Instructions artworks, game poems, and algorithms
What is an algorithm?
An algorithm is a set of instructions. Algorithms are unambiguous rules for performing tasks. Generally, this has come to mean calculation, data processing, and reasoning.
‘Algorithm’ is a real everywhere buzzword right now, and it has kind of lost meaning. But they do shape our lives, via:
Search results
Advertisement
Newsfeeds
‘The Filter Bubble’
Facial recognition
High frequency trading
Predictive policing
Online dating
Credit score calculation
And so so many more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2u_eHHzRto
(The era of blind faith in big data must end, Cathy O'Neil, sorry this is a TED talk, mild cw - describing racial and gender bias in hiring and policing in ways)
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BUT an algorithm is not inherently a software program.
Although algorithms are often the backbone of computational systems, and algorithm can be any set of instructions with unambiguous rules.
Dance moves?
Algorithm
Recipe?
Algorithm
Directions to the movies from your apartment?
Algorithm!
This relates to our work in this class in a variety of ways- partly, yes, because they’ve come to control our lives and digital literacy is one of our goals here.
But also because they are the baseline system for thinking through how scripting- telling a computer what to do- might work. Last time we looked at HTML (content) and CSS (style). A lot of the rest of this course will be spent on Interaction. And algorithms fundamentally describe the rules of those interactions.
There is another, very old medium that is entirely made of rules for interactions, and that is games.
A game is a structured form of play. Not all games have rules, but most do- even if those rules change from game-to-game or playground-to-playground, they are still rules.
Here are the rules of Hide and Seek:
Object: The object of Hide and Seek is for the person who is "it" to find the other players who are hiding.
Play: Choose who will be "it". "It" closes or covers their eyes and counts to 50. While "it" is counting the other players scatter and find places to hide. "It" then goes looking for the other players. When “it” finds one they are out. The last player to be found becomes the new "it"
Here are the rules of Checkers:
Object: A player wins the game when the opponent cannot make a move. In most cases, this is because all of the opponent's pieces have been captured, but it could also be because all of his pieces are blocked in.
Play:
- Moves are allowed only on the dark squares, so pieces always move diagonally. Single pieces are always limited to forward moves (toward the opponent).
- A piece making a non-capturing move (not involving a jump) may move only one square.
- A piece making a capturing move (a jump) leaps over one of the opponent's pieces, landing in a straight diagonal line on the other side. Only one piece may be captured in a single jump; however, multiple jumps are allowed during a single turn.
- When a piece is captured, it is removed from the board.
- If a player is able to make a capture, there is no option; the jump must be made. If more than one capture is available, the player is free to choose whichever he or she prefers.
- When a piece reaches the furthest row from the player who controls that piece, it is crowned and becomes a king. One of the pieces which had been captured is placed on top of the king so that it is twice as high as a single piece.
- Kings are limited to moving diagonally but may move both forward and backward. (Remember that single pieces, i.e. non-kings, are always limited to forward moves.)
- Kings may combine jumps in several directions, forward and backward, on the same turn. Single pieces may shift direction diagonally during a multiple capture turn, but must always jump forward (toward the opponent).
Here are the (somewhat complicated) rules of Texas Hold ‘em.
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As you can imagine, this is pretty neat field for artists. Instructions can become a score, a play, a drawing, a game, a moment in time. (They’re all.. algorithms.)
Tristan Tzara, 1920:
TO MAKE A DADAIST POEM
Take a newspaper.
Take some scissors.
Choose from this paper an article of the length you want to make your poem.
Cut out the article.
Next carefully cut out each of the words that makes up this article and put them all in a bag.
Shake gently.
Next take out each cutting one after the other.
Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag.
The poem will resemble you.
And there you are—an infinitely original author of charming sensibility, even though unappreciated by the vulgar herd.
(http://www1.lasalle.edu/~blum/c340wks/DadaPoem.htm )
Oulipo, 1960s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulipo#Constraints
Sol LeWitt, Wall drawings: https://massmoca.org/sol-lewitt/
John Cage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8HYbzuaWVo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcHnL7aS64Y (John Cage, On Silence)
Yoko Ono (Grapefruit, etc):
Fluxus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluxus
https://buuckbarge.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/fluxusworkbook.pdf
George Brecht:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqmFFsTZ2QM
Tehching Hsieh: https://www.tehchinghsieh.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPLoLoPmzbI (1980 - 1981)
Francis Alÿs, especially the walking artworks -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZedESyQEnMA
http://www.artexchange.org.uk/exhibition/francis-alys-seven-walks/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtWUqBR1Eww
James Tenney, August Harp for Susan Allen (1971): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x34hUbPswt4
Flash mobs!
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Holly Gramazio:
21 Microgames - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AecK05E67T0
Harry Josephine Giles:
Casual Games for Casual Hikers - https://harryjosephine.com/portfolio/casual-games-for-casual-hikers/
Casual Games for City Walkers -
https://gamesforwalkers.wordpress.com/citywalkers/
Paolo Pedercini:
Casual Games for Protests -
http://molleindustria.org/files/63_microgames.pdf
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Design five short analog ‘algorithms’ of less than 100 words each. These can be instructions for a drawing, a dance, a walk, a score, a spell, a recipe, a game, or an art-making process.
They can be played in the world, on paper, with tools like cards or dice, or any other way. Minimal to no props encouraged.
A classic example is ‘the floor is lava’.
Bring these to class on Monday Sept 9th, in a text file (google doc, word doc, email, whatever).
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Okay we’re going to spend the rest of class playing