User:Tancre/readings/Cramer on software art

2001_SOFTWARE ART

what is software art? attention on the how, which medium
(computer music, graphics, electronic literature, computer-controlled electronic installations, net art...)

digital art (made of 0 and 1)< [new] media art
historically rooted in video art but false assumption that is conventionally visualized on screens
focus on the particular media rather than the structure of programming, reinforced by the fact that the code is hidden
computer art is rich of works where programming is invisible (for example john cage - roarotorio)
>> software is overlooked as artistic material and as a factor in the concept and aesthetics of a work
this happen in parallel with the mac and windows GUI camouflage of the running on program code in their operation and aesthetics.
1997 I/O/D - the web stalker
visualize websites in their codes and structures + the code of web stalker itself. no readable conventional web but code.
>>piece of net art that analyze its medium + reflection on how reality is shaped by software
joint operation of complex systems and their generative processes create its own aesthetics, not anymore restricted but system as a whole. (what developing software is about)
if software is machine control code so digital media are literally written.
>> electronic literature not just as simple text but also text of 0 and 1
passage from all the mutually dependent layers (from binary to GUI, simple to complex) and back.
not only computer systems as media but it manipulates them when machine instructions.

software art as a shift of the view from display to the creation of systems and processes themselves, is not covered by media and multimedia as umbrella term does not imply this process.
>> net art and software art are not exclusive categories but different, focuses one on distribution and display and the other on the systemics
but is generative code exclusive to computer programing?
1961 la monte jung - composition 1961 (Fluxus)
is considered one of the first pieces of minimal music 'draw a straight line and follow it'
can be considered seminal work of woftware art + extremist aesthetic consequence in infinite space and time
but not aesthetically detached from its performance. the actual lline can be considered as a second layer instruction but as impossible to perform it phisically it becomes meta-phisical, conceptual, epistemological.
>> 1961 henry flynt's definition of concept art
"art of which the material is ‘concepts,’ as the material of for ex. music is sound."
the structure or concept is aesthetically more interesting than the product of their phisical execution
dodecaphonia is the first
>>software art is art where the material is software
mathematics to de-emphasizing attribution to scientific discovery. the same as in their contemporary computer scientist
>>1962 donald knuth - the art of computer programming
applied mathematics of programming as an art

should transmediale software art criticists consists of mathematicians and computer scientists?
what is known as concept art now is less rigorous in its immaterialism but first major exhibition was named 'Software' 1970 curated by jack burnham, 'software as a metaphor for art', stressed by cybernetical social dimension of programed systems rather than pure structure.
now software as a functional tool, not an aesthetic, not anymore like conceptualist clean-room constructs but react to these stereotype.(the web stalker)

TRANSMEDIAL.01
pc user software that acts against their codification
adrian ward - signwave auto-illustrator > mapping internal functions against their corresponding on the gui
nezvanova - nebula m.81 > mapping the signifiers of program output against human readability
artistic control vs generative iterations of machine code
generative systems not as negation of intentionality but balance between randomness and control
reflection on artistic subjectivity and extension to generative systems.