Re: <nettime> mapping the FIELDS

["Patrick Lichty" <pl@voyd.com>]

New Aesthetics: Cyber-Aesthetics and Degrees of Autonomy.
by PATRICK LICHTY on FEBRUARY 23, 2013
RealityAugmentedblog.com

In perusing Honor Harger's recent missive on drone aesthetics and
James Bridle's ongoing posts of drone images at Dronestagram, taken in
context with the Glitch un-conference in Chicago, some new questions
have come to mind. These questions have to do with conceptions of
New Aesthetics in its various forms in terms of interaction with the
program/device and its level of autonomy from the user. In my mind,
there seems to be a NA continuum from generative programs that operate
under the strict criteria of the programmer to the often-autonomous
actions of drones and planetary rovers. As you can see, I am still
chewing on the idea that The New Aesthetic as it seems to be defined,
as encompassing all semi-autonomous aspects of 'computer vision'.
This includes Glitch, Algorism, Drone imagery, satellite photography
and face recognition, and it's sometimes a tough nugget to swallow
that resonates with me on a number of levels. First, image-creating
technological agents are far from new, as Darko Fritz recently stated
in a talk that algorithms have been creating images, in my opinion,
within criteria of NA since the 60's, and pioneers like Frieder Nake,
A. Michael Noll, and Roman Verostko have been exploring algorithmic
agency for decades. If we take these computer art pioneers into
account, one can argue that NA has existed since the 60's if one lumps
in genres like Verostko's 'style' of Algorism or the use of algorithms
as aesthetic choice. A notch along the continuum toward the 'fire and
forget' imaging (e.g. drones) is the Glitch contingent, which is less
deterministic about their methodologies of data corruption aesthetics
by either running a program that corrupts the media or they perform
digital vivisection and watch what little monster they've created.
Glitchers exhibit less control over their processes, and are much
more akin to John Cage, Dada or Fluxus artists in their allowance of
whimsical or chance elements in their media.

However, as we slide along the spectrum of control/autonomy from
the lockstep control of code to the less deterministic aesthetics
of face recognition, drone imaging, robotic cameras, Google Street
View cams, Mars Rovers and satellite imaging, things get murkier.
Autonomic aesthetics remind me of the ruby-hued Terminator T500 vision
generated by intelligent agents running the 'housekeeping' on the
machine platform. I consider this continuum from Algorism to Glitch
to autonomous robotic agents under an NA continuum of aesthetics
is important insofar as it defines a balance of agency between the
operator and the 'tool'. For me this is the difference between the
high degree of control of the Algorist, the 'twiddle and tweak'
sensibility of the Glitcher, and the gleaning from the database of
pseudo-autonomous images created by Big Imaging created by drones and
automatic imaging. Notice I use the term 'pseudo' in that there are
operators flying the platforms or driving the car, while the on-board
agents take care of issues like pattern/face recognition and target
acquisition. We also see this in Facebook, as recent technological
changes as of 2012 have introduced face recognition in the tagging
of images. From this, a key issue for me in this discussion of what
began as a nebulous set of terms (the criteria of NA as defined by
the global conversation) is that of agency and autonomy, and how
much control the New Aestheticist gets in the execution of their
process. Another important point is that I am not calling the 'New
Aestheticist' an artist or curator, but something in between, but I'll
get to that later as this is also an issue of control of intent.

Back to this idea of autonomy between the subject, the 'curator' and
the viewer, what interests me is the degree of control or not that the
person creating, tweaking, or gleaning the image has over the creation
or contextualization of that image. In the case of the Algorist, this
is the Control end of the spectrum, where the artist takes nearly full
control of the process of creation of the image, unless there is a
randomization function involved in the process, and that it itself is
a form of control - very Cybernetic in nature. Agency is at a maximum
here, as the artist and machine are in partnership. Roman Verostko is
a prime example of this, as he explores intricate recursive images
created by ink pen plotters using paints in the pens. What he, and
the AI-driven AARON, by Harold Cohen, for that matter, are machine
painting.

The next step down the autonomy spectrum would involve the use of
'glitch' tools and processes that distort, disturb, and warp digital
media. The process involves executing a given intervention upon the
medium, such as saving it improperly, hex editing its code to corrupt
it, or as Caleb Kelly writes, 'crack' the media. There are differing
degrees of disturbance of the media to inject chance processes into
it, from a more 'algoristic'/programmatic application of programs upon
the media to directly changing the internal data structure through
manipulating the information through hex code and text editors. The
resultant process is an iterative 'tweak and test' methodology that
still involves the user in the process to varying degrees. Of course,
the direct manipulation of the data with a hex editor is the most
intimate of the processes, but there is still one factor to account
for. The factor in question is that there is the set of causes and
effects that are set in motion when the artist/operator opens the
media and the codec (Compressor/DECompressor) mis/interprets the
media, as is intended by the artist.

If we are to look at the glitch process, we can say that there is a
point of intervention/disturbance upon the media, which is entirely
a function of control on the part of the user. Afterwards, it is
set loose into the system to allow the corruptions within the media
to trigger chance/autonomous operations in its interpretation in
the browser, etc. This is where the glitcher straddles the line
between control and autonomy, as they manually insert noise into
their media (control), then the codecs struggle with the 'cracked'
media (autonomy). The glitcher, then, has the option to try a new
iteration, thereby making the process cybernetic in nature. In Glitch,
there is a conversation between the operator, the media and the
codec. With the aesthetics created by drones, algorithmic recognition
software, and satellite reconstructions, the process is far more
autonomous/disjoint, and the New Aestheticist has to deal with this in
the construction of their practice.

In the genre that I will call 'mobEYEle' imaging, the robot,
satellite, or parabolic street eye abstracts from the 'artist', aptly
turning them into an 'aestheticist', as their level of control is
defined as that of a gleaner/pattern recognizer from the image bank
of Big Data. Rhetorically speaking, we could say that a connection
between the aestheticist and the generator of the image would be less
abstract if, say, a New Aestheticist were to be in the room with a
drone pilot, conversing about points of interest. It is likely that
a military remote pilot and a graphic designer would have sharply
differing views as to what constitutes a 'target of interest'. Like
that's going to happen.

Therefore, let us just say that the collaboration of a New
Aestheticist and a drone pilot is nightly unlikely, and that the New
Aestheticist is therefore abstracted from the decisions of command
and control involved in acquiring the image that eventually gets in
their hands. This, however, presents us with two levels of autonomous
agency, one human and one algotrithmic. But before I expand on this,
I would like to discuss my decision to call the practitioner an
'aestheticist' as opposed to an artist or curator.

This decision rests on what I feel is the function of the
aestheticist, that is, to glean value from an image and 'ascribe' an
aesthetic to it. This position puts them in a murky locus between
artist and curator, as they have elements of neither and both. For
example, does the drone-image NA practitioner create the image; are
they the artist per se, of the image? No. Although they are more
closely aligned to curatorial practice as they collect, filter (to
paraphrase Anne-Marie Schleiner), and post on tumblrs and Pinterests?
>From my perspective, the role of a curator is the suggestion of taste
through and informed subjectivity through ecologies of trust and
legitimacy, but the social image aggregator, although they might want
to perform the same function, has no guarantee of accomplishing this
unless they develop a following. Therefore, under my definition, they
are neither creators nor taste-makers in the traditional sense, so
what makes sense is to call them 'aggregators' of aesthetic material
and thus my term 'Aestheticist'.

Returning to our conversation, the drone aestheticist, then, is
subject to one of two degrees of completely abstracted autonomy
of the creation of the image; that of the operator or that of the
algorithms operating the drone. The abstraction surrounding the
human operator is easiest to resolve, as the images of interest
are either the preference of the drone operator or those created
by the operator under the parameters of the mission, and not the
results of a New Aestheticist's joyride on a Global Hawk. It is
merely someone else's volition selecting the image, and a confluence
of personal interest deciding as to whether the image deserves to be
on the New Aestheticist's social imaging organ. However, it is the
drone's algorithmic image acquisition system that creates a more alien
perspective in regards to aesthetics and autonomy of the image.

Compared to the Algorist or the Glitcher, all loosely placed under
the banner of New Aesthetics, the Drone/Big Data Aestheticist is
most problematic, as they are a fetishizer of sheer command and
control operations that are potentially utterly abstracted from the
pilot/driver's volition. This creates a double abstraction through
first the pilot, and then the algorithmic recognition system. There
is no cybernetic loop here at all, as the gleaning of the item of
interest from the beach of Big Data is twice removed from any feedback
potential. Secondly, as I have written before, the Drone Aestheticist
is exactly that, a gleaner of interesting images for use on their
social image site, which in itself is a bit of an abject exercise.

Or is it? For example, if one is to say that the Aestheticist gleaning
the images does so without intent or politics, and is merely operating
on fetish/interest value, then this is perhaps one of the least
interesting practices in New Aesthetic practice. But on the other
hand, if one looks at the work of practitioners like Jordan Crandall,
Trevor Paglen, or Ricardo Dominguez, who examine the acquired image
as instrument of aggression, control, and oppression, this puts a new
lease on the life of the Drone Aesthetic. In a way, though inquiry,
there is an indirect feedback loop established in questioning the
gaze of the device, its presence, and its function in its theater
of operations. The politics of the New Aesthetic emerges here, in
asking what mechanisms of command and control guide the machine eye
and determine its targets of interest. This is of utmost importance,
as the abstracted eye is guided without subjectivity or ethics and is
determined solely by the parameters of its algorithms and the stated
goals of its functions.

Is the aesthetic of the machine image merely a function of examining
its processes, fetishizing its errors, or something else? The criteria
of the New Aesthetic attempts to talk about a spectrum of digital
imaging that stretches back into time far longer than 2010, and has
a problematically broad sense of definition. Once these problems are
set aside as a given, one of the key criteria for the evaluation of
NA practice and the function of its images depends upon the degree of
control and autonomy inherent in the process within the creation of
the image. This is formed in a continuum of control and abstraction
from Algorism and Generative Art to autonomous eyes like drones and
satellites. Algorism is one of the oldest NA practices, and exhibits
the closest relationship between artist, machine and determinacy of
digital process. A greater degree of indeterminacy is evident in the
Glitch, but the iterative process of tweaking the media and then
setting it forth into the process of interpretation by the codec,
foregrounds the issue of digital autonomy.

The eye of the unmanned platform abstracts creation from the human
organism at least once if a human does not operate it remotely, and
twice if it is. There is the Terminator-like fear of the autonomous
robot, but at this time, perhaps the more salient questions regarding
what I have qualified as drone/autonomous aestheticism under NA of
what the function of the image is, and is it really that interesting?
Are the practices of NA blurring artistic and curatorial practice into
a conceptual aestheticism, creating a cool detachment from the image
despite its source or method of creation? Is the bottom line to the
genres of NA the degree of control that the artist or aestheticist
has over the image's creation or its modality/intent? It seems that
NA is an ongoing reflection upon the continuum of control over the
generation of the image, our beliefs regarding its aesthetics, and
what the intentions or politics are behind the creation of the New
Aesthetic image. Or, as I have written before, are we just pinning
images from Big Data and saying, "Isn't that kinda cool?"

Maybe it's somewhere in the middle of intention and cool.




#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime>  is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org