Code and Its Role in the World

The readings about code this week were particularly interesting to me. It’s intriguing to see how it is viewed and manipulated, and used for both science and art.

In Hayles’ paper, she mentions that “the more the worldview of code is accepted, the more ‘natural’ the layered dynamics of revealing and concealing the code seem.” (pg. 55) Amazingly, it seems that code and this worldview of it is becoming more and more a part of everyday life. It’s kind of like the Internet and how we experience hypertext; we interact and experience most oftentimes taking it for granted and without realizing it fully. Additionally she says, “The more ‘natural’ code comes to seem, the more plausible it is to conceptualize human thought as emerging from a machinic base of computational processes…” (pg. 55) This concept stunned me. I mean, are we trying to understand the way humans interact and think by proposing that at the very base or “brute” (pg. 54) levels of our computational thinking, we think in code? Are we trying to understand and break down human thought in order to reverse it and create it from scratch (to create AI)?

Hayles seems to argue that code is a partner, and not a hierarchical competitor to the other facets of language, speech and writing. It’s fascinating to think that by creating machines, which operate on the lowest level of binary function but can operate at higher levels that resemble natural languages, we call into question whether humans’ complex thought processes derive from binary code. This appears to liken us even more to Haraway’s notion that we are cyborgs….even that machine and human are not distinguishable.

Additionally, Lev Manovich mentions that theyrule.net assumes us to be intelligent enough to draw our own conclusions. “…we get convinced not by listening/watching a prepared message but by actively working with the data: reorganizing it, uncovering the connections, becoming aware of correlations.” This is a new level of hypertext which allows for more interactivity. I think it’s saying that we take the information we are looking at, whether it be code or hypertext, and it’s becoming more common for the general public to understand it.

To contrast both Hayles’ and Manovich’s ideas that we are becoming more and more aware of code and hypertext is Soren Pold’s paper, and particularly the first section concerning “The Engineered Image.” In this particular section, Pold quotes Don Norman, “If I were to have it my way, we would not see computer interfaces. In fact, we would not see computers: both the interface and the computer would be invisible.” Norman’s idea is very similar to the idea of the Memex; there is no concern for the inner workings of the computer or knowledge of the base level of the language in which the computer speaks.

Sorry about the novel here….but to conclude, I thought “On Software Art” was a very interesting piece. I thought it especially interesting, and relevant to this discussion of code, that they mention how code is often invisible. “By calling digital art ‘[new] media art,’ public perception has focused on zeros and ones as formatted into particular visual, acoustic and tactile media, rather than structures of programming. This view is reinforced by the fact that the algorithms employed to generate and manipulate computer music, computer graphics, digital text are frequently if not in most cases invisible, unknown to the audience and the artist alike.” I thought it also tied in really well with CODeDOC and how it attempted to reconcile the fact that the audience and artist are often unaware of the code at the base level of digital art and media.