Creative Media Colloquium @ SCM, City University of Hong Kong, 12 Jan 2018 Abstract: In this talk, I will present some of my artistic works that span the areas of net art, software-based art, and electronic literature. My works examine the materiality of computational processes that underwrite our experiences and realities in digital culture that touch on cultural-social-political topics, such as Internet censorship, the economy of likes, spam and literary culture, politics of APIs, cultural machines and feminist software. I consider computational practice as a mode of humanistic inquiry to understand the digital culture - a condition that we are highly engaged with, and surrounded by, software and networked systems. I ask how might we understand cultural systems through computational practice? This talk will unfold the importance of computational practice in my thinking and research, examining the infrastructure and implications of cultural systems.

1. Humanistic and Computational Thinking
Through Practice
Dr. Winnie Soon, Assistant Professor, Aarhus University
Creative Media Colloquium @ SCM, City University of Hong Kong, 12 Jan 2018
www.siusoon.net

2. Computational Thinking–problem analysis and decomposition, algorithmic
thinking, algorithmic expression, abstraction, modelling, stepwise fault
isolation–is central to an increasingly broad array of fields. Programming is
not just an incredibly valuable skill (although it certainly is that)–it is the
hands-on inquiry-based way that we teach computational thinking.
(Lazowska & Patterson 2013, n.p)

3. Computational Thinking is more than knowing how to read and write
Computational Thinking is more than programming (or creative coding)
Computational Thinking is more than problem analyzing and solving skills

4. Computational Thinking is more than knowing how to read and write
Computational Thinking is more than programming (or creative coding)
Computational Thinking is more than problem analyzing and solving skills
Computational Thinking is also about humanistic inquiry beyond building functional applications.

5. In software art, the materiality of the written instructions mostly remains
hidden. In addition, these instructions and notations can be instantaneously
activated; they contain further layers of processing and are the artwork
itself.
(Paul, 2003, original emphasis)

6. Software art is not art that has been created with the help of a computer but art
that happens in the computer. Software is not programmed by artists in order to
produce autonomous work, but the software itself is the artwork. What is crucial
here is not the result but the process triggered in the computer by the program
code.
(Baumgärtel 2001, translated by Arns in 2004)

7. Materiality:
1. Liveness
2. Circulation
3. Reading and Writing

8. 1. Materiality: Livness

9. jsut code (2010)
By Helen Pritchard and Winnie Soon
http://siusoon.net/?p=54

10. the illusion of liveness
(McPherson 2006, p. 202)

11. Net.Art Generator (1999)
By Cornelia Sollfrank
Updated by Winnie Soon
in 2017
http://nag.iap.de

12. An overview of n.a.g ver. 5b
Image data bank Web APIs PERL + HTML + CSS
Apache + Debian/Linux
Request: Keywords + image format (size, file type) + ids
Response in JSON: a data file for 10 image search results
Image
generation
Statistics
(Top10)
Process
Google
image
search API
Lib: ImageMagick
Ø Overlay images
w/ diff random
position + size
Ø 13 different
random effects txt
imagesØ Capturing
interface data
Ø Requesting and
parsing data
Ø Error checking

13. Net.Art Generator (1999) | http://nag.iap.de
By Cornelia Sollfrank
Updated by Winnie Soon in 2017

14. 2. Materiality: Circulation

15. Unerasable Images (forthcoming) - Background

17. How to get the Mao experience through Internet…(2014, 2015)
http://maoexperiencethroughinternet.siusoon.net/

18. 3. Materiality: Reading and Writing

19. Vocable Code (2017)
By Winnie Soon
http://siusoon.net/?p=410

20. Vocable Code (2017)
By Winnie Soon
http://siusoon.net/?p=410
https://cdn.rawgit.com/siusoon/VocableCode/445ed9fe/vocablecode_program/index.html

21. Programming has a complex relationship with writing; it is writing, but its
connection to the technology of code and computational devices also
distinguishes it from writing in human languages. Programming is writing
because it is symbols inscribed on a surface and designed to be read. But
programming is also not writing, or rather, it is something more than
writing. The symbols that constitute computer code are designed not only to
be read but also to be executed, or run, by computer.
(Vee 2017, p. 20)

22. Computational Thinking is more than knowing how to read and write
Computational Thinking is more than programming (or creative coding)
Computational Thinking is more than problem analyzing and solving skills
Computational Thinking is also about humanistic inquiry beyond building functional applications.

23. Understanding humanistic and computational thinking:
1/ Computation is beyond the usage of digital tools
2/ Computation can be understood beyond science disciplines
3/ Computation is also about humanistic inquiry
4/ Computation is both technical and cultural
5/ Computation is about empowerment

24. Thank You
Dr. Winnie Soon, Assistant Professor, Aarhus University
www.siusoon.net
computationalthinking.siusoon.net

25. Appendix

26. Software Studies