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ZeroOne San Jose / ISEA2006 ISEA2006 symposium
Voice and Code PDF Print E-mail
Symposium Papers
Written by Kuniko Vroman   
Apr 19, 2006 at 08:29 PM

Josephine Bosma

language, voice, song, body, code, music, social, authorship, folk data

The relationship between code and language, cultures, and machine has started being analyzed quite profoundly the past few years, yet how does code relate to human voice? Code is an interesting mixture of human and machine languages, of social and mathematical communication. With the work of Florian Cramer as an inspiration and big influence I would like to speculate wildly about how code not only reflects a changing attitude in the transcription and creation of meaning, but also on how this in turn reverberates in the use of our human voice, specifically in the arts.

Abstract

The relationship between (computer) code and language, cultures, and machine has started being analyzed quite profoundly the past few years by software theorists like Lev Manovich, Mathew Fuller, Alex Galloway, Florian Cramer, Katherine Hayles and Adrian Ward. In this paper I would like to look at a different kind of physicality of code, namely its relationship to human voice and oral expression. Florian Cramer wrote a fascinating text about occult texts and code in his Words Made Flesh. With the work of Florian Cramer as an inspiration and big influence I would like to speculate wildly about how code not only reflects a changing attitude in the transcription and creation of meaning (related to music and computer screen based narratives), but also on how this in turn reverberates in the use of our human voice, specifically in the arts.

Code is an interesting mixture of human and machine transcription systems, of social and mathematical expression and imagination. On top of this code of course is the bearer of a virtual activity, of a slumbering action or representation. The writing of code creates the opportunity to escape both the limitations of the alphabet and the numeric system through the emergence of an activity space within the written code. The alphabet was never the only and ideal tool for transcription of human expression and communication. Code could be perceived as a transcription system that combines pictorial, alphabetic and mathematical writing systems. Even if in the case of pictorial this is a virtual presence within the transcription it is also actual. A new or additional language (like slang maybe) for cultural expression of meaning emerges once this transcription system, however superficially, becomes more familiar or popular. This language is not confined to its transcribed, machine state alone. What Katherine Hayles calls 'technotexts' are not purely techno anymore, if they ever really have been.

Social and cultural expression in code and 'code-like' languages is slowly starting to develop. Programmers not only make code more humanly accessible for practical purposes, but some also do so with a playful or even artistic intention. Expression through code seems related to oral traditions in folk music (its emphasis on repetition and quotation) and other music cultures, such as the cyborgian desires and tendencies in Detroit Techno. Communities of programmers could maybe be perceived as subcultures or lost tribes, sometimes with their own codes and rules for communication, yet always connected through a relatively marginal form of expression. Within and between these communities quotation and re-interpretation are commonplace. Of many different versions of a string of code or 'technotexts' few survive in the long run. We might like an 'Alan Lomax' for Folk Data to appear. In the cyborg tradition some strings of code are written or used to express a feeling of familiarity with the machine, a desire to hook up to its power, or they are used as a way to allay it.

Even if code generally loses its ability to run, to generate an action, outside of a machine (with the exception of experimental code written specifically for this purpose, like for instance Wilfried Houjebek's PML: Psychogeographical Markup Language, which indicates a specific walking route), it still carries its generative power virtually. This hidden activity within the 'language' of code generates a new emotional and cultural interpretation of seemingly familiar (in the sense of traditional alphabetic texts) strings of letters and signs. This is what the artist programmer or performer aims to activate with vocalization. Working with code inside a social context of spoken word and song (but also of writing it as text aimed at both humans and machines) the code becomes a form of, what I would call, emphatic calculation. This calculation does not have to produce working code (within a machine) or to be fully understood by everybody to work in its own right: as a work of art.

Artists such as Igor Stromajer, Fernando "Bifo" Berardi, Alan Sondheim, Graham Harwood and others each use code for vocal expression in their own way. In my paper I will look at the individual approaches of the artists, which are respectively singing existing html code, reading out loud of a virus code, code-like poetry performance, activating the audience's inner voice and making the code produce a voice. I will try to answer some questions. How strict do artist performers stick to the written code in vocalization? What sounds are used for previously 'unsounded' characters? What is the meaning of the vocalized code to the artist? How can programming languages be used for cultural or emotional expression? I will compare this work with other vocalizations of code or related transcriptions, like for instance the vocalization of the DeCSS code for breaking protection codes on DVDs and PGP encryption code signing parties, and I will also compare it to 'traditional' sound poetry. I will conclude my paper by making some wild guesses and predictions about a possible future pop code use in street talk and music cultures.

Last Updated ( Aug 04, 2006 at 04:00 PM )
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