~AN ARGUMENT AGAINST THE COLLAPSE OF CATEGORIES~
/ CODEWORKS ////////////

digital utopianism is w/ us
“new media” has aged
acquired a history thru the engagement w/ the reality principal

Also thru:
~ the net as accepted as a material & cultural given in the “developed world”
~ .coms have crashed
~ unsolicited marketing email & consumerism dominates network traffic
nontheless, artistic practice is still often driven by youths, escapists, utopian enthusiasms

net art: offering back the shock of the virtual-visceral banal at every possible juncture

other, more traditionally delineated arts, struggle to cope w/ the reconfigurations of their media … suddenly they migrate towards new media ~ they become inter-communicable ~ not long distinct

TEXTUAL MEDIA has always been subject to reconfiguration — as practitioners we must face reconfigurations that R seemingly catastrophic
MATERIALITY OF LANGUAGE = AFFECT & SIGNIFICANCE OF LANGUAGE

” […] in utopia, because you are nowhere you are everywhere at once. Transparency and translatability are key values of digital utopianism.”
we are concerned with NO-PLACE … and it’s values
are they indeed values?

language is presented as code /
code is presented as language
MUTUAL CONTAMMINATION:
the utopia of codework recognizes the symbols of the surface language (what yu read from yr screen) as the same as the symbols of the programming language (which store, manipulate, & display the text yu read.)

the transparency and translatability of this — combined with its recasting of postmodern visceral banality — creates a subversive (potentially progressive) utopian value
BUT THIS IS AS FAR AS THE WORK CAN GET
in making this simple point … abt transparency and translatability w/i in the context of something already “utopian” we more or less EXHAUST the significance and affect of the work ~*~*~*~*EXHAUSTED BY AESTHETIC*~*~*~*~

work that is not exhausted …
work that does generate significance and affect …
should not be assimilated into the utopia of code-language transparency

~* specialized appreciation of code does not equate to:
a mutual contamination of code & natural language
~* it simply acknowledges that each have their proper place

CODE AND LANGUAGE REQUIRE DISTINCT STRATEGIES OF READING
maintaining this ^^^ allows for critical understanding & more complex ways to read and write that are commensurate W/the practices of literal art in programmable media

THE FLICKERING SIGNIFIER IS NOT / CAN NOT BE SEEN AS SOMETHING THAT SIMPLY GOES ON BEHIND THE SCREEN
~it is the code @ work
~it is the code that transforms writing as the record of static or floating simultaneities into writing as the presentation of atoms of SIGNIFICATION (THEY ARE NOT WHAT THEY ARE W/O THEIR FLICKERING TRANSFORMATIONS OVER TIME, HOWEVER FLEETING.)
i.e. the static records alone are not the flickering signifiers — it is their transformation — which happens as the code runs that provides the flickering ………….

T.R.A.N.S.A.C.T.I.V.E.
M.E.D.I.A.T.I.O.N.
is brought into the scene of writing
at the very moment of creation
—
mediation can no longer be characterized as subsidiary or peripheral,
NO LONGER PARATEXT

_______________________________
NAMES FOR WHAT WE’RE DOING…

in order of preference, of what to call it???

“writing programmable media” >
textonomy > cybertext > hypertext, hyperfiction, hyperpoetry, etc.

“programmatology” may be thought of as the study of writing with an explicit awareness of its relation to “programming” or PRIOR WRITING in anticipation of a PERFORMANCE (including the performance of reading)