On Media Art Software

Dr. Everardo Reyes-Garcia

Université de Paris 13

!Slides available:

http://slidesha.re/1CqYHxa

UFRJ Rio de Janeiro, September 3, 2014.

CAC.4 | Organizers: M. Fragoso, T. Fraga, G. Nóbrega

Artists have always created and adapted their own tools.

In the digital era, part of those tools can be recognized as

‘media art software’.

• necessary for media artists to be considered as such?

• defines us as a community and field in front of other domains?

Are we perceived through the software we use?

• synonymous of multiple software and programming languages for

graphics and simulations (in the same way cinema has been

equated to Final Cut or photography to Photoshop)?

media art software

Media Art Software as Media

media art software != artistic software

• “artistic software is, first and foremost, software created for

purposes different than traditional pragmatic ones (…) they

are works of art in their own right” [ Gourinova & Shulgin, 2002 ]

• Artwork in form of software

• Software art

• authoring tools, communication tools and social networks

• personal and professional production of media content

• the outcomes are expected to fulfill pragmatic purposes

media art software != media software

“software holds a unique position among artistic media

because of its ability to produce dynamic forms, process gestures,

define behavior, simulate natural systems, and integrate other

media including sound, image, and text” [ Reas & Fry, 2008 ].

• authoring systems where software applications and

programming languages interrelate and cooperate

• but also any software is a potential environment and

laboratory to create media artworks

• and immaterial and virtual technologies

Complexity of media art software

Media Art Software and Culture

• Software: aesthetic principles, concepts, or programs

• Hardware: formal embodiment of the actual art objects

Software as metaphor for art

[ Jack Burnham, 1970 ]

• a series of ideological, historical, and political values

attached to the HCI

• power relations between the user and the way the software

acts as a model of action

Software as a form of digital subjectivity

[ Matthew Fuller, 2003 ]

• If software simulates ideology, then such simulations might

be interrogated. Speculative software would be software that

reveals its processes as it enacts them

• it is necessary to go further down the GUI

Speculative Software

Media Art Software

as Unit Operation

• the task would be to make evident its diversity: the multiplicity of

objects and the complexity of their interactions with other objects

(including humans)

• making ontographs [ Bogost, 2012 ]

Software as unit operations

some examples

Poèmes Stein JP. Balpe, S. Szoniecky, E. Reyes, 2014

http://brooom.org/poemesStein/

Poèmes Stein JP. Balpe, S. Szoniecky, E. Reyes, 2014

http://brooom.org/poemesStein/

Ontographs of Processing 2 E. Reyes, 2014

Conclusions and Proposals

• document the traces of our software

• reflect on why we choose a particular media art software?

Ethical, political, aesthetically speaking

• recommend the best suited ‘media art software’. But to do that

maybe we need first a pool of media art software

Should We Click ‘Save page’? Wikipedia List of Media Art Software

~200 software applications and languages

it shows how software could behave differently, mainly through

ruptures of function. To understand such ruptures demands also

to understand how the software operates

Importance of software art

Not only it is appealing to see and to interact with its elements, it

also represents the vision of another artist: how she thought the

names, icons, functions, and which algorithms were implemented

!

When we discover new software the mere production of ‘Hello

World’ is satisfying, but it is also important because it embraces

engagement

Aesthetics of media art software

ObrigadoEverardo Reyes

Université de Paris 13

!// ereyes.net