數據似乎只為自己說明 Example from Constant’S Work Is and Aesthetic Gestures of Critical 一切，而不是在迷失在可視化的矯飾下。 ‘Spectrum Sort’ Where the Algo- Self-Affirmation

merely mimicking the sciences’ 自由 asdf 數 Free use of (big) data, the arts and hu- What is DATAFIED RESEARCH? manities must explore what kind V Y I 據 BY Christian Ulrik Andersen & Geoff Cox D R O 2 S This newspaper is the outcome of L 0 S a research workshop organised U 1 U by the Centre for Participatory IT of sensorium datafication gener- a E at Aarhus University, School of ates for things and humans. What M 5 E Creative Media at City University are the implications of being data?

E 1 of Hong Kong and transmediale In Evil Media, Andy Goffey and festival for art and digital cul- Matthew Fuller write: “A set of t S 研 4 ture in Berlin. It is the fourth of its words in a report, article, or illicit

HK- kind in an ongoing collaboration data dump becomes significant 究 BER between Aarhus University and in a different way when placed in transmediale, and seeks to ad- a mechanism that allows or even a e dress the thematic framework of solicits unfettered access, than wallpaperthe festival as a research topic. when that set of words is lodged All participants have responded in a closed directory or laid out as Arrangement of spreads / Vertical reading direction: to an open call for participation, a book; allowing such open ac- f a 01 12 13 24 25 36 37 48 posted draft papers online for cess has direct and pragmatic ef- peer review, and met for face- fects on the reception of ideas, to 03 10 15 22 27 34 39 46 to-face critique in Hong Kong in mention just one scale at which October 2014. Papers published they might be operative.” i r 05 08 17 20 29 32 41 44 here were developed through this By appealing for an unsolicited process as part of a highly collab- and open organisation and ac-

Arrangement of spreads / Pictureside: orative event, after which articles cess to data, they implicitly high- were modified on-the-fly. light how datafication not only is 11 02 23 14 35 26 47 38 e c This year’s festival theme a question of archiving and ac- CAPTURE ALL “sets out to inves- cessing data content and building 09 04 21 16 33 28 45 40 tigate and propose actions that information architectures of meta- push against the limits of today’s data. The computer is not just a 07 06 19 18 31 30 43 42 d h pervasive quantification of life,medium that stores and displays work and play,” as stated in the but is capable of also reading and Browse this way transmediale call. To what extend writing automatically. This affects does data capture all – even re- human thinking, creativity, notions Table of Contents IMPRINTsearch? By addressing DATAFIED of life and death, and other rela- RESEARCH, the workshop, this tions between data and human Edited by Christian Ulrik Andersen & Geoff Cox newspaper, and the publication of experience. In common with the DATAFYING THE GAZE, OR THE BUBBLE GLAZ 三03 Published by Digital Aesthetics Research Center, the online journal APRJA A Peer festival call, the articles here each Emails from an American Psycho 三03 CAPTURE Aarhus University in collaboration with ALL YOUR THOUGHTS 十二12 Interface Industry - transmediale and School of Creative Media, Reviewed Journal About Datafied in their own way, address this and Cultural Conveyor Belt from (Post-) Ford City University of Hong Kong. seek analyses and responses that to Jobs 十二12 Neuro Memento Mori 十10 Design by The Laboratory of Manuel Buerger, Manuel Research (www.aprja.net) address Logistical Media and Black Box Politics 八08 Buerger & Simon Schindele popular notions of datafication; “outsmart and outplay” the logic CC license ‘Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike’ of capturing everything applied EAN: 9788791810268 including “the datafied self”, the Contemporary datafications of creative act ISBN: 87-91810-26-4 datafied city”, “datafied manage- by the corporate as well as scien- 十三13 DATA (SPEAKING) FOR ITSELF 十五15 Photo- ISSN (PRINT): 2245-7593 tific communities. It seems to us graphic Negative of Anonymity: Performativity, ISSN (PDF): 2245-7607 ment”, and furthermore calls for a Betrayal, Materialism, Datafied Research 十七17 APRJA: www.aprja.net reflection on the darker forces in- that the emerging field of Digital Datafied and standardised (mobile) photogra- volved in capturing and using data. Humanities raises as many ques- phy of the computational era 二十四24 ERASE. 101 all 二十二22 Zombies as the living dead 二十20 010 001 tions as it answers in this respect. 011 10 Although datafication implies Although datafication implies em:toolkit - cartography as embodied datA- 10 01 the presence of non-human read- the presence of non-human read- 00 fication 二十七27 Tomorrow’s News 二十七27 L ers and writers of data, a playful ers and writers of data, a playful 010 10

001 response to the appeal to response to the appeal to “cap- A History of Capture in Planning, Programming “capture all” points to how read- ture all” points to how readers and Design 三十六36 Data Disobedients? 三十四34 01 10 001 A creative encounter with a BIOMETRIC avatar ers and writers by no means have and writers by no means have be- 001 三十二32 Welcome to the City of Discipline 三十七37 come mere automatons. Seeing genealogies of datafied man 三十七37 Gaming H become mere automatons. Systems 三十九39 Surveillance Countermeasures: things at different scales, from the Expressive Privacy via Obfuscation 四十八48 10 010 10 110 We produce, share, collect, ar- grain of data, the material of data, 010 01 Works cited & Biographies 四十六46 chive, use and misuse, knowingly the screens of data, or in other or not, massive amounts of data, ways afforded by datafied re- but what does “capture” do to us? search, leads the authors into ad- What are the inter-subjective rela- dressing the persistence of data, tions between data-commodity the gaze of data, data as a thing, and human subjects? By asking the language of data, the politics these questions, the articles seek of data structures, and many oth- insights into the logics of data er aspects of the complex ques- flows between materials, things, tion of what datafication does data, code, software, interfaces to us, and how we might begin and other stuff that permeates a to do things to it.

Track Void, Track Breath, Track Steps culture of “capture all”. Rather than Follow Reading Directions, Page/Column: 03 IIII Emails from an American Psycho, p.03

I'm into, oh murders and executions mostly. It depends.

When I see a pretty girl walking down the street I think two things. One part wants to talk to her and be nice and treat her right.

What does the other part of you think?

What her life would look like as an ad

LULZ - saboteur!

I need to return some video- tapes. This confession has meant nothing. control of the crowd, with the in- firms the epistemological futility Discreteunits of the tention of colonizing the most inti- of the difference, and the poten- printed psychopath mate point of view ever, that of the tial and subsequent state of be- In American Psycho Patrick Bate- shadow. Now, let’s explore the wilderment. Yet, paradoxically, a Glass from one limit short-circuit place where it is impossible to get we might experience while wear- lost, is also a place from where it ing them, when the image of what is not possible to escape. is right now in front of our eye(s) man is the subject of enouncia- is recorded live by the Glass cam- 0002tion as he, through a first person era and projected on the semi- Emailsnarrative, is appropriating a pre- transparent screen in between from an American Psycho sent time discourse - reporting our eye(s) and what is right now byfrom his brutal killings. Conse- in front of our eye(s). What is our Lea Muldtofte Olsen quently, the psychopath Patrick relation with this meta-subjective Bateman, as a character, is obvi- image (and gaze), where the ac- 當作媒約會在電子系統中作息運作，手 ously written - grammatized; he tor is the ever changing zero de- 提流動裝置的使用更是無所不用，人類 exists only within his own gram- gree point of view behind the im- 的配對和聯繫再不是身體層面的活動， matization. However, he, within age and, at the same time, its real 電子網絡可取而代之，電子媒人有如自 his grammatization, uses the time spectator? Google Glass 體溝通結構，在不同的使用者於不同的 discursive language of a spoken users will see simultaneously off 螢幕中發生。在網上群體，人與人的聯繫 conversation. He “speaks” in the the frame and inside the frame, 及其交流模式（如話題標記及主題標籤） present time, at some points di- in front of the camera and behind 有其選擇性一面，我們所發放的身份經 rectly addressing the reader, and 0001the camera. 過個人篩選，而用家身份於既定程式下 has a curiously bad memory – as DATAFYING From a temporal perspective, 操作，這規範個人的行為表現，正正說 if he was not grammatized: “I've THE GAZE, OR THE BUBBLE GLAZ the narcissistic mirroring of the 明編碼令使用者成為剝削的對象。 forgotten who I had lunch with B y Bubble works according to the earlier, and even more important, Mitra Azar odd principle of “the influence of where.” (Ellis, 1991) the future on the past”, quoting a In this grammatization it is ar- 〈數據化凝視〉計劃（又稱〈玻璃球〉）源 phrase from the film Morel's In- guable that the written (fictional) 自「可從谷歌搜尋到」(res googable)的 vention by E. Greco, from A. B. Bateman is engaging me as the 概念並延伸至過濾氣泡(filter bubble)和 Casares’ eponymous novel, in reader in a we - the two of us 穿戴科技的領域下個人與群體身份的生 which the scientist Morel invents 物政治學。作者從政治及美學角度審視 a machine with the power to holo- 谷歌眼鏡，並在知覺及凝視兩方面著墨。 graphically reproduce reality, only 由谷歌眼鏡所產生的影像有其成體性的 to compulsively superimpose it “Dress like a secret agent, 意味，作者藉以討論谷歌如何在本質上 on reality itself. This idea of a pe- Fitted dress shirts and jackets 獨立自主的視覺空間下拓殖。形而上主 ripheral future (the collapse of the for the modern man by Saboteur, 觀的本我在不斷交疊的虛擬空間及現實 future into the past, and the con- www.saboteurman.com” 追空間下產生，並開展了網絡內外不同交 sequent After the Future soci- (Cabel, Huff: 2012) 接處的研究，和對於屏幕的全新定義。 ety, as Bifo would call it) marries perfectly with the micro-gestural/ Published in 1991 American Psy- non-gestural peripheral interac- cho by Bret Easton Ellis present- tion of the user with the Google ed a first person portrait of Patrick 踪 Glass. While the Glass are put- Bateman - a Wall Street banker ting at work our mostly unaware and an industrious serial killer. body’s activities (eye-blinking- Bateman, through his own voice, no-hands-shooting-technique, is revealed to be a narcissistic, sta- 程 head shacking, etc), in the only tus-obsessed perfectionist who physical interaction with the de- not only thoroughly describes his “I am an eye. I am a mechanical vice (sliding a finger backward own actions of torturing and ex- eye. I, a machine, I am showing you over the right stick of the Glass ecuting, but also details his ex- 序 a world, the likes of which only I to access current events, sliding treme regime of self-maintenance can see” Dziga Vertov, WE: Variant forward to access the past), the and his obsession with music. of a Manifesto, 1919. intuitive gestural movement be- The artists Jason Huff and tween past, present and future is, Mimi Cabel rewrote Ellis’ text. Since a while I've been getting thus again, reversed. They called it American Psycho together in our differences and the impression that Google and From a screen perspective, the 2010, and this version was made perhaps in some ways disturbing the net are paradoxically becom- concept of display leaks between by sending the text of American similarities - as well as potentially ing the conditions of existence of the prism and the imaginary layer Psycho, page by page, between making me reflect and relate to the real word, and not vice versa. where we possibly perform offline two Gmail accounts. The result- my surroundings through Bate- I exist if I am googable, that is, if body meme for the Glass camera ing Google-generated advertise- man’s extreme narcissistic, de- the algorithms which operate to activate our online sphere, as in ments were kept as footnotes scription of himself and his milieu Google indexing are able to trace the case of the hand-heart shape while the original text was delet- in the book – thereby potentially me, thus turning me into a thing patented by Google - last frontier ed. American Psycho 2010 con- facilitating a reflective individua- other than the Cartesian res cogi- of the semantic web, before brain- sists henceforth of 800 ads as tion for me as the reader. tans and res extensa, and con- to-brain interface will replace ac- footnotes corresponding to the verting me, one might say, in a res tions with mirror neurons. In the voice of Patrick Bateman. Psychopathic consumer googable. The drifting of the Leb- prism, we can see our visually da- I will here argue that this re- Something remarkably different enswelt to the Googlewelt is oper- tafied life(log) in real time, and we writing, moving from offline to is happening in American Psycho 05 IIII 05 IIII 05 IIII 05 IIII DATAFYING THE GAZE, OR THE BUBBLE GLAZ, p.03

Transaction Trasmutare Polisterone Apple?

Black Peer Sordity Polisterone.

Jersey Sigmeur military tester! agoogol.org ated through the Filter Bubble, a can interact with it by an almost online (and back to offline) litera- 2010, since a number of differ- series of algorithms that direct my invisible body language which ture through communicative me- ent enounciators are at play, and queries, based on my previous in- activates the device towards the dia as a filter, not only manifests grammatization here has a com- teractions with the search engine. reality and enhance the circuit a here-and-now alternative, con- The Filter Bubble encodes the offline-online-offline (introflected sumeristic portrait of Bateman subject's intentions, and replaces datafication, full circuit). This cir- co-authored by Google’s algo- its experiential activities with an cuit, potentially pregnant in terms rithm’s interpretation of the text, automated array of algorithms of political disobedience, is now but also elucidates a reading and pletely different role. Not only is that projects - within the unity of possibly colonized by the Glass. writing otherness - an otherness the online subject (Bateman as an exogenous programmed iden- In the YouTube ads, Google Glass uttering within its own discourse, well as the subject of any Gmail tity - the traces we leave online. suggestions about the ukulele which we emulate in our daily account) grammatized, the mi- Recently, through wearable tech- book and the store where to buy it email correspondence. Thus lieu, in which the subject is in- nology like the Google Glass, the climax and become real when the Google is reading and produc- scribed, is grammatized as well Filter Bubble has conquered the protagonist starts playing the real ing us as consumerist subjects – written by a code. In this light, third dimension. instrument in front of a romantic through these literal discursive grammatization functions as da- From a techno-aesthetic point sunset, hanging out (literally, over utterances. tafication. And the crucial differ- of view, the perceptive core of the Google Hangout) with his girlfriend. In order to clarify this argu- ence between a self-description Glass is quite simple: a virtual im- This cathartic moment confers on ment, I will use Bernard Stie- offline and online is that a self-de- age recorded by the Glass cam- Google the function of making real gler’s notion of grammatization. scription online is also an instant era is projected by a micro-pro- and reverse the hierarchical (also Stiegler draws upon Derrida’s self-indexication – it is traceable. temporal) relation between online reading of Plato and description Patrick Bateman, as the sub- and offline, making the ukulele a of the act of writing as a mnemo- ject in American Psycho 2010, res googable and anesthetizing technic (Stiegler, 2009). Gram- not only writes himself through the offline-online-offline circuit. matization then implicates an first-person narrative (and then Meanwhile, in the invisible layer exteriorization of consciousness is produced by a reading sub- created by our hands perform- and consequently an exterioriza- ject through the act of reflecting, 追 ing for the Glass, we can visualize tion of memory. Alphabetization understanding, and interpreting); the circuit as an online-offline half or grammatization hence means he is also caught in a parallel way turn (extroflected datafica- making the interior into concrete, reading and writing process with tion, half circuit), where the offline discrete units - making some- algorithms. In the particular case performance is subordinated to its thing into grammar, patterns and of Gmail, Google’s algorithms 踪 online consequence. code. And since the thoughts, use keyword identification within From a phenomenological when grammatized, are units “out Patrick Bateman’s utterances to point of view, the Glass might there” instead of abstractions “in write Bateman as a consumer target the uniqueness of the ex- here”, they can be infinitely du- entity, mapped to Google’s cor- 睡 periential relationship between plicated and distributed inde- porate sponsors. An alternative environment and organism. Ex- pendently of us. Though Plato portrait of Bateman as a mere periencing (ex-pèrior) etymologi- was deeply concerned with this consumer is manifested in the cally means to experiment, while development, it is how we make resultant ads. In Stiegler’s vo- 眠 the intensive prefix ex conjures up and have been making history - cabulary, instead of the I as the a universe opposite to that of mir- collective and individual memory grammatized subject individuat- roring, similar instead to the ec- - as well as construct members of ing within a grammatized we in static (ex-stasis) universe of com- a society. We exteriorize our ac- the correspondence in a Gmail ing out of oneself, of the challenge tions and ourselves in descrip- conversation, the Is and the we jector over a prism and therefore of the otherness. The process of tive grammatizations (most basic: are considered a they by the al- injected inside one of our eyes singularization is indeed everted birth, death and social security gorithms of Google, a collec- from a very close distance, be- by the Bubble Glass, which sin- number) so that others can know tion of consumers, not individu- tween our gaze and the reality we gularizes on behalf of the subject, us and re-know us, even after we als, - which thus means a loss perceive. The nature of this image generating a user-oriented uni- are gone. According to Stiegler, of individuation. This becomes is a political battlefield: POV (em- verse, “showing you a world, the grammatization is therefore also remarkably literal and explicit in bodied image) proliferation is po- likes of which only I can see”, as a constitutive foundation for a American Psycho 2010, where litically relevant, especially in rela- in the KinoGlaz of Vertov. Bub- feeling of belonging – a constitu- Patrick Bateman’s utterances, tion to the anonymity and frozen ble Glaz, indeed, is the attempted tive function from where a possi- self-description, history and inscrutability of CCTV footage or assimilation of the landscape to ble individuation of subjects can memory are literally deleted – drone image (disembodied im- the map, making impossible both be derived, since it enhances the even Bateman as an extreme age) as metaphors of a post cen- defamiliarization and alertness, individuation of a we, a society, psychopath is read and writ- tralized panoptic gaze. POV im- which are typical in experiencing which then co-constitutes the ten by a corporate algorithm re- ages didn’t have a proper political the singularizing space. understanding of the subject as duced to a mere consumer like connotation a few years ago, or From an ontological point of an I, psychically and collectively. every-body else. were a short cut to a specific type view, we might talk about a form Stiegler points out that this is not In conclusion, in a broader of pornographic films, and only in of ontological onanism oppose to a new socio-political argument: I cultural perspective, the piece by recent time they’ve become the an ontological eroticism where, am not human except insofar as I Cabel and Huff can be seen as way people activate their digital on the contrary, the relational belong to a social group - which a critique of how a reading/writ- netizenship in contexts of uprais- fabric of an online connected col- is an understanding he collects ing other (in this case, Google’s es and through the epistemology lective intelligence sensuously from Aristotle (Stiegler 2014). A algorithms) is also constituting of an open distributed network of unfolds itself, gets stronger and possible co-individuation and the human subject, simultaneous nodes. In this context, Google is multiplies among the differences. trans-individuation is thus for- to the human subject’s reading/ sticking its hands on a perceptive It seems, though, that the Bubble warded by a descriptive gram- writing of him/herself via elec- region under the self organizing Glaz ideology pragmatically con- matization of social relationships. tronic communication. 03 IIII 03 IIII 03 IIII 12 IIII

them into a simulated representa- and consumers as its ideology. are capable of more safely imaging from sculptural 3D printed tion of the types of objects they Adorno and Horkheimer's un- ing living brains, there has been a objects to academic papers. In viewed like a circle, horizon or face. derstanding of the culture indus- huge increase in data generated the first of our experiments I view Researchers have discovered the try was not aware of the com- by neuroscientific research and brain naturally catalogues images puter simultaneously developed US Congress named the 1990s into visual semantic categories. in research labs across the world, the Decade of the Brain. Contem- Different brain locations exist for and when the computer became porary studies of the human brain categories like moving vehicles, a mainstream cultural platform generate significant quantities of representations of memento mori car, boat or truck, and are similar some decades later, the industrial large datasets, typically many gi- and vanitas art works that are infor most people. Can our thoughts era was supposedly over. In gen- gabytes and terabytes of image terspersed with control images and feelings remain hidden ? eral, the modern personal com- data. The particular challenges from a similar time period that puter has been seen as a tech- associated with working with im- are of similar form. This is a 2 x 2 TELEPATHIC BRAIN IMPULSES nology to end the standardization age data that are often presented experiment and before each im- A quadriplegic used a Brain- of the conveyor belt capitalism, as ‘informatics problems’. age is displayed one of two text gate device using a robotic arm hence the term Post-Fordism, for Neuroscientific studies thatphrases is shown. The phrases to grasp a cup powered by neu- analyse the human brain, with are “You will die” and “Live the ral signals of just the intention to their associated neuro images, now”. The images and text com- move a limb. A tiny neural sensor have proved to be great clickbait, binations are random. In the sec- implanted in the human brain with capturing the public’s imagina- ond experiment I undertake a 100 electrodes records activity in tion. Some of the appeal of con- series of death meditations, inter- the motor cortex. These signals temporary neuroscience can be spersed with control meditations are “decoded” in real-time pow- 追 attributed to the excitement and on compassion. ering an external robot hand. The power associated with a venture This project emerges through quadriplegic performed complex successfully marketed by nation intra-actions between experimen- tasks with the robotic arm by im- states and corporations as ‘pio- tal neuroscience and humanities agining the movements of their neering’. However, theorists have and explores what parts of the non-active limbs as neurons were 踪 drawn attention to the particular brain are active when a subject still able to fire. Will drones and ‘seductive allure’ of neuroscien- (me) views memento mori images bombs be activated through sol- tific explanations of behavior and and when the subject contem- dier’s thoughts? of neuroscientificsicnttifc images plates death via a death medita- 習 created using MRI and their role tion. Data will be analysed and MELDING THOUGHTS in what has been described as compared to determine whether Researchers at the University of ‘neuro-popularization’/ and ‘neu- there is any correlation between Washington produced the first ro-hype’ respectively. Scholars the activity registered in different non-invasive human-to-brain in- 慣 interested in the rhetoric of neuro- parts of the brain during these terface. One subject wore an science, like David Gruber, have two activities. We hope to find out EEG cap. He imagined controlling studied numerous neuroscience whether viewing memento mori a video game with his right hand. reports in the popular press and and/or vanitas artworks prompts That brain signal traveled over the argued that brain images gener- activity in the same areas of the internet. A second subject had example through ideas of increas- ated by MRI and EEG are key to brain that are active during the a TMS or Transcranial Magnetic ingly flexible customization and the appeal of neuroscientific re- meditative contemplation of Stimulation on top of the area of modularization of production pro- search and the widespread dis- death. The experiments are being his left motor cortex that controls cesses, leaky borders between semination of its data. designed, conducted and evalu- the right side. He received the in- producers and consumers as en- ated in a critical context where ternet EEG impulse into his brain visaged in the concept of prodUs- “method, measurement, descrip- we challenge, through a practice (non-invasively). Subject one im- ers, flexible storage and distribution, interpretation, epistemology that puts forward a performative agined moving his right hand. tion leading to a broader supply and ontology are not separable and relational ontology, the usual Subject two's right hand received and demand (as in the concept of considerations”. Karen Barad ways in which such MRI images that impulse and jerked. Will peo- the “long tail”). Related to recep- are gathered as data, interpreted ple’s movements be controlled by tion we have seen concepts such Neuroscientific data, especially and build scientifically and rhe- the thoughts of others? as interactivity and co-production that represented using images torically a certain image of the that points to a more active con- like fMRI is contentious, and there scanned subject. EMOTIV CAP AND sumption carried out by the new are debates about how the data is SPY SURVEILLANCE pro-sumer. From Daniel Bell to gathered and the interpretations 0006 The Emotive Cap, a portable EEG Alvin Toffler and Chris Anderson such data can yield and inter- Logistical Media and device reads changes in electri- and through concepts such as preted. Cordelia Fine for instance Black Box Politics cal activity in the brain. Those the post-industrial society, the in- has made compelling arguments by changes can be mapped to emo- formation society and the knowl- about the ways that neuroscientif- Ned Rossiter tions, facial movements, eye, edge economy the networked ic literature has been used to sup- eyelid and eyebrow positions, computer has been tied to move- port the claim that certain psy- 今時今日數碼無處不在，無所不有。日常 smiles, laughter, clenched teeth, ments away from the standard- chological differences between 生活中的模控及其廷伸已是現實生活的 and smirks and be mapped to ized industrial paradigm. the sexes are ‘hard-wired’. Fine’s 一部份。閉路電視、動態捕捉科技、射頻 other devices or virtual avatars. However, with the way that work is particularly relevant to our 識別晶片、智能手機及定位媒體、全球 A paper at the USENIX Secu- cultural production and distribu- research as it has been claimed 定位系統裝置、人類在生物識別技術和 rity 12 conference “On the Fea- tion now are becoming tailored by Gur et al that “men and women 生態系統等－這些只是我們所熟悉的 sibility of Side-Channel Attacks to the new digital platforms of differ in volumes of brain struc- 科技，在物流城市中用作數據生產、調 With Brain-Computer Interfaces,” tablets, smart phones, e-readers, tures involved in emotional pro- 製活動和消費。數據政治是參數政治， concluded someone could use smart TVs, a new cultural inter- cessing such as the temporo-lim- 有需建基在黑箱及其基礎設施的邏輯語 brain data to steal a bank PIN face industry is being construct- bic and frontal brain”. In keeping 境下作理解。 12 IIII 12 IIII 12 IIII 13 IIII CAPTURE ALL YOUR THOUGHTS, p.12

Surveil me

R U conscious?

Yes

No problem

That too but in light of Snowden's revela- tent and this has effect on the make us buy the next upgrade. concept of standard object re- tions are troubling. way we get access to culture, the While the cultural interface in- fers to the ways in which an un- way art and culture can reflect dustry might be the perfect solu- derstanding of the qualities and Does consciousness and challenge the computer, and tion to the distribution of traditional exist where surveillance can't do? consequently the way computers cultural content in digital formats, are designed and packaged. In it also limits critical rethinking of In the future gamers will use brain- contemporary interface culture, the role of and access to the com- enabled devices playing in a vir- cultural production is tailored to puter. Interfaces that keep culture affordances of an object in a spe- tual world uploading brain data the tablets’ distribution platforms, and computer apart does not only cific context can be used to evalu- to the cloud . Researchers at the and to a large extend becomes produce potentially boring digital ate the capacities of this object in University of California, Berkeley shrink-wrapped and fitted to par- art, but is also harmful to how dig- another context (Fuller, 2005: 172). have reconstructed rough images ticular formats and predefined ital culture can develop new alter- “All standard objects contain with from dreams and other visual re- settings, e.g. as apps or e-books. natives such as has earlier been them drives, propensities, and af- sponses creating a map of the se- Furthermore, while cultural pro- the case with electronic music fordances that are ‘repressed’ by mantic brain. This data contains duction becomes a new kind of and literature, software and net- their standard uses, by the gram- the core of who we are, and what consumption, the consumption art. IT companies cannot claim mar of operations within which we think. Once neural networks of culture also changes. Read- the future by marketing pop acts they are fit” (Fuller, 2005, p.168). are cracked, and cognitive pro- ing books, listening to music, or past their prime. The anatomy of individual brains cesses formerly inaccessible are watching movies have traditional- varies widely, influenced by genes, open for monitoring what might ly been considered a private en- 0005environmental exposures, experi- the future hold? gagement, but is now integrated Neuro Memento Mori: ences and disease. “BigBrain” as as a valuable part of the produc- portrait of the artist a standard object offers a norma- MEMORY MANIPULATED tion chain: the successful predic- contemplating death tive model of the human brain ap- BY LIGHT - OPTOGENETICS tion of what people will produce BYproximating the physiology of a Scientists at Albert Einstein Col- or consume deeply depends on Jane Prophet standard human brain. Through lege of Medicine at Yeshiva Uni- processes of monitoring, quan- a performative artistic and scien- versity in New York studied the tifying and calculating consump- 以磁力共振掃描活人腦部影像的最新科 tific experiment, we propose to molecular basis of memory us- tion in controlled environments 學儀器既安全也發展迅速，並直接影響 decontextualize “BigBrain” from ing fluorescent tagged neurons that can predict general behav- 腦神經科學研究的數據急速增長。但這 its normal use to unleash the ef- of mice. They stimulated neurons iors; hence datafication. 些資料備受爭議，資料的收集和理解方 fectivities of some of its unseen in the mouse’s hippocampus, a 式備受爭論；磁力共振所得的腦部掃描 cognitive affordances. brain area where memories form. Culture industry 影像具視覺魅力，普及人類對腦神經科 Little is known about the neu- They watched fluorescent memo- In 1944 Theodor W. Adorno and 學研究，有其爭議性。作者文中以其藝 ral substrates associated with ry molecules develop inside neu- Max Horkheimer wrote the essay 術家的角度沉思自身死亡時的腦部自畫 the awareness of mortality. Brain ron nuclei. MIT professors used “The Culture Industry: Enlighten- 像掃描來探討以上的問題。 imaging results may reveal the optogenetics manipulating indi- ment as Mass Deception” famous neural mechanisms underlying vidual cells with light. They placed for coining the term culture in- death-related psychological pro- a mouse in a box, shocked it, then dustry and describing how the in- cesses. For hundreds of years altered genes of shocked brain creasing management of culture memento mori and vanitas art- cells. The mouse was moved to a by the culture industry is deceiv- works had the alleged function to new location. It behaved normal- ing the masses through a 'system' prompt the viewer to contemplate ly. Researchers shone a special of film, radio and magazines. The their own mortality. My collabora- blue light activating the genetical- culture industry is in their under- tive research with two neurosci- ly manipulated memory cells. The standing built around a relentless, mouse's fear response returned totalitarian necessity of “never re- The human brain has commonly though there was no threat, prov- leasing its grip on the consumer” been described as the final frontier ing certain types of memory can who will “experience themselves of the scientific biological explo- be manipulated. through their needs only as eter- ration of the human body, largely nal consumers, as the culture in- unknown and under explored. RECONSTRUCTING dustry's object.” (113) Adorno and The Human Brain Project claims it 讀 THOUGHTS AND DREAMS Horkheimer describe the tech- is “one of the greatest challenges The University of California, nological development of mass facing 21st century science”. The Berkley developed software remedia, which is propagating a relative lack of knowledge and constructing visual imagery us- quantifiable sameness through research into the way the human 心 ing fMRI brain data. Subjects pacifying broadcasts and through brain works has been attributed watched two different groups of this is eradicating individual, re- to a paucity of data about the Hollywood trailers. Their fMRIs flective perceptions and interpre- brain, the result, historically, of data was recorded. A software tations resulting in a hegemony the limitations of instruments to program categorized the brain in- of capitalism, consumerism and measure living brains. Neurosci- 術 formation using an algorithm ex- an industrialized life style inte- entist, Fred Mendelsohn notes amining 935 different object and grating work and leisure. Resist- that in 1960 “there was no way action variables of shapes and ance is either impossible or will to image the structure of the liv- motion. Another algorithm ana- get appropriated and enlighten- ing brain; the skull represented a entists, Zoran Josipovic (NYU) lyzed eighteen seconds of thou- ment is turned into mass decep- virtually impenetrable barrier to and Andreas Roepstorff (Aarhus sands of random YouTube videos tion. While they were fleeing from further understanding”. Follow- University) and our respective re- sorted by color palette. Special totalitarian Nazi Germany in their ing the development of new sci- search teams, gathers fMRI data software selected brain patterns exile in Los Angeles they faced entific instruments such as Mag- via two related experiments that connecting shape and motion a totalitarian capitalistic culture netic Resonance Imaging (MRI) we have co-designed. This data from the movie trailers combining industry manufacturing business and functional MRI (fMRI) that is used to produce outputs, rang- 08 IIII 08 IIII 08 IIII 08 IIII Interface Industry – Cultural Conveyor Belts from Neuro Memento Mori portrait of the artist (Post-) Ford to Jobs, p.12 contemplating death, p.10

Adorno and Horkheimer Brainwaves weren't into jazz.

Dreaming I bet they wouldn't have liked U2 either. Track caffeine

Wonder whether post-Fords have AirPlay? Mind + body

Brain data

Data in image

Sane data

Data as image

Plain data 0003number. The paper examined the ed and it has displaced the old with a feminist and new materi- CAPTURE “P300” brain “fingerprinting” sig- cultural industry that Adorno and alist approach to techno science ALL YOUR THOUGHTS nal activated when someone rec- Horkheimer criticized. IT-compa- I have previously adopted in my BYognizes something. Researchers nies are increasingly taking over Ellen Pearlman had a 40-60 percent accuracy from the old culture industry, and rate identifying details of where Apple iTunes has taken over from 愛德華·斯諾登揭露政府機關正在建立 a subjecs banked and what their EMI and instead of the old global 強大的資料庫用於分析人類活動，無人 PIN was by flashing photos of media companies we have even work with scientists and scientific 幸免，無所不在，直到永遠。奧巴馬政府 bank logos and various numbers stronger global monopolies such data, I consider our experiments 開展了一項為期十年名為「大腦行動」計 during monitoring of their P300 as Apple, Google, Amazon and as intra-actions: “[i]ntra-action 劃，以測繪方法捕捉人類大腦每一處的 responses. Could hackers steal Facebook. works as a counterpoint to the 神經元。半數計劃資金撥款至美國國防 brain information? model of interaction, signifying 部。在不久將來，電玩玩家可利用腦控 Digital culture as the materialization of agencies 制設備，在虛擬空間遊戲人間，並可直 IMPLICATIONS not-just content conventionally called ‘subjects’ 接把腦部數據上載至雲端系統。大腦活 Computers model rudimentary The new interface industry is flex- and ‘objects’, ‘bodies’ and ‘envi- 動以其數據掌管人的思想，是人之所以 representations of human dreams, ible and efficient and users get ronment’ through relationships. 為人的核心。一但大腦網絡系統被外界 perceptions and memories corre- endless cultural context right in Intra-action assumes that distinct 入侵，人類認知過程被機關所監控，人類 lating stimulated areas of the brain their pocket, but the amazing effi- bounded agencies do not pre- 未來的未知之數會否有發展？我們應如 by reconstructing images through ciency comes at the price of mon- cede this relating but that they 何理解並探索這全新局面？在監控以外， algorithms. Only devices that use itoring, control and strict licensing. 我們能有完全並純粹的認知嗎？ fMRI, or EEGs or MEG machines Selling and owning cultural prod- can currently deliver results. Blink- ucts is replaced with licensing ing, moving one’s head, coughing and renting – and users' rights are or daydreaming can skew a read- limited towards specific patterns ing. In order to decode a subjects of consumption. If the conveyor imagery the subject needs to re- belt produced standard goods in 追 main stationary inside an fMRI big numbers and was relatively scanner. In the future, this will inflexible towards individual con- change. How will the military and sumer demands, the interface in- law enforcement use and control dustry thrives on individual choice, BIG DATA TO BIG BRAINSTORM brain information? consumption and co-production, 踪 ICREACH is the NSAs covert which are fed back through the system of secret surveillance 0004interface through detailed moni- records processing two to five Interface Industry toring of every consumer behav- billion new records every day, Cultural Conveyor Belts ior. Instead of the standardized 生 including 30 different kinds of from (Post-) Ford to Jobs production of conveyer belts we metadata on emails, phone calls, byget individualization through cy- faxes, internet chats, text mes- Soeren Bro Pold bernetic monitoring loops – think sages, and cellphone location of the way Amazon know your 命 information. When banks of big 電腦已成為我們其一文化平台和個人表 reading taste and can guide you data including wearables ex- 達的中心界面，倒過來看我們的文化及自 through its vaste selection. Build- pands to include bio-information 身身份也變得越來越電腦化。當文化生 ing the infrastructure around in- about individuals, how will we 產慢慢成為一種新型消費，文化消費觀 terfaces allows for a more flex- navigate this new scenario? 念也隨之轉變，並成為一種有其價值和 ible, fine-grained and intimate emerge through it,” echoing the- At the 2014 HopeX confer- 行為的大數據資料生產模式。我們的歷 culture industry that can change ories defending a performative ence in New York City Edward 史是否正在回倒有如哲學家亞當諾和霍 its public appearance accord- view of the gendered social sub- Snowdon telepromted a live dia- 克海默所提出的極權主義式文化產業？ ing to demands and trends while ject. Karen Barad adds “method, logue with Daniel Ellsburg, leak- experimenting with constantly measurement, description, inter- er of “The Pentagon Papers.” new business models behind the pretation, epistemology and on- Snowden stated the government screen. tology are not separable consid- is creating a deep, robust data erations”. sets to analyze everybody, eve- Digital culture is at the To enable the extraction of mi- rywhere, all the time using net- center of this, and an IT industry croscopic data for modeling and work and cell phone intercepts. compromised by Snowden needs simulation many neuroscientists We the people, he stated, have more than U2 to regain our confi- use “BigBrain”, a free, publicly the means and capabilities to dence and future imagination. available tool that provides con- encode our rights for the future. The computer has become a cen- siderable neuroanatomical insight In 2012 the Obama administra- tral cultural platform, but this in Earlier IT revolutions were tied to into the human brain. “BigBrain” tion launched the 10-year Brain reverse also means that our cul- some ideas of emancipation and provides a map that serves as a Initiative to map every neuron in ture is increasingly computed. changing the status quo – Apple model of all human brains. It is the human brain, and in 2013 the Culture is at the center of IT de- even once marketed its products an ultrahigh-resolution 3D model European Union announced The velopment with the potential of with the slogan “Think Differ- of a human brain at nearly cellu- Human Brain Project. Half of the changing our understanding and ent” – but again seventy years lar resolution of 20 micrometers, allocated U.S funds go to the De- use of technology and in general after Adorno and Horkheimer based on the reconstruction of partment of Defense; the rest to it makes cultural content avail- enlightenment is turned towards 7404 histological sections of the the National Science Founda- able in ways unimaginable just deception. While it might be na- brain of an unidentified person. tion and the National Institutes of few decades ago. However, it ïve to believe in the slogans of big This tool is a good example of what Health. The implications of these also means that specific formats corporations, the IT industry cur- Matt Fuller would call a ‘standard disbursements are not yet clear, are introduced for cultural con- rently needs visionary thinking to object’ of the human brain. The 10 IIII 10 IIII 10 IIII 10 IIII The problem with the post-digital purportedly resorts to a high level the ‘data activism’ of the media art settings of today is that we are mode of automation. collective Constant and their at- unable to think within the box. We tempts to understand the specific can speak of a politics of param- (2) eters, but ultimately this is still Another form of datafication op- knowledge specific to engineers erates at a more material level who design the architectures of the performance of the artists. within which we conjure our im- For instance the data generated qualities of data through a series Logistical media determine our agination. We can no longer har- by the performance of the West of unfinished experiments. This is situation. While the missing flight ness our imagination, only click Coast rapper Tupac has enabled related to their more general pro- MH370 is yet to be found, for the on predetermined options. What, the creation and performance of a ject Active Archives, running since rest of us there is nowhere left therefore, might it mean to de- 3D avatar of the artist performing 2006, that engages the politics of to hide. The horror of cybernetic sign a program of research and on stage after its death (Stanyek & open data and introduces ethical extension into the vicissitudes cultural practice that exploits the Piekut, 2010). values associated with free soft- of daily life is now well and truly geography of data infrastructure ware development, the decentrali- as we know it? (3)zation of resources and the own- When loyalty cards prolifer- A third level of datafication refers ership of infrastructures. ate in our virtual wallets, when to the recording of creative prac- Their working approach is to of- coupon systems and location tices and routines, and pertains to fer a series of speculations on the based services are coupled with the commodification of the crea- specific qualities of data by run- payment apps that track our pat- tive experience in commercial cre- ning computer programs. Nor is 健 terns of consumption, we be- ative software. this reducible to something like a gin to get a sense of how shop- This plural mundane incarna- typical algorithm (eg. PageRank) ping experiences are designed tions of the creative acts are cap- that makes sense of the big data around economies of capture. tured by a growing and diversified in distorted ways to 'reify' knowl- To refuse is to perhaps miss out ecology of recording technologies. edge and take it to market. Rather, 身 on that sweet feel of the dis- Commenting Lazzarato, Chukhrov these ‘probes’ begin to uncover count, but at least we get a fleet- notes “Labor coincides increas- aspects of what is not directly ap- ing sense of having preserved ingly with the creative maneuvers parent in the material, revealing our anonymity. Indeed, anonym- of a virtuosic performer, with ac- aspects of what is not-yet known. a reality. CCTV cameras, mo- ity becomes a key algorithmic tive memory and an engagement To Constant, algorithms operate tion capture technologies, RFID gesture, conceptual figure, and with knowledge. (...) the aim of as ‘conversational’ agents, which chips, smart phones and loca- technical mechanism through consumption today is not merely perform ‘forensic’ operations to tional media, GPS devices, bio- which we might begin to design the production of goods, but the explain phenomena in their own metric monitoring of people and a black box politics within the multiplication of new conditions informational terms - as data. In ecological systems – these are horizon of logistical media. For and variations for production it- their logbook, they explain: just some of the more familiar to be anonymous renders the self” (Chukhrov, 2010). Instead “We can’t access the elements technologies that generate data black box inoperable. of a passive act of consumption, of the archive individually. Too and modulate movement and the economy of attention (Beller, many of them. We need interme- consumption within the logisti- 2006) calls upon an immersion of diaries. People to tour us through. cal city, or what Friedrich Kittler the consumer in the creative expe- Tools, filters, sensors. That will terms “the city as medium.” rience. By being consummerized, listen, see, aggregate and sepa- The logistical city marks a de- this creative experience is going rate, connect and disconnect, as- parture from both the global city mainstream and becomes perva- semble and disassemble. / With of finance capital and the indus- sive, amplifying the social effectiv- the intermediaries, we will have trial city of factories. The logistical itie of a view of art as the everyday. to learn and speak the same lan- city is elastic, its borders are flex- With more and more profession- guage, accept the gaps, sense ible and determined by the ever- al creative tools going mainstream the priorities. The tools. They changing coordinates of supply and adopting the cloud computing won’t see as we see through our chain capitalism. Populated by model of access (e.g. The Creative eyes, they won’t listen as we lis- warehouses, ports, inter-modal Suite of Adobe), the recording of ten, they will perceive through dif- terminals, container yards and behaviors of consumption of crea- ferent dimensions, they will count data centres, the logistical city is tive experience is already possible. time with another anxiety. / As our spatially defined by zones, corri- As Massumi puts it, the digital can intermediaries, our tools will be dors and concessions. It is a city potentialize only through a detour our interlocutors.” that subtracts the time of dreams to the analogue, “through the ex- to maintain the demands of 24/7 periential relays the reception of 工具是我們的中介體，我們的工具將會 capitalism (Crary). its outcomes sets in motion” (Mas- 是我們的對話者。 For many, the model has be- sumi, 2002, pp. 141–142). There is come the world. Our tastes are an ongoing datafication of the per- These tools treat images as data. calibrated and relayed back to ceptual regime of the artist/crea- For instance, their ‘data gallery’ us based on the aggregation of 0007tive experience. Dystopia: all lived is an attempt to give form to this personal history coupled with Contemporary datafications reality of the artist is accessible ‘conversation’ beyond the limits the distribution of desire across of creative acts through diverse protocols, record- of visual representation and the sampled populations. Decision BYed, processed and integrated into human sensory apparatus. An is all too frequently an unwitting Damien Charrieras interrelated scripts of the crea- image is no longer simply what acceptance of command. The tive experience circulating into an is shown on the page but what biopolitical production of labour 創意行動的理解是利用可創造創意經 ecology of distant creative tools. exists between knowledge pro- and life has just about reached 驗的設計軟件捕捉生活細節的過程，同 Massumi envisions a future duced by the different outputs of 15 IIII 15 IIII 15 IIII 15 IIII Logistical Media and Black Box Politics, p.08 Contemporary datafications of creative acts, p.13

It’s dangerous to dive or archive me archive me swim from the pier. I’ll Be Mean I serve u better. Ø+Alt+Sup Welcome.

Just kidding. It’s over! its zenith in terms of extracting 為一種普遍的消費形式。創意行動的模 where warnings against the con- the algorithms. In this way it be- value, efficiency and submission 式又為創意工具提供回應，反饋予捕 flation of the virtual with the digi- gins to exist in the imagination, from the economy of algorithmic 捉技術。新興的非數碼模擬方向未必可 tal might become anachronistic evoking the ‘Forensic Imagination’ action. 與時並進。 (Massumi, 2002, p. 142). The con- vertibility of the analog and the To refuse is to perhaps digital will operate so seamlessly miss out on that sweet feel of (adaptative neural nets, biomus- the discount, but at least we get cular robots, etc.) that every fear that Matthew Kirschenbaum also a fleeting sense of having pre- to lose something in the process refers to in Mechanisms. served our anonymity. will resort to an old fashioned feti- Furthermore we might under- chism of the flesh. But as long stand these probes as something Nowhere is this more clear than as “the relationship between the close to the way that Eyal Weiz- in the “sentient city,” where the analog and the digital are con- man and Thomas Keenan define topography of spatial scales and Datafication refers to the trans- strued in mutually exclusive terms” 'forensis' as more than simply borders gives way to the topol- formation of aspects of life into (Massumi, 2002, p. 143), the set of the scientific method of gather- ogy of ubiquitous computing and digital data and to the creation of concepts used to give an account ing and examining data. To them, predictive analytics in which the new forms of value. of the analog cannot be conflated forensics gives an insight into digital is integrated with the mo- The datafication of art can be with the set of concepts used to how inanimate objects become tion of experience. In the sentient understood as the way comput- give an account of the digital: “[the ventriloquized, their testimonies city data becomes a living en- erized processes take over tasks analog] perceptually fringes syn- voiced by human witnesses on tity, measuring the pulse of ur- that were traditionally devoted esthetically dopplers, umbilically behalf of the objects. ban settings and determining the to humans. Along the lines of a backgrounds, and insensibly re- “Forensics is, of course, not mobilization of response to an mind/matter dualism, Manovich cedes to a virtual center immanent simply about science but also increasingly vast range of urban distinguishes between low level at every point along the path” “[T] about the presentation of scien- conditions: traffic movements, air automation (the computer takes he analog is always a fold ahead” tific findings, about science as an quality, chemical composition of over trivial tasks) and high level (Massumi, 2002, p.143). But the art of persuasion. Derived from soils, social flash points. The hor- automation where the computer digital datafication of analog emer- the Latin forensis, the word's root ror of urban life is just beginning. has “to understand the meaning gent creative practices through refers to the ‘forum’, and thus to The dystopia of the present embedded in the objects being creative software recording the ar- the practices and skill of making leaves little room for responses generated” (Manovich, 2001, p. titic actions might zeroed this fold an argument before a profession- other than despair and depres- 32). Low level automation in art ahead. Creative acts see their on- al, political or legal gathering. / In sion. All too often resistance to refers to the mechanical duplica- tology reconfigured when all the classical rhetoric, one such skill the distribution of power and the tion of an artefact, or automatic dimensions of their actualization involved having objects address penetration of financial capital- processing of an output. High feedback in a permanent system the forum. Because they do not ism is, as Max Haiven argues, level automation would refers of capture. In this context, crea- speak for themselves, there is not only futile but quite often re- tive acts as permament inventions a need for a translation, media- inforcing that which it claims to (James, 1996) are accumulating tion, or interpretation between the oppose. Resistance is not inter- more and more reality relatively to ‘language of things’ and that of ventionist so much as affirma- their affordances to various sys- people. This involves the trope of tive: “finance as we now have it, tems of capture. prosopopeia - the figure in which as a system that ‘reads’ the world a speaker artificially endows in- by calculating the ‘risk’ of ‘resist- 痩 0008animate objects with a voice.” ance’ to ‘liquidity’ and allocating DATA (SPEAKING) FOR ITSELF And so algorithms can be un- resources accordingly, already bYderstood to not merely ‘read’ in- incorporates ‘resistance’ into its Geoff Cox formation in images or sound ‘systemic imagination’.” In this files, to not only ‘detect’ features slaughterous world, the nihilistic 身在討論大數據的海量及其複雜的結構 in data, but also to generate new option is to find joy in the pleas- 時，我們會把數據想像是未經處理及 forms, new shapes or sounds. An ure of immediacy, consumption 未被介入。因此數據似乎只為自己說明 example from Constant’s work is and aesthetic gestures of critical 一切，而不是在迷失在可視化的矯飾下。 ‘Spectrum Sort’ where the algo- self-affirmation. to the conceptual level of artis- 但如果數據資訊可給自我說明，它會說 rithm’s and human's voice com- No matter the foibles of hu- tic ideation. This dichotomiza- 明甚麼？馬克思曾明言如果商品能說話， bine. It is worth noting that Wolf- man life, predictive analytics and tion is undermined at two levels: 商品會聲稱它們的價值。作者以布魯塞 gang Ernst also uses the example algorithmic modelling deploy the first we see the atomisation of 爾藝術與媒體組織 Constant 所提出的 of ‘Fourier analysis’ to make the currency of data to measure la- high level creative tasks through 「數據行動主義」及其「司法」(forensic) claim that the machine performs bour against variables such as creative software and through 般讓數據發聲的嘗試，分析數據發展的 a better cultural analysis than the productivity, risk, compliance new organizations of work (Ama- 觀點，並探索數據價值的腹語化現象。 human is capable of. Furthermore and contingency. What, then, for zon Mechanical Turk as a online Karen Barad explains that “know- labour and life outside the extrac- market place advertising free- ing is a matter of inter-acting”, to tive machine of algorithmic capi- lance micro jobs as HITs - Hu- point to how nonhuman entities talism? Can sociality reside in the man Intelligence Tasks). Sec- are actively engaged in the mak- space and time of relative invis- ondly materialist approaches ing of epistemic claims. ibility afforded by the vulnerable to creative practices show that If agency is emergent through status of post-populations? Can separating between high lev- the ‘inter-action’ of such elements, living labour assert itself beyond el tasks and low level tasks is data can only be understood as the calculations of enterprise misleading. We do not cognate part of a larger assemblage that planning software and the sub- through a disembodied mind but In discussions of big data, in all its includes the computer, network, jugation of life to debt by instru- through the material actions we vastness and complexity, there program, programmer, factory ments of finance capital? These perform (Noe, 2006). is a tendency of think of data as worker, and wider scientific, mili- 17 IIII 17 IIII 17 IIII 17 IIII DATA (SPEAKING) FOR ITSELF, p.15

2592 pixels wide x 1944 pixels high looks great :)

20/10/2014 @ 21h56:37 cool, what are the RGB values? are disturbing, complicated Creative acts raw and unmediated; and that tary, economic, medical, political questions that require collective as the everyday somehow data should simply be systems within which it is mate- analysis if we are to design a life In the realm of art practices, the allowed to speak for itself rather rialized. It is in this way that the without determination. production of the artist has tradi- than be lost in the ornamentation The politics of infrastructure in- tionally been turned into object to of visualization. In saying this I tersects with the experience and ensure the creation and circula- am making reference to Edward condition of logistical labour and tion of value out of the artistic ac- Tufte’s guidelines for information life within urban settings. Logis- tivity in a capitalistic context. Jeb, graphics, and the removal of un- power of datafication emerges, in tical labour emerges at the in- the artist from The Map and the necessary graphical information revealing the details of the pro- terface between infrastructure, Territory, notes that the return to to “let the data speak for itself”. Of cesses by which data is brought software protocols and design. the object in art is mainly due to course in reality what happens is to market and its value ventrilo- Labour time is real-time. Logisti- commercial reasons: “An object, nothing like this, as unstructured quized. This demonstrates new cal labour is more than a unit to it’s easier to store and to resell data is selected, preprocessed challenges for those attempting be measured according to KPIs. than an installation or a perfor- and cleaned, mined, and so on, to give data a voice and new ur- It is the life-blood of economy mance” (Houellebecq, 2010). in far from transparent processes gency to understand the ways in and design, exploitation and con- The artistic avant-gardes have - not least to make it human read- which datafied techniques are sumption. Logistical labour un- repetitively put into question the able. In addition, although data used upon us. derpins the traffic of infrastruc- centrality of 1/ the art object 2/ may begin relatively raw and un- ture and circuits of capital. But resulting from a virtuosic perfor- interpreted, in practice there is al- 0009 where is the infrastructure that mance. Some art magazines fo- ways some additional information Photographic Negative of makes these planetary-scale cusing on the artistic process of about its composition, not least Anonymity: economies, biopolitical regimes production itself have emerged in Performativity,Betrayal, and social lives possible? the last years (The Happy Hypo- Materialism,Datafied The politics of infrastructure in- crite, DotDotDot). Some contem- Research vites a critique of the quantified porary artists coined the term by self, where self-tracking bodies “athletic aesthetic” to account for Lee Wing Ki are regulated as data-managed the continuous performance of the socialities as they move within artist on social networks (Troemel, 無身處於數碼影像的世代，我們相信攝 the logistical city. In the society 2013). The DJ Richie Hawtin gives 影的數據是標準：數碼攝影是標準化及 of compliance, normative meas- access to what music he listen in 數據化的過程。在影像製作的過程中對 ures and standards are set by the real time on his twitter account. 「index」一字也有多重演繹，照片指引觀 corporate-state seeking to expro- More deliberatively, life log artists 看者思考影像於何事何地曾經發生。相懼版有如指引，讓黑房工匠詮譯、表演固中 priate value from labour through use wearable computing technol- regimes of fear, insecurity and ogies to capture large portion of 密碼。在攝影的生產過程中出現不同形 self-obsession. their life, giving way to the notion of 式的參數，螢幕左上角的色階分佈圖是 There is an element to the pro- immediate auto archiving as an art 參數表現，黑房中底片密度儀上的讀數 filing of what I would term “post- work (Morel, n.d.). The creative act derived from the means by which 又是另一種。數據對攝影有何貢獻？作 populations” that is external to cannot be reduced to a virtuosic it was gathered in the first place. 者陰謀猜度，因數據而呈現的最佳影像 logistical media of coordination, performance, a cristallisation hap- So if data were able to speak 令攝影過度規範、標準、單一。作者以攝 capture and control. I am think- pening apart from everyday life. It for itself, what would it say? In the 影再生產為例，討論攝影數據的表演藝 ing here of the peasants dispos- is an ongoing emergent process concluding passages of Capital‘s 術，並以人及物各自的表演模式介入數 sessed of land in Kolkata who embedded in prosaic life whose opening chapter, Marx remarks 據研究及藝術實踐。 commit wilful acts of sabotage on conceptual potential is recognized that if commodities could speak, infrastructure in the new IT towns, as such by artists. they would claim that value be- and of the proletariat and unem- longs to them. It’s an interesting ployed around the world who are The datafication of cre- reference but one that might be, not governed or managed in the ative acts operates and is, criticized for its assump- name of political economy, but at different levels tion that commodities cannot unleashed as a necessary sur- speak. Marx appears to dismiss plus to capital which requires rel- (1)the possibility that commodities ative stability for infrastructures of It can refer to the constant archiv- might possess their own agency investment to withstand assault ing and processing of audience and voice – a conception of capi- In an overwhelming digitised im- that arises from social chaos. expectations in order to produce talist production (and of civil soci- age world, standardising data Yet post-populations, who to a cultural product matching the ety) that is simply too narrow to en- in photography is credulous – some extent can be understood datafied expectations of the view- able intersubjective relations with seemingly the process of digitisa- as ensembles of non-governable ers. House of Cards, as a politi- the commodities themselves. Yet tion in photography is also a pro- subjects, can all too often be vi- cal drama starring the actor Kevin the key point for Marx is not really cess of standardisation, hence tal sources of technical inven- Spacey, directed by David Fincher whether commodities can speak datafication. The ubiquitous word tion that is then absorbed into has been produced according to or not, but that human agency is ‘index’ could be read, applied and systems of production. (Think of the data generated by the users of generally denied under capitalist performed in different manners shanzhai culture, and the wild Netflix (Leonard, 2013). This data- conditions - indeed commodities in the image-making process – modification of mobile phone fea- fication of art operates at the met- require their owners to give them indexical characteristic of any tures in China.) This is why they alevel of cultural production where a voice. Does something similar photograph that links a photo- are set free, since the parameters the creative output is conceived as take place with data? When data graphic object to the reality, usu- of capital accumulation can only the assemblage of datafied skills, is harvested, and brought to mar- ally denotes a particular time and be replenished when elements people, audience expectation and ket to be sold, what does it reveal a particular place. A contact print of contingency are programmed the organisation of the system about itself and its owners? serves as a proof and an index into the operational requirements of production. The computer re- To explore how the value of to direct the darkroom printer to of the logistical city. places the producer and as such data is ventriloquized, I refer to perform. There are also indexes 13 IIII 13 IIII 13 IIII 24 IIII

computer-readable format – by social practices are both rooted of Facebook, total deletion is not itself does not datafy.” (Mayer- in and bound by digital technol- possible, both because of the Schönberger, Cukier, 83). In this ogy (Berry 27). terms and conditions as well as light, to process a photographic Majority of contemporary eve- negative into a digital surrogate ryday photographers are at the has very little to do with datafying same time smartphone users who photography. Based on Fetveit’s are offered a standardised work- proposal (2007:60) to separate flow for photo taking, editing and the materiality of the network: that the functions of medium to ‘me- curation. It is pre-programmed That moment when you create is such that data propagates itself dium of storage’ and ‘medium by device vendor and enclosed an event on Facebook to adver- and leaves traces in a quasi non- of display’, I would further argue in a standardised black box — a tise your upcoming exhibition reversible fashion. Therefore ‘our that in photography the datafy- mobile app. Standardisation as and Facebook suggests that you data’ (in fact it is no longer ours), ing process performs differently such is a vital constituent of the should invite Natalie Boisvert, a is not only stored in server farms in the states of ‘medium of stor- computationality. Following Mat- close friend that passed away a long after we die but it is regu- age’ and of ‘display’. If photo- thew Fuller, I would even argue year ago. Digital death problema- lated by bound to precise terms graphic negatives were not iden- that various types of mass-pro- tises network materiality. It is con- upon which we have no influence tified as a medium of storage, duced standard objects (physical cerned with the life of data after a or agency. This determines not but, through decontextualisation — shipping containers or iPhones person dies. Who owns it, what only the surveillance possibilities as a medium of display, what op- and digital — codecs or file for- actually happens to it, and who or that have been the subject of so portunities would it bring? mats) have become a vital con- what might have agency over it? much concern but it also frames stituent of todays software-driven Through examining digital death the mourning process whether Conditioning Photo- and hardware-driven economy we can look at how the nuts, bolts in the form of memorialisation graphic Negatives and culture (Fuller 105). The ar- and protocols of the network re- and inactivity managers, or in the To situate and condition photo- gument becomes even more late to our experience of those form of haunting media. graphic negatives in the context valid if we take into consideration moments. Specifically, I will con- In the context of this apparent- of artistic practice, negatives are popularity of standardised, pre- sider how Facebook and Google ly infinite data porn there is very the source of “reproducibility” installed photo software, as even deal with digital death to illustrate little consideration about eras- and “projectionability” to photo- the most popular third party apps ure. It would appear that a recent graphic prints (van Dijck, 108- or hardware accessories (e.g. study by Nils Hadziselimovic et 9). Negatives are inarguably a extra smartphone lenses) were al. shows that the brain actively source of data. Similarly to mu- downloaded / bought by couple erases information and that men- sical scores, negatives are rarely of millions of users in comparison tal illness could arise should that exhibited against white walls as to hundreds of millions of devices process be disrupted. Though we a work of photographic art. An- used worldwide. 景 might perceive our memory as sel Adams’ saying goes: negative Taking into account the proper- failing, it would seem that selec- as score, print as performance. ties of digital media, softwariza- tive retention is how it is meant Performances are valued over tion of a photographic experience to work. Could datafication be af- the source itself whether it is a and even such a brief Flickr anal- 點 fecting our need to forget? What concert (to a musical score) or a ysis, we can clearly assert that are the data privacy issues as well print (to a negative). Data is of ar- consumer digital photography as the political and social implica- chaeological value. When there is considered as a cultural practice tions of lingering data? data, there will be database. The has shifted from being a sepa- What would it mean to use archive, be it physical or virtual, rate domain with its own devices, two aspects of network material- erasure as a gesture to symboli- is where photographic negative techniques and community to ity: conditions of datafication, and cally resist datafication? What is resides, quietly, in “forgotten and being just one of many activities the persistence of data. Ultimate- already uploaded to the cloud is dusty places.” This more or less possible within software / hard- ly I propose ritualised erasure as out of our control, autonomously describes the condition of pho- ware ecosystem. All smartphone an artistic strategy to make data propagating throughout the net- tographic negatives in an artistic users became photographers tangible and to explore how these work. Perhaps an artistic prac- context. and a camera itself became an layers of stockpiled data con- tice of ritualised erasure could easily accessible application. stantly re-configure our identities, engender reflection on issues of Performativity, Betrayal A single software of hardware in an attempt to surpass post- network materiality by emphasis- to Negatives of Anonymity update within such ecosystem mortem datafication and surveil- ing the futility of the act of erasure. ‘But to perform something is to can introduce a whole new aes- lance. Such a digital data funeral would interpret it, to betray it, to distort thetic paradigm into global mo- begin to address an overlooked it. Every performance is an inter- bile photography. HDR (high- user$ rm -i -r -v all/ and important part of digital ar- pretation and every interpretation dynamic range) or panorama user$ rm: remove all arguments chiving ubiquity: the erasure of is betrayal, a misuse.’ Boris Groys photography or certain image recursively? y digital data. Might we need to de- (2008:84), “Religion in the Age of effects (e. g. artificial lens flares, velop politics of erasure? Digital Reproduction” sepia tone) were popularised only conditions of datafication My recent artistic practice because main vendors decided The 'Big Data' wave of enthusi- 0012 addresses the aforementioned to “add”, or better, to “unlock” this asm breeds simultaneous con- Zombies as the living dead debate and discussion. The in- option in their devices. As a concern in the realm of digital death. BY ception of the project is to build sequence, the user was granted All those traces. Wendy Chun Winnie Soon an archive anonymous photog- access to another predesigned tells us that software promises raphers’ unwanted and unattrib- workflow. Similar situation can eternity through constant read- 垃圾郵件來自於異常的電郵地址，在網 uted photographic negatives of take place at a hardware level. ing or regeneration. Software is 絡世界隨處可見，是可作量化的現象。垃 Hong Kong, usually found from Because of rapid popularisation constantly executing: read-write. 圾郵件生存在網絡世界，但大多是虛假 local flea markets, vintage shops of front-side camera in mobiles, Though the idea of its perma- 的生存，有如喪屍一樣。此文以喪屍的 or via eBay trade. These anony- a super-hyped selfie phenom- nence is paradoxical because of 比喻以討論垃圾郵件的文化，著墨在電 24 IIII 24 IIII 24 IIII 25 IIII Photographic Negative of Anonymity: Performativity, Betrayal, Materialism, Datafied Research, p.17

Are you negative?

Are you abandoned?

Tell me your story

trolled by human agency. Apply- es and preferences of each user to Chun, through their constant ing the logic of performativity to may be monitored and analysed propagation. Both cases offer dif- Walter Benjamin’s (1936) notion by application’s developer and ferent conditions of datafication of aura further problematises the other third parties. Datafication stability and canonisation of me- in todays photography occurs not chanical reproduction, and such only in the photographic work- thought renders a wider spec- flow itself, but in field of curating trum within which to question and distributing. and affect the mourning experi- standardised datafying process Contemporary culture is domi- On one hand, a digital (mobile) ence differently. Nonetheless in in reproduction of photographic nated by computational media camera should be considered both cases the data ‘lives on’. work. which are created, transformed as a manifestation and trigger and distributed using consumer of aesthetics and creative work- persistence of data “The negative is comparable workflows that are based on cer- flows characteristic for the com- Google catalogues and archives to the composer’s score and the tain software and hardware eco- putationality. They only emerge many aspects of our existence: print to its performance. Each per- systems composed of services, as a result of software and hard- Gmail, Drive, Calendar, Search formance differs in subtle ways.” operating systems and devices ware updates performed on mil- History, Google+, Wallet, Talk, Ansel Adams developed by few dominant ven- lions of devices. However, on Location History, etc. The Search dors (Apple, Google, Samsung the other hand, it is also an in- History, like other Google servic- A Resolution to etc.). These specific media ecolo- strument of the new politics of es, can theoretically be deleted an Age-old Debate gies have a profound impact both power imposed by standardisa- after a determined period of inac- Is there difference in perfor- on datafied creative workflows tion on the creative process, on tivity if the account owner signed mance/ reproduction in digi- that are offered to users and on the apparatus and on the user/ up for the Inactive Account Man- tal and analogue workflows? A contemporary aesthetic patterns photographer himself. This is ager service, Google’s answer to digital image is composed of in digital photography. not the first time in the history digital death. This service offers and rendered through numeri- As a result of culture datafica- of photography when we can the option to notify contacts and tion, photographies have trans- observe such situation. The share data, specify the length formed into digital entities com- first Kodak camera (1888) was of time that determines wheth- posed of data sets which are marketed as a magic black box: er the account is inactive (i.e. 12 govern by certain algorithms “You press the button, we do the months), and the option to delete (Manovich 2013: 211-212). Smart- rest.” Furthermore, each time it the account. Noticeably, the data phones have become dominant had to be sent to the producer can be shared with contacts, but 飛 cameras of our times. Together in order the roll to be developed not handed over. If the delete op- with other elements of propri- (Sontag 31). Nonetheless, I ar- tion is chosen, there are nonethe- etary computational ecosystems gue that since photography has less some bits that can not be de- (mobiles, desktops, clouds) they become digital, computational leted, such as server logs. When provide a specific backbone for technologies enable to program a webpage is visited, the request 行 and track photos, photographer one of the most important and sent from the user’s browser to easy-accessible cultural activity and the whole creative process the server is automatically re- in todays visual-oriented culture. more for significantly than any corded. The request contains Each day, more than half a mil- other factor in its history. such information as the user’s cal data and computational pro- lion of photos are uploaded to In the light of what was argued Internet Protocol address (IP), cess. What happens in the dark- Flickr from mobile devices. The here, we should ask ourselves the date and time of query, the room to render a silver-gelatin top 5 cameras in Flickr com- about conditions of existence of words that were entered in the photographic print is not with- munity are in fact few models of visual-based cultural practices. search query box, and a unique out digital information. Florian smartphones produced by Apple, Whether we could unleash the ID. Therefore the server logs can Cramer (2013) in his discussion Samsung and Sony. A couple creative potential of computation- show a relatively comprehensible on post-digital research stated generations of iPhones are real devices without standardisa- image of a user’s search history. that ‘digital information… in an sponsible for far more photo up- tion and proprietary software and Google specifically states that it idealised abstraction of physi- loads than all DSLRs combined hardware ecosystems? Do we — “may store searches in a sepa- cal matter which, by its material (Flickr Camera Finder - flickr.com/ everyday users — enchanted by rate logs system to prevent spam nature and the laws of physics, cameras). user-friendly interfaces, one-tap and abuse and to improve (our) has chaotic properties and often integrated solutions, presets and services”. The data and its trac- ambiguous states.’ Score, nota- A cameraphone is an omnipotent clouds feel the need es that remain after a person’s tion, index and even the study apparatus composed of pre- to look for out-of-the-black box death are therefore subjected to of grain distribution through the programmed and standardised solutions? whether the person signed up focus-finder are manifestations software/hardware that impose a for the Inactive Account Manager of the abstraction of physical new politics on power on creative 0011and what options were chosen. If matter. Despite all sorts of dif- processes of an everyday user. ER a s E . a l l the account was not linked to this ferences between analogue and byservice the data continues to ex- digital image processes, and The transition from photogra- audrey samson ist in the databases. Even if it was despite the tendency to believe phy being a rather separated (in linked and the delete account op- that digital imaging is a datafying terms of tools and practices) cul- 文中研究計劃是有關人於死後的電子遺 tion was chosen, the server logs process because of where quan- tural practice into being one of a 產（又稱電子死亡）中網絡科技物質角色 that are kept can reflect a per- tification takes place, Mayer- software/hardware “option” can 的討論，及電子數據如何滲透在追悼習 son’s search history and conse- Schönberger and Cukier argue be considered as a manifestation 俗裡。本文探索 Facebook和谷歌如何處 quently their behaviour and in- that “digitalization turbocharges of the cultural conditions of con- 理電子死亡的問題，並討論網絡科技物 terests. Arguably, we are being datafication. But it is not a sub- temporaneity. According to David 質性於死亡的意義。作者建議電子數據 studied and marketed even after stitute. The act of digitization – Berry we live in the computation- 葬禮這一藝術計劃，試圖超越死後資訊 death – a sort of necro-financial- turning analog information into ality, an era when our cultural and 處理以及人類監控等大問難。 isation of data. As with the case 20 IIII 20 IIII 20 IIII 20 IIII Datafied and standardised (mobile) photography of the computational era, p.24

I got a new smartphone, man!

Cool! How about it's camera, any new functions?

Yeah! They added a "no-effect" filter and I can now choose not to upload new photos to the cloud automatically! and classification systems in any mous and abandoned negatives enon has occurred. Furthermore, rapid deprecation, the illusion is photographic archive. Parame- usually do not come with attribu- wide-angle lenses which are a sustained. Perhaps this is par- ters of data are perpetually intro- tion – who is the photographer? primary cameraphones equip- tially why online mourning is so duced, inserted and asserted in No history, or textual narrative ment introduce a certain type of handling photography, and these describes its origin, let alone distortions to the mobile photog- data can appear as a ‘curve’ in technical notes produced by the raphy — stretched edges of the the histogram at the corner of photographer. Conversely, the frame together with slightly min- the screen workspace, or a ‘digit’ absence of prescription liberates iaturised centre of it. widespread, digital data’s prom- read by the densitometer on any the image reproduction process. A cameraphone follows the ise of preservation appeals to the photographic negative. What do Anonymous negatives are pure logic of any digital devices — its desire to sublimate death. the data offer? Optimal perfor- scores living in its visual and ma- software / firmware can be updat- In the case of Facebook two mance of photographic imaging terial forms. To set a standard- ed on the fly and this may signifi- options are possible when a per- and construction of a regime of ised and normative parameter to cantly alter its image processing son dies: to memorialise the pro- standardised and normalised perform this negative archive is capabilities. Taking into account file page or to have it deleted. The photographic images that is cred- a way to datafy and also to petri- the mass-scale of mobile photog- person wishing to act upon the ulous. This article situates the act fy them. The guilt of betrayal oc- raphy (Flickr example) and shar- dead person’s profile must proof photographic (re)production as curs every moment in the course ing options (Web 2.0), each soft- duce a death certificate. A me- a performative art (Fetveit, 2013: of performing. Performance is ware or hardware update within morialised page can no longer be 92) and discusses how the per- betrayal, a betrayal to human any of the main ecosystems, can modified and shouldn’t appear in formativistic approach exercises agency which produces the neg- introduce a new aesthetic pattern suggestions such as ‘People You on both human and non-human ative (authenticity and closeness in todays digital imaging. There- May Know’ or birthday reminders. levels to inform datafied research to the artist); a betrayal to the fore, a camera phone should be Depending upon the privacy set- and artistic practice. viewer who expects an optimal considered not as a simple tool, tings set upon memorialisation, result that the negative should but rather as a post-instrumental posts may be made by friends on Photography as a have and embed. After betrayals computational apparatus, a do- the Timeline. Interestingly, any- Performative Art by humans, it brings up also the main which combines both layers one can send private messages How does a medium of indexical- very “forensic materiality” (Kir- contemporary media are com- to the deceased person, yet a ity and mechanical reproduction schenbaum, 2012) of the nega- posed of – a cultural and a com- memorialised account cannot be become a medium of performa- tives. Would humans perpetually puter one (Manovich 2002: 63). logged into. Where are these pri- tivity? Media studies theorist exercise power over material and At that point a camera is hard- vate messages going? Arild Fetveit (2013) draws the dis- silent the autonomy and agency ly a standalone entity. It is fully The other option is to request to cussion on how contemporary art of the medium? Photographic dependent on device’s compu- have the profile deleted. Though gallerists and printers (as a pro- data is memories of multiple ap- tational capabilities (hardware) it is not specifically offered, a fession, not a machine, perhaps titudes. There is cultural memory and the photographic experience 3rd party may request an ac- a mechanism) posthumously of human agency and social in- is designed by its manufacturer count deletion if the condition of reproduce Seydou Keïta’s (1921 stitution, as well as memory and along with the interface, storage, the profile owner is ‘irreversible’ – 2001) photographic negatives conditioning of the material and and curation capabilities. Even (i.e. mentally or physically un- from the 1950s and ‘60s to illus- technicality (Ernst, 2013). Photo- able to maintain their Facebook trate this phenomenon. The way graphic negatives are not solely account). Facebook reviews and that Seydou Keïta’s printed and an artifact to and datafies social decides upon these requests on performed his negatives in the and cultural events and to be un- individual basis. That said, it is 1950s and ‘60s differed from the derstood through semiotics. In important to note that the dele- commercial galleries’ takes, and itself it embeds and lives its mation is largely symbolic because it not in subtle way – Keïta’s origi- teriality. Negative lives, the mate- 高 is impossible to erase all data for nal prints are moderate contrast rial weathers, and the chemical a range of reasons. Firstly, Face- 5”x7”s, whereas the prints pro- weathering transform the image book does not completely erase duced by commercial galleries in and conditions the object (think a person’s traces. They state that the 1990s to the 2000s are high silvering-out photograph). These most personally identifiable infor- mechanisms authorise the pho- 聳 contrast and mural size (up to mation associated with the ac- 48-by-60-inch designed for com- tographic object its medium- count like email addresses are mercial appeal. Fetveit proposes specificity, and datafication of a removed from the database while a performative model of photog- medium takes place. some personally identifiable in- raphy where performance is exer- the notion of programmability is formation may remain, such as cised via different human agents 0010now present on various levels: the account holder’s name if a in different contexts and times. Datafied and standardised The vendor by programming the message was sent to someone Photographic printing is a prefer- (mobile) photography of device (equipping it with certain else. The material characteristics ence determined by ownership of the computational era software and hardware specifi- of the network also determine the the photograph in a commodity bycations) along with the workflows persistence of the data. Face- culture sense by the “authentic- Lukasz Mirocha programs also the user him/her- book states that: “copies of some ity by means of their closeness to self. The user of digital camera material (ex: photos, notes) may the artist and the time and place 本文分析在電腦化的時代中所產生的新 is also “programmed” (Flusser remain in our servers for tech- they were taken.” (Fetveit, 2013: 權力關係，文中以由少數大型商業機構 2005: 28). As a result, mass- nical reasons”. These technical 92) Other than the dichotomy of 所主導的媒體創作／發佈的消費者生態 scale digital photography entered reasons are based on the nature consumption and (re)production 系統作焦點。從後數碼討論岀發，重點 not only into the era of predeter- of the network and the platform. produced by human performativ- 不在技術性細節，而是在軟件與硬件生 mined image filters, presets and Traces remain in the servers. In ity and agency, there is also non- 態系統如何塑造現今文化的主流，比如 fixed lenses but also into the do- other words, as soon as a digital human mechanical performativ- 是標準化和系統化的重要性。這研究包 main of Big Data, meta-data and object (for example an image) has ity, such as faults, glitches that 括三大觀點：數碼美學、軟件研究和批 user tracking. We should not ig- been linked to or shared, those are less desired by and not con- 判性數碼人文學。 nore the fact that usage practic- instances are eternal, according 22 IIII 22 IIII 22 IIII 22 IIII 腦計算科學和網絡運作程式中的垃圾郵 as “a figure of undead labor and ness in the participants who use subject. How is it, then, that data 件生產，並探討編碼及編碼的物質性在 consumption” and “is simultane- it, prompting them to be better separates itself from the subject? 數據化研究的角色。 ously a figure of pure automation, able to observe and interpret the The emphasis Big Data plac- of programmed memory that in- ‘events’ that occur and happen finitely loops” (2011:7). They are in real-time in urban space. The regarded as undead because the tool enables users to reveal those automated process minimizes ‘events’ that exist in urban space, human interventions and optimiz- but that we are not fully aware of es on correlation over causa- es labour practices. All the digital because they are at the periph- tion - on ‘what rather than why’ labour, such as computer agents ery of our attention. I suggest that (Mayer-Schönberger), appears and computer job schedulers they are just waiting to be discov- to be such a separation of infor- (also known as cron job), have ered and that therefore the pro- mation from context. As Mayer- “We are with you everyday, efficiently become automated.cess of mapping is to reveal them Schönberger asserts, it is Big we live in the Internet with pecu- This automated spam production and activate what would other- Data’s willingness to embrace liar addresses and enticing titbits, is also understood as a repeat- wise be latent. ‘real-word messiness rather than but you call us ‘spam’. We wander able writing process. According In the follow section, I propose privilege exactitude’ (19), to delib- around the network, mindlessly, to Chun, “no matter who wrote it a set of instructions in which us- erately ignore context and focus and you wanted to trash us, but or what machine it was destined ers embody: instead on predicting the future, we are still everywhere. We are for; something that inscribes the The toolkit proposes three that isolates it from its subject. just the children of your economic absence of both the programmer steps: observation, analysis, ex- Intent on the future, Big Data’s and social system, but you ignore and the machine in its so-called traction. The first and the third predictive gaze is grounded on and avoid us. We are not dead, we writing” (2011:42). As spam text is should refer to a beginning and a construct of time that is reli- write, we create. -Zombies” generated through computation, final stage, the second ‘supports’ ant on the discreteness of past, (Soon 2014) therefore, we could also say code the action. With these three steps present and future. In not caring writes spamming emails. From a you are able: first, to create the why something happened, Big Spam appears everywhere on the confining process of computa- field, the setting of rules and the Data distinguishes itself from the Internet. In 2014, statistics show tion to a wider framework of capi- establishment of a system; sec- causal past and locates itself fully that spam proportions reach al- talism, zombies are undead, they ond, to relate to the extraction, in the self-realising events of the most 70% of global email traf- are repetitively produced through isolation of parts and data; and predictive future. It becomes a fic (Shcherbakova and Vergells writing- writing to mailboxes and third, the plotting, the drawing- thing-in-itself that is reliant on a 2014). Spam not only consists of writing for data capturing and out, and the setting-up of relation- discrete quantified construction commercial advertisements and processing. Computationally, ships of the parts. of time that allows for the notion of Chun however reminds us code prediction. Mayer-Schönberger’s is a process of “undead writing, Cartography is a insistence that predictions based a writing that—even when it re- mapping process, and map is a on correlations lie at the core of peats itself—is never simply a display of the alternating between Big Data is thus also a Presentist deadly or living repetition of the practices of accumulation, disas- construction of time, predicated same” (2011:177). This ‘undead- sembly and reassembly of spatial on locating the subject exclusive- 資 ness’ suggests an attention at data (Corner, 1999). ly in the present. Perversely, only the material level of code and the when we locate ourselves solely corresponding automated pro- In the observation, you define in the present can the potential of cesses. The notion of the living the location, the physical space prediction be realised. Only when dead, as I argue, encompasses in which you would operate. You the future is not present does it 本 code automation – an undead create a boundary, with variable remain the future. Only when a and repetitive writing process dimensions and scale, in which thing exists out of context and is where parameter values are con- you focus your interests, map- a thing only in itself, can Big Da- stantly mutating. It contributes ping your process and actions. ta’s predictive claim be made. enticing titbits, but they also come significantly to spam zombifica- With the analysis, you circum- Big Data seems to want to play with peculiar email addresses. tion, and possibly other kinds scribe the ‘event’ and formulate a it both ways then – drawing from These email addresses become of software culture that demon- body-action, as a datafication of a subject that is in the present the spam’s identity, which ap- strate datafication. the experience. The last step, the while positioning itself entirely in pears in the inbox interface that extraction, operates as an execu- the future. Its predictive promise one can reply to. However, many tion and repetition of the body-ac- seems to rely in a form of tempo- of them do not actually exist in tion. The three steps are cyclical ral amnesia that in order to avoid the network. On the one hand, and they are constantly activated a stack overload of object and they are actively living in the net- by you whenever an ‘events’ oc- event, demands we move for- work and are always monitored curs. You, as a performer, experi- ward so rapidly that the present by algorithms; on the other hand, ence the emergent properties of fades into the past even before it they consume numerous network unexpected ‘events’, and have to has arrived. resources and are regarded as adapt your body-actions to given But rather than time disambig- “waste” (Parikka and Sampson circumstances. This reflexive mo- uating the relation between sub- 2009:4; Gabrys 2013:67) that are dality is cyclical. Thus, at the out- ject and data, Big Data seems to deadly trashed. This text explores come of each cycle, you embody challenge us to consider models the notion of the living dead, simi- the extracted data, as a body-ac- of time other than those that po- lar to a zombie figure in popular tion that functions as a map. sition the subject on the knife- culture, to discuss the compu- Now you are ready to apply edge of the present in a continu- tational and network process of the toolkit. The mapping process ity between past and future. Is it spam automation. It investigates starts in urban space. The fist step plausible, then, to conceive of a the role of code and the material is the observation mode. While temporal schema that enables a 27 IIII 27 IIII 27 IIII 27 IIII ERASE.all, p.22

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0_o aspect of code that interacts with moving in the urban space, you subject to be doubly locatable in network environment in the pro- are waiting to be capture an event. time without compromising the cess of zombification. Suddenly when an event oc- compactness of itself? curs, it is an interruption of the es- A reflexive ap- tablished horizontality. The event proach: understand- is unexpected and it produces ing spam production verticality, and turbulence. It can I have taken a reflexive artistic ap- be any situation that affects the Drawing on Growing Block proach (Soon 2014) to examine performer. In this moment, you Universe Theory, Garcia offers the technical and material aspects activate the analysis mode. You only a partial solution to this with of spam. This includes setting are not just a passive spectator. an alternate model that resolves up a spam production line, writ- On the contrary, as you are affect- the co-conditional construct of ing computer scripts to capture ed, immediately you have to open things as both things-in-some- spammers’ email addresses in- several possibilities of action in re- thing and things-in-time when stead, producing and distributing sponse to the event. Those takes he proposes a model in which customized spam poems auto- place in form of small ‘holograms’ past and present are intense matically in real time. Composing in your mind. Can you see them? variations of presence rather and sending massive emails re- In order to avoid any ‘instinctive’ than isolated instances of equal quires computer code that deals action, you should pause, wait intensity(3). The past, rather with file reading and data pro- and analyze the event, and find than being discreet and sepa- cessing. As such, code contrib- an answer to the following three rated from the present, is part utes significantly to the process of questions: of the continuity of event-time spam data quantification and au- 00131) what constitutes this event? in which the discrete thing is no tomation. I argue, however, that em:toolkit2) how can I make a relation to it? less a thing but fades in the in- the role of code cannot be taken cartography as 3) where/when should I make an tensity of the present. for granted from a purely techni- embodied datification action? Like yesterday’s newspaper cal perspective in datafication. It byWith the first question, you make that yellows in the sun, Garcia’s requires a thorough understand- Alessandro Carboni a list of possibilities. To the sec- present constantly moves away ing of its cultural implications and ond, you imagine a body-action. its relationship with network envi- 我以表演者、藝術家暨研究員等身份介 Before making the body-action, ronments. 入地圖學的研究，研究所成的em: toolkit you answer the question as to 工具箱系統讓我解答我對身體、感官對 where/when the action might take Mutable code 應空間而廷伸至地圖法的問題。這系統 place. Once, this is decided you In spam production, the mutating 讓表演者以行為及身體語言理解城市空 make the action. This re-writes value of a parameter, such as the 間。這繪製地圖的方法從自身反思而牽 the event, as it was not visible or in 炭 sender and receiver’s email ad- 動身體反應，並通過觀察、分析、抽取及 the centre of your attention. This dress, is arguably a property that 體現一系列步驟，為數據研究提出新的 is a process of circumscription, facilitates spam automation. It al- 研究方法論。 defined along a diagonal axis, in lows data to be processed differ- order to re-establish horizontality. 水 ently within the same parameter, Once the action is executed, and will not impact the entire pro- you proceed to the extraction duction line. This mutable code mode. You extract the body-ac- enables data to be massively pro- tion from the location where it 化 cessed, and offers a certain de- was performed, and memorise it. gree of variability. However, this As the final step of the mapping mutating value is not merely a process, the extracted body-ac- technical data configuration, as tion becomes a Unit of movement Neff and Stark put it, “the informa- In this text, I propose to you a set which can be repeated. This Unit 合 tion architecture is politics in code” of instructions to capture, extract is a map. (2004:186). Code, in this emailing and embody spatial data. The Once this Unit is extracted, you context, also includes “techno- toolkit is a cartographic process come back to the observation logical and social systems” that that applies a new methodologi- mode, waiting to capture another 物 shape what the becoming value cal approach to urban mapping event. When it happens, you re- might be (ibid). Security is contin- based on a reflexive practice in- formulate the three questions and uously enhanced in an email sys- voking the body and a series of start a new cycle. tem and its filtering rules as well. steps comprising observation, from the now – away from a po- New sender addresses need to be analysis, extraction and the em- 0014sition of maximum presence. Yet continuously produced to escape bodiment of data. Tomorrow’s News. - as its printed copy degrades in from being identified and trashed. Central to the understanding The Early Edition legibility, yesterday’s newspaper Harvesting live data with active of this tool, is to consider urban bynever ceases to be fully deter- email addresses is said to be one space as an articulated dense James Carlton mined. At every moment the past of the most challenging aspects environment of ‘events’ (Thrift, conserves its option to remain in- of quantified emailing. Comput- 2007). People, objects, streets, 大數據不單指一般伺服器所處理的數 dividuated as it accumulates ab- er agents, such as web crawlers and their relations, constitute a 據，大數據的出現為我們對物件與事件 sence upon absence in a qualita- and web bots, use different ways complex urban texture in which 的關係的想法起了根本的轉變（麥爾荀 tive time of intensity. such as web data mining (Raz bodies, as agents, interact, trans- 伯格，2013）。法國哲學家 Garcia在「強 While this accumulation of ab- n.d), spoofing and dictionary at- form and move (Batty, 2009). Ac- 化」時間的討論中，數據被視作「主觀自 sence rather than presence ena- tacks to harvest valid and close- cording to Erin Manning, bodies, 我創作」 (Garcia, 2014; Massumi, 2011, bles Garcia to define the present to-live addresses. The value of navigating in space, experience p.8)。作為一個自我饋送而延續自身的 as doubly locatable in past time, 29 IIII 29 IIII 29 IIII 29 IIII Zombies as the living dead, p.20 em:toolkit - cartography as embodied datification, p.27

*@gmail.com U= x (-y) ± xy + xn

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No Matter. What you read is a score. It is formula in which you can extract data from the urban Hey hey fantastic growth. space. Are you ready to start? Contact me for more. yes, I am Just rent the data.

ok, let's start! the receiver parameter stands space by encountering events 系統，此研究探討大數據對於事物位於 and removes the tension between for an actual target, and it is con- (2014). Drawing on this, I argue 投機性現實主義框架之中的互動關係， objects of the past and events of stantly mutating at the code level. that each of these events are 藉以探討筆者以本體二元論為中心主義 the present, he also condemns The email server follows protocol connected to each other and in 的研究。 specifications (The Internet Soci- this way space ‘functions’ as a ety 2001) that process email ad- linear timeline. I claim that, in or- dresses one by one through com- der to preserve the stability of mand-line communication in the it, the system requires a certain tomorrow’s newspaper to remain form of code. The specification ‘horizontality’. Any interruption, on the printing press of the future “prescribes how the data should would generate a ‘vertical’ axis. where it resists circulation in the be formatted, the type of data al- This ‘verticality’ is an unexpect- present. His future of maximal lowed” (Hall 2000:13). This is what ed ‘event’, that destabilises the absence forever seems to main- Alexander Galloway might call system, the urban space. At this tain its distance from the present “network control” (2004:xix). On critical moment of instability, as There are big numbers where in order to maintain itself as the the one hand, these are technical Micheal Batty proposes (2009), the Internet lives. Exabytes future it is – as a thing in itself. If standards; on the other hand, they the system adapts itself to the of information stored on serv- the fading intensity of the past is “govern the set of possible be- given situation, re-establishing ers, stacked in data fortresses not applicable to the future then its ‘horizontality’ once again. This around the world. Down corri- the future remains defined by the process of adaptation, I describe dors of container vessels tech- relational model of time. it as ‘diagonality’. Put simply, with nicians ride on scooters as if in the horizontality the system is some macro version of computer While Big Data stable, it preserves a certain line- architecture, repairing and main- doesn’t change things, it cannot arity. If suddenly, any unexpected taining the physical network of be so easily exempted from the 合 event occurs, there is a vertical- numbers – numbers connected world by escaping into the predic- ity. In this moment, the system to numbers in networks of serv- tive future. moves into ‘turbulence’ in which ers, ports and cables. This is the it creates a period of instability. In physical Internet; the bits of the While Big Data doesn’t change this moment, the system moves bytes, where numbers exist em- things, it cannot be so easily ex- 作 to a critical point, described as di- bodied in physical objects. This empted from the world by escap- agonality in which it adapts itself is where data has dimension, ing into the predictive future. In to the given situation, re-estab- weight, temperature and scale. order to function in the predic- lishing the horizontality. This sort Where it consumes energy, de- tive terms described by Mayer- haviour patterns” as “regulations” of tension between order and mands attention and becomes a Schoelberger, Garcia’s model (2004:6-7). The verification of mail chaos, described as cyclical pat- thing-in-itself that can’t help but of intensive time must then also servers includes the domain va- tern, horizontal-vertical-diagonal, look backwards over its shoulder allow for the future to be under- lidity, receiver address, the send- is the most common structure at the uneasy relationship be- stood as doubly locatable in time; ing limit and so forth. At the opera- of any adaptive complex system tween data and objects. a way perhaps for the future to tion level of code, executing such (Portugali, 2013). How do we read Although data has been pre- fade into present without losing spamming programs means sub- and map this emergent occur- sented as embodied in the physi- its own indexical position - a way mitting data for the email server’s rence of unexpected events in ur- cal architecture of things, this is for us to turn the page with out regulatory check. In view of the ban space? clearly not the same as a thing losing our place. receiver parameter, email servers Drawing on Nigel Thrift (2007) being data, and Big Data – the For, surely, although tomor- constantly receive different lists who considers space as an is- indiscriminate dirty-data of May- row’s news may never arrive - the of emails through coding interfac- sue of perception, and the body er-Schoelberger and Cukier, is Early Edition will still be delivered. es. These addresses are mutat- as the medium for perceiving it, I not simply things as big num- ing at the level of code based on would argue that space and body bers. Rather Big Data seems to what has been found from com- are blended in a continuum of ex- demand a rethinking of the rela- puter agents. Hence, this mutable perience. I consider the body to tionship between the data-event quality constitutes the entire pro- be as much immaterial as physi- and the data-object. duction chain of spam, as I argue, cal (Thrift, 2007), and the endless The need for this differentia- it is not simply a data configura- possibility of accumulating data tion is made clear by Tristan Gar- tion that substitutes a parameter through experiences and sens- cia when he distinguishes be- value with data. It contains other es through the body (Manning, tween ‘that which is something, cultural implications that facilitate 2009). I consider the body to be and that which something is’ the automated production in a the initial and ultimate cartogra- (2014b, 52). A newspaper such quantified condition. phy tool of this mapping process. as this is something, but the Building upon this, I propose to thing that the newspaper is – its The undead writing reconsider cartography as a da- data metrics - is not the same as of automation tafied mapping process bound the newspaper. Both exist in their Spam is like zombies, they do into time and relational connec- not being of the other, a process not have a physical body, but tions of space and body. By ap- through which they must, ac- they possess a temporal identity plying the process suggested by cording to Garcia, maintain the and a body of text. They may not Corner (1999), ‘accumulation- relational potential of their own survive for long but even if one disassembly-reassembly’ as per- failure - their compactness. Data is being trashed, there are still formative practice, I aim to cap- thus comes into being through many around the network. Ac- ture, embody and represent data the event of its own compact- cording to Boluk and Lenz, they exclusively with the body. ness. In the sense that data must draw upon Lauro, Embry and The aim of Em:toolkit is to de- always be its own thing, it is also Weinstock to discuss zombie velop a particular state of aware- continuous in its relation to its 25 IIII 25 IIII 25 IIII 36 IIII

collection of people’s patterns of once. From interpersonal com- Programming with algorithms for In this activation, the programme behaviours that would form a ba- munications, to species clas- step-scheduling cooking. can network and trigger a va- sis for designing infrastructures. sification to food transportation Within this context a recipe in- riety of potential outcomes in- As an example, Alexander uses or to emerging disciplines such habits the “difference (that) inhab- the pattern ‘accessible green’ as social physics, the automa- its repetition”, as Gilles Deleuze based on the observation that tisation of procedures for data has formulated. It is a perspec- people need open green places gathering and manipulation tive of procedures that is informed to go to; but when they are more are regarded as the means for more by the performative ‘liveness’ cluding sound and light compo- than three minutes away, the dis- global knowledge production. In granted to data, and less by the nents of the installation. This will tance overwhelms the need. Con- other words, we live in a culture subjective contemplation of mass- twist and problematize notions sequently, green spaces must be in which data is used to compre- commodified rituals. Much like of shared experiential space built ‘within three minutes’ walk hend and, most of the times, to in Alison Knowles’ scope events between the human and non […] of every house and work- predict the behaviour and dy- such as The Identical Lunch human. Engagement with the place.’ This pattern (along with namics of its many complex sys- (1967) or Proposition: Make a character will also offer latitude patterns of ‘dancing in the streets’, tems, with implications on the salad (1962-2012), computational to explore embodied cognition or ‘holy ground’) helps fulfil larg- other hand on the infrastructural procedures in this context—social, in relation to sensing, action and er patterns such as ‘identifiable knowledge and logics associat- genre, technological— are relays. process within the ‘live’ technol- neighborhood’. In total, Alexan- ed with them. They are performative pieces that ogy environment. der’s book comprises of 253 pat- Within the context of a gen- augment the computational char- Interacting with the avatar terns. eral ecology, this project sits on acter of life and repetitive labour, brings to the forefront the dif- two current paradoxes address- or the gendered relationships in ference in relation when dealing Programming ing the question of quantification. charge of the maintenance of the with a non-human entity includ- In computing, researchers were Firstly, the agency of data folds self and sociality. ing differences in time and cog- raising similar critiques of mana- and unfolds not just upon the This article started as a recipe nition. As Hayles confirms: gerial tyrannies; notably, objec- construction of knowledge, but to speculate on the disciplining Obviously, the meshing of tions to the ways in computers also in the actual phenomena it logics within algorithmic culture these two different kinds of com- were introduced into the work that sift through environmental plex temporalities does not hap- place. Together with other Scan- data, furniture assembling in- pen all at one time (or all at one dinavian computer researchers, structions, digital image process- place) but rather evolves as a Kristen Nygaard worked closely ing or a cooking recipe. It did so in complex syncopation between with workers’ unions in finding order to pose an inquiry into com- conscious and unconscious ways that would not alienate the putational processes and alterna- perceptions for humans, and the worker. There was, in other words, 敢 tive forms of agency. However, as integration of surface displays a great need for building systems we look closer, certain logics are and algorithmic procedures for that reflected the preferred prac- not a matter of generality, but pro- machines. (13) tices and workflows of the users, cesses of difference inhabiting In many ways, the various and Nygaard’s mapping of these repetition. So, if I submit myself to practice-based expressions in practices included the participa- 於 a recipe, might I cook a delicious this research inquiry can be seen tion of the workers. meal for most of you? Bon appétit as provocative acts where the Already in the sixties, Nygaard different methods, techniques, had been one of the found- 0017concepts and disciplines come ers of object oriented program- 夢 A creative encounter together in an emergent practice ming (SIMULA) – dividing data with a biomimetic avatar of co-composing. into “objects”, or “classes” that byXyza tests the new media art- a prescribed “method” could do Deborah Leah Lawler-Dormer ist and curator in terms of con- something with. What Nygaard 想 textualization, exhibition and gained from his co-research with 在建立進化性和創新神經科學研究計算 audience engagement. This pro- workers was an unexpected in- 系統時，在研究實驗中人類受測者會被 ject interacts with a wide disci- sight: programming was not only 紀錄描繪和進行量化。在生物工程科技 plinary territory, it has a complex a way of modelling a labour pro- 研究的過程中，腦部神經和其心理反應 technical nature, and it provokes cess, but people in general found is trying to document, whether 的監察和預測不但促進科學的理解，並 specific arguments concerning a value in describing a program it is the analysis of air quality or 協助科技及經濟上有關公共安全和娛樂 embodied cognition and neu- and defining objects, classes and seabed sediment depositions. 事業等項目的發展。藝術介入或重用發 robehaviours, engages with methods. Writing programs may Secondly, the question of data 展可否作有效分析和產生應對科案？藝 scientific, entertainment and in- lead to deep insight into a social has resurfaced again since the 術重用可否令親密的感官體現經歷更為 dustrial contexts and has a col- problem and its solutions. As he 70’s quantitative revolution, in 豐富？ lective and specialised research would say: part thanks to global (and not culture supporting its ongoing just climate) changes, yet the evolution. This expanded field ‘To program is to understand’ old clash “models vs data” have generates an unstable terrain remained relatively unattend- for curation, artistic intervention Nygaard is an important part of ed. However, as scholars such and analysis. the tradition of Participatory De- as Paul Edwards and Sabine As an autonomous biomi- sign, where computer scientists Höhler have articulated: “with- metic avatar, a remix of human would co-research labour pro- out models there is no data”. Or biological data and the compu- cess in order to make technical put differently: as observing sys- tational has occurred. As agents and social infrastructures corre- tems evolve, so does global data Human subjects are tracked and the human and non-human have spond. A well-known example of alongside the models and algo- quantified in order to build evolu- combined together into one art PD is the UTOPIA project from the rithms that inhabit them: the al- tionary and emergent computa- expression. Recycled. Regener- early eighties that addressed the gorithmic culture. tional neuro-scientific models. In ated. Consumed. 36 IIII 36 IIII 36 IIII 37 IIII Tomorrow’s News. - The Early Edition, p. 27

88 Tristan

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SPST?

A3 (a system tracking user behaviour volve massive collection of user manifold of public manifestations reciprocal emotion and gesture. on Amazon’s Kindle), affect both patterns – including biometrics, of unrest into more cultured fo- Thus, brings into play an oscil- the circulation of text (what peo- geometrics, text mining, and rums. We can see this in works lation between character, neu- ple read) and the notion of read- much more. By correlating vast such as Andres Jaque’s IKEA ing (away from reading in private). amounts of user patterns and Disobedients, which was the first generating general functions performance to be acquired in Historythat can anticipate user behavior, MOMA’s permanent collection, or In developing an interface criti- new service providers are find- more recently the V&A Museum robiological representation and cism, an understanding of the ing a market of life practices that exhibition Disobedient Objects. artificial intelligence. history of tracking data is helpful. is promoted as enhanced user First of all, disobedience requires Within the complex techno- This history points to a tradition experiences. Recent accounts gaining some critical space with human environment of this en- of correlating technical and so- of Facebook’s large-scale ex- its own aesthetical considerations gagement, Xyza will enable a cial infrastructures (code and life) perimentation with users’ cog- and material imperatives and con- sensor ‘mapped’ space that de- that extends across urban and nition exemplify this. State de- comitantly with the logics behind software architectural planning. fense led programs obviously computation, and its relation to My main aim is to depict how the show related activities based disobedience. As Matthew Fuller capturing of specific life practices on similar methods. and Graham Harwood argue, al- – that was once seen as a critique One cannot deny that to many though logics break down a phe- of, and counterstrategy to statis- users the three waves all reflect nomena by modelling it in order to tical planning models – has been meaningful correlations of physi- produce a remote control, com- 夢 perverted in contemporary com- cal and social infrastructures, but putation also affords comparative putational business. neither can one deny that the conditions at the material scale by mapping of specific life-prac- making it modifiable. Citiestices has lead to a generalized Disobedience could act then 遊 The city is the domain per se of form of control. So, the question as a mode against privileged rea- “big data” and this is where my still remains: how can one evade son, complicating the autonomy history begins. Tracking data in the gaze of the pervert, and in- of logics in computation. By doing cities is not a new thing. In her sist on the right to one’s own so, and drawing in its own tradi- influential book The Death and life-practices? tion, disobedience relates to the fines the territory in which the Life of Great American Cities, sensibilities and creative forces conditions of perception, and the Jane Jacobs points to how de- 0016driving both a process itself and resultant physical, social, emo- velopments in science have in- Data the processing of data. There are tional and cultural reactions can fluenced urban planning. Nota- Disobedients? forthcoming interesting resonances for these occur. The body of the viewer bly, the development of statistics propositions on recipes forces in Klosky’s ‘The First Thou- becomes the site where mean- offered new ways of mapping for water and soil sand Numbers in Alphabetical ing is enacted and becomes a and controlling complexity. In the byOrder’ or in Drew & Haah’s paper traceable event in and of itself. fifties, cities were mapped ac- Fran Gallardo ‘Lessness: Randomness, Con- cording to statistical information sciousness and Meaning’. Both Recycled. on neighbourhoods’ child mor- 我們生活在電腦科技的生態系統，數據 works are complex procedural Regenerated. tality, employment, crime rate, 是文化力求改變的主要工具。在食物鏈 explorations taking on ordering Consumed. etc. Based on this information, 生態中，烹飪食譜有如演算法，把一系列 processes that are much less urban planners reorganized the 步驟一一執行，以達到結果：就如宜家 functional, less effective and dis- Within this framework of the hy- city into uniform office, shopping, 傢俬的組裝說明書一樣。演算法的編碼、 orienting. This is a space in which brid physical/digital space, each and residential areas with effi- 分發共享和複製過程是由文化系統所影 Beckett’s texts seem to resonate element of the network both hu- cient infrastructures for motor- 響，多於演算法影響文化。但當技術物件 quite fittingly by working more on man and nonhuman, the network ized traffic. This was also know 不服從運算指引時，別的行動形式會否 the nerves rather than the intel- itself and its interdependent re- as “Urban Renewal” and caused 因此出現？現今技術、社會和生態系統 lect of the reader. lationships are of interest. The the demolishment of many cit- 中的數據又會否因此作重新調整？ analysis of the complexity and ies – much to the frustration of Cookingdensity of these networked en- the their inhabitants who felt that Another material tradition with vironments oscillates between the general principles of statisti- troubling questions concerning each unit and the whole network cal management controlled their agency and computation is food and its efficacy. specific life practices. culture, more than often instru- The materiality of the works in- In opposition to this, Jacobs mentalised towards a particular clusive of the different ways that and likeminded people (like Henri end or agenda, like in Michael Ra- digital systems behave, and the Lefebvre), argued for people’s kowitz’s project Enemy Kitchen. uniqueness of the user, will ena- right to reshape their own city: However, a recipe, as a compu- ble and limit the work’s evolution. the city is an organic entity, and Geographies tational force with a specific aes- Each viewing of a networked hy- any general principle for planning of the Artificial thetic and biological consistency, brid environment is an individual must begin by engaging with the For most intents and purposes, has been relatively unattended performing of the work enabling specific life practices of citizens we inhabit a computational ecol- to in terms of culture, technol- emergent and generative prop- (Jacobs was also a renowned ogy where numerical modelling, ogy, and theory. Furthermore, it erties where the structure of the activist) computer simulations and in- is more troublesome when foun- work is what emerges through fovizs, among others, saturate dational literature in computer the interaction. Over time, pat- Pattern languages almost every atom and bit. A science equates the formal lan- terns of relation become mani- Such strategies gradually be- ‘Geography of the Artificial’, as guages between algorithms and fest. Within mixed reality art came organized. The architect in Herbert Simon (1969) words recipes—just compare the in- installation the virtual and the ac- Christopher Alexander developed which has data as a foundation, troductory flow chart of Donald tual combine and new relation- the idea of a “pattern language”, a constrain and potentiality all at Knuth’s book The Art of Computer ships between both are formed. 32 IIII 32 IIII 32 IIII 32 IIII A History of Capture in Planning, Programming and Design, p.36

The fact that the company is casting extras for the next few weeks of school and I'm still waiting

FCj

I'm at work today and I'm still not sure how much I love you

HK's

Ønsker

I'm at work today and I'm still not sure how much I love you

Jødisk level indbød 0015work situation of typographers Computational Cultures this bioengineering pursuit neu- A History of in the print industry (an area that Computational ecology, in this ropsychological responses are Capture in Planning, was heavily affected by the intro- scenario does not infer the imple- monitored and predicted to both Programming and Design duction of computers). mentation of automatised tech- by nology in order to remote con- Christian Ulrik Andersen Cities and programming trol—or drone—the dynamics of Alexander has not been very in- a determinate system, but rather 一直以來，我們知悉媒體科技與美學息 fluential as an architect, but one thinking beyond the human condi- enable greater understanding for 息相關：一方面兩者影響我們的文化形 can easily see how his ideas tion (Deleuze, 1991) in the context science while concurrently ena- 態，又影響我們之所知所感。收集數據 where directly applicable in par- of a increasingly quantified ecolo- bling technologies that feed big 行為貫穿於蘋果電腦公司、亞馬遜網上 ticipatory design and object ori- gy. What counts as (ac)countable? economies related to security 購物平台、Facebook社交網絡和谷歌 ented programming. The pro- Why and by whom? In this light, and entertainment. Can an art 公司等商業系統模式，這行為有助發展 grammer Ward Cunningham was ecology is informed by Adam intervention or reuse be devel- 新思維以理解人類的認知過程和社會 particularly influenced by Alex- Robbert’s notion of speculative oped that productively analyses 行為。作者將討論媒體科技與美學如何 ander, and initiated the Portland ecology or Timothy Morton’s call- and counters back? Can its re- 在城市規劃，物件導向程式設計及參與 Pattern Repository. In the nine- ing for an “ecology without na- use also enrich an intimate sen- 式設計等生活實踐中注入人類思想的 ties, the project integrated the ture”. It therefore suggests that re- sory embodied experience? 背後歷史。 WikiWikiWeb, the world’s first lationships of any kind—be them Xyza, a biomimetic autono- wiki. Using the schemata of Alex- between an organism’s neural mous avatar, is currently being ander in general ways, “Ward’s synoptics and its gut micro-biome, constructed by Mark Sagar with- wiki” contained patterns that de- or between a computer screen in the Laboratory for Animate scribed problems and solutions and the internet of COx sensors Technologies at the University of in graphical user interface design located miles away—are funda- Auckland. A creative practice in- and programming. It became mentally ecological. quiry into Xyza has been initiated popular because it allowed pro- Although models and algo- in order to activate a dialogue be- grammers to share and co-edit rithms are interrelated forming a tween embodied cognition, ma- their experiences and develop a complex ecosystem, this article is teriality and the neuro-compu- Smart cities, biometric measure- sophisticated pattern language centred in processual algorithms tational. As a biomimetic model, ments, and the business models for the correlation of human use and its culture—as algorithms the avatar raises questions re- of Apple, Amazon, Facebook and and technical infrastructure. constitute the exchange curren- garding the relationship between Google are often presented as a cy for the economies of a model. scientific enquiry, the commodi- paradigmatic shift in computing Perversion of Atop of the classic definition for an fication of biological data and and digital culture: from data to participation algorithm—procedures that exe- human/avatar identities. big data, from measurement to Managerial control of the spe- cute a sequential number of steps Xyza is a neurobehavioral anticipation, from interaction to cific based on statics still exists organising data towards a result— computational model with emer- participation, and so forth. There – and may sometimes falsely be Luciana Parisi reformulates them gent behaviours. It is an auton- is indeed a great need for an “in- mistaken for “big data”. However, in terms of actualities. On the one omous system that is both self- terface criticism” in this process the smartness of big data sug- hand, an algorithm is a process motivated and self-governing. gests that there is a new kind of involving a new assembled unity Linked to the autonomous avatar general control exercised through which is added upon the compos- animation is a real-time neural mapping the patterns of the spe- ite of parts. On the other, it is a simulation. In a live neural net- cific. Contemporary comput- process intrinsically related to var- work, representations of mus- ing’s perverted version of valu- iation, and it is dependent on the cular anatomy through to the ing life-practices has appeared in procedure itself and the sets of neuronal activity and neuromod- 鋼 three waves. data on which it works. As a cul- ulator levels can be viewed. Firstly, we have seen the wave tural force in itself, algorithmic cul- This autonomous avatar char- of usability and graphical user ture is manifest not only in high- acter will be re-skinned and re- interface design. Though field frequency-trading, but across the positioned into a contemporary experiments, interface design- fabric of the transduced domestic- art installation. Placing Xyza in 鐵 ers have tracked user behavior ity of Ikea’s flat-pack design, or in to a creative mixed reality art and preferences. This has lead what counts as human in the era of practice can be approached to predefined, standardized user- face-expression recognition soft- conceptually as providing an ex- friendly software interaction. ware or IBM’s cognitive cooking. perimental creative laboratory 陣 Secondly, we have seen a An algorithm is then to be seen as exploring principles concerning wave of locking software into a forward-looking event, or a self- enactive perception, embodied standard objects such as tab- recursive feedback loop with little cognition, cross-modal sensing lets and smart phones. Whereas force and agency in itself. Is it then and multi-modal interactivity. It 容 computers were once consid- possible for these procedures to is proposed that this speculative ered open structures where users have an imagination and agential inquiry will offer a re-contextuali- could write their own programs forces in their own right? Could sation of both our understanding and define their own configura- they access discourses of self-re- of our body, its sensing proper- tions, hardware providers now flection and (mis)understanding of ties and interconnectedness – a critical understanding of how strictly control the access to soft- the posthuman condition? In short, with dynamic digital networked, computational processes are ware. Cory Doctorow has labeled could an algorithm disobey itself? environmental, political, social over-layered by, and influence this “the coming war on general And if so, how would it do so? and virtual conditions. Xyza is a aesthetics and culture. For in- purpose computing.” curious project as it activates an stance, behavioural models of Thirdly, we are currently wit- Disobedience? exchange between viewer and reading patterns based on data nessing a wave of large-scale Disobedience has gained consid- virtual, ‘probing’, surface and analysis in Amazon Whispernet experiments with users that in- erable traction, emerging from a varying degrees of micro layers, 34 IIII 34 IIII 34 IIII 34 IIII 0018We enable this form of voluntary in which technologies of extrac- up-displays, a technology that Welcome to the self-surveillance with our data, tion and proliferation are continu- was traditionally “uncomfortable City of Discipline or in the words of venture capi- ally refined and regulations further in its two-dimensionality” -- visu- bytalists, 'powerful information' by loosened so as to distill every last Renee Ridgway participating in online activities. calorie of carbon out of the planet. The selling of our individual de- A final spectral figure to con- 〈自我的個性化〉探討主體性的發展和 sires, wants and needs to large sider in this consubstantial trin- 在網絡資本主義下以數據作為商品之現 multinational corporations on ity is that of emergency man. In ally reinforcing our presence in 像，作者研究在文化生產中演算法的「個 the internet was already voiced writing specifically on Foucault’s gamespace (Galloway 35). As we 人化」搜尋既隱性又可見，讓人類研究重 by ‘Humdog’ in her prescient notion of environmentality in rela- apply norms from gamespace to 新考証。這計劃以現今主流霸權中搜尋、 text from 1994, “pandora's vox: tion to the Bush Jr. government’s ordinary life (and vice-versa), we 撿取和編索資料及其另類方法，探討新 on community in cyberspace”, in framing of the events of Hurricane create the conditions for phe- 勞動力的條件、分佈式美學和觸覺，及不 which she argued that the result Katrina, Brian Massumi suggests nomenological slippage between 透明度與透明度的政治。 of computer networks had led to, that there is a way in which threats gamespace and gamic space. not a reduction in hierarchy, but of war and weather are increas- While the adoption of Google actually a commodification of ingly being treated as similar in Glass represents a possible ma- personality and a complex trans- nature. Each is readily framed as terial manifestation of this slip- fer of power and information to an immanent and indiscriminate page, a related and perhaps more companies (Hermosillo: 1994). threat. This in turn prompts a per- insidious blurring has already By remitting all of this information ceived justification on the part of arisen within the applied logic of to corporations (Google) we get power for an equally immanent, our computational systems. benefits out of it because sup- militarised ontology whose rules posedly we receive incredible of exception (e.g. military black Living with Rules “Capital burns off the nuance in recommendations. It's a transac- sites, unconditional data collec- Huizinga defines play as execut- a culture. Foreign investment, tion and we get relevance in the tion schemes) are justified as be- ed “according to rules freely ac- global markets, corporate acqui- exchange. But is this really true? ing the best suited to preemptively cepted but absolutely binding” sitions, the flow of information By adhering to the protocols of manage such an unknowable, im- (Huizinga 28). These rules do not through transnational media, the Google we control our freedoms manent threat. And why not. Cap- simply define the activity within attenuating influence of money as we let ourselves be subjected turing all in the most indiscrimi- gamespace; they also, through that’s electronic … untouched to the machinic and its demands. nate fashion with no predefined their acceptance and execution, money … the convergence of Our interests provide search en- gold standard (as the “brute force” manifest the space itself. These consumer desire” (DeLillo, 1997: gines with power and it is here approach in Artificial Intelligence 785). ‘Das Kapital’ from Under- that our subjectivity is exploited practices in recent years has am- world (1997) in these deterritorialized spaces. ply demonstrated) would indeed Digital capitalism, or often Yet as the data fragments of our seem to be the most efficient commonly termed 'cybercapital- daily lives are re-aggregated, al- technique for extrapolation and in- ism' refers to the internet or 'cy- gorithms are trying to predict our terpellation of value, whether one berspace' and seeks to engage appearance not through our indi- is speaking of the NSA, Google, 孤 in business models within this vidual desires, wants and needs Facebook, Exxon, etc. territory in order to make financial but through collective profiling. The “nature” of this indiscrimi- profit. The relationship between ‘A query is now evaluated in the nate threat is entirely open-end- donations, gifts and sponsorship context of a user’s search history ed, always in beta, always on. It by the private sector (Google, Fa- and other data compiled into a might variously take on the cast 獨 cebook, Twitter, Yahoo) results in personal profile and associated of a literal environmental catas- reciprocation in the form of data, with statistical groups.’ (Feuz, trophe to come, a financial flash debt and power constructs. As Fuller, Stadler: 2011) Instead of crash, a sudden terror from the we upload, tweet, post, blog and the ‘sharing economy’ perhaps sky, and so on. It is this very open- 的 search we give away our data for we need to claim ownership in- ended, vaguely defined quality of free services. Google, for exam- stead. Who owns ‘our’ data? threat that enables what Massumi ple, is dependent on us willingly Should we not be able to delete terms as an “infra-colonisation” of furnishing data that is then fil- our data or enact the right to be the “proto-territory” across a full 人 tered, as value is simultaneous- forgotten? Or will we be coerced spectrum, one in which all (poli- ly extracted from the data. With to negotiate our rights to reten- tics, economics, the very condi- ‘the network effect’, more people tion, or forced to make a living tions for life) is placed on “a con- contribute online because others selling our data instead of giving tinuum of war and weather.” Thus also choose to do so causing the it all away? the emergence of emergency rules can be called ‘algorithmic’ in value and power of the network man, a subject free to do as they that they are a mathematical/logi- to increase exponentially as it 0019like - so long as they accept the cal rule-set that defines a system. grows. This enables Google to genealogies immanent inevitability of this cap- However, whereas gamespace is have a completely free database, of datafied man ture all terms of service. A fretful invented -- the rules precede the which has been provided by us- byfreedom, full of the dire forecasts space -- science has traditionally ers of the internet and by design- Eric Snodgrass of an economic war machine, with used algorithms to describe or ing specific algorithms that are its undulating litanies of “unknown model an already existing space able to index and crawl the inter- 在全有化的資本主義環境下會有甚麼不 unknowns” (Rumsfeld) and rhyth- – the space preceded the rules. net, they provide ‘relative’ results. 同的形式岀現的可能性？作者以福柯的「 mic, self-driving “preferential re- However, as models which once (Leach: 2014) Nowadays it has 環境化政治管理學」作岀發點，集中討論 lays” (Massumi). merely represented an observ- become clear that users pay with 科技日益追求的「敏感性」如何為全捕捉 Datafied subjects, quantify- able reality become increasingly their data, which is increasingly 環境中的「不感度」所隔離。如科學家馬 ing and tracking all, drilling down autonomous this relationship can the means to finance the corpo- 克．維瑟 (Mark Weiser)所言，鎮靜電腦科 into and mining every last bit of reverse. As discussed by Kevin 39 IIII 39 IIII 39 IIII 39 IIII Data Disobedients? Forthcoming propositions on recipes for water and soil, p.34

Hello World Soufflé, or 99 Bottles of Beer?

Wasn't that from “The Complexity of Songs”? in short, O(log N).

99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer. Take one down, pass it around, 98 bottles of beer on the wall...

98 bottles of beer on the wall, 98 bottles of beer. Take two down, pass it around, 96 bottles of beer on the wall... ration’s growth as they sell this 技源於一系列的緊張媒體科技，這種對 data, might in many ways be un- Slavin, the virtual world created data to third party advertisers. 立生產是否有著既定的條款所驅使？ derstood as subsets, offshoots or in the space of algorithmic inter- Cyber capitalism is structured descendants of this ontogenetic action is beginning to precede by a highly intricate communica- trinity of economic man///burning tion series of networks that con- man///emergency man. But what nects users through their usage might the potential forms of emer- of social platforms but outside of gence be for this datafied subject these platforms 'hyperlinks' di- in an environment of capture all ordinary life and to enact influ- rect us. How do we navigate and capitalism? And in what mean- ence upon it; the algorithms are explore this information super- ingful ways might the rules of the becoming the builders of a space highway? We do this predomi- game be in play? Sold as a world they once merely represented. nantly through search requests. A little genealogy: economic man of possibilities, the rise of “big Thus, ordinary life has begun to Algorithms ostensibly know what -> burning man -> emergency man data” as yet another ready excuse resemble gamespace in its gen- we want before we even type -> and now, their prodigal offspring, to capture more and colonise the esis – beyond the generally ac- them, as with Google’s ‘auto- the daughters and sons of data- next emergent territory as market. cepted metaphoric/analogous complete’. Search, thus, is not fied man. Digital fracking as our latest loga- similarities. merely an abstract logic but a In a series of lectures tracing rithmic pursuit. lived practice that helps manage the historical roots of neoliberal And all the while the seeming- Do you want to and sort the nature of information thinking, Michel Foucault highly un-capturable terms of service date my avatar? we seek as well as the direction lights the arrival of a new subject agreement of the invisible hand This algorithmic influence does of our queries. Google’s ‘Pag- on the horizon of 18th century lib- pushes on, preemptively upgrad- not only construct the environ- eRank’ (Page, Brin: 1999) based eral ideology: *homo œconomi- ing its capacity with strategic ment of life/play, it also imprints its cus*. In short, this economic man modifications to its grid of intel- logic on the process by which we is a newly identifiable subject, one ligibility. Ensuring a co-evolving construct the self. Data we pro- that arises out of the “grid of intel- relationship with its tools of cap- vide through online activity is fed ligibility” which new formulations ture for extracting the next proto- into algorithmic systems which around economic rationality begin territory while making enforceable attempt to ascertain our interests. to put into action. This grid will act the continued emergencies of its However, these algorithms do not 情 as the “interface of government own effects. Whether in the hippie identify our interests as we intend and the individual,” with econom- sands of Black Rock Desert or on to report them, but identify in our ic man as a subjectivity that both the militarised streets of Ferguson, actions possible interests as they pinpoints and emerges from the the economic war machine of this align with corporate/marketing 人 interstices of something as seem- “environmental technology” (Fou- agendas. The resulting targeted ingly simple as an effectively cal- cault) readily adapts and makes it- advertisements are placed in the culated supply and demand curve. self at home in the soil of the *oikos* same context as our social en- An emergent distinction of the it so ably prepared, unearthing fur- gagement where we (as social neoliberal from its liberal origi- ther rites of capture under the guise creatures) are most suggestible. on hyperlinks, has emerged not nals will be a thorough rejection of straw man theories and that As we continuously compare our- only as an algorithm for sorting of the ability of government to ritual form of sacrifice known as selves to the perfectly curated and indexing information on the ever understand causes, let alone survival of the fittest. abstractions with which we en- world wide web, but also a domi- attempt to manage them. While gage – both in the form of our nant paradigm that establishes such a critique is originally for- 0020friends’ curated virtual selves and the new social, cultural and po- mulated by liberalism in regards Gaming Systems, the simulations provided by algo- litical logics of search-based in- to government’s attempts to steer capitalizing on the gray rithms -- we create an idealized formation societies – a phenom- economic matters, neoliberalism area between gamespace and aspirational self. enon that Siva Vaidhyanathan will spread its grid of economic tri- gamic space as a critique By accepting this algorithmic characterizes as the ‘googliza- bunal outwards towards all forms of social codification logic we affirm its validity, just as tion of everything’ (2011). How- of governance. Cause is framed bygamers accept (buy into) a pre- ever, the implications of this he- by neoliberalism as ultimately un- Minka Stoyanova scribed rule-set. Furthermore, gemony in regard to questions of knowable by government and thus this acceptance (and the ideal- identity, free speech, expression, economic man will be guided by 我們生命的定義來自於我們在物理及虛 ized self that it generates) drives mobilization, etc. should not be an “invisible hand,” with the grid of 擬空間的交接點。我們所見的我並非唯 the final logic by which games- underestimated. intelligibility ostensibly being lim- 一的自我，而是由演算法邏輯所建立和 pace and gamic space become ited to operations on effects but 操控的一個既外化也優化的第二自我。 indistinguishable. ‘Like a lens, the filter bubble never causes. 由此延伸到認知的移滑：從真實生活以 invisibly transforms the world we In economic man’s mode of 外遊戲空間(game space)和在遊戲中的 7, 50, 19… Habits of high- experience by controlling what willing blindness to the possibility 模擬真實空間(gamic space)。此文分析 ly successful people we see and don’t see. It interferes of government addressing causes 演算法邏輯如何塑造我們的行為，並推 “In every job that must be done, with the interplay between our (e.g. social, ethical, cultural), the 想種類創意評論家：他們以遊戲中模擬 there is an element of fun. Find mental processes and our exter- notion of any particular baseline 真實空間的過程，把邏輯性的結論作演 the fun, and snap! the job’s a nal environment. In some ways norm is effectively denied by neo- 算法邏輯的解構。 game!” (Mary Poppins) it can act as a magnifying glass, liberalism’s preemptive incorpora- The promise of algorithmic ra- helpfully expanding our view of a tion of exception to any restrictive tionalization has always been to niche area of knowledge.' baseline. “Thus economized, ‘nor- maximize efficiency. Quantifica- (Pariser: 2012) mal’ is whatever appears as a sta- tion allows us to apply that op- tistical constant on the collective timization to our own behaviors, Are most users aware of the hid- level,” disciplinary power becom- promising to help us achieve in den control of search algorithms ing instead “an adaptive reuptake meat-space the idealized self we and how they affect obtained mechanism for emergent norma- present (and are presented with) 41 IIII 41 IIII 41 IIII 41 IIII A creative encounter with a biomimetic avatar, p.32

hey u hi

where r u? where u? results, whether that is for the tive variation” (Massumi). In such Hacking Tinder in net-space. Game-like incen- production of knowledge, infor- a calculative model of economic Marketers CamMi Pham and tives prompt us track everything mation retrieval or just surfing? intelligibility, rationality can now Blake Jamieson hacked Tinder. and modify our behaviors accord- Since December 4, 2009 Google be simply defined as that which Their system to collect “over 2015 uses ‘personalisation’ where it reacts to reality in a systemically matches in under 17 hours” uti- captures and logs user's histo- non-random, economically read- lizes social engineering -- such ries and adapts previous search able fashion. “Homo œconomi- as, modifying a user’s profile pic- queries into the real-time search cus is someone who accepts real- ture to appear sponsored by Tin- ingly. We begin to view ourselves results. This search engine bias ity” (Foucault), that is to say, who der -- to “become wanted on Tin- as the always-optimizable sec- retains user data as algorithms agrees to the framework of the der.” While this hack might seem ond-self; we become beholden gather, extract, filter and moni- grid, the “reality” upon which this counter-intuitive or not in keep- to the algorithmic efficiency s/he tor our online behavior, offering play transpires. And so, in the end, ing with the objectives of Tinder is programmed to desire. Every suggestions for the subsequent (match-making), it arises from second not devoted to productivi- search requests. In exchange for Pham and Jamieson’s subjective ty becomes wasted and every as- our data we receive ‘tailored’ ad- reinterpretation of the Tinder’s ul- pect of our lives becomes defined vertising, making things fit, turn- timate aims. For them, it became by its productive value. ing ourselves into commodities a marketing problem; “how does for advertisers and receiving free one increase an individual’s vis- Revealing the Logic internet usage. This personalisa- 輸 ibility within Tinder?” Through cheating, creative pro- tion is the present currency in the Huizinga, in Homo Ludens, ducers – acting within gamic online marketing of our data. As defines the area of play as be- space – are able to critique these we search everyday many users ing different from “ordinary life” codifications by revealing their allow this personalisation to oc- (28). Within our current techno- algorithmic fallacies. Huizinga cur, without installing plug-ins 家 logical landscape there exists makes a distinction between the that would inhibit it or by deleting a cognitive slippage (gray-area) spoil-sport and the cheat. While cookies. Instead we sign in and between gamespace (the space the spoil-sport rejects the frame- donate our data and in return of the game-play -- different from work of play, the cheat accepts, receive purported personalised economic man is “someone who ordinary life) and gamic (game- but reinterprets the rules. The search results. is eminently governable,” but with ic) space (ordinary life which has cheat might deconstruct, but does Technology is what the 21st governmentality now acting more been gamified or presented in a not destroy gamespace (11). century is about along with how in a mode of “environmentality,” in game-like fashion). This gray area Average players are content to it controls our attention, through the sense that “the technology to makes possible the critical appli- navigate gamespace as intended the ‘filter bubble’ - where cer- be employed is not discipline-nor- cation of subjective (sometimes by the algorithm (rule-set). How- tain information on the internet is malization, but action on the envi- absurdist) interpretations to Tin- ever, some players (cheaters) pre- kept invisible and hidden, which ronment. Modifying the terms of der (or other systems like it). In fer to interrogate the algorithm, deters us from learning about the game, not the players’ mental- order to investigate the critical po- these players co-opt the interface things we do not know. (Pariser: ity” (Foucault). tentiality of this gray area, howev- to discover meta-truths within 2012). This leads to the ‘distor- er, it is necessary to identify how the imposed logic; this is the criti- tion effect’- one of the challeng- But what might it is formed. cal space inhabited by Pham and es posed by personalised filters. the potential forms of emergence Jamieson. Tinder is intended to be ‘Like a lens, the filter bubble in- be for this datafied subject in an If it looks like a duck, a tool to optimize the dating pro- visibly transforms the world we environment of capture all and quacks like a duck, cess. However, Pham and Jamie- experience by controlling what capitalism? it might be a chicken. son -- by approaching Tinder as we see and don’t see. It inter- Our adoption of increasingly pow- a game -- were able to reveal that, feres with the interplay between Burning man is economic man erful mobile devices is leading while the external (ordinary life) our mental processes and our high on the accelerative fossil fu- us towards a multi-directional objective might be to find love, the external environment. In some els of productivity. In a short riff on equivalence within our lived expe- internal objective of the game is to ways it can act as a magnifying the Burning Man festival (the an- rience; we are able to work, play collect matches. The absurdity of glass, helpfully expanding our nual desert retreat long-beloved or socialize from any location the number of matches they were view of a niche area of knowl- of many a Silicon Valley disruptor), through a single interface. Mean- each able to acquire reveals the edge.' (Pariser: 2012) But at the Donna Haraway speaks of how while, broadly accepted design disparity between these two ob- same time, these filters limit what we would be more well-served by practices are standardizing our jectives. Furthermore, the process we are exposed to and therefore calling what has been popularly technological interactions; we by which they cheated reveals affect the way we think and learn. construed as the age of the an- use the same gestures to browse something further about ourselves, Personalisation has legitimised thropocene as that of the “capita- our stock portfolio as we do to our trust in the system itself. Users, an online public sphere that is loscene.” This is specifically so as play Candy Crush. seeing the modified profile images, manipulated by algorithms. to place the focus more squarely dutifully “swiped right,” revealing Welcome to the City of Disci- on how it is that the processual It is both the purview themselves as average players. pline where we govern ourselves power of a capture all capitalism and the responsibility of the phi- It is both the purview and the (Foucault:1975) through our 'be- has now brought all things, hu- losopher/artist to be more than an responsibility of the philosopher/ haviours' being captured and cul- mans included, within its wake. average player. artist to be more than an average tivated in the 'personalised' ma- Such is the metabolism that re- player. However, as elucidated by chines, sharing everything we do sults in today’s taught pairing of This trend is at once liberating and Pham and Jamieson, this act is along with giving up our privacy economy and ecology, the *oikos* disorienting. Traditional signifiers not restricted to artists, but has for free services and the atten- (Greek root for “eco-”, originally in- of our presence in gamespace become a staple component of tion economy. This state of disci- voking household, dwelling place are being co-opted by ordinary participatory culture. “Uber-us- pline is reflected in the logistical or habitat) of each forming a par- life. For example, Google Glass ers,” who thrive within the slip- capture of our data, preferences, ticularly energetic symbiotic cou- promises a future in which we ac- page between gamespace and intimacies, and search queries. pling in this “third age of carbon,” cess information through heads- gamic space, are forming a new 37 IIII 37 IIII 37 IIII 48 IIII

are expressive of particular politi- of Software Code and Mediation Kittler, Friedrich A. “The City is a candidate School of Creative Me- cal commitments or that mediate in the Digital Age. London: Pal- Medium.” Trans. Mathew Griffin. dia, City University Hong Kong transactions in politically charged grave Macmillan, 2011. Print. New Literary History 27.4 (1996): (HK), and Director and Cura- ways.” (Howe and Nissenbaum, Bourriaud, Nicolas. Relational 717-29. Print 2006, 2009) Aesthetics. Paris, Les Presses du Manovich, Lev. The Language of From these comments, we reel, 2002. Print . New Media, London: MIT Press, can see that while TrackMeNot is Constant. Active Archives. Web. 2002. Print. often grouped with other tools to Manovich, Lev. Software Takes tor of the New York Volumetric protect ‘privacy’, there is a larger Command, London: Bloomsbury, Society (US). agenda at play, specifically an 2013. Print. Søren Pold (DK): Associate Pro- expressive (a term we will return “Mary Poppins – Just a Spoonful fessor, Department of Aesthetics to below) resistance to quantifi- of Sugar.” Dir. Robert Stevenson. and Communication, Aarhus Uni- cation as means of managing hu- Writers. Bill Walsh and Don DaG- versity (DK). man experience. Munster, in her 最 radi Music. Richard M. Sherman Jane Prophet (UK/HK): Professor, description of what is at stake in and Robert B. Sherman. Perf. School of Creative Media, City the project, says the following: Julie Andrews. Buena Vista Pic- University Hong Kong (HK). “Data mining is a technique tures, 1964. Movie. Ned Rossiter (AU): Professor of that belongs to knowledge econ- Marx, Karl, Capital: A Critique Communication, Institute for Cul- omies modulated by the diffuse 後 of Political Economy, Volume I, ture & Society, University of West- politics of biopower... the histori- Book One: The Process of Pro- ern Sydney (AU). cal shift, in western societies at duction of Capital, 1867. Web. Renée Ridgway (US/NL/DK/DE): least, from governing the indi- https://www.marxists.org/archive/ PhD candidate, Management, vidual to managing populations 離 marx/works/1867-c1/ Philosophy and Politics depart- via techniques such as the sta- Massumi, Brian. “National Enter- ment, Copenhagen Business tistical analysis and prediction prise Emergency: Steps Toward an School,(DK), and Research Asso- of lifespan, habit, custom and Ecology of Powers”. Theory Cul- ciate, Digital Cultures Research so on (Foucault, 1980 and 1991; 場 ture Society, 26: 2009: 153. Print. Lab, Leuphana University (DE). Lazzarato 2004). These tech- Mayer-Schönberger, Viktor and Audrey Samson (QC/HK): PhD niques for managing popula- Cukier, Kenneth. Big Data: A Rev- candidate School of Creative tions now saturate ‘life’ and can olution That Will Transform How Media, City University Hong be found everywhere... We can- We Live, Work, and Think. Eamon Kong (HK). not simply champion privacy and http://activearchives.org Dolan/ Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Eric Snodgrass (US/SE): PhD the individual against ubiquitous Chun, Wendy. Programmed Vi- 2014. Print. candidate, Malmö University (SE). surveillance and the corpora- sions: Software and Memory. The Neff, Gina and Stark, David. “Per- Winnie Soon (HK/DK): PhD can- tion. We need to look carefully MIT Press. 2011. Print. manently Beta: Responsive Organ- didate, Participatory IT research at the technical forces at work Cramer, Florian. “What is Post- ization in the Internet Era.” Soci- centre, Department of Aesthetics in networks for they both modu- digital?” APRJA 3.1.2014. Web ety Online: The Internet in Context. and Communication, Aarhus Uni- late and generate power and Eds, P.N. Howard and S. Jones. versity (DK). potentialities.” (2009) Crary, Jonathan. 24/7: Late Capi- Sage Publications. 2004. Print. Minka Stoyanova (US/HK): PhD The artist Eduardo Navas may talism and the Ends of Sleep. Lon- Parikka, Jussi and Sampson, candidate School of Creative have recognized these larger dy- don and New York: Verso, 2013. Tony D. The Spam Book: On Virus, Media, City University Hong Kong namics at play when he chose Dijck, José van. Mediated Memo- Porn, and Other anomalies from (HK). 48 IIII 48 IIII 48 IIII Welcome to the City of Discipline, p.37

Mac whore, clicking on every advert that comes your way. Do you not know what you can catch from unprotected search?

Tor disciple, how would I know you don’t actually work for US government under all your layers of skin? end. One avenue that has shown counter-strategy, suggesting that Hadziselimovic, Nils et al. “For- Studies, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT promise in frustrating data col- we “not simply retreat or withdraw getting Is Regulated via Musashi- Press, 2008: 78-87. Print lection in the browser, however, into the issue of privacy”, but rath- Mediated Translational Control of Wood, Friedrich A. “At the Mov- has been obfuscation. Obfusca- er “become noisy, as noisy as our the Arp2/3 Complex” Cell 156.6 tion, defined as “[t]he production, machines” (Munster 2009). (2014): 1153–1166. inclusion, addition, or communi- Not all critics were as posi- Haiven, Max. “Finance Depends cation of misleading, ambiguous, tive as Navas and Munster how- on Resistance, Finance Is Resist- or false data in an effort to evade, ever. TrackMeNot also generated ance, and Anyway, Resistance ies.” London Review of Books distract, or confuse data gath- significant controversy, with one Is Futile.” Mediations 26.1-2 (Fall 36.8 (April 2014). Web. erers or diminish the reliability blogger referring to the prototype, 2012-Spring 2013): 85-106. Web. @eco_bot, “Eco Bot tweets daily (and value) of data aggregations” in a later deleted post, as the Hall, Eric. Internet Core Protocols: climate reports by compiling data (Brunton and Nissenbaum, 2011), “Worst Security Tool Ever” (Hil- The Definitive Guide: Help for from weather related news articles has in part proven successful as ton, 2006). In fact it is interesting Network Administrators. O’Reilly & social media posts”, 2014. Web a strategy due to the ubiquity of to note the degree to which ob- Media, 2000. Print. the browser itself. While a web fuscation-based tools have been Haraway, Donna. “Anthropocene, service provider may be able to initially derided by the generally Capitalocene, Chthulucene: Stay- BIOGRAPHIES filter out unwanted requests from conservative security community, ing with the Trouble”, 2014. Web individuals, it is far more difficult though the larger strategy, often Christian Ulrik Andersen (DK): when tens of thousands of differ- referred to as ‘privacy-via-obfus- Associate Professor, Department ent users are attempting to pol- cation’, has since developed into of Aesthetics and Communica- lute their captured data in this an active subfield of computer tion, Aarhus University (DK). way. As such, obfuscation may science research. Perhaps more Emanuele Andreoli (IT): Inde- represent a unique avenue of re- interesting however are the obfus- pendent researcher. sistance against contemporary cation-based projects directly or 首 Manuel Bürger (DE): Design- datafication in online space. indirectly inspired by TrackMeNot. er, The laboratory of Manuel While obfuscation has a long One such project, I Like What Bürger (DE). history in both the analog and I See (2012), by Steve Klise, is a Alessandro Carboni (IT/HK): PhD digital realms, its direct applica- web browser extension that au- candidate School of Creative Me- tion to online datafication (the tomatically clicks all ‘Like’ links 先 dia, City University Hong Kong quantification and subsequent on Facebook. As with other suc- (HK). monetization of human activity) cessful works employing obfus- Damien Charrieras (FR/HK): As- appears to have begun in 2006, cation as a strategy, the project sistant Professor, School of Crea- with the release of the Track- can be described quite succinct- 到 tive Media, City University Hong MeNot browser plugin. The spe- ly. On the project’s Github page, Kong (HK). cific problem that this project Klise writes: James Charlton (NZ): PhD can- addresses is the collection and “When you visit Facebook, click didate, Transart Institute (US/DE) aggregation of sensitive personal the thumbs up in the extension bar 場 and Plymouth University (UK). data during search. Implemented and start scrolling and liking. Lik- Geoff Cox (UK/DK): Associate as a free browser plugin for Fire- ing and scrolling. Every instance Professor, Department of Aes- fox and Chrome, TrackMeNot of the word ‘Like’ will be clicked. thetics and Communication, works by sending ‘decoy’ queries Don't worry, Facebook is a fun Aarhus University (DK), and fac- to popular search engines like place full of all of the stuff you like.” http://vimeo.com/97663518 ulty, Transart Institute (US/DE). Google, Bing, or Baidu, when- (2012) Horkheimer, Max, Theodor W. Fran Gallardo (ES/UK): PhD can- ever a user searches, hiding their Adorno, and Gunzelin Schmid didate, School of Geography and actual interests in a cloud of al- This is an extract. A full version of Noerr. Dialectic of Enlightenment New Media Art and Technology gorithmically-generated ‘noise’. the article is available in APRJA, : Philosophical Fragments. Stan- Lab, Queen Mary, University of The tool is designed to increase 4.1 (2015), www.aprja.net. ford, Calif.: Stanford University London (UK). the difficulty of aggregating such Press, 2002. Print. Daniel Howe (US/HK): Assis- data into either accurate or iden- Works cited Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: tant Professor, School of Crea- tifying user profiles. Addition- a study of the play element in tive Media, City University Hong ally TrackMeNot attempts to pro- Alexander, Christopher et. al. A culture. Boston: The Beacon Kong (HK). vide “for some users a means Pattern Language: Towns – Build- Press, 1950. Print. Deborah Leah Lawler-Dormer of expression, akin to a political ings – Construction. New York: Ox- Jacobs, Jane. The Death And Life (NZ): Joint Creative Practice Doc- placard or a petition. For others ford University Press, 1977. Print. of Great American Cities. New toral candidate at COFA, Univer- it provides a practical means of Barad, Karen. Meeting the Uni- York: Random House and Vintage sity of New South Wales, Sydney resistance… to large-scale sys- verse Halfway, Durham & Lon- Books, 1961. Print. (AU), and NICAI, University of tems of surveillance”. On the don: Duke University Press, 2007. Jamieson, Blake. “Beating the Auckland (NZ). project website, the technology Print Tinder game. 800+ Matches. I’ll Wing Ki Lee (HK): Lecturer, Acad- is described as a form of “politi- Boluk, Stephanie and Lenz, Wylie. probably get banned for this…” emy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong cal action building on an intellec- Generation Zombie: Essays on Medium.com. 9 March 2014. Web. Baptist University (HK). tual tradition that includes figures the Living Dead in Modern Cul- Keenan, Thomas, & Weizman, Lukasz Mirocha (PL): PhD can- such as Langdon Winner and ture. Mcfarland, 2011. Print. Eyal. Mengele's Skull: The Advent didate, and Head of interdiscipli- Bruno Latour, who have argued Berry, David M. “Abduction Aes- of a Forensic Aesthetics, Berlin: nary research project, University that technical devices and sys- thetic: Computationality and the Sternberg Press, 2012. Print of Warsaw (PL). tems may embody political and New Aesthetic”. Stunlaw Blog Kirschenbaum, Matthew. Mecha- Lea Muldtofte Olsen (DK): PhD moral qualities, and categorize 04.2012. Web & London: MIT University Press, Aarhus University (DK). protocols to develop utilities that Berry, David M. The Philosophy 2008. Print Ellen Pearlman (US/HK): PhD 44 IIII 44 IIII 44 IIII 44 IIII # genealogies of datafied man, p.37 Gaming Systems, capitalizing on the gray area between gamespace and gamic space as a critique of social codification, p.39 7 Day outlook, rain Shall we play a game? changing to 新しいレポート: may affect wifi signals

Stay dry, becoming towards Can you tell me some gossip?

asia, Dubai violence,

u seem very smart. i would like to get to know you.

r u busy? … can we talk l8er? class of creative critics -- chal- TrackMeNot as the source for ries in the Digital Age. Stanford, the Dark Side of Digital Culture. lenging us to re-examine digital his own work entitled Traceblog. Calif: Stanford University Press, Hampton Press (NJ, 2009. Print. space and our relationship to it. Over the course of this five-year 20 07. Print. Pham, Cam Mi. “Cruel Intentions: project, Navas ran TrackMeNot in Doctorow, Cory. “The Coming 0020his primary browser continuously War on General Purpose Com- Surveillance from April 2008 to April 2013, and puting.” 28th Chaos Communi- Countermeasures: reposted each of TrackMeNot’s cations Congress. Berlin, 2012. Expressive Privacy generated searches to the Trace- Keynote/Web 2015 Matches in Under 17 Hours: byof his actual searches). He writes: Ernst, Wolfgang. ‘Toward a Media The formula to become Wanted Daniel C. Howe “[w]hat I find most interesting Archaeology of Sonic Articula- on Tinder.” Medium.com. 18.2014. about TrackMeNot is that the tions,’ in Digital Memtory and the Web 在當代社會裡我們絕對服從瀏覽器的運 pseudo search results are some- Archive, ed. Parikka, Electronic Raz, Uri. How do spammers 作。在未得到使用者同意下，網頁廣告 what a reflection of what I do on- Mediations no. 39, Minneapolis: harvest email addresses? Web. 商、高壓政權以及破壞份子會透過攻擊 line. According to the developers University of Minnesota Press, 貴資料。由於瀏覽器涉獵界面牽運甚廣， Ernst, Wolfgang. Digital Memory Rossiter, Ned and Soenke 一般使用者並沒有太多防範自保的餘地。 and the Archive. Minneapolis: Zehle. “Experience Machines.” University of Minnesota Press, Sociologia del Lavoro 133 (2014): 2013. Print. 111-32. Print. Ellis, Bret Easton: American Psy- Rumsfeld, Donald. “Defense. cho, London: Picador, 1991. Print. gov News Transcript: DoD News Fetveit, Arlid. “Convergence by Briefing – Secretary Rums- 怠 Means of Globalized Remedia- feld and Gen. Myers”. Unit- tion” Northern Lights 5.2007: 57- ed States Department of De- 74. Print. fense (defense.gov), February Fetveit, Arild. “The Ubiquity of 12, 2002. Web http://www.de- [T]o radically automate and 工 Photography,” Throughout: Art fense.gov/transcripts/transcript. to automate radically as a care- and Culture Emerging with Ubiq- aspx?transcriptid=2636 ful ethical and aesthetic gesture. uitous Computing, Cambridge, Sassen, Saskia. “Unsettling Top- (Anna Munster) Mass.: MIT Press, 2013. Print. ographic Representation.” Sen- 作 Gabrys, Jennifer. Digital Rubbish: tient City: Ubiquitous Computing, The ubiquity of the web-browser a natural history of electronics. Architecture, and the Future of as an interface to the web, and to The University of Michigan Press, Urban Space. Ed. Mark Shepard. digital content in general, has by 2013. Print. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2011. now surpassed that of any other Galloway, Alexander R. Gaming: 182-89. Print 勤 Essays on Algorithmic Culture. Shcherbakova, Tatyana and software entity. Some designers have even made the case that Minneapolis, MN: University of Vergells, Maria. “Spam report: the browser represents a key lo- Minnesota Press, 2006. Print. February 2014”. Securelist. Web. cus for the inculcation of obedi- Google. “Delete search history” learn or adhere to the rules of a answer/465?hl=en>. Shepard, Mark, ed. Sentient different set of site designers Foucault, Michel. The Birth of Bio- City: Ubiquitous Computing, Ar- or administrators without any 樂 politics: Lectures at the Collège chitecture, and the Future of Ur- say whatsoever in what those de France 1978–1979, trans. Gra- ban Space. Massachusetts: MIT rules might be (Zer-Aviv, 2014). ham Burchell. New York: Palgrave Press, 2011. Print. Whether or not one accepts such Macmillan, 2008. Print. Slavin, Kevin. “How Algorithms claims, the browser remains a Facebook. What's the difference Shape our World,” TED.com. July key focal point for much of the MeNot keeps track of the actual between deactivating and delet- 2011. Online video/Web. surreptitious data gathering and searches and with time begins ing my account? Web. 20 October Sontag, Susan. On Photography, surveillance that pervade the to assimilate parallel results that 2014 . Soon, Winnie. Hello Zombies. there are a multitude of vectors what the user would search for… Flicker Data. 19.10.2014. Web. htt- 2014. Web pressive governments, and oth- clone about whom I’m learning Fuller, Matthew. Media Ecologies: Stiegler, Bernard: “How I became er malicious players can attack more and more about. I like this Materialist Energies in Art and a Philosopher,” Acting out, Stan- the browser to identify its user about TrackMeNot, and it was ac- Technocultures, Cambridge MA: ford, Calif.: Stanford University and access valuable personal tually the first thing that interested MIT Press, 2007. Print. Press, 2009. Print. data without consent. Due to the me about it… For me Traceblog Flusser, V. Towards a Philosophy Stiegler, Bernard: The Symbolic breadth of the attack surface that is another project in which I aim of Photography, Reaktion Books: Misery, Cambridge: Polity Press, the browser provides, there is lit- to explore the implications of the London, 2005. Print. 2014. Print tle that the average users can growing pervasiveness of infor- Galloway, Alexander R. Protocol: The Internet Society. Simple Mail do to defend themselves. If you mation flow and its manipulation.” How Control Exists after Decen- Transfer Protocol. Apr 2001. Web. are not identified and tracked by Munster, in a review of the two tralization. The MIT Press, 2006. code, or browser fingerprint- tween this manipulation of infor- Groys, Boris. “Religion in the Age Tufte, Edward, quoted in Rich- ing, then caching and timing at- mation flow in the service of da- of Digital Reproduction” e-flux ard Wright, ‘Data Visualization’, tacks are likely to get you in the tafication and obfuscation as a journal, 4.2008:1-10. Print. in Matthew Fuller, ed. Software 46 IIII 46 IIII 46 IIII 46 IIII

數 據 似 乎 只 為 自 己 說 明 Example from Constant’S Work Is and Aesthetic Gestures of Critical 一切，而不是在迷失在可視化的矯飾下。 ‘Spectrum Sort’ Where the Algo- Self-Affirmation

數據似乎只為自己說明 Example from Constant’S Work Is and Aesthetic Gestures of Critical 一切，而不是在迷失在可視化的矯飾下。 ‘Spectrum Sort’ Where the Algo- Self-Affirmation