September 23, 2002

11:09 PM

CodeDoc, a new exhibition at Whitney Artport, forces us to view the scripts and codes that generate software art before seeing the “art.” The other aspect of the curatorial premise: each artist's code must create art that connects three points in space.
[via rhizome].
posted by hama7 (12 comments total)

Geez, what is up with the question marks appearing in place of quote marks? I keep think the Riddler is posting on MeFi. "But I digress."

I thought this was funny: The 'core' of the code (commonly referred to as the 'main') was not to exceed 8KB, ...

I can only assume these folks know nothing of OO programming. Main?

Or this: What distinguishes software art from other artistic practices, is that, unlike any form of visual art, it requires the artist to write a purely verbal description of their work.

Oh, please. I've been to too many exhibitions were the so-called art was nothing more than a description of some concept you were supposed to see in your mind's eye. And "write a purely verbal description"? What other sort of writting is there? Oh yeah, that non-verbal writing.

In some cases, reading the source code will enhance the perception of the work; in other cases, the code doesn't necessarily add to the projects.

Can I get a "Duh"? Better yet, can I get a job writing this sort of stuff?

I write code, and I write about code, and I *used* to paint. I am all in favor of giving more props to the artistic side of software development, and the technical side of creating art, but fetishizing source code with pretentious twaddle just doesn't do it for me.
posted by Ayn Marx at 12:18 AM on September 24, 2002

Geez, what is up with the question marks appearing in place of quote marks?

You're seeing question marks?? All I see are those consarned boxes again.

fetishizing source code with pretentious twaddle just doesn't do it for me.

Fair enough, but I thought it was vaguely interesting to see how things were done, and it was also a good reason to post Golan Levin's axis. What did you think of the finished products?
posted by hama7 at 12:48 AM on September 24, 2002

I see boxes. hama7, did you compose your post in something like Word, and then copy-paste? If so, this could be the problem. I usually use notepad (windows/pc, obviously), which (so far) hasn't generated any boxes...
posted by taz at 1:27 AM on September 24, 2002

did you compose your post in something like Word

Nope, that's the funny thing. It was strictly a cut-and-paste job. I've read about smart quotes, but this didn't seem to fit that category. Or did it?

Are we havin' a mini-conversation, within a conversation? Fun!
posted by hama7 at 2:31 AM on September 24, 2002

yes! a tiny, little, itsy-bitsy conversation-within-a-conversation! what did you cut and paste from? was it the site? if so, perhaps it specified characters that aren't supported here? (here's what happens when I copy it from the source: ?“art.?”)

ps: i've left off capitals letters to more fully emphasize the tiny nature of this communication...
posted by taz at 3:12 AM on September 24, 2002

um. that would be capital letters, of course.
posted by taz at 3:24 AM on September 24, 2002

(here's what happens when I copy it from the source: ??art.??)

ah hah!! Both boxes and question marks! therein lies the problem. next time, i endeavor to police my quotation marks more carefully. thanks for the concise, precise, and tiny information, taz!
posted by hama7 at 3:32 AM on September 24, 2002

gee - 'twas only a small thing, hama7. just replace any quotations that you've pasted within the comment field (though you may need to start at the space before the actual quotation mark, and likewise write over the space after) and I'm guessing this will minimize the problem.
posted by taz at 3:41 AM on September 24, 2002

I'm guessing this will minimize the problem.

well, in order to decrease the slight possibility of having to attend to the most miniscule details concerning rather picayune quirks, future comments will undergo microscopic evaluations, according to parvitude of quotational inclusion.

make no small beer of that!
posted by hama7 at 4:47 AM on September 24, 2002

oi! you have me beat!!
posted by taz at 5:47 AM on September 24, 2002

Ha ha! Thanks, taz!
posted by hama7 at 6:07 AM on September 24, 2002

this project is really interesting to me. the visuals are one thing, and to me almost besides the point. consider camille utterback's piece: it was written in C. it was written poorly according to my aesthetics; comments were needlessly verbose and codeblocks needlessly broken by blank lines. there is a style and method to software authorship which is not discernable from the final output, and that to me is very cool.

what also interests me are the language choices of the artists. camille chose C, which i think is quite brave of any non-programmer. many chose Java. these languages are generally very pragmatic ones: there is not much innovation in them. i would have been very impressed to see languages such as Haskell or LISP (and particularly Scheme). but i do recognize it is difficult to produce graphics with those languages that is accessible to many casual viewers.
posted by moz at 11:00 AM on September 27, 2002