287 lines
9.2 KiB
Plaintext
287 lines
9.2 KiB
Plaintext
# the rite of computing
|
||
|
||
we saw the tipping points being crossed, and yet the same behavior
|
||
destruction was all around, even in the use of our tools of creation
|
||
what could we do? how could we engage? how could we disengage?
|
||
we thought of reinventing computers
|
||
homegrown, homemade…
|
||
a game, a party, a dance
|
||
maybe in that way we would understand?
|
||
maybe in that way we would know if we want to keep them?
|
||
the following are some of our notes, thoughts, conversations, actions…
|
||
|
||
# r
|
||
|
||
– i wonder what happens when you remove efficiency, speed
|
||
– the machine doesn’t seem to complain
|
||
– it comes with a great cost
|
||
– some beings at the service of others, is that the natural order?
|
||
– you thought and asked, until you realized you put yourself on fire
|
||
– the higher one gets, and the more one on others depends…
|
||
– how bad you think the fall will be?
|
||
– how long will the internet live once the humans are gone?
|
||
|
||
# u
|
||
|
||
the person is given a ruleset
|
||
a table
|
||
current configuration
|
||
encountered symbol
|
||
what to put instead
|
||
where to move
|
||
next configuration
|
||
|
||
the floor is prepared
|
||
a row of symbols
|
||
mosaic of colors
|
||
in a spiral
|
||
around the fire
|
||
|
||
the person enters the space
|
||
drums start playing
|
||
the person starts moving
|
||
repeating
|
||
a configuration becomes a state of being
|
||
a sequence of movements
|
||
the mosaics are replaced
|
||
(make sure you don’t lose track)
|
||
transitions from a state to another
|
||
the spiral becomes another
|
||
we expect the process
|
||
we expect the result
|
||
|
||
after hours of a body
|
||
becoming a body
|
||
emulating a body
|
||
who moves and sweats
|
||
losing (but not really) breath
|
||
the iteration is complete
|
||
|
||
# w
|
||
|
||
– can we talk about rewilding computers?
|
||
– were they wild to start with?
|
||
– how wild or not is a division
|
||
– of time and space in slots
|
||
– ever-decreasing measures
|
||
– changes of state?
|
||
– the revolution, the transcription, life
|
||
– no boundaries, really, but in our self
|
||
– and that one, really, also emerges
|
||
– maybe you mean getting rid of the rigid cover
|
||
– curving the interconnections
|
||
– the differences are fluid
|
||
– with or without extremes?
|
||
– i lost you
|
||
– destroying the shiny, embracing the earth
|
||
– a cracked screen carried away by the sea?
|
||
– that would probably kill us
|
||
– with emergence we understand we can’t understand
|
||
– is it a useful model?
|
||
– model? useful? it?
|
||
– number of processors versus grains of sand?
|
||
– and if we become just a probe?
|
||
– i dissolve, the computer
|
||
– the transformation carries on
|
||
|
||
# n
|
||
|
||
– think about the apparently unnatural…
|
||
– creating vacuum…
|
||
– manipulating beams of charge and light…
|
||
– wiring thousands, cooling their surrounding air…
|
||
– later inserting billions in a little block of sand
|
||
– why not just chill and enjoy the beach?
|
||
– there was a war
|
||
– and then the promise of productivity
|
||
– why not just chill and enjoy the beach?
|
||
|
||
# t
|
||
|
||
a tape in the form of a series of objects in some kind of slots
|
||
each object a symbol
|
||
maybe pieces of cloth in a clothesline
|
||
or pieces of paper on the floor
|
||
soft and flexible
|
||
an object signals the current position of the head
|
||
maybe a stool to reach above
|
||
or a long stick that rests and points
|
||
|
||
a group of people is engaged
|
||
each one of them with a different command:
|
||
if you encounter the short object in the tape
|
||
replace it with the thin
|
||
move the head to the left
|
||
|
||
and get the long-haired person to continue
|
||
different combinations
|
||
fragments of behavior
|
||
nobody knows what is really happening
|
||
and yet, the computation occurs
|
||
|
||
# i
|
||
|
||
– can you tell me again about your project?
|
||
– project, ceremony, dance, choreography… computer!
|
||
– i wonder how can someone end up there
|
||
– it’s just about imagining alternatives, trying to reinvent…
|
||
– is this a solution to a problem? what if everybody does as you?
|
||
– they originated with war in body and mind
|
||
– and they have very good uses despite that; they saved me!
|
||
– what about realizing they are made through destruction?
|
||
– it might be practical: destroying the old and the weak
|
||
– and we will drown by powering them
|
||
– i hope we can upload our consciousness by then?
|
||
– you might emulate yourself in rocks
|
||
|
||
# c
|
||
|
||
a group of people arrives to the floor that suddenly becomes a stage
|
||
bare feet, skin in the air with no layers in between
|
||
they move without the code that you would expect
|
||
(but with a different set of rules, what do they encode?)
|
||
eye contact, spatial awareness, flow
|
||
a self-generated oscillation
|
||
one of them observes other two
|
||
based on the three states, this one responds
|
||
repeat the same for each body
|
||
a cell made of cells
|
||
the pulse that reminds of a distant past
|
||
sweat that would short-circuit your board
|
||
yet information travels, proceeds, evolves
|
||
unpredictable behavior except by simulation
|
||
the bodies stomp, they clap, they sing
|
||
becoming another
|
||
above? (where?) below? (where?)
|
||
it’s there!
|
||
no need to channel the earth
|
||
|
||
# e
|
||
|
||
– i like computers
|
||
– why? they make more sense?
|
||
– maybe. complex but fabricated with heavy logic constraints…
|
||
– do you know how they work?
|
||
– that’s the question, do they work or do they just exist…
|
||
– following a hardwired behavior, filtering out noise
|
||
– only a fixed amount of values in space and time
|
||
– and yet embedded in an apparently continuous world
|
||
– where to put them in the organic-inorganic spectrum
|
||
– extracting minerals, sculpting them…
|
||
– marks are left, one at a time
|
||
– … modulating the electromagnetic spectrum all around
|
||
– wait! why are you talking about electricity, semiconductors?
|
||
– do you want to develop further?
|
||
– i’d prefer to do a backwards somersault and take a non-violent path
|
||
|
||
# x
|
||
|
||
– the idea is that you, as an individual, follow a simple set of rules
|
||
– these rules make me depend to some extent on other individuals
|
||
– your state of being based on my state of being
|
||
– we feel a pulse arriving, and we change
|
||
– how predictable you would think a system like that is?
|
||
– i wouldn’t expect it to be completely chaotic…
|
||
– complexity… how can you think about it if it was not for it?
|
||
|
||
– each component can be part of the whole without knowing about it
|
||
– “it” being the whole or the component?
|
||
– or any of them?
|
||
– then can only one of these pieces bring the whole system down?
|
||
– the state of that answer depends on the state of your purpose
|
||
– i guess an undirected, chaotic behavior will always be alright
|
||
– the order, the function, the control are the ones that you can break
|
||
– why would we want a math-machine that doesn’t do the math right?
|
||
– there’s the poetry!
|
||
– but what about the rigor? the experience of following constraints?
|
||
– you think that is important?
|
||
– maybe it’s part of my identity
|
||
– we don’t have to do right math right
|
||
– less about me, more about the connections?
|
||
– in any case, it would be arbitrary and not too easy to get
|
||
|
||
# d
|
||
|
||
– i’m having trouble putting the finger in the point
|
||
– is your self-protective awareness in action?
|
||
– maybe. who will want to question electronic computers.
|
||
– or productive computers, for that matter.
|
||
|
||
# s
|
||
|
||
– i don’t know what’s a computer
|
||
– don’t worry, neither do i
|
||
– but you see it…
|
||
– i see it and i marvel
|
||
– it is only a machine
|
||
– i see how arithmetic can be done mechanically
|
||
– no need to learn, no need to understand?
|
||
– isn’t that amazing? doing something without knowing you are doing it
|
||
– small components contributing with small actions to a whole that no one knows?
|
||
– only the designer?
|
||
– and what if there is no one?
|
||
– what if they also emerged as a whole?
|
||
– and what kind of whole emerges from us?
|
||
– or where does that whole exist?
|
||
– if simple models acquire complexity so quickly…
|
||
– yes, say hi to the chaos of nature
|
||
|
||
# p
|
||
|
||
– has lightning been captured twice, so far?
|
||
– fire, electricity, what are they?
|
||
– probably it’s the same here with computing
|
||
– one thing is to describe them working…
|
||
– visualizations, metaphors… leading to understanding what i can’t see?
|
||
– but you don’t have to, to use them
|
||
– how convenient!
|
||
– in many ways, knowing about computer architecture is completely useless
|
||
– digital circuit design as some kind of poetry?
|
||
– unless you are in one of the few companies, of course
|
||
– forcing the rocks until they can’t hold it anymore?
|
||
– the magic doesn’t disappear even if you know how to combine transistors
|
||
– magic? the mystery of computation?
|
||
– how can dead matter appear to be alive?
|
||
– and how can it replicate and build new versions of itself?
|
||
|
||
# l
|
||
|
||
a group of people walk in the space
|
||
you see one person:
|
||
if they rise you fall
|
||
if they fall you rise
|
||
respond immediately
|
||
(as fast as your body can)
|
||
they in turn see two,
|
||
not including you
|
||
they rise only if both fall
|
||
otherwise they fall
|
||
some others see them
|
||
some others see you
|
||
|
||
every once and then
|
||
a new change occurs in the beginning
|
||
people rise
|
||
people fall
|
||
the wave propagates
|
||
there is an end
|
||
no more people rise
|
||
no more people fall
|
||
and there is a result
|
||
|
||
they take note
|
||
someone in the audience remembers
|
||
and then,
|
||
after a pause
|
||
the beginning feeds from the end
|
||
a change again
|
||
the machine is counting
|
||
|
||
|
||
originally published in adjacent, issue 5, as lengua partida (2019)
|
||
CC BY-SA 4.0
|
||
|
||
=> https://itp.nyu.edu/adjacent/issue-5/the-rite-of-computing/ the rite of computing (la consagración de la computadora) - ADJACENT Issue 5 (web)
|
||
|
||
text accompanied by {la consagración de la computadora}
|