Commands to Command: Interactive installation / code art (2023) hardware: raspberry pi software: Terminal

Research output: Non-textual formExhibition

Abstract

The work is created with Sox, a command-line toolkit for audio manipulations created in the early 1990’s. (https://sox.sourceforge.net/) No GUI and no mouse clicks. Only a bare terminal interface as the stage where gestures(i.e. typing) and commands (i.e. code) face one another, searching for a still-denied embodied unity informing a performing subject. The work presents a series of commands generating sounds.

The commands are presented sequentially — from the simplest to the most complex - so as to show how complexity, by generating articulate sonic landscapes, only distracts us from the true and yet unresolved issue at hand: can a command be the basis for an art practice?

– Digital tools transform any artistic practice lived through them in a list of commands given as code.
– It does not matter if one’s digital interactions are provided in the form of endless mouse clicks upon a nicely wrapped graphical interface.– It is not relevant whether one sees the code or not. All there is to it are commands given in the form of a logico-quantitative syntax that separates the command from its executor.
– As I command the device to execute, I am substantially delegating an action and in this delegation the output does not belong to me.

These commands can be commanded by me, by you, by anyone. Just type them on the Terminal interface! The idea of artistic gestures, i.e. gestures pointing to the uniqueness of an executing subject/artist (authorship, individuality, agency), is severely compromised.
Original languageEnglish (Ireland)
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2023
EventVIII Art of Research - Aalto University, Aalto, Finland
Duration: 30 Jan 20231 Dec 2023
https://artofresearch2023.aalto.fi/

Keywords

  • command
  • gestures
  • digital vs analogue
  • Sox
  • terminal
  • console
  • music
  • historical software
  • digital art
  • code art

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