Code Control

codedigitalart, ,

Therefore it seems that for each specific “sign”, there is a precise meaning for each one of us, defining aspects of communication similar to a system of thought linked to our way of life – in which we need a thought object, a material sign and someone who interprets this sign.

But what happens when this interpreter seems to be embodied by a (or reads through a) computer?

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Art, as a way to discover the world around us, allows to position an aspect of physicality (of embodiment) in the approach of a subject, because our environment can be viewed, represented, read, performed, touched, listened to or even tasted. Then, this empirical approach between the world and ourselves is based on a subjectivity that is hardly mesurable, as it would be the case in the establishment of a methodology – an essential postulate for disciplines related to science. However, when we explore the successive layers in the relationship to our environment, this sensitive aspect seems to be based on a physical and scientific structure – which becomes methodological by its structure itself. Therefore, these successive layers allow us to reflect on the ambivalence of our relationship to the world, between the sensitive-emotional feelings and the elementary scientific properties. This relevance can also be transposed in a language system.

Indeed, if writing and oral language are based on a very precise and logical structural grid (grammar – syntax – etc.), it is interesting to understand that this structure open to reverie, invention, at least a transversal and subjective reading or interpretation of words. Thus, from rigid development and logic can result an empirical way of seeing the world. Therefore it seems that for each specific “sign”, there is a precise meaning for each one of us, defining aspects of communication similar to a system of thought linked to our way of life – in which we need a thought object, a material sign and someone who interprets this sign.

But what happens when this interpreter seems to be embodied by a (or reads through a) computer? If the computer codes reside in an immanent structure, with no other references than itself, the notion of interpretation seems to have a double meaning here – by a broad referential field, a set of algorithms can interpret data by synthesis and giving a generalized conclusion and therefore not complete (since generalization delete the so-called insignificant aspects). On the other hand, human interpretation, through a computer, can be duplicated by this empirical subjectivity. If, through new technologies, humans have gradually convinced themselves that they can control everything – by collecting precise data – the hyper-object aspect leads to introduce the notion of successive layers into data information in general. This would suggest that the digitization of surrounding elements – such as climate change – does not allow us to control their content and that the only way would be to try to predict human behavior related to the study case. Therefore, this element opens to reflection about our reading of the data, which has always tended to control and not really predict, or act accordingly. 

This observation commits us to understand that, through digital technologies, we should begin to conceive our daily lives in a different way, to act before controlling, in order to give ourselves time to discover, embody or even perform this environment, before imposing a dominant narrative guided by a rigid structure.

Original Researches by Yutong Xie and Jonathan Brandel
Text and research-development by Valérie Félix

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