece of software gave convincing proof of how humans anthropomorphize even simple digital applications (Wardrip-Fruin 2012, p. 27). Tech giants have put great effort into implementing relatable characters into their systems, e. g. voice assistants. An assistant that is helpful and funny that gathers your data with great pleasure. However, in the past there have also been unsuccessful attempts to add anthropomorphizing elements to programs, only to remind quickly about Microsoft’s famous Clippy (Cain 2017). These stories in applications and around it make technology more understandable, but can also be a source for misconceptions. A current example seems to be the fear of singularity after machine learning enables applications to »magically« generate or label images. The gap between the real potential and the imagination about it is significant. I don’t want to support an uncritical or blind approach towards technology – I think it is important to be realistic, critical and playful equally with these algorithms, only then turns engagement into insight.<br><br><div>Another case of narratives is the narrative that exists outside the software. It lies in its performance. How it acts, where and when. The realization that people relate to software on an emotional level makes it possible to create software that tells more than its function. It’s possible to tell stories only by how software works. This kind of narrative has been used in some works of Software Art. For example a work by Luca Bertini which can be found on runme.org. The work is about two viruses in love. »They search for each other on the net, running through connected computers« (Bertini 2019). <br></div><div><br></div><div>Manovich, L., 1999. Database as Symbolic Form. Convergence, 5 (2), 80–99.</div><div>Bertini, L., 2019. runme.org - say it with software art! [online]. Available from: http://runme.org/project/+ViCon/ [Accessed 28 Feb 2019].</div><div>Wardrip-Fruin, N., 2012. Expressive Processing: Digital Fictions, Computer Games, and Software Studies. Cambridge, Mass London: The MIT Press.</div><div>Cain, A., 2017. The Life and Death of Microsoft Clippy, the Paper Clip the World Loved to Hate [online]. Artsy. Available from: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-life-death-microsoft-clippy-paper-clip-loved-hate [Accessed 28 Feb 2019].</div><div>Finn, E., 2017. What Algorithms Want: Imagination in the Age of Computing. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.</div><div>Reeves, B. and Nass, C., 2003. The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media Like Real People and Places. Reprint. Stanford, Calif: Center for the Study of Language and Inf.<br></div><div><br></div>


title: memory
category: concept
writingfield:
Memory exists on different levels in computation. Most importantly the Random-Access Memory (RAM). This part of the computer is used to store data for running processes. In this sense it can be considered as a short-term memory, while the hard drive is more of a long-term storage.<br>


title: interrupt
category: concept
writingfield:
In the original sense the computer does not have a notion of interaction. The way user input e.g. through typing is handled with interrupts. The interrupt literally interrupts the system and stops processes to handle the user input. In that way the input through users gains priority over other processes running on the computers.<br>


title: There is no software
category: no software
writingfield:
What if Kittler says »There is no Software«?<br>This text very early became one focus of my interest and research. The text offers an excellent source for thinking about software today. Because in the essay from 1992 Kittler is not negating the existence of software, instead he wants to emphasize the materiality, that is being neglected in his opinion. This is a huge tension that we can also recognize in computation today. Even if we do not dismiss the existence of software, it becomes more and more invisible. Workflows are so seamless it seems almost like there is no software.


