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www.dichtung-digital.com/2005/1/Bootz The
Problematic Of Form
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1. Transitoire
Observable And the Question Of A Specificity Of Programmed
Forms.
published
in dichtung-digital
1/2005 |
The
Problematic Of Form 1. Transitoire
Observable And the Question Of A Specificity Of Programmed
Forms.
www.dichtung-digital.com/2005/1/Bootz
Transitoire Observable,
A Laboratory
For Emergent Programmed Art
by Philippe
Bootz
with the linguistic assistance of Loss Pequeño
Glazier
1.1. Programming As A Matter
E-poetry
first focused on a programming approach. But since the end of
the 90s, many e-poetry works have focused on
video art aspects
of multimedia events on screen or have explored “traditional” use
of the link in hypermedia. Many others use the electronic medium only
as a simple medium and as a support for a classical visual poetic
approach or as classical visually illustrated texts. These orientations
are encouraged by firms that produce software in which the specifics
of the numerical medium are masked by video metaphors. I do not deny
that these kinds of poetic projects will change traditional understanding
of the text. They also produce different and non-classical manners
of expression. But it seems to me, and also to several other poets
and artists, that this popular approach does not meet the specific
needs of this medium because it does not engage programming. Thus
these approaches are unable to propose a situation of communication
that is truly new.
This is why, in 2003, on the suggestion of Alexandre Gherban, Alexandre,
Tibor Papp and I decided to break with these approaches and to create
a new collective that relocates programming at the core of electronic
art. We thought that certainly there existed specific forms closed
to programming, forms we did not know and had to explore. We wrote
a manifesto in which we explained that we consider programming (and
not the program) the material of this art, that the multimedia event
that appears on screen is only a transient observable state (a “transitoire
observable” in French) that occurs while running. We think that
forms exist that engage the complexity of the situation of communication
created by programmed works. We also think that these forms are close
to programming and highly independent of the nature of the transient
observable. Programming is a new kind of material that artists can
sculpt and model. It is a matter of a formal approach to the algorithms/processes
duality. What is pointed out in this approach is the relationship
between the algorithmic nature of code and the pragmatics of reading.
So, at this level, e-poetry certainly does not exist but one can gesture
towards a general art of programming. This is why several poets and
artists quickly joined the collective: Jim Andrews, Wilton Azevedo,
Jean-Pierre Balpe, Bluescreen, Michel Brett, Patrick Burgaud, Philippe
Castellin, Xavier Leton, Antoine Schmitt, Eric Serandour, and Reiner
Strasser.
1.2. Major
Directions Of Exploration.
These artists employ numerous different surface aesthetics,
generally issued from previous programmed works, often published
in alire. These
works can be interactive or not, but they always put the reader in
a particular position where he is responsible for an experiment of
reading, and is not the focus of the work: the reader is a partner.
He has a special role to play in the work. His reading no longer remains
outside of the work. Through its dark moments, its failures, its shortcuts,
its questionings, and its great place of non-meeting, the reading
activity fully participates in the work, is a process of the work,
it is an intrinsic component of the work. Reading is truly a sign,
as is the running process that it confronts, even in non-interactive
works. The work is not designed to satisfy a reader nor is it to be
read in the same manner as a book or a video. It is designed to run
because physical running is its raison d’être. In alire12,
interactive works by Burgaud, Strasser, Schmitt, Gherban and Andrews
satisfy such an assertion on different levels.
Interactive or non-interactive works are conceived to confront the intentionality
of the author and that of the reader. The intentionality of the reader
passes through interactivity and expressive non-interactive behaviour.
The intentionality of the author is expressed on screen and in the program,
not only in lines of code that generate visible materials or that govern
expressive visible behaviors, but in more specific meta-stylistic rules
applied as arbitrary constraints on the procedures that manage the observable
multimedia transient event.
It appears in Transitoire Observable that meta-stylistic rules can be
similar in e-poetry and in more general programmed art, it is the ground
of the collective. This convergence of points of view asks the question
of the existence of specific programmed forms, independent of the surface
aesthetical level on screen. It also opens, perhaps, the possibility
of a-media multimedia in which meta-rules would be managed in a very
high abstract level, without directly taking into account the specificity
of media.
2. Main Theoretical
Features that Appeared
In Alire
To explain how these authors arrived at these conceptions, it is useful
to know the most important concepts that emerged from works published
in alire. These conceptions are relative to the problem of meaning and
to the relations that exist between signs and author, signs and reader,
author and reader.
These works have broken new ground on three levels. The second and third
level constitute what I will call the “procedural model”.
2.1 The Surface Rhetorical Level
First, alire has added some new specific rhetorical possibilities, namely
syntactical animation. It has also published other new specific rhetorical
possibilities: poetic hypertext, kinetic poetry, and algorithmic poetry
(combinatory or automatic generated poetry).
In each case, generally, we only need traditional semiotic theories
to explain this surface rhetorical level. For example, all features
in syntactical animations can be explained by using a traditional linguistic
definition of text and a traditional approach to syntax. We only need
to consider the difference between temporal and spatial construction
of signs inside the same set of words and letters (spatial reading and
temporal reading).
Unfortunately, this level fails to explain most of significant features
in interactive works. It also fails to explain the changing of meaning
with time or the difference between combinatory and automatic generation.
So, we need to consider the totality of the situation of communication
between the author and the reader as constituting a system. This communication
passes through the work. Writing and reading are internal functions
of this system, which constitutes the second level of signs.
2.2 the Communicative Level
a) Cognitive and technical understanding.
At this level, we cannot neglect the technical behavior of the system
in the construction of meaning. Communication features, ergodic activity
of reading, semiotic features, cognitive features and technical features
cannot be disjunctive. Notably, the reader cannot construct a meaning
of the work without constructing at the same time a meaning of the totality
of the situation of communication. From a systemic point of view,
the work has no reality. It can only be understood as a subsystem of
the
situation of communication that cannot be extracted from this situation.
Two important and not classical rhetorical features (namely the double
reading and the aesthetic of frustration) use this relation between
construction of the meaning of the work and the construction of the
meaning of the situation of communication.
Figure 1: system's structural schema
It is useful to consider the cognitive level because
the archetypal mind representations that are used by a reader are
not stable, they
are based on experiments of reading or writing in his particular medium
and do not come from a deep cultural tradition. Thus they can greatly
differ from one person to another. This mind representation has been
called the “profondeur de dispositif” (system depth) in
the procedural model. A system depth is applied as a filter by the
cognitive strategy of reading or writing in order to decide what is
the significant of the signs in the transient observable event that
is produced while running. We can find many relations between different
works in alire that show that a number of these pieces, independently
of the nature of the work, have constructed the actual mind representation
(which is described by the procedural model) by using in fact exactly
the same strategy to manage reading.
At a technical level, author and reader are only users of the computer.
Notably, the author does not manage in his engagement the totality of
the rules that are used by the computer while running. Hence the computer
no longer is a Turing machine. Another model must be used. I have constructed
the model of the “machines de monstration” (machines of
showing). The program written by the author does not totally manage
the physical process of running. That is, the algorithmic level of the
program is not completely responsible for the functioning of the transient
observable. We can say that the author is the author of the program
and data, but only the co-author of the physical process that appears
to the reader while the machine is running. Using more traditional literary
language, we can say that the author's program contains a large level
of the "non-said". But this non-said does not play the same
role as the non-said of the classical printed text: this non-said will
be interpreted by the machine and not by the reader to produce the observable
sign. Thus it is necessary to consider that program (algorithmic level)
and physical process while running are two different and complementary
parts of the work. Adaptive generation uses this unsaid as a constraint
for programming.
Figure 2: Technical left unsaid
b) Semiotic and communicative understanding
From a semiotic point of view, we can separate the classical and general
semiotic notion of text (the text is the object of the interpretation)
into three different parts that do not act in the same space. Program
and data constitute the “texte-auteur”. This is a sign that
is only accessible by the author. It is in the domain of the author.
The second sign is constituted by what will be considered as “the
text” by the reader. It is the “texte-à-voir” (text-to-be-seen).
It is a part of the observable transient event that can differ from
a reader to another because readers will not apply the same system depth
on the transient observable. The physical process itself is a function.
From a semiotic point of view, it transforms the “texte-auteur” into
the “texte-à-voir”. Because it generates the transient
observable, it is called “generation” in the model.
Figure 3: The different structural and functional components of the work
The totality of this subsystem constitutes the “domain of the work”.
It plays the role of an interface between the domain of the author and
the domain of the reader. Thus it is the part of the model that is most
similar to the classical notion of work. A work can no longer be regarded
as an object, but as a complex set of components of different natures
(object for the texte-auteur, state for the texte-à-voir and process
for the generation) that can only exist while the program is running.
Figure 4: Structural and functional schemas of the domain
of the work
CLICK TO ENLARGE.
This set of signs must be completed by two mind representations
that are the classical meanings of the work and the totality of the situation
of communication. These two mind representations are the “texte-écrit” and
the “texte-lu”. The “texte-écrit” is used
by the author to construct the texte-auteur and, notably, to elaborate
strategies of temporal, space, and media behaviors on screen, to delimitate
what he will consider as interface and what he will consider as texte-à-voir
in the transient event, to manage interactivity.
As he is inside the system of communication, the reader can give meaning
to his own ergodic activity while he is interacting. This special meaning
is called "double reading". Generally, it arrives during reading
to reorient in another way the construction of the work's meaning. Double
reading uses the activity of reading as a sign intended for the reader.
In double reading, interactivity acts as a reflexive sign: the reader
interacts with himself. Double reading has been used since the beginning
of the 90s.
Figure 5: The double reading.
CLICK
TO ENLARGE.
Figure 6: Complete description of the situation of communication
in an example where the author has an algorithmic system depth and the
reader
a video system depth.
CLICK TO ENLARGE.
Figure 7: Functional scheme of the situation of communication.
CLICK TO ENLARGE.
2.3. The meta-level
The theory of double reading has shown
that reading can act as a sign. When it does, for example in the aesthetic
of frustration, this sign
is a part of the situation of communication and not of the domain of
the work. Thus the totality of the situation can become a sign, a meta-work.
It is an iconic sign of a conceptual reality of the work that does not
match to the surface rhetorical level. The referent of this sign is usually
a situation or a process in life. The meta-work is iconic in the situation
it creates or in its functioning. This meta-work is intended for a person
watching the reader while he is reading. This person is not reading himself
but watching somebody else reading. He is a meta-reader. Reading and
meta-reading do not apply to the work by the same canal. They are two
different functions applied to the work, even if they can be successively
applied by the same person. The meta-reader can understand the reactions
and actions of the reader in a certain manner that differs from the reader's
double reading. But he can only do this if he knows the meaning the author
gave to the reading activity. This meaning is expressed in papers or
other paratexts[1]. It is not expressed
at all in the texte-auteur. Some features in the program or other data
of
the texte-auteur can only play
the role of an index for this meta-level of author’s intentionality.
Meta-reading is not an interpretation of the situation but a recognition
of it. The meta-reader must also perceive the specific influence of program
non-said while running. Thus meta-reading can been seen as “a most
intellectual understanding” of what happens in the situation of
communication whereas reading can be regarded as “a most affective
understanding” of what happens in the work. For double reading,
the activity of reading is a significant level of the communication between
the author and the reader. For meta-reading, the activity of reading
is an expressive level of the communication between the author and the
meta-reader[2].
Figure 8: Total activity of the author.
Figure 9: Difference between reading and meta-reading.
CLICK TO ENLARGE.
The aesthetic of frustration gives a specific role to reading and considers
that the reader is not the only person addressed by the work. The reader
plays a specific, unexplained role through reading because reading is
the scene of this role. Expressive reactions, actions, are signs. They
are in an iconic relation to real life activities. This aesthetic considers
that traditional failure of reading or rereading is a specific modality
of reading, it has a specific meaning at the scene of activity. Thus
the work can be very frustrating for the reader but, from the point of
view of meta-reading, a failure of reading cannot exist. Even a failure
produces meaning but this meaning doesn’t pass through a reader’s
understanding of the work when reading fails.
When using meta-reading, e-poetry is fundamentally concerned with communication
by natural language and by the real nature of reading and writing in
a society of communication. Many works argue that the cultural basis
of the society of information and communication is a myth. These works
are based on miscommunication. They are using the most mythic device
of communication, the computer, because it is fundamentally a machine
of language, a machine of programmed language, whatever the nature of
signs on the surface of the screen is.
3. The Question
of form in programmed e-poetry.
3.1 Different levels of constraint.
The question of form in this system is relative to the role that
the author gives to each part of the domain of the work. It is fundamentally
relative to the system depth of the author. It depends only on the author,
not on the reader. I define a form as a creation and a management of
an arbitrary set of constraints. It is an efficient point of view because
we can find different levels of constraints by taking into account the
relationship between the different components of the domain of the work.
3.2 Simulation and intersemiotic.
A first set of constraints is only relative to the surface rhetorical
level. There are two possibilities nowadays: the observable transient
simulates a traditional form (from traditional or visual poetry) or it
mixes different semiotic behaviors in an interpoetic (or intersemiotic)
physical behavior. Intersemiotic works can confront different kinds of
observable signs (for example in video poetry) or can be a transformation
with time of a sign into another from the same semiotic (a manner explored
by Jacopo Baboni Schilingi in music).
When the author only uses these kinds of constraints, the computer is
used as a tool, an amplification of complexity and the only question
of form that remains to be solved by the author, is the transformation
of the observable transient to a texte-à-voir. The other components
of the domain of the work do not play any role at all. These kinds of
system enter in the class of “computer assisted literature” and
not in the class of Transitoire Observable’s “programmed
literature”. In programmed literature, the aesthetic problem of
this pure observable level is the same as in computer assisted literature,
it concerns the rhetorical level, but the general problem of form does
not restrict to this level.
For instance, temporal programming uses the transformation of signs of the same
semiotic system. In this approach, the beginning and the end of the transformation
can be recognized as a certain sign (or set of signs) by the reader, but the
transient part is only interpreted by a cognitive interpolation with the beginning
or the end. It seems that this part uses a specific temporal semiotic that preserves
the global coherence of reading. This temporal semiotics is not interpreted in
the same semiotic. It is why this transformation has special properties for
the reader: it occurs as a continuous physical process but a semiotic
discontinuity, a step between two non-simultaneous interpretations, and,
while the physical process is linear and limited, the cognitive interpretation
is looping between the two interpretations: they finally coexist in mind.
This constraint can be described in two rules: beginning and end of the
sequence must be recognizable signs in a certain semiotic and the transformation
time must be a physically continuous temporal event. This event, probably,
is a unique UST[3].
3.3 Using meta-stylistic rules.
The communicative and meta level give types of constraints that are more
specific to programmed art because they use real time running while reading.
The aesthetic of frustration or the strategies of managing of the reading
I have presented above concern one type of constraint: how to manage
the interactivity? In contrary to the hypertext philosophy, we see that
the reader’s intentionality is not the focus of the work. In Transitoire
Observable, the old adage introduced in alire in the eighties always
applies: reading forbids to read.
Another set of constraints is based on the relationship between the texte-auteur
and the texte-à-voir and concerns the generative level of the
work. In this relation, the texte-auteur is a model of the texte-à-voir.
This point was discussed by Jean-Pierre Balpe in his theory of the meta-author[4]. Historically, the first kind of programmed texts using this conception
was automatic generation. But adaptive animation made by L.A.I.R.E. also
obeys to this conception, even if the observable behavior is very different.
The difference is due to the nature of the algorithms that are used.
Automatic generation uses algorithms of creation of linguistic material
although programmed animation uses algorithms to manage the expressive
aesthetic behavior of the observable material. But this difference only
concerns the transformation of the texte-auteur into the texte-à-voir,
it does neither concern programming itself nor the conception of model.
In each case, the author has to write two different kinds of rules: rules
of the semiotic level of the texte-à-voir[5] and
rules of management of these rules. This second set of lines of code
cannot be seen by the
reader. Adaptive[6] generation shows that it becomes
today a model of models. Thus these works manifest two aesthetic levels.
First, is classically
showing the reader the transient observable through observable media,
processes, and behaviours. The second is only indexed in the observable
transient. To perceive it, it is necessary to re-run the work, sometimes
on another computer[7]. This
second level is the manifestation of meta-stylistic rules. Because they
do not directly appear to the reader, we can be sure
that the reader is no more, through the operation of reading, the addressed
person of the work. In fact, the real addressed person of the work is
a social and cultural meta-reader. A given person, as he is an instance
of this cultural meta-reader, can play the two roles but they cannot
be assumed at the same time: meta-reading does not occur through the
reading of the work. There exists a real rhetorical unity between interactive
works that use the aesthetics of frustration and those that are not interactive
but use meta-stylistic rules.
Generally, the meta-stylistic rules take the form of parameters, or logical
set of rules, for dialogue between parts of the program, or special non-visible
behaviours like measures. These meta-stylistic rules are pure arbitrary
rules of creation. They are not justified by technical features. Thus,
they are really artistic constraints. When meta-styllistic rules have
been choice, the problem to manage them consists to construct a impressive
tool to describe (conception level) and to program them. For complex
projects the conception level of the constraint is the most difficult.
Authors in Transitoire Observable use different models of conception:
Jean-Pierre Balpe uses the system of generation he has created, Tibor
Papp uses a grammar in which paradigms are individual behaviours and
syntax a set of rules of assembling, Alexandre Gherban uses also a set
of behaviours (temporal behaviours), but these behaviours are choosen
and parametrized by using cellular automates, Antoine Schmitt uses physical
mechanical laws and a predictive calculus on temporal specific objectives
(aesthetic of causality), Xavier Leton and I use measures and rules of
adaptation, I use a generative editing (the horizontal editing) to construct
observable behaviours with elementary components, Bluescreen uses arbitrary
laws of interaction between programmed objects to construct a collective
behaviour…
To cite examples from alire12, the visible processes can be managed by
algorithms of artificial life (Gherban, Bluescreen), by physical models
(Schmitt), or by temporal programming (Bootz). But, in each case, the
transient observable is not understood as a simulation. If life exists,
it does not occur in the result but in the principle of the program's
functioning. It is not biological life that would obey the laws of duplication
and competition, but an aesthetical life in which these algorithmic rules
are constrained by meta-aesthetical rules that do not directly appear
in the transient observable event. Aesthetical forms at the surface of
the screen are instances of forms produced by these meta-aesthetical
rules. To do this, the program can measure while running (Bootz). The
program uses the results of these measures in order to modify its one
strategy. In this way it is an adaptive generator. For example, the result
of a calculation by an algorithm can be changed by the result of a measure
to obey a certain aesthetical idea, or the measure can forbid certain
parts of the program to run. More generally, the program is constructed
as a set of independent rules that have a relationship while running
in order to construct an observable transient state constrained by aesthetical
meta-rules. It is the case, even if the program does not use a specific
algorithmic model (Papp). The author does not exactly know what will
happen, but the author knows the classes of aesthetical main features
that will be made manifest in the observable multimedia transient event
when technical unsaid does not trouble programmed process.
Conclusion
Thus, even if each author explores different modalities of meta-rules,
with sometimes very different objectives, I think that the existence
of these meta-rules is sufficient to speak of a common aesthetic. The
common direction for the author is to search for the best form of conception
and realisation of the class of meta-rules he explores. This unity is
not manifested at screen, but in the similitude in the management of
the role of the reader and in the role of the author: it is not an aesthetic
of text, it is an aesthetic of creating.
________________________________________________
[1] The role of paratext in the interpretation
of an electronic artistic work was studied on several examples in
the paper Approche
du rôle de la mémoire dans la conception et la réception
de quelques œuvres en littérature numérique for
a seminar in Montreal in 2003, to be published in the revue discours
social/social discourse.
[2] See the paper Approche
sémiotique
d’un certain
art programmé: œuvre signe et méta-lecture,
conference of Cerisy, July 2004, to be published.
[3] A Temporal Semiotic Unit. The
theory of UST was created in the laboratory of computer music of Marseilles
(MIM) in
order to analyze music (http://www.labo-mim.org).
Its extrapolation to visual and multimedia art is today explored.
See the paper by Hautbois, Xavier: Les Unités Sémiotiques
Temporelles: de la sémiotique musicale vers une sémiotique
générale du temps dans les arts. For
the conference ICMS8, September
2004, to be published.
[4] Balpe,
Jean-Pierre: Un
roman inachevé – dispositifs. Littérature
n° 96, 1994, pp. 37-53 and Balpe, Jean-Pierre:
Méta-auteur,
alire10, 1997, pp. 95-99.
[5] In this case, it is the texte-à-voir
for the author, not for the reader. The author manages what happens
on the screen
of his computer, the semiotic behavior of what he considers on this
screen as the texte-à-voir.
[6] An adaptive generator tries to manage
the technical left unsaid. It changes the logical set of rules used
to construct
the observable transient by interpreting physical measures made by the
program during running.
[7] Adaptive generation is totally transparent on a
computer because the measures it makes give always the same results.
Thus, the changing in the logic of running is the same from a re-reading
to another.