code aesthetitcs

By Luciana Gattass, 12 November, 2012
Publication Type
Language
Year
Publisher
Pages
25-26
License
All Rights reserved
Record Status
Abstract (in English)

A great part of texts that permeate contemporary life are almost invariably not seen by human eyes. They are texts made for machines to read. Texts that record information, from the minuscule “pictorial element” (PIXEL), which form the mosaics that shine on the screens of monitors and electronic panels, to the complex set of instructions and procedures that allow us to generate and manipulate information (PROGRAM). The exhibition asks itself: what does the poet (“he-that-makes”, from the Greek POIEIN = to make, to produce) do in a context where frontiers between letters and numbers, images and sounds, etceteras and etceteras, are increasingly porous?

Description in original language
Abstract (in original language)

A maior parte dos textos que permeiam a vida do homem contemporâneo passa quase que invariavelmente desapercebida ao seu olhar. São textos que se destinam à leitura por parte de máquinas. Textos que registram informação: do minúsculo “elemento de imagem” , que compõe os mosaicos que brilham na tela de monitores e painéis eletrônicos, ao conjunto
complexo de instruções e procedimentos que nos permitem gerar e manipular informação . Esta exposição se pergunta: o que faz o poeta (“aquele-que-faz”, do grego POIEIN = fazer, produzir) num contexto que torna cada vez mais porosas as fronteiras que separam letras de números, imagens de sons, etceteras de etceteras?

By Luciana Gattass, 12 November, 2012
Publication Type
Language
Year
Publisher
Pages
25-26
License
All Rights reserved
Record Status
Abstract (in English)

A great part of texts that permeate contemporary life are almost invariably not seen by human eyes. They are texts made for machines to read. Texts that record information, from the minuscule “pictorial element” (PIXEL), which form the mosaics that shine on the screens of monitors and electronic panels, to the complex set of instructions and procedures that allow us to generate and manipulate information (PROGRAM). The exhibition asks itself: what does the poet (“he-that-makes”, from the Greek POIEIN = to make, to produce) do in a context where frontiers between letters and numbers, images and sounds, etceteras and etceteras, are increasingly porous?

Description in original language
Abstract (in original language)

A maior parte dos textos que permeiam a vida do homem contemporâneo passa quase que invariavelmente desapercebida ao seu olhar. São textos que se destinam à leitura por parte de máquinas. Textos que registram informação: do minúsculo “elemento de imagem” , que compõe os mosaicos que brilham na tela de monitores e painéis eletrônicos, ao conjunto
complexo de instruções e procedimentos que nos permitem gerar e manipular informação . Esta exposição se pergunta: o que faz o poeta (“aquele-que-faz”, do grego POIEIN = fazer, produzir) num contexto que torna cada vez mais porosas as fronteiras que separam letras de números, imagens de sons, etceteras de etceteras?

Description (in English)

All of the prior remixes of Nick Montfort's _Taroko Gorge_ rewrote the text, while leaving Nick's code unchanged or almost so. I thought that was a shame. I also thought it was an opportunity! Since they all essentially consisted of word-lists plugged into a schema, I was able to remix them together on two axes at the same time:* Combining the word-lists of any two poems;* Mutating the stanza schema.I also took the opportunity to randomize the color schemes of the pages. (But not the font choices or the background imagery that some of the poems indulged in. Optima for everybody, I'm afraid.)Nick's original poem generates a constant ABBA-C pattern, with some extra B's thrown in. This page essentially invents a new pattern (for example A-, or BC-BA, or CCC, or so on) for each block. The code for the pattern is on the left, and the generated output is on the right.To answer the obvious question: Yes, this page really does execute the code that's displayed in the left column, and it really does generate the text in the right column.The most entertaining part of this project was inventing a way to mutate Nick's original code, while still having it *look* distinctly like Nick's original code. If you're not painfully familiar with that code - e.g, if you're neither Nick nor me - go to http://nickm.com/poems/taroko_gorge.html and select "View Source" in your browser, and look near the bottom. You'll recognize the form of the "do_line()" routine. Some of mine are simpler than his; some are more complex.The *complete* code for this page is of course much more involved than Nick's (because it has to *generate* Nick's code, plus a lot more). But I tried to stick to Nick's coding style wherever I could.The blocks strictly alternate between a single poem (with a mutated schema, but the original word lists) and a mix of two poems. I thought that would be the best lead-in for someone familiar with the original poems.A (perhaps interesting) result of my mixing is that some poems dominate others. Yoko Engorged has the longest word-lists, Fred and George has the shortest; so if they get mixed together, the randomizer selects many more Beatles references than Potter ones. I could have adjusted for this, but I didn't.

(Source: Author's notes in the source code of the work)

I ♥ E-Poetry entry
Screen shots
Image
Argot, Ogre, OK! screenshot
By Scott Rettberg, 25 February, 2012
Year
Pages
144-153
Record Status
Abstract (in English)

The standard idea of code aesthetics, when such an idea manifests itself at all, allows for programmers to have elegance and clarity as their standards. This paper explores programming practices in which other values are at work, showing that the aesthetics of code must be enlarged to accommodate them. The two practices considered are obfuscated programming and the creation of “weird languages” for coding. Connections between these two practices, and between these and other mechanical and literary aesthetic traditions, are discussed.

(Source: authors' abstract)