algologs
Algologs notes
Algolit wiki: http://algolit.net
Friday evening (this pad): https://pad.vvvvvvaria.org/algologs
Pad for the Saturday, Algolit session: https://pad.constantvzw.org/p/180317_algolit_word2vec
Algolit
crossover code & literature, workgroup
inspired on Oulipo, potential literature based on constraints, accelarating/exhausting them
ex Queneau, Exercices de style
Johanna Drucker, Un-visual and Conceptual, letter published on Ubuweb
bring Oulipo principles/constraints in algorithmic systems: what is embedded in them...?
2012: start, looking at Oulipo constraints, generic algorithms, Quicksort, Markov Chain, ... rewriting Frankenstein
2016: focus on text based Machine Learning processes
experimenting with recipes, for coders & non-coders
idea of recipe < Oulipo
come up with something that can be done within the day
a way to structure yourself
Algolog
wink to Algolit
interest to combine Algolit with other practises
'logging': a way to log attitudes towards algorithms and contexts in which they are used
'age of mechanical reprediction': joke to all other versions of title that exist, ref. Walter Benjamin
bookscanner = tool for reproduction / twist to age of reprediction
ML uses a lot of data, to find patterns, make model and predict how in future same patterns will arise
Algorithms
look at it as recipe
set of rules to be executed
needs ingredients
comes with own culture, taste of what is good or not
Machine Learning
also called AI (but this term brings up different questions)
ML belongs to field of predictive statistics, takes information of the past, influence the future
Difficult to trace back decision making processes, problem of bias
----
Marloes De Valk, performance “We Are Going to Take Over the World, One Robot at a Time”
software artist & writer
'Let us celebrate capitalism' Google 2016
-----------
Cristina, Infrapunctures
botprojects
infrapuncture - acupuncture
needs sensitivity for pain & debts (reference woman?), 'rban acupuncture'
ex urban farms Taipe, Treasure Hill, on any place in the city that is unsuitable for industrial production
The area got renovated by the local government, then the area got gentrified. Marketing for the neighbourhood.
friction in between local interventions / institutional interventions
Huni, Humanities of Networked Infrastructures https://huni.net.au
platform for datasets
(she also wrote recently about the feminist archive, recommended read)
(network) infrastructure: everything that makes online communication possible
example of automated interventions by bots.
'bespoke code' code is highly costumized, serving specific goal (reference?)
in the context of SaaS, bots are in the rise as a form of 'bespoke code'
no need for high programming skills, can live on local servers
bots require understanding of infrastructures
bots have political potential
Oxford Insitute: political bots program
- propaganda bots: sock puppets (half operated by people/half automated)
- amplifiers commenting
- validators affirming through likes
- harrassers
Power of botfarms to influence political campaigns
not a new thing
PsyOPs, planned manouevres that promote behavir suitable to US abroad favor of
An example is the video that shows how the military spreads leaflets out of airplanes
no too far of posting propaganda messages & see what sticks
Process of propoganda is democratized, for example as many people can make bots
Example: automated agent in Tinder, pursuading users to vote for the Labour party
users not aware they were speaking to bot, being lied on romance, influenced to vote
But, the platforms themselves are the ones that are winning in the end.
Example:
via Ellen Gallagher, Agenda of Evil
spreading anti-islam messages on
On their website: "Fakebook"
'conten aggregator & distribution hub'
requires collaboration between humans & robots:
"sheppards (people with high number of follwers), sheepdogs and electric sheep (bots that blindly repeat)"
Bot of conviction (Marc Sample??)
< Jurgen habermas, 'journalism of conviction'
a tactical bot?
Parliament Wikiedits
edit on wikipedia without account; your email address is public
retweet edits of public institutions automatically
by publishing the code under an open license, the bot appeared in other countires
rhetoric bots, also persuasion, but with different parameters
dialogic combination of the people making the bots and the people reading their posts
infrapunctural bots
every intervention creates revenue (for the platforms)
Twitter is one of the main sites where research on bots is applied to
'thinking outside the bot'
Xnet Spain
anonymous tips about corrupt bankers, communication material
theater play, money raised, sued the bankers and they won
defined stress: economic crisis
relieved the stress by the project
they became 'utomated agents' by performing and reenacting emails
Open States, Amsterdam
Hack de valse start hackathon
Focus on solutions, not thinking to much
digital literacy is often offered as a solution
critical thinking does not necesarily equate informed thinking
highlight sociality of the process, possibilites to create new imagineries
A difference does not per se matter
However, the infrapunctional bots highlight the sociality aspect
what forms of sociality arise in these contexts?
the undoing is as important as the doing!
-----------
Experimental publishing master, 1st y
Ouvroir de Numérisation Potentiel (Ounupo)
28-3: presentation in Worm
applying feminist methodologies - each created a reader on different topic
looking at biasses, absent information
working with rules, all chose same font designed by feminist
scanner i open hardware, using pi & pi scan software operating cameras
each one builds backend/software for scanner, transforming the material they scan
1.
weaving / programming
Carlandre poems
input / rules / output
thread / pattern / fabric
first patterns used for programming
jackard motif in text / stitching & weaving text / visible output
weaving on angle
cfr paper weave
create programming language OverUnder (under/over stitches, easy to reporduce in paper wave)
load/show/over/under/quit
2.
what has been scanned and what not (Google)
'how bias spreads from the canon to the web'
what books do we upload, who does it, what is lost in the process
not a lot of female writers, what is standard, how not to reproduce culture we inherit
how do you make interfaces less seemless?
article on facial recognition: 1st versions tested and created by white male, not recognizing faces of other races
-> script: you scan sthg, whatever you scan first would affect the next page (inclusion/exclusion)
- erase: finds the least common words (appear once) from 1st page and erases them, adding for every other page -> more and more gaps
- replace: replaces least common words by most common words
3.
Reading the structure
gendered image of the librarian, female, bad connotation vs information scientist
different perspectives on 2 groups while they're doing the same
if we read like a machine can we also see the structure of the text
put labels of words instead of word itself: noun, keyword, neutral, profession
-> reconstruct bag of words into the orginals text
add your own tags
exported to json file, you can use it as your own dataset
4.
Database & narrative
Lev Manovich, db as symbolic form
how narrative is represented in new media
scanner is converting classical narrative into database of words/sentences
print db and turn it back into book form
included all texts & trash
Whatsapp & mediawiki - including stream into db
analysing keywords, looking for important words, looking for feminist words & erasing them
5.
Encoding - decoding
shadow & pirate libraries
Ceasar, rot13 code
python & drawbot, using only letters & 1-9,punctuation out
whole text included in circle - mandalas :-)
6.
transparent reader
layered reading
using Gertrude Stein, pattern in language
These pages are generated with Distribusi. 🌐 https://varia.zone