When making becomes divination: Uncertainty and contingency in computational glitch-events
Section snippets
From glitch-as-accident to glitch-as-event
Notwithstanding its genesis, source and location – whether internal (algorithmic sequences) or external (input data), human (programmers, users) or machine (hardware) – the glitch is here conceptualized as the tangible and visual manifestation of something unexpected: the irruption of the unplanned (Virilio, 2003, Virilio and Lotringer, 2005). In digital culture the glitch has been described as ‘an artifact resulting from an error’ (Moradi, Scott, Gilmore, & Murphy, 2009: p. 8), signalling
The indetermination of virtual is not accidental
As Félix Guattari (1995: p. 42) exhorts us in the epigraph at the beginning of this paper, the systemic organization of algorithm-driven digital machines should be understood as giving rise to differentiation precisely because of its non-humanity. In other words, the digital should be recognized as affording, and manifesting, an ongoing differentiation – the coexisting number of paths not taken yet, unfolding into actualization and resulting in the production of tangible reality.
The notion of
On the intelligence of the algorithm
Digital media theorist Luciana Parisi (with Portanova, Parisi and Portanova, 2011, Parisi, 2014a, Parisi, 2014b) has written extensively about the status of the algorithm in architecture and interaction design, postulating that algorithmic computation is an autonomous mode of thought. In their discussion of glitch aesthetics, Parisi and Portanova (2011) suggest that the code is ‘not a pre-set form of instruction, but is rather continuously produced from within computational processes’ (page not
Digital élan vital, diagrams and divination
In the online article titled ‘Crash, or the digital élan vital. Virtuality, differential ontology and deterministic digitality’2 the expression ‘digital élan vital’ is introduced to indicate the movement or impulse toward differentiation found in processes of algorithmic computation. This is drawn from philosopher Henri Bergson's notion of élan vital – the vital impetus
Risk, digital craft and digital intuition
As it has been increasingly noted (Carpo, 2013a, Kolarevic, 2008, Kolarevic, 2010) form-finding is a new discipline where forms are not designed but found by way of ‘holistic intuition or intellection, and by dint of a mute and tacit empathy between the maker and the materials being crafted’ (Carpo, 2013a: p. 60). Craft and intuition take centre stage over design and calculation, complemented by the power of digital modelling. ‘Digital simulation can make and break more models in a few seconds
Between indeterminacy and precision – examples
Experimental architect Nat Chard – whose blog is tellingly titled Drawing Uncertainty3 – addresses accurately the creation of ‘mental elbowroom’ when he describes his drawing instruments as tools for drawing in an indeterminate way with the aim ‘to keep meaning alive and open’ (Chard, 2011: p. 36). These instruments operate between 2D and 3D, that is, between drawing and making, implementing a practice of designing-as-one-goes-along, whilst
Conclusion
The tendency toward a celebration of indeterminacy has been noted and critiqued by architecture historian Mario Carpo who equates it with a resurgence of postmodern thought (Carpo, 2012, Carpo, 2013a, Carpo, 2013b, Carpo, 2014. The emphasis on intuition in the capture of digitally-driven form signals, for Carpo, a dubious vitalistic swerve infused with a post- (or anti-) modernist approach that romanticizes and cherishes non-rational, mysterious and even esoteric forms of knowledge. What is at
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