Kindred Code
From Maze
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| + | === TO INTEGRATE INTO THE CHAPTER === | ||
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* Algorithms and Action (Mark S.) | * Algorithms and Action (Mark S.) | ||
* Screensavers and Computer Dreams (Nick) | * Screensavers and Computer Dreams (Nick) | ||
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* Generative Design (Casey) | * Generative Design (Casey) | ||
| − | Kindred Code | ||
| − | Introduction: | + | === === |
| − | 10 PRINT is not a game. It does not present itself as a game. It has no playable character. And aside from stopping the endless progression of the drawing loop, the person at the screen has no opportunity for interaction. Though the person try to solve the maze, find various paths through it, these attempts are frustrated by the continuous progression of the maze at it scrolls up the screen. By this criteria, 10 PRINT seems an unlikely object of study in the pursuit of digital culture where "interactivity" is king. | + | 10 PRINT is not a game and has not been presented, decades ago or in the book, as one. It has no playable character, "man" or ship. The person at the screen has no opportunity to interact with this BASIC program - the only option is to interact with the BASIC interpreter and interrupt the program. Though a user may try to solve the maze, to find various paths through it, these attempts are frustrated by the continuous progression of the maze at it scrolls up the screen. By this criteria, 10 PRINT seems an unlikely object of study in the pursuit of digital culture where games are central objects of study and interactivity is king. |
| − | Since the earliest studies of digital culture, writing about literary hypertext and game studies, much has been made of the potential, possibility, and power of interactivity. Hypertexts [cite some Landow here] afford the reader the opportunity to engage in navigating the text beyond mere page turning. The interactivity [cite some Crawford or Aarseth or Juul] of video games immerses the player in the gameworld. Virtual worlds, Moos, Augmented Realities immerse, envelope, and ensnare the player through the lure of interaction. Certainly the early 21st century discourse on web 2.0 [cite Tim O’Reilly] clarions a similar engagement through user actions and contributions, writing blogs, correcting and expanding wikis, tweeting. | + | Since the earliest studies of digital culture, writing about literary hypertext and game studies, much has been made of the potential, possibility, and power of interactivity. Hypertexts have afforded the reader the opportunity to not just flip pages, but to engage in navigating the text by following links or activating interface elements. The interactivity of video games can give players a sense of agency, immersing them in gameworlds through characters they control. Virtual worlds of various sorts, from MUDs through recent augmented reality games immerse, envelope, and ensnare the player thanks to their interactivity. The early 21st century discourse on web 2.0 began by (O’Reilly 2005) recognizing another expansion of interactivity through "rich user experiences" provided by API-enabled mash-ups as well as through user actions and contributions, writing blogs, correcting and expanding wikis, tweeting. |
| − | However, this last example makes clear an oversights of the basic assumption, namely that interactivity is framed as an activity that occurs between the user and the system at the level of the interface. Nick Montfort (2004) and Matthew Kirschenbaum (2008) have identified this tendency among scholars as a sign of “screen essentialism,” in which, as Kirschenbaum puts it, the “digital event on the screen” becomes the sole object of study, at the expense of the underlying code, the hardware, the storage devices, and even the non-digital inputs and outputs that make the digital object possible in the first place. | + | This last example begins to show an oversights of a basic assumption, namely that, because interactivity is framed as an activity that occurs between the user and the system at the level of the interface, the focus of studies often turns to that interface. Nick Montfort (2004) and Matthew Kirschenbaum (2008) have identified this tendency among scholars as a sign of “screen essentialism,” in which, as Kirschenbaum puts it, the “digital event on the screen” becomes the sole object of study, at the expense of the underlying code, the hardware, the storage devices, and even the non-digital inputs and outputs that make the digital object possible in the first place. |
| − | As the BASIC and Commodore 64 chapters make clear, 10 PRINT circulated in a cultural moment that instead privileged interaction at the level of the program, the lines of code. 10 PRINT epitomizes a relationship between human and computer where the software is not the application that is executed but the means by which the human will come to better understand the operations of the computer. Nor is a program a completed system loaded from stored memory, but a fragment, an always-partial set of processes subject to change, expansion, revision, and reimagining. To type in that code is to commence an adventure, to put the bike on the road, the surf board in the water, and much like the "Hello, World" moment to begin to move in and with the language of the system. All of the cultural theories about being initiated into the laws of a system through language resonate with this moment, albeit only hypothetical. | + | As the BASIC and Commodore 64 chapters make clear, 10 PRINT circulated in a cultural moment that instead privileged an undrestanding of how programs, lines of code running on computers, actually functioned. 10 PRINT epitomizes a relationship between human and computer where the software is not the application that is executed but the means by which the human will come to better understand the operations of the computer. Nor is a program a completed system loaded from stored memory, but a (functional) fragment, an always-partial set of processes subject to change, expansion, revision, and reimagining. To type in that code is to commence an adventure, to put the bike on the road or the surf board in the water. It was a "HELLO, WORLD" in which the "user," also a programmer, to began to move in and with the language of the system. |
| − | The Code as Text | + | |
| + | === The Code as Text === | ||
A program is a process, a part of a process, a sign of a process, an excerpt from a process. Programs are in process, and their lines of code mark potential. Software is typically conceived in commercial terms as a discrete, quantifiable object that can be contained and exchanged, owned and licensed, borrowed and pirated. However, endless versioning, patches, fixes, expansions make clear, even on the commercial end, that software is always in the stream of its own realization, or as the development paradigms of github and subversion would have it, a fork of a previous system. Development systems use “versioning” as a central metaphor for development. Software in this context emerges as a Text, in Barthes’ terms, and the program, a Work: | A program is a process, a part of a process, a sign of a process, an excerpt from a process. Programs are in process, and their lines of code mark potential. Software is typically conceived in commercial terms as a discrete, quantifiable object that can be contained and exchanged, owned and licensed, borrowed and pirated. However, endless versioning, patches, fixes, expansions make clear, even on the commercial end, that software is always in the stream of its own realization, or as the development paradigms of github and subversion would have it, a fork of a previous system. Development systems use “versioning” as a central metaphor for development. Software in this context emerges as a Text, in Barthes’ terms, and the program, a Work: | ||
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| − | Hammurabi | + | === Hammurabi === |
In the days of iPads, Apps, and, frankly, locked-down graphical user interfaces it is hard to imagine a world where people running a personal computer for the very first time type in programs to learn how the machine works. Perhaps there are always multiple worlds, as users of Unix-based systems continue to seek out the experience of the command line, that icon of user engagement of contact with the system, akin to the sense of the fixed-gear bike, closer contact with the machine. And yet even that example of the immediacy offered by an operating system does not capture BASIC culture. | In the days of iPads, Apps, and, frankly, locked-down graphical user interfaces it is hard to imagine a world where people running a personal computer for the very first time type in programs to learn how the machine works. Perhaps there are always multiple worlds, as users of Unix-based systems continue to seek out the experience of the command line, that icon of user engagement of contact with the system, akin to the sense of the fixed-gear bike, closer contact with the machine. And yet even that example of the immediacy offered by an operating system does not capture BASIC culture. | ||
