Someone is always already there in front of you even though you may not like it

In many ways, humans in modern societies seem to be occupied to a considerable amount by a longing to establish whatever they do as if it were the first time any human has ever done it. The arts are full of this myth of originality and firstness. However, at closer inspection, there often appear events or activities by someone else that were at least foreshadowing what later appeared as totally new and the first time. The article takes up a few cases of this kind related to digital art

On the impossibility of avoiding aesthetics in human-computer interaction

The simple and almost trivial argument of this talk can be summarized like this. -Human-computer interaction (HCI) is a human action making use of computers (which means, making use of machinery called software). -This action involves operations carried out by the computer. They appear to us as if the computer was also active (which in a way, it is). -The human and the computer are constantly taking turns in their action and operation and, therefore, we call this entire happening "interaction". -Since interactive use of the computer by necessity requires sensory perception and, consequentially, interpretation, aesthetics must play an important role. This is so if we consider aesthetics as the study of sensory perception and understanding. Nothing in the world is true nor good nor beautiful. It is only through human judgment that layers of truth or goodness or beauty are generated. This is by three kinds of judgments: the logic, the ethic, and the aesthetic kind of judgment. So aesthetrics is, first of all, a way of making judgments. In so far, it is relational. It is not about features and properties of things. The aesthetic judgment discriminates at the sensory level but it possesses the innate tendency of going beyond the sensory domain. So in the aesthetic judgment, we have discrimination and valuation. Valuation is definitely different from evaluation: it is about qualities, whereas evaluation may result in quantity and, in fact, much research aims at this. The subject matter of aesthetics before valuation thus appears as human sensory perception as a component of semiosis, i.e. as the start into a sign process: a process of interpretation and re-interpretation, essentially without end. Visual aesthetics has ist subject matter reduced to the visual case. Until recently, usability was a great concern within the HCI community. It is not possible to seriously compare aesthetics to usability unless we destroy aesthetics to some sort of instrument. It may, however be justified to identify a few features of usability vs. Aesthetics. To usability, the computer is like a tool; only in an environment of work activity does usability make sense; here we have tasks and immediate purposes and, therefore, prediction and measure; in general, usability is a matter of practical reason. To aesthetics, the computer is like a medium; it becomes important in game activities; decision making and values are guiding principles; and aestheics is a matter of contemplative reason. As a general concept, I want to remind of software objects as algorithmic signs. These are signs that allow for, and require two interpretants: the intentional and the causal interpretant. Algorithmic signs are perceivable (by us) and computable (by the computer). They connect the aesthetic with the algorithmic domain. They have, metaphorically speaking, a surface and a subface. As a radically agnostic position, I view the world as the world and nothing else. It is the whole that some call "god". We can have it in parts only. From a particular (sic!) perspective, the aesthetic perspective, e.g., the world appears as aesthetic signs, aesthetic processes, and aesthetic judgments. Since the aesthetic perspective is the perspective of perception, HCI has no choice but turn to aesthetics in its attempt to better understand certain processes. HCI, in my view, is the weak coupling of two semiotic processes, one of them a full-fledged sign process (on behalf of the human), the other one reduced to a signal process (on behalf of the computer). Therefore, the (visual) aesthetics of HCI is the aesthetics of algorithmic signs as they appear in environments of interaction. Questions of HCI must be tackled from here, i.e. from the dialectics of the newly discovered sign class, the algorithmic sign. The designer can manipulate the subface of the algorithmic sign. He has no influence on the surface except for the most trivial projection to the display screen. He can, however, make great use of the algorithmic side of the algorithmic sign. This new challenge for aesthetics is what HCI is about. It may be the case that my plea for a radical aesthetic turn in HCI is off the main orientation of experimental psychology as a kind of normal science (Thomas Kuhn) exploring quantitatively what aesthetics may have to offer. In that case I apologize for an intervention whose basis is design more than analysis

Work. Computers. Design.

abstract not available

Think the image, don't make it! On algorithmic thinking, art education, and re-coding

In conceptual art, the idea is not only starting point and motivation for the material work, it is often considered the work itself. In algorithmic art, thinking the process of generating the image as one instance of an entire class of images becomes the decisive kernel of the creative work. This is so because the generative algorithm is the innovative component of the artist's work. We demonstrate this by critically looking at attempts to re-construct works of early computer art by the re-coding movement. Thinking images is not the same as thinking of images. For thinking images is the act of preparing precise descriptions that control the machinic materialization of images. This kind of activity is a case of algorithmic thinking which, in turn, has become an important general aspect of current society. Art education may play an important role in establishing concrete connections between open artistic and more confined technological ways of thinking when thinking pro-gresses algorithmically

Algorithmic Art in the School Curriculum: Thinking beyond disciplines

Die algorithmische Revolution hat bewirkt, dass heute viele Menschen einen leistungsstarken Computer bei sich tragen und zu Hause weitere stehen haben. Diese Computer sind mit dem Internet zu einem populären Medium verwachsen. Mit der Umwälzung der technischen Grundlagen aller Kultur geht einher eine neue Art des Denkens: Das algorithmische Denken. Nur wenige sind sich bewusst, dass diese Art des Denkens ein Denken auf das Berechenbare, auf die Maschine hin ist – und somit ein Denken der Verengung. Der Fähigkeit des Menschen zur immer fortgesetzten Interpretation setzt die Maschinenwelt die Notwendigkeit der einzigen Determination entgegen. In diesem Widerspruch bewegt sich aktuelle Kultur. In der Kunst begegnet verengende Algorithmik erweiternder Ästhetik. In der über fünfzig Jahre alten algorithmischen Kunst treffen sich beide. Darin sehen wir Chancen für Bildungsprozesse. Was sollen junge Menschen über Wirkungen ihrer Art des Kommunizierens wissen? Wie können sie verstehen, dass das, was sie ständig tun, nur funktioniert, weil Algorithmen und Datenstrukturen es bewirken? Wie können sie zur semiotischen Schicht der Wirklichkeit gelangen, die der Simulation und Vorbereitung physischer Wirklichkeit dient? Immer schon gehören Simulation und Automatisierung zu den Aufgaben der Informatik, Algorithmen und Datenstrukturen sind ihre Mittel. Immer schon gehören inhaltliche Gestaltung und instrumentelle Anwendung zu den Aufgaben von Medienbildung. Was davon muss heute in allgemeine Bildung eingehen und wie? Diese Frage beschäftigt uns im Zuge der aktuellen Einführung von Informatik bereits in der Grundschule. Dieser Essay befasst sich mit dem «algorithmischen Denken», das für das Verständnis der digitalen Technik grundlegend ist. Wir diskutieren dabei die Eignung von Werken aus der algorithmischen Kunst. An Beispielen zeigen wir, wie algorithmisches Denken beim Betrachten von Kunst gelernt werden, und welche Rolle algorithmische Kunst dabei spielen kann. Wir bewegen uns auf der Ebene fachlicher Kompetenzen. Dabei wird deutlich, dass wir für Bildung das Fach hinter uns lassen müssen.As a result of the algorithmic revolution, many of us are now carrying a high-performance computer in their pockets, and have others waiting at home. With the Internet, these computers have been integrated into an attractive medium. A new kind of thinking is emerging with this unique turn-over of all the technological infrastructure of culture: algorithmic thinking. Only few realise that this kind of thinking is a thinking towards computability, and to the machine. As such it is narrowing thought. Humans are capable of continued interpretation without limits. The world of machines, on the other hand, must necessarily limit interpretation to unique determination. Current culture is caught in this contradiction. In art, closing-down algorithmics encounters opening-up aesthetics. In algorithmic art, now more than fifty years old, both meet. In this encounter we expect chances for educational processes. What should young people know about impacts of their way of communicating? How can they come to understand that their way of communication depends on the permanent activity of algorithms and data-structures? How can they see that a semiotic layer of reality is simulating and preparing for the changes of the physical world? Simulation and automation have always been subject matter of computing, algorithms and data-structures are its means. Design of contents and instrumental use have always belonged to media education. What of this must today become part of a general education, and how? – We are concerned about this question in the context of introducing the discipline of computing in primary school already. This essay is about «algorithmic thinking» which is basic for an understanding of digital computing. We show examples of how to learn algorithmic thinking by studying works of art, and what role there is for algorithmic art, in particular. Our discussion is on the level of disciplinary skills. But we see how important it becomes to leave behind the confines of discipline if we want to achieve good general education

Order in Complexity

Order in complexity. Yes, of course, when confronted with a complex situation, we usually search for order. Otherwise we have no chance to make sense out of the situation. We make sense, and it seems we always want to make it. Sense is not there to discover. It requires our activity. It is a construction