Read_Me:
Software Art and Culture
by Olga
Goriunova and Alexei Shulgin, Eds.
. (Digital Aesthetics Research Centre,
University of Aarhus, 2004
397 pp. Trade $33.00
ISBN: 8-7988-4404-0.
Reviewed by John Knight
User-Lab
Birmingham Institute of Art and Design
John.knight@uce.ac.uk
At nearly 400 pages in length this
book offers an insight into a new and
dynamic art community. Attractively packaged,
with elegant typography, and printed on
quality paper, it looks good and is worth
the investment. As well as reading what
the community has to say, the book allows
readers to experience what they make through
an accompanying website. The book comes
from the Read_Me festival that took place
in Aarhus last year. The event is evidence
of Hannes Leopolseder's predictions of
an emerging computer culture in demonstrating
"a new type of artist" and "experiments
in art and culture".
Read_Me started in 2002 and brings together
practitioners and theorists in a festival
that, at first glance, seems to parallel
the more established Ars Electronica.
Olga Goriunova, one of the organisers
told me that "we don't have competition,
we don't have money prizes. We don't have
first, second and third prizes and a new
"hot" topic each year. We are
much smaller, we are developing a certain
grass-root cultural practice, and the
processes that lead to our events are
more 'natural'". What they do have
is a community of artists and programmers
that are forging their own identity (Runme.org).
Outside of the establishment Read_Me relies
on the dynamism of its community and the
external support it receives.
Read_Me in 2004 was supported by Aarhus
University and The Danish Ministry of
Culture. The festival had two sections:
a conference and a city camp. Runme.org
curates the artworks online, while Read_Me
fosters theoretical and practical dialogue
offline. Many of the 20 articles tackle
software formalism vs software culturalism.
This central debate concerns whether the
community should intervene at the level
of code or interface. Advocates of both
sides produce artworks as well as theory.
Formalism concentrates on artistic uses
of code. Software culturalism uses and
mimics software tools such as Google and
Windows. A third strand bridges both and
concerns performativity.
The best of the theoretical papers are
by Arns, Cox et al, Johannson, and Lillemose.
Inke Arns article compares software art
to generative art. The latter is defined
by Galanter as "any art . . . where
the artist uses a system . . . which is
set into motion with some degree of autonomy
contributing to or resulting in a completed
work of art" (p. 178). Geoff Cox,
Alex McLean and Adrian Ward consider the
aesthetics of code and counter criticism
of formalism with examples of live coding.
Troels Degn Johansson looks at the crisis
art as a parallel to one in software art.
Furthermore, he condemns Margot Lovejoy's
focus on art, which "is only marginally
interested in experiments on the level
of program code" and is only interested
in "what is tactile, audible and
visible."
Jacob Lillemose contemplates Florian Cramer's
distinction between two kinds of software
art. Firstly, the "literary and mathematical
aesthetics of formal qualities of programming
and generative code" and secondly,
the "conceptual and discursive involvement
with software culture" (p. 154).
He argues that software art "is often
treated as a digitally updated version
of the conceptual art that emerged in
the mid 60s" (p. 138) i.e. before
software culture. He categorises types
of conceptual art within four groups of
artists typified by Sol Le Witt, John
Cage, Hans Haacke, and Bruce Nauman. Lillemose
concludes by suggesting software art represents
new form of aesthetics hybridising both
worlds.
There are clear favourites in the group.
Walter Benjamin and Gilles Deleuze are
liked for alluding to the digital artefact
and the virtual. Contemporary favourites
include Matthew Fuller and Florian Cramer.
Some technology is also heavily featured.
The predictably unpredictable functionality
of Google and the community basis of Open
Source are clear favourites over the corporate
Microsoft. Favoured artists include John
Cage as well as Sol Le Witt, both for
their performativity and immaterialism.
The Runme section features 32 software
art projects. Peter Luining's (p. 354)
"Window" is literally that,
a transparent window that caricatures
the graphical user interface version because
you can see through it. In similar ways
many of the "software culture"
works are witty and self referential,
including a joke thank you to "usability
guru", Jakob Nielsen (p. 121).
The formalist wing includes seemingly
random poetry strings created from Google.
Of the more "formalist" works
Boris Kopeinig's "TMP" (p. 370)
is a seemly random array of numbers that
fill the screen and change through some
hidden functionality. There are also some
very good works that bridge the video
and computer arts, such as Amy Alexander's
"Extreme Whitespace" (p. 362).
Performativity is also addressed with
live coding where laptops are used in
live performances (Cox et al, p. 170).
Neither from the art nor strictly interactive
arts community, Runme has come together
through informal groups and networks.
They have stronger links to the hacker
community than to the establishment of
Ars Electronica, which can be charmingly
refreshing. Indeed, they are critical
of interactive art practice that does
not credit programmers (p. 155, Johansson)
and of the elitism of gallery and museum
culture in general (Andersen and Pold,
p. 14). They are pragmatic, practitioner
based, and leave the more esoteric questions
about AI and consciousness to the establishment.
On the flip side, the community is overwhelming
biased toward the literary and social
sciences, and they variously describe
themselves as software artists. The newness
of the community and its intentional hacker
attitude means that there is sometimes
little concern for the audience reception,
and despite their anti elitist credentials,
they can seem defensive, isolated, and
inward looking. Sometimes it seems as
though they are their audience and they
are happy with this idea. This book is
testament to a new and dynamic community
that has a unique take on art and software.
It will be interesting to see how the
community matures and begins to influence
software culture and art.
Links:
Runme.org http://runme.org.
