Josephine Bosma
Visitor
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some thoughts - 2006/05/05 15:24
Hello ISEA, hello Inke, hello everybody interested in joining this discussion,
First of all let me say I am flattered that my paper about code and voice was chosen for ISEA06. I hope I can live up to expectations. Second I have to emphasize one thing: when submitting my text I wrote it was not just a paper, but: a playful paper. I had a few reasons for this. The most important one is that I think that a lot of writing about art in new media tends to become too ‘scientifically solid’, that is: it has to be correct and make sense in a way that fits the corporate and science world (I include a certain activist approach in this, as it tends to be the counter side of the corporate approach and thus equally ‘practical’). It takes the fun out of writing about art in this context, as art is also very much about vague senseless things like passion, inspiration and (whatever crazy type of) attitude. Writing about art is a mostly subjective enterprise. I think it is necessary to sometimes work from speculation and creativity, even in something like theory, rather then just from hard, obviously proven, facts. So be my guest: tear my abstract to pieces if you feel like it, but try to do it well if you can. Even if I am playing around a little, I am also dead serious.
My thoughts about code and voice are really about inspiring (in me and others) different ways of looking at code, and of looking at technology as well, by connecting code to life in unexpected and maybe even funny ways. It was a pleasure to read the first reaction to my abstract here on the site, by Kim. It is exactly this type of enthusiasm from ‘novices’ (and I still see myself as one, being a non programmer) that I think is necessary to keep any kind of discussion and development of ‘alternative’ coding going. I think that Inke is right to make a comparison between code and genes, even if they are totally different things. For many both code and genes have a kind of mysterious, powerful ‘aura’: an almost mythical status that seems equally inspired/invoked by curiosity and fear for the unknown. The latter needs to be overcome.
Language is, like humans, mostly unpredictable and chaotic in its development. It depends on unstable factors like emotion and social events as much as it does on ‘logical’ or practical usage of word and sentence structures. I would like to dive into that chaos for a moment and be amazed by what is and could be happening within our close relationship to machines.
So what are my thoughts about voice and code? They are many. They fly in all directions. Let me start with something simple: everybody who looks at code reads something into it. Whether it is chaos or meaning. With a growing familiarity of computers and code certain commands in code become part of popular expression, even if it is used and interpreted wrongly. Commands like <read> for instance I have seen used in all kinds of unusual places: flyers for parties, t-shirts, on covers of magazines. These commands are starting to become part of everyday language. This might still seem far from vocal expression. But is it really? [Proposition one: writing influences speech, as much as speech influences writing]
Florian Cramer mentions a few instants in his texts in which programmers incorporated code or aspects of code in oral communications, for fun, mostly. I was not surprised to read this, and I would not be surprised to hear more examples then the few (it still is few) Florian Cramer mentions. It makes perfect sense that people will use aspects of new languages or snippets of new languages, especially influential languages or languages that have a special meaning to them, in their expression of how they experience the world.
The relationship between written language and speech is not simple. We tend to think that the western alphabet represents sounds, but as we all know it sounds different in every language. Apparently not all linguists agree whether alphabetically written language is in fact connected to speech at all: some say it could also be an entirely separate form of expression. Non-alphabetic writing like Chinese is said to proof that writing does not represent the sound of speech. But if it is not speech, then what is it? Written texts do reverberate in our bodies. [Proposition two: any language transcription is vocal. Proposition three: inner and ‘outer’ voices are related]
‘Traditional’, standard texts do represent stories, information or communication. They are definitely about an inner voice, if not about what we fail to speak (it is even said our vocal chords vibrate slightly when we read). ‘Technotexts’ on the other hand, pieces of code, are usually not about human communication, at least not about communication with other humans. They are texts that make computers run or do something. In a way code is our way of commanding the machine. The technology of the computer is built around a language we are not used to express in speech very much: mathematics. It is however still our human expression, even if it is limited by or ‘towards’ the ‘linguistic’ possibilities of the computer. It is the combination of mathematics and the (mostly) English language that now forces itself into our lives, mostly in the background, subconsciously, unwanted, provocative but also seductive. [Proposition four: our human languages will be ‘contaminated’ and changed by code]
This contamination happens mainly on two levels: that of insiders like knowledgeable programmers and that of popular culture. These are two very different worlds. Those who work with code will use characteristics of code as an intellectual game, to create new verbal constellations that still make sense, either as insider joke or as feasible code. In popular culture however code is not restricted to its proper interpretation. In popular culture code is very much about its visual appearance and its mythical status. Using programming language-like phrases, signs or words connects the user to cybercultures and their meanings. Like slang and street languages that are influenced by local immigrants, the language of a post-internet generation is influenced by code. A very early example of this was of course the word net.art. It caused some discussion about the proper use of the dot among programmers. Its origin was obscured by the myth of it being an object trouve, but it was really a poetic appropriation of code-like language. [Proposition five: cyberpop produces languages that hover between sign- and alphabetic texts]
Programming languages have existed for more then fifty years now. There are thousands of programming languages, of which only about 50 are used or have been used a lot. In a way these languages represent local cultures, communities of programmers, some bigger, some smaller then others. The history of computing is a history of people developing, learning, adjusting and discarding languages. A language, even code, could be said to represent a culture or a subculture. Technotexts are transcriptions of our attempts at communicating our desires to the machine. They are an expression of our will to power and our failure at reaching bliss. There is a lot of sweat and passion in technotexts. Yet most of them are now unused or barely used. These languages die faster then human languages. Should we not preserve at least some of the finest code written in dying or dead programming languages? If this is already being done, I want a Taschen book filled with page after page of historical code and it’s meaning to hit the market. I want to be able to marvel at its crudity, its senselessness, its beauty, its perfection and its cruelty. We need an ‘Alan Lomax’ of programming languages. [Proposition six: code represents tradition and culture]
Both the insiders’ approach and the popular interpretation of code in speech offer new vistas for language, literally. The insider will unfold imaginary processes and vivid pictures in the minds of other insiders. The insiders’ play with code is about finding stories within stories, and ‘text’ layered in complex architectures of meaning. The popular reflection of code creates a different effect. It plays with assumptions, confusion, fear and desire. The meaning of code in pop culture is not about logic or syntax, but it is first of all about the image of code and only in the second place about a rough interpretation of its meaning. [Proposition seven: code brings new reason as well as a new visual poetics to human oral expression]
Let me get to Inke’s remarks and questions about my abstract. I had to smile when I saw her comment about performative versus generative. To be quite honest I am not sure whether either one of us is right. When I say I am interested in the virtual generative power of code, I am not talking about code performance and also not about computers generating something. I am talking about an activity we can read or recognize in that code, which then ‘builds’ an idea or thought or movie in our mind, not unlike reading a ‘normal’ text. Code is in some ways a new form of textual expression. I chose the word generative, but could maybe also have chosen performative. The code generates a certain process in our mind, when reading it. This process is maybe loosely comparable to that same code running in a machine, to that code performing, but only very loosely. Do we need a new word for this then? Maybe programmers already have a word for reading and interpreting the slumbering activity within a piece of code by a human. Anyway… I would like to talk more in depth about the relationship between code and human language, and from that to oral expression. And Inke: I am not interested in whether vocalizing code will become a trend, but in what happens, what has happened and what it could mean. This is a thought experiment first and foremost, but one with the potential of touching reality.
I will leave it with this for now. There are many things that still need to be said, but writing this has already been difficult since this week is the school holiday here in Amsterdam. Any comments are welcome. I will try to get back to this forum soon.
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