Paper Performance 'Import <Execute> [As <Command>]'
By Korsten & De Jong
ArtEZ University of the Arts
korstendejong@hotmail.com
The next part is executable when copied in Python via 'Run module’
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print()
print()
print (‘import <execute> [as <command>]’)
print()
print(‘By Korsten & De Jong’)
print(‘ArtEZ University of the Arts’)
print(‘korstendejong@hotmail.com’)
print()
spaties=’ '*50
print(’“The Multitude is biopolitical self-organization”’)
print(’%s - Hardt and Negri’% spaties)
print()
print('LeWitt has stated that “[t]he idea becomes a machine that makes the art.” In his estimation conceptual art is nothing but a type of code for art making. LeWitt\‘s art is an algorithmic process.[1]’)
print(‘Hayles has also reflected on the multidimensionality of digital signs. Her term “flickering signifiers” shows that digital images are the visible manifestations of underlayers of code often hidden.[2]’)
print(‘In \‘Protocol\’ Galloway has claimed that “[c]ode is the only language that is executable.”[3]’)
print('As Artistic Research duo, Korsten & De Jong are interested in this exact performativity of code and in how they can position code in such a way that it informs theoretical concepts in the act of making. In their Paper Performance they will operate on Critical Engineering manifesto\‘s seventh command, reading “7. The Critical Engineer observes the space between the production and consumption of technology. Acting rapidly to changes in this space, the Critical Engineer serves to expose moments of imbalance and deception.”[4]’)
print()
print(‘In their working together as a duo Korsten & De Jong bring to table notions evolving around \‘Toyotism.\’’)
print(‘As Galloway has pointed out, Toyotism originates in Japanese automotive production facilities. “Within Toyotism, small pods of workers mass together to solve a specific problem. The pods are not linear and fixed like the more traditional assembly line, but rather they are flexible and reconfigurable depending on whatever problem might be posed to them.”[5]’)
print(‘Sterling puts: “\‘ad-hocracy\’ would rule,” with groups of people spontaneously knitting together across organizational lines, tackling the problem at hand, applying intense computer aided expertise to it, and the vanishing whence they came."[6]’)
print('It leads Brand to invert Marx and Engel\'s Communist Manifesto\‘s message of unity into a message of resistance-to-unity stating “Workers of the World, fan out.”[7]’)
print(‘This shows a strong incentive to move away from homophily the way Chun has defined it as a way to be comfortable only being exposed to things that are in line with our own norms and values. If homophily is a natural condition of networks, existing segregation in society is maintained. This segregation will only increase because the algorithms we have today contain inbuilt bias. Algorithms push people into clusters of sameness. Chun reflects on police profiling systems with the remark that “[…] they place people on the heat list based not solely on what these people did but rather on what their perceived network-neighbours did.”[8]’)
print()
print(‘With their Paper Performance Korsten & De Jong seek to challenge the notion of the bunker as formulated by Critical Art Ensemble. For them “[…] the bunker is both material and ideational. On the one hand, it serves as a concrete garrison where image (troops) reside. On the other hand, it confirms state-sponsored reality, by forever solidifying the reified notions of class, race, and gender. Bunkers in their totality as spectacle colonize the mind, and construct the micro-bunker of reification, which in turn is the most difficult of all to penetrate and destroy.”[9]’)
print()
print()
print(’[1] Sol LeWitt, “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,” in \‘Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology\’ ed. Alexander Alberro and Blake Stimson,(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999),12.’)
print(’[2] N. Katherine Hayles, “Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifiers,” in \‘October,\’ Vol.66, (Cambridge and London: MIT Press, Autumn 1993), 69-91.’)
print(’[3] Alexander Galloway, Protocol, (Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 2004), 165.’)
print(’[4] https://criticalengineering.org/ce.pdf, accessed 15 July 2018.’)
print(’[5] Alexander Galloway, Protocol, (Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 2004), 159.’)
print(’[6] Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crack Down, (New York: Bantam Books, 1992), 184.’)
print(’[7] Stewart Brand, The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT (New York: Viking, 1987), 264.’)
print(’[8] Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, “Crisis + Habit = Update,” (Lecture Sonic Acts Festival, 25 February 2017), 7"33-7"43.’)
print(’[9] Critical Art Ensemble, Electronic Civil Disobedience & Other Unpopular Ideas, 2009, http://www.critical-art.net/books/ecd/ Accessed 15 July 2018, 37.’)
>>>
Outcome for ‘Run module’ of <Import_Execute_As_Command.py> in Python:
>>>
Python 3.7.2 (tags/v3.7.2:9a3ffc0492, Dec 23 2018, 22:20:52) [MSC v.1916 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type “help”, “copyright”, “credits” or “license()” for more information.
>>>
===== RESTART: G:\Python\Import_Execute_As_Command.py =====
import <execute> [as <command>]
By Korsten & De Jong
ArtEZ University of the Arts
korstendejong@hotmail.com
“The Multitude is biopolitical self-organization”
- Hardt and Negri
LeWitt has stated that “[t]he idea becomes a machine that makes the art.” In his estimation conceptual art is nothing but a type of code for art making. LeWitt’s art is an algorithmic process.[1]
Hayles has also reflected on the multidimensionality of digital signs. Her term “flickering signifiers” shows that digital images are the visible manifestations of underlayers of code often hidden.[2]
In ‘Protocol’ Galloway has claimed that “[c]ode is the only language that is executable.”[3]
As Artistic Research duo, Korsten & De Jong are interested in this exact performativity of code and in how they can position code in such a way that it informs theoretical concepts in the act of making. In their Paper Performance they will operate on Critical Engineering manifesto’s seventh command, reading “7. The Critical Engineer observes the space between the production and consumption of technology. Acting rapidly to changes in this space, the Critical Engineer serves to expose moments of imbalance and deception.”[4]
In their working together as a duo Korsten & De Jong bring to table notions evolving around ‘Toyotism.’
As Galloway has pointed out, Toyotism originates in Japanese automotive production facilities. “Within Toyotism, small pods of workers mass together to solve a specific problem. The pods are not linear and fixed like the more traditional assembly line, but rather they are flexible and reconfigurable depending on whatever problem might be posed to them.”[5]
Sterling puts: “‘ad-hocracy’ would rule,” with groups of people spontaneously knitting together across organizational lines, tackling the problem at hand, applying intense computer aided expertise to it, and the vanishing whence they came."[6]
It leads Brand to invert Marx and Engel’s Communist Manifesto’s message of unity into a message of resistance-to-unity stating “Workers of the World, fan out.”[7]
This shows a strong incentive to move away from homophily the way Chun has defined it as a way to be comfortable only being exposed to things that are in line with our own norms and values. If homophily is a natural condition of networks, existing segregation in society is maintained. This segregation will only increase because the algorithms we have today contain inbuilt bias. Algorithms push people into clusters of sameness. Chun reflects on police profiling systems with the remark that “[…] they place people on the heat list based not solely on what these people did but rather on what their perceived network-neighbours did.”[8]
With their Paper Performance Korsten & De Jong seek to challenge the notion of the bunker as formulated by Critical Art Ensemble. For them “[…] the bunker is both material and ideational. On the one hand, it serves as a concrete garrison where image (troops) reside. On the other hand, it confirms state-sponsored reality, by forever solidifying the reified notions of class, race, and gender. Bunkers in their totality as spectacle colonize the mind, and construct the micro-bunker of reification, which in turn is the most difficult of all to penetrate and destroy.”[9]
[1] Sol LeWitt, “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,” in ‘Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology’ ed. Alexander Alberro and Blake Stimson,(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999),12.
[2] N. Katherine Hayles, “Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifiers,” in ‘October,’ Vol.66, (Cambridge and London: MIT Press, Autumn 1993), 69-91.
[3] Alexander Galloway, Protocol, (Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 2004), 165.
[4] https://criticalengineering.org/ce.pdf, accessed 15 July 2018.
[5] Alexander Galloway, Protocol, (Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 2004), 159.
[6] Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crack Down, (New York: Bantam Books, 1992), 184.
[7] Stewart Brand, The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT (New York: Viking, 1987), 264.
[8] Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, “Crisis + Habit = Update,” (Lecture Sonic Acts Festival, 25 February 2017), 7"33-7"43.
[9] Critical Art Ensemble, Electronic Civil Disobedience & Other Unpopular Ideas, 2009, http://www.critical-art.net/books/ecd/ Accessed 15 July 2018, 37.
>>>
Appendix Working Title <Building The Bunker> from a transcription of a working session for Korsten & De Jong’s Paper Performance to be executed at the conference.
>>>
19 December 2018
Korsten & De Jong in Amsterdam
Total duration: 20:07"
Archive: 20181219nr16041
K & DJ: 12:21 PM Korsten & De Jong in Amsterdam
K & DJ: Ok, it is about code to begin with. The title is written in code already.
Reading aloud from Korsten & De Jong’s Abstract 'Import <Execute> [As <Command>]: As Artistic Research duo Korsten & De Jong are interested in this exact performativity of code and in how they can position code in such a way that it informs theoretical concepts in the act of making.
K & DJ: We state that code ‘[…] informs theoretical concepts in the act of making.’ This is about how we apply theory in our process of making. We agree on the rules how to concretize theory as a form of material to co-operate in our Paper Performances along with concrete material, time and space conditions; we then act with all these elements. As Sol LeWitt has stated, we perceive of our Paper- Performances as a sort of code, rules and decisions that make the work of art to materialize. This is how theory plays its part in the total process. This is why this Paper Performance is not a solely discursive residue but part of the whole work ‘<import> execute [as <command>].’
Reading aloud: Katherine Hayles has also reflected on the multidimensionality of digital signs. Her term “flickering signifiers” shows that digital images are the visible manifestations of underlayers of code often hidden.
K & DJ: This is about code being an underlayer of how a digital system works and how this sometimes shows at the surface when a glimpse of code is visible through a glitch or in loading an image etc. At the base of the digital system certain decisions have been made, making the system work in a specific way thereby excluding other possibilities. Marshall McLuhan already negated the statement that a firearm would be not bad in itself, only the usage of it. He says that in the design of a firearm itself, its function is already inscribed. Vilém Flusser takes this notion a step further by stating that the designed apparatus then teaches and leads us to use it in its designed functionality.
Reading aloud: In Protocol Alexander Galloway has claimed that “[c]ode is the only language that is executable.”
K & DJ: ‘Code being the only language that is executable’…
K & DJ: ‘The only language that can perform?’
K & DJ: That leads us to Judith Butler, who claimed that language is performative. Following J. L. Austin, she continues to state that when a child is born and the doctor exclaims: “It’s a girl!”, the words are already acting. The doctor is not only neutrally stating a fact but also pushes the child already in a culturally formed system of codes attributed to the word ‘girl.’ One can no longer freely ‘become’ but one is already ‘defined’.
Reading aloud: In their Paper Performance they will operate on Critical Engineering Manifesto’s seventh command, reading “7. The Critical Engineer observes the space between the production and consumption of technology. Acting rapidly to changes in this space, the Critical Engineer serves to expose moments of imbalance and deception.”
K & DJ: So this generates space to maneuver between the production and the consumption of digital technology.
K & DJ: Uhm…
K & DJ: Within this space one can try to use the moments of imbalance and revealed deception to bring something to light and critically question it.
Reading aloud: If homophily is a natural condition of networks, existing segregations in society are maintained.
K & DJ: Here Wendy Hui Chun explains how homophily is key in understanding how networks come about; people group together according to conformity. In this way existing differences and conformities within society are mirrored in categories of networks. Within your own category one continually confirms one’s own values since one meets different people who are quite the same, thus reifying the actual networks within their digital networks.
Reading aloud: This segregation will only increase because the algorithms we have today contain inbuilt bias.
K & DJ: Machine learning is in fact a self-full-filling prophecy. The networks feeding the algorithms are feeding bias into the system. As such the algorithms rule out that one can accidentally meet persons and ideas outside one’s own network. This homophily is amplified by targeted adverts and news within these formed networks.
Reading aloud: it confirms state-sponsored reality, by forever solidifying the reified notions of class, race, and gender.
K & DJ: Yes.
K & DJ: Chun sketches a paradox. On the one hand this generates safe havens where people who think alike can come together and reinforce their alliances. On the other it clearly shows the hard lines between the different groups and how the state sponsors this exclusiveness in order to more easily monitor and target people. This system keeps consolidating the very concepts about class, race and gender already scripted within certain networks.
*Reading aloud: Bunkers in their totality as spectacle colonize the mind, and construct the micro-bunker of reification, which in turn is the most difficult of all to penetrate and destroy. *
K & DJ: Uhm…
K & DJ: This bunker could literally be seen as such a network which Chun explained as a safe haven and a dangerous locked facility all at once. Machine learning builds such solid walls around a network that it becomes ever harder to escape from it.
K & DJ: Mm…
K & DJ: It offers safety but simultaneously it is a very dangerous place. It keeps you inside on the illusion that it’s not safe outside. The safety it offers is actually a designed safety for a created hazard. And this brings us back to McLuhan’s and Flusser’s idea on a performative design. Like this a bunker is a reification of hazard, it may itself produce the hazard it is designed to protect against.
K & DJ: Yes.
K & DJ: When one enters this pre-programmed bunker, one escapes a bigger reality which is fragmented and fed back in the program of the specific bunker one finds oneself in. And thinking about the mirror we use in our video for the Paper Performance ‘Import <Execute> [As <command>]’ this is a great analogy. In this mirror we mirror each other over and over again in micro-mirror images. Thus creating this micro bunker?
K & DJ: Mm…
K & DJ: The two mirrors we hold are used for surveillance. They are meant to enlarge one’s angle of sight. But we use them against each other actually. This way the space between them is doubled and mirrored endlessly. Our angle of sight is diminished rather than enlarged.
K & DJ: It is about the space between them.
K & DJ: Exactly, and the fact that this space is superficial or non-existent or each other’s negative…
K & DJ: With our mirror act or how we perform mirror acts, we clone and create a micro bunker of reification.
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height=“3.5430555555555556in”} 
{width=“1.8971183289588802in”
height=“3.543307086614173in”}
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height=“3.5426859142607174in”} 
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height=“3.542841207349081in”} 
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height=“3.543307086614173in”}
Stills from a video shown at ISCMA Art Machines: International Symposium on Computational Media Art, 4-7 January 2019, Hong Kong, 00:06:38".
>>>
Appendix <The Mirror-Bunker>
The next part is executable when copied in Python via ‘Run module’
>>> Korsten & De Jong
gnoJ eD & netsroK
>>>
def KorstenDeJong():
print(‘Korsten & De Jong’)
def gnoJeDnetsroK():
print(‘gnoJ eD & netsroK’)
from tkinter import *
tk = Tk()
canvas = Canvas (tk, width=1000, height=500)
canvas.pack()
canvas.create_rectangle(80,100,400,400)
canvas.create_rectangle(600,100,920,400)
canvas.create_line(80,100,400,400)
canvas.create_line(920,100,600,400)
canvas.create_line(500,500,500,0)
btn = Button(tk,text=“click”, command=KorstenDeJong)
btn.pack()
btn = Button(tk,text=“click”, command=gnoJeDnetsroK)
btn.pack()
canvas.create_text(80,80, text=‘The Bunker’)
canvas.create_text(900,80, text=‘reknuB ehT’)
Outcome for ‘Run module’ of <The Mirror Bunker> in Python:
>>>
Python 3.7.2 (tags/v3.7.2:9a3ffc0492, Dec 23 2018, 22:20:52) [MSC v.1916 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type “help”, “copyright”, “credits” or “license()” for more information.
>>>
============= RESTART: G:\Python\The Mirror Bunker.py =============
{width=“6.302083333333333in”
height=“4.129915791776028in”}
Screenshot for Python program <The Mirror Bunker.py>