[Reader-List] Human-Computer Oscillation

Harwood Harwood at scotoma.org
Sat Nov 23 01:25:27 IST 2002


> > Q: What are the consequences for the appropriation of value within
capitalist
> > systems if we interfere with this objectification process within interface
> > design?
> 
> >> This objectification in interface allows the user to see software
structures
> >> as part of a fixed, environment that is external from themselves.
> >> The production and exchange of value within capitalism requires such a
> process takes place.
> 
> The process has also been cast, in the Marxist critique, as one of
> alienation. This, however, does not mean that the user is excluded from the
> process, but rather operates at an implicit remove, once more talking in
> Marxian terms, from a historical and material reality, without agency. I
> don't quite recognize the description that allows the user to "see" this
> structure as fixed and external: 
>it would effectively mean a transcendence
> to this reality and also a recovery of agency. Software is arguably a
> process that will always "objectify" in favor of a certain remove. The only
> recourse may be in the symbolic, interface _design_, which you do not enter
> into. Hence the earlier attempts in this discussion to entertain what may be
> considered "readings" of features and interfaces to establish their
> allocation of value, as a comment of appropriation. Your question remains
> unanswered, however.
>
The main focus of this question was to asert, or make aparent the road to
perfect art inwhich the software will be no more then the concrete sum of it¹s
parts.

The art will also be devoid of all social/political/cultural/formal or economic
value. 

Its intention will be to refuse all forms of meaning given to it, in any
cultures, social or economic systems in existence now or at anytime in the past
or future whatsoever.

Perfect art has but one single aim and that is to re-produce the image of its
innate uselessness to form a <void> that disintegrates everything before it
through irritation.

Work should aim to disrupt as much sensible workings of society as possible
through an invigorating tasteless, aimlessness, wasting of time and resources.

The only use of computers allowed is that of a thoroughly aimless one.

The only use of theoretical and material items and practises allowed is a
useless one.

The continuam of failure/success of perfect art should be calculated numerically
by the following: 
how much ((time + money + other resources) it wastes from conception to its
disremembered state: divided by the number of (creators + users + clients +
viewers + funder's + curators) involved)
 divided by the number of CPU clock cycles it took to (build + maintain +
forget) the perfect work.

Expressed:

x = ((t + m + r )/ (nc + nu + ncl + nv + nf + ncu )) / (CpuB + CpuB + CpuF)

Where:

t = time /  the number of calories it takes an average human unit to function
for 1 minute.
m =  money /  the number of calories it takes an average human unit to earn $1. 
r = other resources / the number of calories it takes to create the resource.
calculated according to the given above.
nc = the caloric value of the average creator * number_of_creators
nu =  the caloric value of the average user * number_of_users
ncl =   the caloric value of the average client * number_of_clients
nv =   the caloric value of the average viewer * number_of_viewers
nf = the caloric value of the average funder * number_of_funders
ncu =  the caloric value of the average curator * number_of_curators
CpuB = CPU clock cycles to build  the perfect art
CpuM = CPU clock cycles to maintain  the perfect art
CpuF = CPU clock cycles to forget the perfect art

> > Q: Having established that the selective reading of the user's input data
> > through the mouse helps lead to objectification of content within interface,
> > what happens if we create software that acts on all possible variables
within
> > mouse interaction?
> 
> In other words, what happens when we integrate the movements not anticipated
> and logged by software into software? 

No this is not what is meant.  All mouse interaction creates varying amounts of
electrical activity. This is either monitored or not. The choice is a
cultural/ideological one. 

>(Many people have attached a pen to
> their mouse and done very nice doodles on paper.) Isn't this what the
> totally immersive dream of VR seeks to accomplish (if only we could get past
> the goggles and the glove)? An integration of all senses into an environment
> where software is an extension of all the senses and the world succumbs
> entirely to logical-mathematical notation? The mouse is an archaic device
> with a growing number of programmable buttons to access structures not
> necessarily present, visually, in a particular interface or menu (but by
> necessity present in the software). Does this not indicate that the
> "objectification" is already taking place without the aid of a GUI, and that
> users converse more and more directly with algorithms. I think this returns
> to your question above: what are the consequences when software tracks and
> objectifies a user's input data and the interface, a symbolic order of
> difference, becomes translucent? Of course, we read about new micro chips
> and implants every day.
> 
I'm sorry, I can find no connection between this paragraph and the report.
H
> 
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