# Pragmatic Software+ Studies: A Seminar

## Introduction
- Opening: [Boil Up]() (2mins)
- Beginning of the journey
- Non-typical flipped classroom
- Conversational teaching-learning experiences: interaction and coursematerial-RW
- background reference: s.ilyagram.org/2017hz (in Chinese mainly)
- editable and shared document with hackmd.io
- web annotation with hypothes.is
- The story of a panel in 2005 Taiwanese culture studies conference
- Minding the gap betwixt cultures: "Input is not a methond, browser not a container; localisation doesn't go alone, and most of the fonts sucks" （「輸入非法，瀏覽不器；本土不化，字體不型」）
- [Input Method](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_method): the dance between [graphemes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapheme)（字素，相較於語音學的音素） -characters and word, but also could be used to back-tracing the user's input behavior and extend the function of personalization like the Siri
- Browser like Chrome could embed new function with plug-ins or extensions referring to 「君子不器」（the real gentleman is not any fixed shape of container）
- [i18n and l10n](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalization_and_localization): more in the background to connect the software of the world
- the initiative of [Localisation Sprint](https://archive.tacticaltech.org/localisationsprint.html) by Tactical Tech 2004
> ...The goals of the Localisation Sprint were three-fold. First, individuals working in the localisation field rarely enjoy the opportunity to convene, grow relationships and collaborate on applied projects; the sprint provided a venue for enhancing the social network of localisation practitioners while focusing on concrete outcomes. Second, the gathering strove to map out the **localisation landscape**, from **tools** to **guides to practices**; many exciting projects and initiatives are underway around the globe, but few top-down views exists into the range of projects. Lastly, participants laid **the foundation and initial groundwork for curricula** designed to educate developers, technical intermediaries and funders in the best practices and sustainable processes for localisation in a broad scope of technology and documentation contexts around the globe. Our hope will be to start discussions and collaboration which will continue to evolve long after the sprint.
- Font issues: why certain fonts dominate computer desktop for so many years? how to fix it?
- Stepping into deep water zone since we found every academics stare at computer screen but see nothing out of your word processor
- What's in the **Word (the software)**?
- Compare with the web text editor hackmd.io, and atom.io (MacOSX) and sublimetext.com (Windows)
- The difference between two "Ecological Systems": could you name the elements in each?
- Functional and structural differences
- History, or chronicle comparison
- The support of external protocol, i.e. [markdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown)
- Federated alliance, or monopoly and vertical integration
- Impact or influence of such differences?
### 科技物
- The observation
- the visible, invisible (structural, functional), and the reflexive
- *Las Meninas*, the observing moment in painting, but also a modernity mode captured
- *[The Ways of Seeing](http://waysofseeingwaysofseeing.com/ways-of-seeing-john-berger-5.7.pdf)* by John Berger
> ...The visual arts have always existed within a certain preserve; originally this preserve was magical or sacred. But it was also physical: it was the place, the cave, the building, in which, or for which, the work was made. The experience of art, which at first was the experience of ritual, was set apart from the rest of life - precisely in order to be able to exercise power over it. Later the preserve of art became a social one. It entered the culture of the ruling class, whilst physically it was set apart and isolated in their palaces and houses. During all this history the authority of art was in separable from the particular authority of the preserve.
>
> What the modern means of reproduction have done is to destroy the authority of art and to remove it - or, rather, to remove its images which they reproduce - from any preserve. For the first time ever, images of art have becomeepheneral, ubiquitous, insubstantial, available, valueless, free. They surround us in the same way as a language surrounds us. They have entered the mainstream of life over which they no longer, in themselves, have power.
>
> Yet very few people are aware of what has happened because the means of reproduction are used nearly all the time to promote the illusion that nothing has changed exept that the masses, thanks to reproductions, can now begin to appreciate art as the cultured minority once did. Understandably, that masses remain uninterested and sceptical.
>
> If the new language of image were used differently, it would, through its use, confer a new kind of power. Within it we could begin to define our experiences more precisely in areas where words are inadequate. (Seeing comes before words.) Not only personal experience, but also the essential historical experience of our relation to the past: that is to say the experience of seeking to give meaning to our lives, of trying to understand the history of which we can become the active agents.
>
> The art of the past no longer exists as it once did. Its authority is lost. In its place there is a language of images. What matters now is who uses that language for what purpose. This touches upon questions of copyright for reproduction, the ownership of art presses and publishers, the total policy of public art galleries and museums. As usually presented, these are narrow professional matters. One of the aims of this essay has been to show that what is really at stake is much **larger**. A people or a class which is cut off from its own past is far less free to choose and to act as a people or class than one that has been able to situate itself in history. This is why - and this is the only reason why - the entire art of the past has now become a political issue.

- pragmatic and pragmatism
- the approach of Geert Lovink, [INC (Institute of Network Cultures)](http://networkcultures.org/) since ***[Dark Fiber](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/dark-fiber)*** : in negotiation of certain publicness in a dynamic dark era
- Art as inquery: UK artist group ***"[YoHa](http://yoha.co.uk)"*** and their tangible works
- software and software+ studies
- ***[Software studies: a lexicon](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/software-studies)*** , and ***[Evil Media](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/evil-media)*** (MIT Press)
- software+: system, service vs. algorithm, computation and data
- New practices: big data, data science, [devop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DevOps), etc
- technical objects revisited

## Technical Objects, From the Perspective of Man-Machine

### Pilot Case Study
- 2016 Shanghai Biennale [ 《藍佩杜薩之筏》（Plastic Raft of Lampedusa）](http://www.shanghaibiennale.org/en/artist/detail/279/75.html)
- 美杜莎之筏：[The Raft of the Medusa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raft_of_the_Medusa)：European refugee crisis, raft, sea metaphor and sailing logic
- [Escape from Syria: Rania's odyssey – video](https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2017/aug/02/escape-from-syria-ranias-odyssey-video) (10 / 22mins)
- [Alibaba's plastic raft](https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/large-kayak-ocean-with-ce-and_60668966828.html?spm=a2700.7724838.2017115.50.43e43262KNmOsh): the tech-obj intercepted in Malta's custom
- Douban Announcement: [Reverse Raft Workshop 反拆工作坊](https://www.douban.com/event/27729369/)
- Where is the technical object?
- The meaning of GoPro and [ffmpeg](https://www.ffmpeg.org/)

### My Technical Object
- Choose your own technical object
- Add layers of meaning in your analysis
- Design proper action alongside of it

### Audio and Video Objects

#### Aluminium: With Respect to Residue
- The film: [Aluminium](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pUr0kHObLk)
- archival footage:
- [Metal in Harmony (1962)](http://movingimage.nls.uk/film/2239), Directed by Kenneth Fairbain, Courtesy of Scottish Screen Archive
- [Aluminum on the March (1956)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EujDjXSN-Q), Reynolds Aluminum, www.archive.org
- [Manifesta7](http://www.manifesta7.it/): [The Rest of Now](http://www.manifesta7.it/locations/show/), curated by Raqs Media Collective,
>> “The extraction of value from any material, place, thing or person, involves a process of refinement. During this process, the object in question will undergo a change in state, separating into at least two substances: an extract and a residue. With respect to residue: it maybe said it is that which never finds its way into the manifest narrative of how something (an object, a person, a state, or a state of being) is produced, or comes into existence. It is the accumulation of all that is left behind, when value is extracted… There are no histories of residue, no atlases of abandonment, no memoirs of what a person was but could not be.”
>> (Raqs: With Respect to Residue, 2005)
>
> What transpires in the course of a second, closer look at the narrative of progress and the velocity of our times?
>
> Our effort is to subject these realities to critical reappraisal. The setting of part of Manifesta 7 in a disused aluminium factory in Bolzano – a space of abandonment and residue – raises many questions about the after-life of extraction. What gets left behind when everything is taken away? What can be retrieved, and what can be remembered? **How can the residual become the engine of meaning?**
>
> We are interested in thinking about what happens when things are rendered as valuable in this world. It involves a slowing down, aconcentration of attention on some processes that might otherwise attempt to obscure those traces that are left behind. In one sense, it is an attempt to come to terms with the self-fulfilling amnesia of Capitalism, and to see what can be salvaged from the oblivion to which the residues of Modernism are normally consigned.
>
> The task of creating a network of processes and art works inside an abandoned industrial site seems to us to be the perfect opportunity to invite artists – and some participants who do not practise as artists – to enlarge the horizons of this conversation.
>
> While Europe is already known for art spaces and events that occupy abandoned industrial sites, there still remains the question of what the combination of remembered industrial energy and a more current melancholia of abandonment actually means today. In some ways this is symptomatic of Europe’s unwillingness to come to terms with aspects of its own difficult path into, and through, the 20th century.
>
> Raqs Media Collective
- [Introduction of the Artist and Work](http://www.manifesta7.it/artists/373)
- GRAHAM HARWOOD: 1960, BRIGHTON, UK LIVES IN SOUTHEND-ON-SEA, UK
- ALUMINIUM, 2008 BOOK (21 × 23 CM), SINGLE-CHANNEL VIDEO PROJECTION, ALGORITHMIC SEQUENCE
> This year it is 99 years since Filippo Marinetti set out the Futurist manifesto. Aluminium , a Futurist graphic novel about the social history of aluminum, takes the Futurist logic of the 20th century and turns it on its comic self. Drawing on archival footage from the aluminum industry, Harwood uses Futurist algorithms to create cells for the book by recording only the differences between key video frames. Dialogue phrases are then gathered up from aluminum issue-crawlers crawling across the Internet.
>
> “We have been up all night, my mates and I, beneath the hum of the microwave transmitter, electricity piped in through high-voltage aluminum conductors. Transported here by motors, alloy rims with deep polished lips, fat pipes and chrome spinners, bright as our souls. Like our machines, we are ruled by the internal glow of electric hearts.” (from Aluminium)
>
> The work of Graham Harwood is concerned with establishing ways to make the media strange, and allowing them to become spaces of expanded thoughts and actions. Whether in a social, artistic or educational context, his work has been about releasing the full potential of the media – allowing signals, things, objects, people and actions to pass freely between people.
- The book [Aluminium](http://yoha.co.uk/aluminium)（[pdf download](http://download.yoha.co.uk/aluminium/aluminium.pdf)）
- Author's description
> “We have been up all night, my mates and I, beneath the hum of the microwave transmitter, electricity piped in through high-voltage aluminium conductors. Transported here by motors, alloy rims with deep polished lips, fat pipes and chrome spinners, bright as our souls. Like our machines, we are ruled by the internal glow of electric hearts. Trampling underfoot, the earth, we wear down the heels of violent Chinese pirates: Nike-faking factories slaving along the Cambodian border, we have been discussing right up to the limits of our programming and scrawling across filthy keyboards to create these demented writings.
>
> "Aluminium" is a futurist graphic book and film about the social history of aluminium. In 2009 it was a 100 years since Marinetti set out the Futurist manifesto in which advocated the consumption of metal bolts and engine oil to turn men into machines. Marinetti believed in speed, machines and violence, values that for him were epitomised in the recent invention of aluminium. Drawing on archival footage from the aluminium industry.
>
> Harwood derives algorithms from the Futurist Manifestos to create the books cells by recording only the differences between key video frames. Caption texts are gathered up and edited together by issue crawlers as they search across the Internet. "Aluminium" takes the futurist logic of the 20th Century and turns it back upon its self.”
>
- Author's remarks in the code:
> __Because we despise the precise, mechanical, glacial reproduction of reality in these films,
__and as we are not interested in the reconstruction of movement which has already been broken up
__and analysed by the lense, we code up ways for time to occur across the division of the frame.
- [Manifesto of Futurism (1909) 未來主義宣言全文](http://www.italianfuturism.org/manifestos/foundingmanifesto/), by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti。
> "We had stayed up all night, my friends and I, under hanging mosque lamps with domes of filigreed brass, domes starred like our spirits, shining like them with the prisoned radiance of electric hearts. For hours we had trampled our atavistic ennui into rich oriental rugs, arguing up to the last confines of logic and blackening many reams of paper with our frenzied scribbling....."

> ...the Manifesto of Futurism was also based on a behavioral change (once they promote actions), but it is was primarily and essentially caused by a **mindset change** about the value and the path society was taking (in which the way to deal with material world would be counted on it).
>
> It was not how to own and practice the ownness of a object (like the others manifestos), but question how would that object promote and be part of a constant change caused by the speed perspective. Once some things pointed on the manifesto as things that hold society back are… things… (books, paintings, archaeological and historical stuff). Not that the blame are on stuff, but on how on that time the Italian perspective had its two feet on the past while the progress was passing like a fast train.

- 評論文章 Arika: [Episode 1: A Film is a Statement](http://arika.org.uk/events/episode-1-film-statement/programme/aluminium-graham-harwood)
> "Aluminium…is a kind of film/ software/ book hybrid: it takes ‘The Futurist Cinema' manifesto from 1916 and turns it into software that tracks ‘aluminium’ online and traces the relationships companies with interests in the aluminium industry had to each other and governmental agencies. And it then applies those results to promotional footage for the aluminium industry, corrupting it into a new film in which workers and consumers seem to merge with aluminium goods and even the smelting process itself, in the kind of man-machine of Italian Futurist fantasy."

- Metamute: [*In The Mud And Blood Of Networks: An Interview With Graham Harwood*](http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/mud-and-blood-networks-interview-graham-harwood)
> Having said this I find myself addicted to ‘art' as a space of reflection, a looseness that I cannot find elsewhere. In order to navigate this rupture in my thinking I make a somewhat artificial separation between between ‘art' and ‘art methodologies'. To clarify this: ‘Art' is the construction of conceptual images that allow those engaging with them to reflect on the current conditions that surround the art work. ‘Art methodologies' are skills and tools developed by artistic traditions, practice that can be applied, sold, traded with other specialisms to bring about potential social, material benefit.
>
> This separation between art and its methods enables me to see where an artist's ‘professional' methods may be serviceable to the utility of communities of interest and wider social goals. It also clarifies where art can be seen within an ‘action research' agenda for a commissioning partner in which the artist becomes part of a community of practice, engaged within the process of progressive problem solving to help open up situations.
>
> I usually use the art methodologies to negotiate a pathway. I'm sure many artists will shudder at such a definition of practice, but as I'm mostly interested in socially active aesthetics, I'll prostitute any art methodologies to smuggle myself into an interesting position to make my contraptions.

- The variation of contemporary show re-examining these manifestos, i.e. **Manifesto(2015)**
- Wikipedia: [Manifesto(2015)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifesto_(2015_film))
- [Manifesto(2015) Movie Trailer](https://tw.movies.yahoo.com/video/%E5%87%B1%E7%89%B9%E5%B8%83-%E7%90%AA-%E5%AE%A3%E8%A8%8013-%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87%E9%A0%90%E5%91%8A-051637834.html?movie_id=7156)

#### Mohamedb.jpg: The Portrait of Mohamed B.
- Dutch newspaper Volkskrant commissioned project
- [Mohamedb.jpg](http://yoha.co.uk/node/509)
- [Mohammed Bouyeri 的維基百科條目](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Bouyeri)
- The work is one of YoHa's NetMonster series, and one of my favorite. It is through URL and command like this http://netmonster.mongrel.org.uk/Monster-0.4/index.cgi to generate one new image from a search phrase driven, networked images (currently dysfunctional)
- The murder happened in Dutch, but there is no death penalty only life time confinement as the strongest one.
- The logic of "Montage" --- the meaning generation of moving images --- is challenged by networked images
- how the images in everyday life are deprived their various meaning context, and couldn't be included into social debate and dialogue
- Artist's statement
> A NetMonster project starts with a set of key search terms. The Monster then starts to construct itself from the search results. This resultant "networked image" can then be navigated, edited and directed by its users using various browser based authoring features - allowing them to edit text, turn images off and on, etc. Based on these new settings, the NetMonster conducts another search and rebuilds the image. The result over many such iterations is a collaboratively built networked image which continuously changes and offers up new content and configurations. In this way the software autonomously generates thematic content, composes it and displays it and then allows its content and thematic focus to be modified by people after each stage.
>
> Has montage now reached the end of its cultural usefulness?
>
> Montage was the main gift of twentieth century art, valuing fragmentation and conflict over continuity and organic unity - ripping images out of their contexts and sticking them back together to reveal new images, meanings and poetics from the interplay. **But do networked images in their proliferation and multiple contexts undermine the assumptions of montage or reinforce them?**
>
> The question is **not what the network does to pictures but what do pictures want from the network.**
>
> **Pictures in networks no longer have the same representational or poetic functions as before.** The way young people use pictures on their mobile phones is a primary example of the image as notation - they are skimmed over, turned into marginalia or instantly deleted. **How can we give the image a new expressive function** that is more than an arbitrary icon or thumbnail managed by a database engine?
>
> How can I reply to a picture found on a network?
>
> It is difficult to know **how images can truly enter a public debate** when our encounters with them are so disconnected. How can we give networked imagery a voice yet still be able to hold that voice to account?
>
> The NetMonstr software will not only be a means of artistic expression and critique but ll also have the potential for other functions. Its ability to gather, edit and organize search results or databases in general makes it a research tool for conceptualizing large amounts of data. The NetMonster could simplistically be said to result in **a snapshot of the current state of knowledge in the network about a given subject.**

- the medium reflection
- [Sitting In Stagram](http://art.peteashton.com/sitting-in-stagram/)（指涉 [I Am Sitting In a Room](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Sitting_in_a_Room)）

#### Materiality of Adaptation and Appropriation among Different Medium
- Comics, Animation, and Movie (including tv series) --- Adaptation as Cultural Politics: the Journey of Changes: how to review from technical object's perspective?
- Ghost in the Shell: from comics to movie
- [Ghost in the Shell (2017 live action film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell_(2017_film)) directed by Rupert Sanders
- [Ghost in the Shell (1995 film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell_(1995_film)) was written by Kazunori Itō and directed by Mamoru Oshii 押井守
- [Ghost in the Shell (1989 manga)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell_(manga)) written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow 士郎正宗
- Video essays circulated on YouTube discuss about the differences and impact of the adaptation, where Ghost in the Shell (1995) is already a classic define and open a certain genre of humanoid mindful adventure with the visual representation
- *[How Not to Adapt A Movie](https://youtu.be/v2soHxEN79c)* by Nerdwriter (7:20)
- Earlier Betrayal: but from Masamune Shirow to Mamoru Oshii, the adaptation is already dramatic and huge
- Why such huge difference? Could it be part of the medium itself, the visual narrative of animation and film that intervene as such?
- More discussion on technical perspective
- *[Satoshi Kon - Editing Space & Time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz49vQwSoTE)*: the difference process of meaning production through film editing by Tony Chen (7.5 mins)
- *[One Reason The Handmaid's Tale Won Emmys Best Drama](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY4aCnfrqss&t=51s)*: the shallow focus phtography technique and storytelling by Nerdwriter1 (6.5+ mins)
- *[The Emmy's 2017 | Stephen Colbert goes Westworld (NAKED) | FOX](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf5JmFwuxxk&t=6s)* (~3 mins): Multiple layered embedded political discourse within drama and tv program award ceremony
- *[Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals](https://www.amazon.co.jp/Otaku-Database-Animals-Hiroki-Azuma/dp/0816653526)* by Hiroki Azuma
- Otaku's psudo Japan, manufactured from "US-mode" material (e.g. [Osamu Tezuka](https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E6%89%8B%E5%A1%9A%E6%B2%BB%E8%99%AB))
- Hyperflatness, hypervisuality and multiple personalies

#### Sound
- The possibility of "Sound Essay"
- Vox.com: Earworm [Gated Reverb](https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/8/18/16162440/recording-studio-mishap-shaped-80s-music)
> "The punchy, un-natural drum was the sound of 80's. And it's back. It's called *Gated Reverb*. And like many great inventions, it's discovered by accident."
- Is it possible to re-visit the local pop music with the perspective of technical object?
- 流行音樂：崔健、大張偉；羅大佑、林強的聲音
- 羅大佑 Lo Ta-yu：[皇后大道東（1991）](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSdmcvXmPpw)
- 崔健 Cui Jian：[紅旗下的蛋（1994）](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv_xfzSRLmY/)，[超越那一天（1997）](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ-lrLOecQI)
- 林強 Lin Chung / Lim Giong：獨一無二（2003），[當兵好（1994）](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-bsc8HfxLA)

### Invisible Objects

#### Database, Big Data, Algorithm
- What is a Database?
- [Invisible Airs](http://yoha.co.uk/invisible)；[〈當代藝術的跨域展現 ─ 看不見的空氣：資料庫、治理性與權力〉](http://ap.culturemondo.org/node/6192)
> 「...當我們今日知識的組織方式與散佈過程、排序的種種實踐，以及隨之成型的溝通形式已經有了各式各樣的面貌時，令人驚訝的是，除了分析的科技形式之外，資料庫仍然維持著抗拒任何事物的樣態。
>
> 儘管資料視覺化已為許多當代視覺藝術家提供了豐沃的土壤，資料庫之『形式-技術雙重性機械裝置』（formal-technical machinery）所創造出來、逐漸成型的『整體感覺系統』（sensoria），大部分仍落在藝術性、批評性和歷史性的探索領域之外。YoHa 最新的一系列計畫所呈現的是：對於 **將資料庫機械裝置理解為一種文化、社會和歷史的物件**，這種取徑的些許貢獻。即將要討論的這些作品，探究了資料庫的成型（the formation of the database）如何已經 / 同時正在扮演一個關鍵性的社會、技術和政治的位置，而這些位置型塑了我們所活出的邏輯（lived logics）；以及資料庫的先驅者如何展現著其他世代的各樣邏輯之可能（the logics of other ages）。
>
> 在這些即將討論的計畫背後，有著一組簡單的提問：
>
> 藝術家應該要從我們身上問出什麽樣的問題，以致於能讓我們穿梭在這些嶄新地概念化、情緒化的，**「關聯機器（資料庫）如何發現了我們」** 的這個問題意識領域？
>
> 在這個脈絡中的關聯機器（Relational machines），可以被想成資料庫軟體之形式與技術部分，符合 Edgar F. Codd 在 1970年發表的論文 **〈大型共用資料庫資料的關係模型〉（A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks）** 的原則而在 1975年則進一步被 ANSI/X3/SPARC 研究小組發展成 **「資料庫管理系統」（Data Base Management Systems）**。
>
> 藝術家如何能夠揭露，從資料庫的 **「檢視表」（Views）的排序、權限管理結構、資料的正規化**，以及關聯模型中其他具有特色的 **形式特質** 所創造出來的，資料庫的 **「感覺裝置」（sensorium）** ？
>
> 資料庫的 **整體感覺系統（sensoria）** 可以被想成是，與構成我們今日世界的新視野的關聯機器之間，社會、政治、經濟與文化互動中，所升起的無形關係（intangible relationships）。
>
> 資料庫管理系統的建立和實作，如何引導著這些系統中作者（們）與被指派角色者（commissioners）的行動？
>
> 被資料庫引導的人們，與被鑲嵌在資料庫中、抽象資料模型所「代表」的人們，如何可能批判地與他們的創造物接合、交手呢？」
- [Database Addiction](http://yoha.co.uk/da)；
- Harwood 教授：[《資料庫上癮》（第一屆網絡年會演講）](http://caa-ins.org/archives/1559)
> 「...一个是观念是我们如何以艺术家这种身份工作，这对大家可能新鲜，也不一定。就是把艺术当作是“询问”的状态。作为一个艺术组合，我们很早就说过，自己对真正产生艺术作品并不十分感兴趣，我们常说自己对自我表达不感兴趣，这对于一般艺术家来说是很少见的。
>
> 但是我们真正感兴趣的是[“艺术作为询问（Art as Inquiry）”](http://artasinquiry.com)，你可以大概将其理解为**使理论和实践的边界变得模糊的一种方法**，可以大概当它是一种**美学介入的实践**，或者换句话说，是一种**多重生产的模式**，或一种**过程性的艺术类型项目**。」

- 要怎麼觀察資料庫？

> 「... **数据库成瘾** 由“余波”艺术家小组、德玛斯（Jean Demars）, 和米歇森博士（Dr Luke Mitcheson）发起，拉德瓦（Anila Ladwa）是出品人。它首先在罗琳海威特之家（Lorraine Hewitt House），伦敦布里斯顿的一家成瘾者诊所启动。在诊所工作的是志愿者团队、临床心理学家、社工、精神病医生、行政人员和前台，他们人手不足工作繁重。由于资金削减和政策变动，诊所自身的服务设置压缩，行政设施和建筑空间被别扭地安置在一起。伴随着资金削减的是器械、办公设施和管理形式的合并。当这些来自不同行政系统的人被迫进入同一个空间内，彼此却无法产生交流。所以如果你是一个成瘾者，当你走入诊所，你需要在住房数据库里填好你所有的信息，然后走到下一间屋子，又要在健康数据库里填写满满的……信息，然后你又走去另一间屋子…… 这时，你不仅仅因为酒精而精神错乱了，重复劳动叫你抓狂，但你还得进出不同的管理系统还要符合种种不同的规则规范。每个人都因此感到沮丧。
>
> 所以，如你所见，戒瘾者中心的工作都和收集信息有关，决定和进一步的活动又基于这些信息。这就导致了一个量化的结构，循环往复地产生一个个的行为。你可以看到，在这些模式中，每一个小事故都可能引发连带的后果。」

- What is an algorithm?
- 經濟學人：[大數據](https://bookzone.cwgv.com.tw/book_BCS156.html)：經典案例是紐約消防局透過大數據運算，找到指標（建築外牆是否有「拉皮」，房屋稅的繳納情形）來提前檢查，來減少消防隊員的傷亡
- 數學家的反省：[Weapon of Math Destruction](https://www.amazon.com/Weapons-Math-Destruction-Increases-Inequality/dp/0553418815)（台灣中文書名是《大數據的傲慢與偏見》）針對數學模型、金融危機的前車之鑑、邪惡循環等現象來闡述大數據的社會問題。
- YoHa 作品：[Endless War](http://yoha.co.uk/node/761)，如何理解人與資料、演算法共生的過程？
> How does the way war is thought relate to how it is fought?
>
> As the Afghan war unfolds, it produces vast quantities of information that are encoded into database entries and can, in turn, be analyzed by software looking for repeated patterns of events, spatial information, kinds of actors, timings, and other factors. These analyses go on to inform military decision-making and alter the course of events in the air and on the ground.
>
> On July 25, 2010, WikiLeaks released a large amount of this normally classified information as the Afghan War Diary, comprising over 91,000 (15,000 withheld) reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010. The reports were written by soldiers and intelligence officers and calculated by clocks, computers, and satellites. The primary source of the Afghan War Diary is the Combined Information Data Network Exchange (CIDNE), a database created by the US Department of Defense (DoD).
>
> "One way of looking at the War Diary is to use it as a record of specific military acts; another is to critically reflect on the database machines that generated it. Endless War, an artwork by YoHa and Matthew Fuller, takes up the latter project. It processes the WikiLeaks Afghan War Diary data set as a collection of analytic viewpoints, both machine and human. A software-driven system, Endless War reveals the structure of these viewpoints by using N-gram fingerprints, a method that allows sorting of the text as an anonymous corpus without having to impose predetermined categories on it. Presented as a gallery installation, the system includes a computer that processes the data in real time, projections of the results, and coil pick-up microphones on the central processing unit that sonify the inner working of the machine."
- 延伸議題：《巴拿馬文件》

#### Social Media
- 社群媒體之前是什麼？
- ["What is the meaning of BC and AD?"](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-meaning-of-BC-and-AD)
- social software, social network 社會系產物
- 行動社群媒體跟社群媒體
- 服務叢集：縮短網址服務：（例如 bit.ly 提供的域名短址服務 s.ilyagram.org/2017hz ）
- Medium
- WeChat
- 社群媒體是什麼？
- 個人私社群媒體經驗
- 務虛勝實：親身實際人際互動，被公共介面所「蓋過」（override）
- 拋虛引實：藉由書寫文字來做個人公共關係的「中介」，引發或更進一步釐清地雷所在
- 戰虛掘實：對大眾媒體提出更為紮實的批判攻擊，帶動人際關係圈的對話與表態連動
- Geert Lovink：[《社群媒體的深淵》](http://as.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1509507752.html)（章節譯文）
- 社群及其不滿：App 與機器人
- 從社群到共享經濟 / 分享經濟
- 社群之間的人際信任關係被「萃取」出來，變成擴大商業化的基礎
- Grossum：[共享經濟優劣辨（The Pros and Cons of the Sharing Economy）](https://www.grossum.com/blog/sharing-economy-how-new-economy-is-changing-the-world)
- 維基百科：[Sharing Economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharing_economy)，Uber 與 Airbnb
- 《經濟學人》: [The Rising of the Sharing Economy](https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573104-internet-everything-hire-rise-sharing-economy)
- platform capitalism open discussion
- INC: [Never Mind the Sharing Economy: Here’s Platform Capitalism](http://networkcultures.org/mycreativity/2014/10/16/never-mind-the-sharing-economy-heres-platform-capitalism/)
- P2P Foundation: [Platform Capitalism](http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Platform_Capitalism)
#### blockchain
- 區塊鏈（blockchain）是什麼？
- 吳柏蒼，[〈區塊鏈如何幫助音樂人〉](http://www.pochang.com/blog/2017/03/20/%E5%8D%80%E5%A1%8A%E9%8F%88%E5%A6%82%E4%BD%95%E5%B9%AB%E5%8A%A9%E9%9F%B3%E6%A8%82%E4%BA%BA/)（2017.3.20）
- 火箭咖啡兩篇介紹文章
- [〈解讀中本聰的論文：什麼是比特幣？〉](https://rocket.cafe/talks/85500)（2017.8.24）
- [〈為你解說區塊鏈應用：以太坊、以太幣、智慧合約〉](https://rocket.cafe/talks/85506)（2017.8.25）
- 荷蘭網路文化研究中心
- Geert Lovink：[《社群媒體的深淵》](http://as.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1509507752.html)（章節譯文）
- [MoneyLab: Failing Better](http://networkcultures.org/moneylab/)
- [MoneyLab #2: Economies of Dissent flyer](http://networkcultures.org/blog/2015/09/21/moneylab2-economies-of-dissent-flyer/)
- [MoneyLab #3 Conference Report](http://networkcultures.org/moneylab/wp-content/uploads/sites/17/2016/12/ML3_ConferenceReport-definitive.pdf)
- [MoneyLab Reader: An Intervention in Digital Economy](http://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/moneylab-reader-an-intervention-in-digital-economy/)
- [世界經濟論壇討論文章](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/07/how-can-creative-industries-benefit-from-blockchain/)
- [Creative Chain 創意鍊](https://www.creativechain.org/) (需翻牆網頁才跑得動)
- 蕭景燈博士的[筆記連結](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s203/sh/d1c4f13b-f23d-449e-b494-aabca13a01c4/03b6339e85035daabaed5dcd09cb64c9)（需翻牆，或見「课程资料汇总」）
- [Pinboard.in 上面的區塊鏈連結](https://pinboard.in/t:blockchain/)

#### chatbot
從搜尋引擎時代的「有事問 Google」，到社群媒體時代的「請問臉書大神」（中國的經驗是問「知乎」或者微信「朋友圈」的其他的問答服務）；接下來即將到來的世代是「問問機器人」的世代。之前你還需要記住一個 Google 然後找到海量的資料結果，但是在社交革命（social revolution）之後，透過機器人作為中介，機器人會幫你搞清楚要去哪裡問誰。

“Let me google it for you” 這種 meta-search 服務如何再進化，搭配外部的臉書資料服務？

- 聊天機器人（chatbot）是什麼？
- 客服機器人 + 隨機聊天（cognitive
- 聊天是什麼？聊天室 IRC 與論壇經驗
- 語音物件的浪潮
- Alexa + Echo，Google Home
- 對話商務（conversational commerce）
- 序列性串流經驗，例如 D&D 或 Nethack
- VentureBeat：[Kik’s new Kin currency is no revolution: It’s about chasing China](https://venturebeat.com/2017/05/31/kiks-new-kin-currency-is-no-revolution-its-about-chasing-china/)
- 「一站式解決方案」，提高使用頻度、帶動新的互動與收入可能
- 訊息溝通時，規劃到付諸行動實踐（付款）
- 旅行時不需要換錢，仍然使用同一種貨幣

### Thinking with the ecological system perspective
乍看之下，跟科技物對立的是一套作為背景的認知架構系統。我們必須要有一套思維體系與在這之外的世界，心物的對立，才有辦法「辨識出」這些科技物，以及接下來處理它。真的是如此嗎？

在這個前景與背景關係中，科技物有著特殊的面貌：它既乘載著作為歷史的過去痕跡，又必須要指向作為創新的未來方向，牽引著使用者向前方移動。心智邏輯與 **連結模式**（connected patterns）是關鍵詞。

把你的科技物放回到「**脈絡**」裡面來：你就會看到物與物，科技物與系統跟你的關係。在此我們會試著用各種「系統」來理解科技物。

- **Mind system**（Gregory Bateson，[Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity](https://www.amazon.com/Nature-Media-Education-Culture-Technology/dp/1572734345)，中文譯本《心智與自然》見「课程资料汇总」，請閱讀第一至三章）
- 我們是否學會如何描述所見世界？
- 何謂「連結模式」？怎麼理解事物之間、事物與我們的關聯
- 多重模式的表現方式
- **Environmental system**
- J.J. Gibson 與環境視覺 (*The ecological approach to design*, written by Takeshi Goto, Masato Sasaki and Naoto Fukasawa)
- **Digital system**：什麼是數位媒體的特色？
- [《新媒體的語言》（The Language of New Media）](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/language-new-media) written by Lev Manovich
- 你知道你所面對的現象，是由獨立的、許多層次的交錯影響所促成。這些影響勢力透過標準與規格，各自試圖「壟斷」結構與建立據點。
- 人們的選擇只有遵循已經被決定的系統，或者在單一點上掙扎。如果沒有預先載入的合作/協作文化模式，行動者是無法動彈的；而通常只有大型企業，或者已經建立某種結盟關係的網絡組織（networked organizations），才有辦法抵抗或者改變遊戲規則。
- 勵志故事：追上與改變遊戲規則的故事（博客年會）
- **Urban system**：智慧城市作為有機系統，與系統/層疊觀點
- Adam Greenfield
- [Against the smart city (The city is here for you to use Book 1)](https://www.amazon.com/Against-smart-city-here-Book-ebook/dp/B00FHQ5DBS)
- [Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life](https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Technologies-Design-Everyday-Life-ebook/dp/B071DFS89G/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1503994993&sr=1-1&keywords=adam+greenfield)
- Adam Greenfield，Nurri Kim
- [Systems / Layers Walkshop](http://www.dcrc.org.uk/events/systemslayers-walkshop-adam-greenfield/)
- [Walkshop: Elements of a Networked Urbanism with Adam Greenfield](http://slab.ocadu.ca/event/walkshop-elements-of-a-networked-urbanism-with-adam-greenfield-0)
- **Culture system**：觀眾與典藏系統 ---- 博物館與數位設計
- 這是什麼鬼啊？在傳統的機構裡面，儲存第一個數位原生設計物件：開放源碼的音樂播放軟體 [Planetary](http://planetary.bloom.io/)。
- [Planetary: Collecting and Preserving Code as a Living Object](https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2013/08/26/planetary-collecting-and-preserving-code-as-a-living-object/)
> "Could we, for example, depict the Enron email dataset with its half-million messages using Planetary? Or if we included Planetary in the Google Art Project (to which we contribute) could we do it in a way that both preserved its interactivity and displayed the entirety of the collections in the Art Project itself?"
>
> "Data visualization is a medium."
- 史密斯尼學會雜誌：[〈一個博物館要如何收錄 iPad App 作為館藏？〉](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-does-a-museum-acquire-an-ipad-app-for-its-collections-880301/)
- Robert Hodgin：[〈打造新的世界〉](http://blog.bloom.io/2011/07/11/creating-new-worlds/)
- [Planetary](http://planetary.bloom.io/) 與 [Biologic](http://biologic.bloom.io/) 製作團隊 bloom.io 成員的故事：前團隊成員互動藝術家 Robert Hodgin 與紐西蘭奧克蘭戰爭記憶博物館的合作作品：[「沸騰」（Boil Up） ](http://roberthodgin.com/work/boil-up/)
> 「在地理論的重要性。有很多的裝置可以快速買進，有很多的論述可以直接 command-c "ok google 你給我翻譯翻譯，什麼叫做 xyz" 然後 command-v。
> 但是唯有在地出發去揣想別的理論，是試圖在解決什麼樣的挑戰與問題；有什麼樣斑駁的老照片，裡面見證著什麼樣的具體實踐，才能夠把政治意識與技術對話接回到當前的社會裡面。
> 像是互動藝術家 Robert Hodgin 的挑戰就是要在紐西蘭奧克蘭戰爭記憶博物館的海洋奇觀展覽中，模擬互動的鮪魚漩渦「沸騰」現象（boil up）。他所用的工具與演算法作為技術堆疊（tech stack）的材質基礎，才有機會在這之上再演繹更奇想的敘事。
> 這裡的在地性（localness）不見得只有內容上的意義，程式寫作，還包括 flocking 互動典範、是否運用 GPU 的技術抉擇，博物館與文化遺產部門的科技，跟海洋紀錄片影像邏輯的對話。而理論的功能就是讓人區分空間中的勢力交錯與權重，快速部署出一個可以執行得有意義方案。
- 與設計博物館裡面的設計師觀眾互動 --- 筆計畫：[Designing The Pen](https://www.cooperhewitt.org/new-experience/designing-pen/)
- Aaron 與 Micah 講故事
- MakeSimply 的觀點
- 你的博物館與文化機構經驗呢？能否展開一個對科技物與生態系統的研究呢？
- **空間與認知系統**：思想與行動的系統
- Bret Victor，[〈可見的空間〉（Seeing Spaces）](http://worrydream.com/SeeingSpaces/)，[實作](https://www.quora.com/Did-Bret-Victor-build-a-personal-seeing-space)

### Activistic Digital Culture 行動主義者的數位文化
我們要做什麼？認知的目的是為了有恰當的方式展開行動。

- 行動創造了什麼樣的結果？《鉅變》與新資本與技術共生關係
- 行動範例一：[三機主義](http://work.ilyagram.org/docs/ins-3machinism)的策略性計畫
- 行動範例二：[PubPub.org](http://pubpub.org) 與 MIT Media Lab 的《設計與科學》（JoDS）期刊
- 軟體研究作為一種新的文化研究
- Cyber-Physical System （虛實整合系統 / 網宇實體系統 / 虛實融合系統）
- 所有的科技物被軟體+中介，被編織到新的系統之中
- 我們之前的文化也是如此，只是從未用這個角度審視過
- 機器與人共生的數位文化
- 大數據的資料偏移現象
- 運用對話來解決當代問題
- 討論與案例實作
- 行動：農業-自然的技術物再介入循環計畫（智慧沃土）