User:Alexander Roidl/more chapter

�Master thesis

Main research question: what are the poetic qualities of software?

Software Art can provide a useful framework and methods to approach machine learning algorithms artistically

Unconditional software

Why engage with software in an artistic sense

Die metafunktion der Software Zweckentfremdete Software

Why is it important to understand the background of software?

Software Art and Cultures (readme book) “software art is the political and critical art form of contemporary culture”

Software Art poetics of software iPod / low, obsolete tech neural networks narrative of computation

neural network investigating itself having sensors recognize signals from the networks

if you take the nn out of its function it can reveal something about itself suddenly it is not threatening anymore

working with familiar objects might make neural nets more tangible

the limit-ness of the data-set (the dataset is limited and the net won’t go beyond it) the resources of machine learning (that is needs a lot of energy / processing power) the imagination of neural networks as a living character inside the system / intelligent classical narratives around AI: self-driving car to hit 2 groups of people, decide which on, dilemma

low tech objects and high level software the narrative around software

digital objects

the promise of the neural network (what do we expect from software / neural networks?) We want it to be clever but not to intervene into our life too much. So we expect Software to be better than ourselfs, but at the same time not, cause we are afraid of everything that might be better than us. So what is the promise of Software? Automation of boring tasks? It should assist you as good as possible, but no more. “For instance, it has become a truism to emphasize that code is not merely functional but can have poetic qualities, and political significance.” (read_me, p. 161)

“leading to the idea of software as potential literature” (read_me, p. 162)

“any essay or piece of code is only ever a work in progress and should be subject to active criticism and upgrade” (read_me, p. 162)

Is there a poetic to neural networks? What is the poetics of neural networks? And how does it change how we perceive neural networks / machine learning … ?

Software Poetics

my main interest: 1. how software influences people, with or without knowing. 2. how versatile software is in its creation and execution. 3. how software works and how it creates infrastructures 4. what are the poetics of software? How can it help to understand the software itself. 4.1. what comes with software besides the intended function 4.2. The in-between space of GUI and Hardware

How much are we dependent on / influenced by software. In times, when Software becomes more and more abstract and black boxed.

Nonfunctional Software (The function of software) Software always comes with a dedicated function or purpose. Lately, especially for proprietary software, user and creator seem to have diverging interests. After the big data and currently the AI hype companies became increasingly interested in data collections and using them for economical benefits. While this enables users to get software cheaper they not only lose their control, but also quality in software. But nevertheless

What, if Software has no function? Software plays an important role in our lives. Yet it is such a versatile and subtle medium. We can get a spark of what this means and how Software really works, when it fails or when it is taken out of its context. So in the following I want to argue that for a serious engagement with software it is also necessary to look at the nonfunctional and the stuff that is in-between the pixels and conducting paths. Software is primary made to function, but what if software fails or malfunctions on purpose?

1. malfunctions of software

While The Alliance for Code Excellence imagines ‘[a] world where software runs cleanly and correctly as it simplifies, enhances and enriches our day everyday life is achievable’ I argue that the malfunctioning of code can also be something positive that is revealing and holds a value. The great thing about an unstable setup can be that the user knows that there is a potential for crashes and therefore engagement is necessary. At the point when it crashes you will be able to get a glimpse of the inner workings of software.

1. unintended use

The unintended use of software can arise from an uninformed user or a user trying to stretch the potential of the functions. People are collecting misuses of software and operating systems online ( https://thoughtcatalog.com/michael-koh/2014/01/21-people-share-the-greatest-software-misuses-theyve-witnessed/). The open source license

Self-destructive Software

The influence of Software on our life Example of Lieferando / GPS navigation The drivers follows the route of the software, which may not necessary make sense, but still the human relies on the software to calculate the right system. Which is also a trust in the data that has been given to the system. (This is separate from hardware, in the sense, that when hardware fails, you would immediately know and figure out other ways to reach the aim. But if software fails, it doesn’t necessarily mean that one can notice it. You would for instance reach the wrong goal or go the wrong way)

Whiteboxing (see http://thepiratebook.net/category/articles/)

Programming Code Considering Software as a product, Code would consequently represent its material. As David M. Points out Code does not simply consist of one single representation. Besides the layer of human readable code, there is also the form of machine code and when the code is actually being executed on the machine. The first of the mentioned states, the textual representation of code, that is in a human readable format, written in a specific programming language, can also exist as literature. Following the history of computation it is mostly agreed on that code is more than just machine instructions. (The Philosophy of Software Code and Mediation in the Digital Age David M. Berry, p. 28ff.) Knuth for examples also argues for an aesthetic in code distinguishing between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ code. (look in The Art of Programming, Knuth)

A quine: A computer program that displays its own code. Techno-Galactic Guide to Software Observation

Shorter and cleaner code / one line C program a one line neural network

Software as a Service (SaaS) From free software to proprietary software to software on servers, which doesn’t even hand out the executable. The risk of this server software is of course that it gathers data and leaves backdoors for the software owner to change the software. This means it is equal to spywhere as pointed out by Richard Stallman. http://bostonreview.net/richard-stallman-free-software-DRM

Sketching on an iPod

What is poetics?

1. On the one hand poetics describes a textual genre, on the other hand poetics, in a broader sense, # can also describe an aesthetic quality.

Traditionally poetics describes the structured analysis of poems or literature, but recently the term poetics has also been used in relation to fields other than the textual genre, like for example computation.

“What I cannot create, I do not understand”, said the famous physicist Richard Feynman

For computation this applies also to code and software. Firstly code can be seen as a form of poetry. This means that the syntax of code itself can be considered as a form of poetry – including for instance the structure, the functioning and the execution. Secondly the “effect of code”, meaning the execution of program code, can hold poetic value. This doesn’t imply that the code generates a poem.(http://poeticcomputation.info/chapters/ch.1/) When looking at examples of software art, this poetic expression can take various forms.

The origin of the word poetics is Poïesis, which means to create and give form.

having an imaginative or sensitively emotional style of expression

What software tells Creating stories about software

deliveroo narrative: siri (gags)

The software narrative 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. (Database as a Symbolic Form - Manovich. (1999). Retrieved 8 February 2018, from http://www.mfj-online.org/journalPages/MFJ34/Manovich_Database_FrameSet.html) Furthermore 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.

That humans tend to anthropomorphize not only their surroundings but also computers and technology in general has been a well research topic among computer sciences. In addition to that humans have a vivid and diverse imagination about processes that are invisible. This includes computation. Often digital media black boxes certain processes and therefore provides a lot of space for imagination and narratives that can be constructed around it.

Narratives have been used for the purpose of marketing and there have been attempts to create relatable stories within applications. The need for a human approach to software becomes also visible from the emerging need for Graphical User Interfaces. The so called GUI, is not part of the traditional imaginary of computation, where commands are being filled in via a command line. But todays average user is only surrounded by software displayed via a “window”, encountering the terminal only by chance. Not only does the GUI simplify commands into buttons and mouse-actions, but also does it make software more human. A button that has a 3D effect (Software Studies → Button), the on/off function is displayed via a switch, the mouse transforms into a hand or the form that looks like a letter, which off course you fill in by pressing a pen symbol. So what we can see from this and many other real life examples is, that software itself anthropomorphizes, by it’s concrete functions (Maybe add more examples? Like naming of functions, software visuals/logos, etc.). On the other side, among others, “The media equation” had shown, that we as humans also consciously and unconsciously anthropomorphize computers. This also goes hand in hand with the imaginations that humans create around computation and specifically also software. A well known example is Joseph Weizenbaum’s Eliza, a digital application, that acted as a therapist, chatting with the user. This piece of software gave impressive proof of how humans anthropomorphize even simple digital applications. (Expressive Processing, p.27)

New poetics that software enables

The way how computation works enables new ways of expression. Therefore new poetic expressions can be revealed. Software creates its own infrastructures. The way software works, different pathways often become hidden or blurry, but when revealing / making visible these tracks, this can provide a quite strong insight.

Lem seems to hint that the ultimate drive of instrumental reason, of continually interrogating our world in the quest for answers, may only be madness: fantasies that we project onto the world in order to construct a story about truth, just as the characters in the novel must grapple with figures projected from their pasts.

The narrative of the tech device / sketching on an iPod

The realization, that humans project emotions onto digital devices & software, enables us to intentionally tell story using the digital medium. This enables the creator also to comment or question the used technique. As an experiment I wanted to think of a random digital object (can be soft- or hardware). I happened to have an old iPod classic at home, so this is gonna be my example for the following thought-experiment. So how can we construct narratives around this device and including the software in it? The iPod itself suggests a story already through its history. It is a rather deprecated device, which had once been substituted by the multi-functional smartphone. It’s future is uncertain, it’s basically obsolete. But still I have a certain appreciation for it’s interface, the scroll-wheel and its focus on some basic functions: playing music. Certainly one can relate to the story of the poor old device, that is lost and looking for a new use.