User:Andre Castro/WritingResearch/draft01
Abstract
In this essay I would like to investigate the performativity of code. Firs of all I will try to clarify what does it mean to say that code is performative. In order to do so I will refer to performative speech-acts and attempt to gain an understanding of the differences between these and code performance upon reality. Further on I will attempt to define the conditions which allow code to become performative. The writings of Katherine Hayles, Florian Cramer and Jon McKenzie will constitute the main references for this short investigation. To conclude the essay I will look upon Douglas Roushkoff's vision of the near-by future, where code will become an instrument of power that we must understood and employ, or else we will be perform on us, if it does not already do it. [RE-WRITE]
Code as Language
Can the code from which software is build be considered as a language?
Florian Cramer in his essay Language states that "computer control languages are a formal (and as such rather primitive) subset of common human languages"(p.168). Cramer bases his position on a series of shared characteristics of both sets of languages, being the most relevant the fact that common human languages being as cultural constructions, and therefore as artificial, as computer programming languages constructed by humans. Furthermore, constituting high-level computer programming languages an intermediate layer, which stands in between computers and humans, it has to be comprehensible to both, therefore it can never be too far away from written language, otherwise it would just be incomprehensible to humans. In order to make the terminology less prone to confusions from here onwards I will refer to computer control languages as code and common languages as English as written and spoken language.
Code performativity
According to Katherine Hayles, in her book My Mother Was a Computer, code exceeds both written and spoken language. "[C]ode that runs on a machine is performative in a much stronger sense than that attributed to language"[+++] (p.50 2005). By performative Hayles refers to the capacity of language possesses to act upon the world, to produce what in linguistics is referred to performative speech-acts. Common examples of speech-acts are a judge convicting a person guilty of a crime, or a priest pronouncing a couple husband and wife. Although both cases illustrate situations in which speech-acts result in a radical changes in their actors' lives, that change is actualized only through a system of agreements, which our society obeys to, otherwise speech-acts would be rendered irrelevant, simply words. Computer code, on-the-other-hand, apart from altering the behavior of the machine in which it runs, has a direct impact upon the world. As 1ST-NAME Galloway puts it: "The imperative voice ... attempts to affect through persuasion but has little real material effect. So code is the first language that actually does what it says" (Galloway YEAR pp: 165-166). Florian Cramer does not go that further in his perspective on code. For Cramer computer code does not have real and material effects on its own, being its range of action circumscribed to the machine. However, by being placed in a position of such importance that its behavior is no longer contested, code is given the means to drastically act upon the world: "Computer languages become performative only through the social impact of the processes they trigger, specially when their outputs aren't critically checked ... as in the 1987 New York Stock Exchange crash that involved a chain traction of 'sell' recommendations by day trading software" (2008 pp. 170-171). Code simply bypasses authoritative mediation, it does not need to be validated by a church, a court or a government, it simply performs upon the world with a very direct effect.
Why why why? (do we consent permission for code to perform?)
Why do we allow code to act upon reality without questioning it? Why was the software output that led to the 1987 Stock Exchange crash not considered susceptible to errors in very complicated scenarios? Why do we think of the GPS as flawless technology and allow it to navigate us blindly, often leading to surprises when the destination is reached? Or why do most of us do not question Google-search mechanism in determining what information arrives to us at each search?
A possible understanding for the reasons which allow code to occupy such a prominent position in our contemporary world might emerge by looking at Florian Cramer's description of digitization process and Jon McKenzie's perspective on knowledge in the post-modern world. Cramer's refers to the computer as "a symbolic machine that computes syntactical language and processes alphanumeric symbols; it treats all data - including images and sounds - as textual, that is, chunks of coded symbols" (p.171, 2008). In other word, reality, in order to be stored on a computer's hard-disk needs to be encoded into discreet syntactical and measurable units constituted by 0s and 1s, information that surpasses the encoding limitations is considered noise and therefore dumped.*mp3 example* Jon McKenzie sees a similar encoding process taking place in reference to knowledge. In post-modernity knowledge has become measurable in terms of operational efficiency, which "demands that all knowledge must be translatable by and accountable in the "1"s and "0"s of digital matrices" (McKenzi, p.14). Being this the context in which are in is not surprising that we have given the computer code green light to perform upon our world. Code has become the referee that determines what information and knowledge is, or in other words what is relevant to encoded and what is accessory or not. If code constitutes such a powerful authority, why would we contest its outputs, they will most certainly be correct and devised for our own good? McKenzie also argues that "the digitalization of discourses and practices enables them to be recorded edited and played back in new and uncanny ways"(p.21). And by discourse I understand not only a aural or visual discourse, but also a written discourse, such as code, which can with great ease be distributed and running on thousands of machines around the world. Once this piece code starts performing, its effects might a reach a scale of unaccountable proportions. It is as if code has becomes the possessed with magic powers that allow it to act upon us no matter where we are.
- (CRAMER: code=Magical words - the wider the knowledge, the wilder the imagination)
Code and the individual
So far I have only looked into a global scenario of code's performativity, however code also shapes our own subjectivity, who we are as individual. An interesting example is mentioned by Katherine Hayles in relation to virtual reality environments; These are only allow certain stylized user's gestures to be encoded and manifested in the virtual environment, one has to move according to this limitations. The repetition of this set of gestures does not remain in the virtual, they begin to alter the user's own body(Hayles 1999, p.47). Can this example however be considered a change in subjectivity, on who we are? Perhaps, but not on very fundamental level. Matters seem to become complicated when our communication, perception and experience or reality becomes mediated by code, then we are most certainly being changed by code. An example of this would one's presence at a public event such as concert; as anyone who has attended to a concert in the past 4 years must have noticed, for many of those at the audience, they presence at the event is only validated if one brings home a piece of material evidence of his/her presence at the event, registered on the mobile photo of digital camera; one's own ear, eyes and memory are no longer valid ways of registering and reproducing reality. Once again information must be encoded other digitally in order to become 'real'. Similar degree of mediation goes for the ways which we relate with each-other, which have been in very drastic change as a result of the influence of social media such as facebook or dating websites, among many other examples. Code is definitely shaping who we are and how we engage with our surroundings, but it is extremely hard task to assess these changes. Since we are right in middle of these changes, we are one who are feeling them, it becomes very hard to pin-point what are the mechanisms in place and how are they shaping us. Perhaps is the main reason why we accept these changes without much questioning. How can we question what we still do not understand?
Conclusion
Looking back at what has been discussed, seems relevant to reiterate that while code can act upon the world unmediated, our own experience of reality is heavily mediated by code. Reality itself must allow encryption into digital formats, which will then be translatable into binary-code, making possible to store them in our digital archives,preventing them from vanish into the faulty and dusty corners of human memory. As Hayles put it: "[d]ata are thus humanized and subjectivity is computerized" (1999 p.39). Given these facts is not surprising that code has become such influential actor in our world.
Douglas Rushkoff in his book Program or Be Programmed envisions a near-by-future when computing is even more engrained in our society, which according to him will only gives us two options: either write code or allow code to write us. According to Rushkoff computers gave us the possibility to write and make public what we write, never-the-less "the underlying capability of the computer era is actually programming"(p.13) and that possibility is not being explored by most of us. Such delegation will results in only a few of us being able to comprehend and influence the inner-workings of the bits of code that run our world. "Only by understanding the biases of the media through which we engage with the world can we differentiate between what we intend, and what the machines we are using intend of us - whether they or their programmers even know it"(p.21).
The ones who arrived before, with profit and power goals have understood how code could work in their favor. It is perhaps time that all of us regular folk start taking a closer look at the code performing in many of the technology with dependent on for our survival within the information society into, begin to shape code for our own needs and desires.
Bibliography
Cramer, Florian (2008). Language. In: Fuller, M. Software Studies: a lexicon. London: The MIT Press. 168-174.
Cramer, Florian (2005). Words Made Flesh: Code, Culture, Imagination. Piet Zwart Institute
Galloway ++++
Hayle, Katherine (2005). My mother was a computer: digital subjects and literary texts. London: The University of Chicago
Hayles, Katherine (1999). How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. London:The University of Chicago
McKenzie, Jon (2001). Perform or else: from disciple to performance. New York: Routledge. Rushkoff, Douglas, (2010). Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age. New York: OR Books.
Darija Thesis