Obsessive Sensing by LEAP

OBSESSIVE SENSING with: Jamie Allen, James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau, Ralf Baecker, Rosemar y Lee, Sascha Pohflepp and Chris Woebken, Addie Wagenknecht Exhibition Opening 4th April 2014 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 19.00 05.04.2014 26.04.2014 EXHIBITION

“So etwas können weder die Hände noch die Augen, noch die Finger leisten. Denn die Elemente sind weder faßbar, noch sind sie sichtbar oder greifbar. Deßhalb müssen Apparate erfunden werden, die für uns das Unfaßbare fassen, das Unsichtbare imaginieren und das Unbegreifliche konzipieren können.” Vilém Flusser (1985): Ins Universum der technischen Bilder, p. 21.

L Speculative imagination as “psycholiterature” – a desire for obsessive sensing Sandra Moskova

She explained to me that a suitably programmed computer can read a novel in a few minutes and record the list of all the words contained in the text, in order of frequency. “That way I can have an already completed reading at hand,” Lotaria says, “with an incalculable saving of time. What is the reading of a text, in fact, except the recording of certain thematic recurrences, certain insistences of forms and meanings?. . . ”1 Lotaria, a woman protagonist in Italo Calvino’s novel If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller, uses statistics as a computing process instead of reading novels (as she refuses to read the main narrator’s novel). In a way, this is a parody of Max Bense’s formalistic “information aesthetics” as a computational theory of modern art. Within it, he would for example measure the degree of order by using mathematical formulas and applying raster in order to statistically evaluate color ratios in artworks. Although mathematically correct, the methods are focused on constructing meaning out of formulas, whereas recipients are understood as static values or their role is even completely ignored. Also, Bense’s information aesthetics has not been challenged with critical perspectives, as mainly his followers and students have developed the approach.2 Only considering recipients as dynamic information receivers with certain capacities and cognition habits, can provide information aesthetics with its adequate sensitivity.

E Thus, referring to Calvino, to compute statistics should be enhanced from a recipient-orientated perspective, as “psycholiterature” to allow the reader make his/her own path. In connection to Guy Debord’s psychogéographie3, the free striving through the city with an open-end expectance towards sensing urban space, to strive through a text with the desire to sense literature, should be made computable. In an attempt to make the world understandable again, the here suggested psycholiterature focuses on dissecting text upon key-word-algorithms in order to extract discourse networks, which produce meaning and knowledge to exceed conventional perceptions (for example of what we know to be a “machine” as seen from a media and culture anthropology perspective of the Western history of the 20th century). To make the world understandable again relates to current discussions on the digital, new aesthetics and technology, where an apparent diffusion between the machine and nature becomes obvious:4 the digital increasingly structures the contemporary world yet it fades at the same time. It withdraws its materiality by being integrated, embedded, hidden, off-shored or merely forgotten.5 Similarly, in the sense of archive/memory6, entities (such as the machine), have dissolved upon the cutting point of hard- and software and have become mere ideas of themselves. A desire to make them understandable again, yes, to sense them, emerges. In relation to Franco Moretti’s concept of “distant reading”7, a psycholiterature is a desire for obsessive sensing, searching to bring (undead) software and code8 into life, literature thereby seen as a seismograph for social change. As a result, making so far inevident but essential context- and discourse-relations between terms visible, would provide new knowledge and expand fixed perceptions (for example of what we know to be a “machine”). In Max Bense’s understanding of writing and literature, he puts aesthetics after computing. “Information aesthetics” combines Claude Shannon’s Mathematical Theory of Communication (1948) with the semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce. Based on formalist modern art, Bense

L proposes this aesthetic theory on computation, radically turns away from semantics and abandons grammar, lexis and meaning. “The major intellectual mentor of concrete poetry”9, Bense is highly inspired by Shannon’s technical algorithms as a philosophical tool for not less but reinventing poetics. Shannon describes a method of statistical text analysis – a second-order approximation (digram structure as in English), for which to be constructed “one opens a book at random and selects a letter at random on the page. This letter is recorded. The book is then opened to another page and one reads until this letter is encountered. The succeeding letter is then recorded. Turning to another page this second letter is searched for and the succeeding letter recorded, etc.”10 As a result, Shannon develops algorithms of reading, which compute text fragments and create huge data pools and thereby construct predictable entities of meaning (without having to read the rest of the text). This, among with Peirce, inspires Bense for concrete poetry, which itself strips down meaning to a formal metaphysical (by being non-metaphysical) and ideological (by being non-ideological) text design11, for example as it can be seen in Rosmarie Waldrop’s prints form the 1970’s. Concrete poetry, where graphic space acts as a structural agent, is devoted to reduction: “[Concrete poetry] is reduction. . . . both conventions and sentence are replaced by spatial arrangement.”12 By concentrating only on the form though, Bense also turns away from historical implications of art and writing, and in reference to Shannon, seeks to translate mathematical algorithms of probability into aesthetical text constellations, a model of an ‘objective’ art and philosophy, which most of all anticipates the “linguistic turn”.

Rosmarie Waldrop (1970): Camp Printing, Published by Burning Deck, Providence, RI, 1970.

In his approach to quantify aesthetic processes, Max Bense proposes the ‘Programming of Beauty’13 as aesthetics and physics represent oppositional directions; Physics is given and aesthetics is constructed. Although he sees perfection as a temporary state in a constantly changing technical world, his attempts are nevertheless devoted to making perfection computable, towards formulating “the perfect”. “The Law of Avarageges” by Addie Wagenknecht questions the existence of such norms and attempts a “sort of a low-level artificial intelligence exercise”14, as technology is already superior to human capacities (when it comes to high resolution digital cameras), but we are still able to control the processes of image creation and thus norm construction. To think of this approach as speculative imagination, would mean to put computing after aesthetics (opposite to Max Bense), just as speculative programming models computation after the arts. Addie Wagenknecht’s constructions of what can be an average perception of norms defragment those as illusions. Her software-based approach expands conventional perceptions just as distant reading and psycholiterature would do, as they allow striving through “text” with algorithms without this being

L paradox. As Cramer argues, some software exists in purely imaginary form (e.g. hoax viruses) and some is based on pseudo codes, etc., so that a purely technical definition of “software” is too limited. This leads to his conclusion that software is a cultural practice, “made up of (a) algorithms, (b) possibly, but not necessarily in conjunction with imaginary or actual machines, (c) human interaction in a broad sense of any cultural appropriation and use, and (d) speculative imagination. Software history can thus be told as intellectual history […].”15 To sense the world through software structures, would then mean to have to grow new organs, as technical apparatuses replace our senses and, as Frederic Jameson argues, humans have not kept pace with the revolution of technical and cultural products. He suggests to expand our bodies to unimaginable dimensions in order to sense technology16, which seemingly possesses more superior senses than us. A couple of years past, in 1995 William J. Mitchell discusses the need and even the inevitableness of having “electronic organs” in an electronic world17 (similar to Max Bense, who describes a “technical world” in Plakatwelt). Yet, Mitchell does not put “having” electronic organs equal to “owning” them. In his prognosis, they have dissolved their materiality into complex digital networks as we use them as platforms today. They are dislocated and untraceable, tiny microchips, which can but do not have to be in our bodies. If the objectifications of these out-of-body organs are smart end devices as we know them, Mitchell’s hope has probably been, that those would finally enable us an effective sensing beyond our perception capacities and beyond the limits of our organisms. Then, at the latest, algorithms can (afford to) add speculative imagination to their technical definitions and form aesthetic production without reducing “poetics” only to beauty (such as a fetish for the machine can be) and without algorithms and sensing to be controversial. In this context, Ralf Baecker’s “Mirage” explores the borderline between the virtual and the real from two perspectives. On one side it is an aesthetic investigation of synthesized behavior that is based on real physical events. On the other hand it investigates the physical space where

E the virtual becomes real and vice versa.18 Seeing this as a final state of software/intellectual history, a suspension of hardware and software becomes necessary, as Cramer puts it. In this sense, an equation of materiality (hardware) and immateriality (software) would mean the desire to sense through both the machine and the body as one speculative unit for cultural production. 1 Italo Calvino (1979). Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore. 1. Ed., Einaudi, Turin. 2 Herbert W. Frakne (1998): Das sogenannte Schöne. Max Bense, Informationsästhetik und naturwissenschaftliche Erklärung der Kunst; Telepolis. 3 Guy Debord (1956, 1957): The Naked City: Illustration de l’hypothèses des plaques tournantes en psychogèographie (1957) and Guide psychogèographique de Paris: Discours sur les passions de l’amour (1956), screenprint. 4 For Example in Rosa Menkman (2011): The Glitch Moment(um). 5 I. b., p. 39. 6 Wendy Hui Kyong Chun (2011): Programmed Vision. Software and Memory. The MIT Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 7 Franco Moretti (2003): Graphs, Maps, Trees. Abstract Models for Literary History, Giuolio Einaudi editore und Verso, London, New York 2005. 8 Wendy Hui Kyong Chun (2011): Programmed Vision. Software and Memory. The MIT Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 9 Florian Cramer (2005): WORDS MADE FLESH. Code, Culture, Imagination, p. 67. 10 Shannon, C. E. (1948): A Mathematical Theory of Communication. Reprinted with corrections from The Bell System Technical Journal, Vol. 27, pp. 379–423, 623–656, July, October, 1948, p. 8. 11 Florian Cramer (2005) : WORDS MADE FLESH. Code, Culture, Imagination, p. 68. 12 Rosmarie Waldrop (1976): A Basis of Concrete Poetry, Bucknell Review (Fall 1976): 143-44, 41. 13 Max Bense (1952): Plakatwelt. Vier Essays. Deutsche VerlagsAnstalt, Stuttgart: “We inhabit a technical world. A world which we made, the changes of which lies in our hands and perfection of which depends essentially on our reasoning and our imagination.” 14 Nadja Sayej (2014): Revealing The Illusion Of Perfect Beauty With Art Series ‘Law Of Averages’: Interview with Addie Wagenknecht. thecreatorsproject.vice.com. 28.03.2014. 15 Florian Cramer (2005), p. 124. 16 Fredric Jameson (1991): Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Duke UP, 1991. 17 William J. Mitchell (1995): City of Bits: Space, Place, and the Infobahn, p. 30ff and p. 167. 18 Ralf Baecker (2014): Notes on “Mirage“.

The Lie Machine Jamie Allen Voice Stress Analysis (VSA) is a highly contested and controversial lie detection technology. Through the detection of variations in the microtremors of speech, truthfulness is evaluated through analysis of live or recorded voice. As a result, the technique can be applied surreptitiously, even posthumously, to the vast storehouses of spoken audio available. The Lie Machine processes recorded audio with standard Voice Stress Analysis algorithms. The achive chosen for this analysis is a set of audiobook autobiographies, each read by its author: Decision Points by George W. Bush, Going Rogue: An American Life by Sarah Palin, A Journey: My Political Life by Tony Blair, My Life by Bill Clinton, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama. The title, “The Lie Machine” is taken from a 1973 Playboy Magazine article by Craig Vetter of the same name, on the subject of the Psychologi-

cal Stress Evaluator (PSE). The PSE was the first commercially available VSAbased instrument, “designed to fit into a Samsonite briefcase.” The algorithm gained notoriety recently in the U.S. trial of George Zimmerman for the charge of the seconddegree murder of Trayvon Martin, where Zimmerman was cleared of the charges based partly on his successful passing of a CVSA test (Computer Voice Stress Analysis). “We are not concerned with the guilt or innocence of a suspect, only in whether or not he seems to be lying. He’s either D.I. or N.D.I. deception indicated or no deception indicated.” (Playboy, 1973) The project was produced and supported by LEAP Berlin. Many thanks to John McKiernan, Daniel Franke at LEAP, as well as Samo Tadin and Tuk Bredsdorff in Copenhagen, for their interest and contributions.

The Ripple Counter is committed to the ambitious and relentless task of counting the un-countable. As it attempts to quantify the humble ripple over time it will generate spectacular numbers. In a culture that is increasingly ‘data hungry’ the Ripple Counter acts as a bridge for data-philes who have become detached from the nature. Gadgets are the most ephemeral of domestic objects. Their dazzling but fleeting existence is a consequence of two combined factors: 1: The value of a gadget is found in its novelty and ability to provide spectacle. 2: This novelty is provided by the latest technological innovations. Arthur C. Clarke’s often quoted 3rd law describes the relationship between these points:“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” It is in this magical element that the spectacle resides but as a consequence it follows that

just as the illusion dies when the magician reveals his slight of hand, so the technology becomes distinguishable from magic when it becomes familiar. This normalising of technology leads to the death of the gadget. Sublime Gadgets aims expand the lifespan of these ephemeral objects through introducing notions of the romantic sublime. This shifts the focus away from technological fetishism towards objectifying ‘pleasures of the imagination’ (Addison), the infinity of time and space (Shaftesbury), agreeable kinds of horror (Addison), randomness found in nature and the management of life and death.

Ripple Counter James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau

Mirage Ralf Baecker The installation “Mirage” uses principles from optics (astronomy/telescopes) and artificial neural network research to form a projection apparatus. Mirage generates a synthesised landscape based on its perception through a fluxgate magnetometer (Förster Sonde). A fluxgate magnetometer registers the magnetic field of the earth which is dependent on the suns activity and feeds it into a unsupervised learning algorithm for analyzation. At the same time the algorithm, that is based on the principle of a helmholz machine, “hallucinates” variations of the previously analyzed signal. This variations are translated into a two dimensional matrix that physically transforms a thin mirror sheet by 48 muscle wire actors. The surface of the mirror sheet changes analog to the systems state. A thin laser line is directed on the mirror surface in a sharp angle to generate a depth landscape like projection on the wall. Through the constant shifting signals the projection resembles a subliminal wandering through a landscape. In 2013 Geoff Hinton, one of the leading researchers in the area of artificial neural networks and deep

learning, joined Google to support them on various products that use AI and learning algorithms. He introduced back-propagation algorithms for training muli-layerd neural networks. One of his contributions to the field of unsupervised learing algorithms is the so called “Helmholtz Machine”, a machine which uses the principle of a wake-sleep-algorithm to consolidate its neural network. The alogrithm is trained during the wake phase by sensory input. In the sleep-phase it cuts-off its sensory input and feeds the network backwards with random patterns. On its input layer it generates versions of is previously perceived images of the world. I am speculating that the computers in the enormous Google data-centers cut off their perception (search queries, user behaviour, speech regognition, image data) once a day and start to “sleep”. What do their “dreams” look like?

Cloud Harvest:The cloud is a specter: hauntingly present yet intangible. It knows you intimately: your memories, work, shopping habits, medical records, bank account details. It knows your likes, your friends, where you are and where you’ve been, the pace of the strides you took along the way. Though this friendly ghost is at hand wherever and wherever, it is also strangely vacant, leeching off the life fed to it, dispersed between servers. The cloud is neither here nor there and everywhere. Wireless devices offer only a peek at the vaporous leviathan. Analyzing the materials of the gadgetry used to tap in to the atomized data, breaking them down to their elemental composition, Cloud Harvest takes steps to locating the cloud in the materials it is channeled through.

Rosemary Lee’s nomadic practice roams between the disciplines of philosophy, art, science, politics, and poetry. Graduating with distinction with an MA in Media and Communication from the European Graduate School, she also holds a BFA with emphasis in Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has lectured and taken part in numerous conferences, most recently as a visiting artist at her alma mater (SAIC), and delivering a joint-paper with Georgios Papadopoulos at the Pedagogies of Disaster conference in Tirana, Albania. Her writing and artwork have been published in art- and theory- related contexts, including Continent., The International Journal for the Arts in Society, and as the cover image for philosopher Alenka Zupančič’s Sobre la Comedia. She is the current Burning Athens artist/scholar in residence.

Cloud Harvest Rosemary Lee

Elsewheres Sascha Pohflepp and Chris Woebken Elsewheres is a modular, site-specific and procedural installation in which computer simulation becomes a medium. At the beginning of the procedure, the exhibition space is recreated as a three-dimensional representation, based on architectural drawings. The representation becomes a virtual stage, a laboratory, populated by copies of all objects that are present in the real space, weighed and measured to obtain their relevant properties. They are then made to interact with the space itself as well as with each other. Objects move, touch, break or fly off, caught by a gust of simulated wind or the force of gravity. All interactions are performed in carefully choreographed but inherently unpredictable steps. Once an action has finished, the resulting changes to the virtual space are manually introduced into the real space. People become agents of the simulation, affecting the configuration of the outside world in order to make it

resemble the speculation of a machine. All interactions are performed in carefully choreographed but inherently unpredictable steps. Once an action has finished, the resulting changes to the virtual space are manually introduced into the real space. People become agents of the simulation, affecting the configuration of the outside world in order to make it resemble the speculation of a machine. The inherent physics of those simulations are being governed by mathematical models that produce an approximation of what we believe to be the conditions as found on Earth. At other times, however, the simulations may diverge. They may reflect other places in the universe or other realities altogether, giving a hint of what for theoretical physics constitutes just another possibility, yet becomes real at the hand of simulation and its enactment. Elsewheres is a co-production of Eyebeam, New York City and STUK Kunstencentrum, Leuven.

The Law of Averages is a series as much it is a statement about accepted norms. Each print is algorithmically computed using the averages of the pixels based off of results using an image search. The pieces are then computational computed and complied using eye tracking and RGB averages to create a perfect average and definition of the found data. Addie Wagenknecht (born: 1981) is an American artist based in Austria, whose work explores the relationship between culture and technology. In 2007, Wagenknecht co-founded NORTD Labs, an international research and development collaborative with Stefan Hechenberger. NORTD produces open source hardware projects that have been used and built by millions worldwide including the open source laser cutter Lasersaur. Wagenknecht is a member of the Free Art & Tech-

nology (F.A.T.) Lab and chairs the Open Hardware Summit at MIT. Her work has been exhibited internationally at Museumsquartier Vienna, The Istanbul Biennial, and Rua Red Dublin. Her projects have been featured in a number of academic papers, books, and magazines, such as TIME, Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, The Economist, and New York Times. She has a Masters degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University, and has previously held fellowships at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center in New York City, Culture Lab UK, Institute HyperWerk for Postindustrial Design, Basel (CH), and The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University.

LawAddieofWagenknecht Averages

05.04.2014

26.04.2014

Opening

04.04.2014

7 pm

Exhibition

OBSESSIVE SENSING

supported by:

MHMK Macromedia Hochschule f端r Medien und Kommunikation