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\title{Words Made Flesh---Code, Culture, Imagination}
\author{Florian Cramer}

\date{May 2005}

\begin{document}

\begin{titlepage}
\includepdf[pages=1-3]{words_made_flesh-cover.pdf}
\end{titlepage}



\newpage


\noindent \textsc{Abstract:} Executable code existed centuries before
the invention of the computer in magic, Kabbalah, musical composition
and experimental poetry. These practices are often neglected as a
historical pretext of contemporary software culture and electronic arts.
Above all, they link computations to a vast speculative imagination that
encompasses art, language, technology, philosophy and religion. These
speculations in turn inscribe themselves into the technology. Since even
the most simple formalism requires symbols with which it can be
expressed, and symbols have cultural connotations, any code is loaded
with meaning.  This booklet writes a small cultural history of
imaginative computation, reconstructing both the obsessive persistence
and contradictory mutations of the phantasm that symbols turn physical,
and words are made flesh.


\bigskip

\begin{footnotesize}

\noindent
Media Design Research\\
Piet Zwart Institute\\
institute for postgraduate studies and research\\
Willem de Kooning Academy Hogeschool Rotterdam\\
\url{http://www.pzwart.wdka.hro.nl}

\medskip
\noindent The author wishes to thank Piet Zwart Institute Media Design
Research for the fellowship on which this book was written.

\medskip
\noindent Editor: Matthew Fuller, additional corrections: T. Peal

\medskip
\noindent Typeset by Florian Cramer with LaTeX using the \cit{amsbook}
document class and the Bitstream Charter typeface. 

\noindent Front illustration: Permutation table for the pronounciation
of God's name, from \index{Abulafia, Abraham}Abraham Abulafia's \cit{Or
HaSeichel} (\cit{The Light of the Intellect}), 13th century

\medskip
\noindent \copyright 2005 Florian Cramer, Piet Zwart Institute

\noindent Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
document under the terms of any of the following licenses:

\begin{enumerate}

\item the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or any later version. To
view of copy of this license, visit
\url{http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html} or send a letter to the Free
Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place---Suite 330, Boston, MA
02111-1307, USA.

\item the GNU Free Documentation License as published by the Free Software
Foundation; either version 1.2 of the license or any later version.
To view of copy of this license, visit
\url{http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html} or send a letter to the Free
Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place---Suite 330, Boston, MA
02111-1307, USA.

\item the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; either
version 2.0 of license or any later version. To view a copy of this
license, visit \url{http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/} or
send a letter to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford,
California 94305, USA.

\end{enumerate}
\noindent Your fair use and other rights are not affected by the above.



\end{footnotesize}


\tableofcontents


\chapter{Introduction: In Dark Territory}

\noindent
\begin{figure}[ht]
{\center\resizebox*{0.8\columnwidth}{!}
{\includegraphics{pics/bogosian_01.jpg}}}

\caption[Eric Bogosian as mad scientist Travis Dane in the film
\cit{Under Siege 2---Dark Territory}, Warner Brothers/Regency
Enterprises, 1995]{``300,000 pages of code. Or 60 minutes of triple-X
rubber-and-leather interactive bondage porno. Technology can be used for
beauty, or debasement. And until you plug it in, you'll just never
know.''}
\end{figure}


\noindent The 1995 \index{Seagal, Steven}Steven Seagal action film
\cit{Under Siege 2} tells of an elaborate flow of codes: Villain Travis
Dane (Eric Bogosian) hijacks a train and puts a CD-ROM with missile
launch codes into a computer to assume control over a global,
satellite-based weapon system and blackmail the U.S. government.  He
trades binary access codes for extortion money, money that itself is
digital zeros and ones flowing around the glob to offshore bank
accounts. A phantasm of codes as an omnipotent force rules the hijacked
train. Seagal's character, one man army Casey Ryback, and his
\index{Apple Newton}Apple Newton pocket computer (which sends out a
critical fax message to the U.S. army), embody the anti-phantasm.
Ryback stands for old-fashioned physics battling symbolic code wizardry,
hardware against software.  When Ryback kills Dane in the end and a
train crash cuts off the satellite link, physics wins over logic.  It is
furthermore the victory of one genre within the film over another,
fistfighting realism over utopian techno imagination, just like in every
fantastic action film from \index{Bond, James}James Bond to
\index{Terminator (movie)}\cit{The Terminator} where villain
\index{science fiction}science fiction technology is doomed to be
destroyed in the end.

This booklet attempts to show that \index{algorithm}algorithmic code and
computations can't be separated from an often utopian cultural
imagination that reaches from \index{magic}magic spells to contemporary
computer operating systems.\footnote{And which includes the system this
paper was written on: the \index{TeX (software)}TeX typesetting system,
the \index{vi (software)}vi editor and the \index{GNU}GNU utilities,
each designed by one major \index{speculative}speculative thinker of
software culture, \index{Knuth, Donald}Donald Knuth, \index{Joy,
Bill}Bill Joy and \index{Stallman, Richard}Richard Stallman
respectively.} ``300,000 pages of code. Or 60 minutes of triple-X
rubber-and-leather interactive bondage porno.  [\ldots] And until you
plug it in, you'll just never know.'' This dialogue line sums up utopian
and dystopian imagination reaching from omnipotence to obscenity
projected onto computer codes. In the end, the decoding of the codes is
not a formal, but a subjective operation. Boiling down to either
``beauty'' or ``debasement,'' two classical modes of aesthetics since
18th century philosophy, these codes are ultimately about human
perception and imagination.

The \index{science fiction}science fiction of the film scene relies on a
gap between the computer code and a meaning made up by the human viewer.
This meaning can't be perceived until the initial code has been
transformed several times, from the zeros and ones on the CD-ROM to, for
example, pixels on a video screen and eventually a ``triple-X
rubber-and-leather interactive bondage porno'' image in the mind of the
spectator. The wider the gap between code and perception, the wilder the
imagination.  The more abstract a code, the more
\index{speculative}speculative the meaning that may be read into that
code. Long before \index{Seagal, Steven}Steven Seagal, codes stirred up
cultural imagination just because they were open to any reading.
Western culture believed Egyptian \index{hieroglyphs}hieroglyphs to hold
divine powers until the \index{Rosetta stone}Rosetta translation stone,
found by \index{Napoleon}Napoleon's army in the early 19th century,
debunked them as ordinary writing.  \index{hieroglyphs}Hieroglyphs on
\index{Freemasons}Freemasonic buildings and documents are a remnant of
the older belief. The 16th century \index{Voynich
Manuscript}\cit{Voynich Manuscript}, written in an as yet unknown
alphabet, unknown language and containing obscure pictorial
illustrations, has today not yet been deciphered although many expert
\index{cryptography}cryptographers have tried.  It is not even clear
whether the manuscript contains a cypher at all. It might have been
crafted just to create the illusion of a \index{cryptography}cryptogram.
According to other theories, it might be written in a private Thai or
Vietnamese alphabet, or by \index{Cathars}Cathar heretics in a mixture
of Old French and Old High German.  Artistic
\index{speculative}speculations on the \index{Voynich
Manuscript}\cit{Voynich Manuscript} include a story by \index{science
fiction}science fiction writer \index{Wilson, Colin}Colin Wilson who
links it to \index{Lovecraft, H.P.}Lovecraft's \cit{Necronomicon}. In a
contemporary orchestra piece by Swiss-German composer \index{Kyburz,
Hanspeter}Hanspeter Kyburz, it serves as a \index{music}musical score
that anticipates 20th century experimental score notations of
\index{Cage, John}John Cage and others.

As \index{speculative}speculative codes, Egyptian
\index{hieroglyphs}hieroglyphs (in their two different historical
readings), the \index{Voynich Manuscript}Voynich Manuscript and Travis
Dane's CD-ROM render ``code'' ambiguous between its traditional meaning
of a \index{cryptography}cryptographic code, i.e.  a rule for
transforming symbols into other symbols, and code in its computational
meaning of a transformation rule for symbols into action.  Ever since
computer programmers referred to written \index{algorithm}algorithmic
machine instructions as ``code'' and programming as ``coding,'' ``code''
not only refers to \index{cryptography}cryptographic codes, but to what
makes up software, either as a source code in a high-level programming
language or as compiled binary code, but in either case as a sequence of
executable instructions. With its seeming opacity and the boundless,
viral multiplication of its output in the execution,
\index{algorithm}algorithmic code opens up a vast potential for cultural
imagination, phantasms and phantasmagorias.  The word made flesh,
writing taking up a life of its own by self-execution, has been a utopia
and dystopia in \index{religion}religion,
\index{metaphysics}metaphysics, art and technology alike. The next
chapters will reconstruct the cultural and imaginative history of
executable code.  From \index{magic}magic spells to contemporary
computing, this \index{speculative}speculative imagination has always
been linked to practical---technical and artistic---experimentation with
\index{algorithm}algorithms. The opposite is true as well. Speculative
imagination is embedded in today's software culture. Reduction and
totality, \index{random}randomness and control, physics and
\index{metaphysics}metaphysics are among the tropes it is obsessed with,
often short-circuiting their opposites.  Computer users know these
obsessions well from their own fears of crashes and
\index{virus}viruses, \index{bloatware}bloatware, \index{malware}malware
and \index{vaporware}vaporware, from software ``evangelists'' and
religious wars over operating systems, and their everyday experience
with the irrationality of rational systems.  After all, ``until you plug
it in, you'll just never know.''


\chapter{Computations of Totality}

\section{Exe.cut[up]able statements}

\noindent 
\begin{scriptsize}
\begin{verbatim}
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 21:47:42 +1100
From: mez <netwurker@HOTKEY.NET.AU>
To: WRYTING-L@LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA
Subject: Re: OPPO.S[able].I.T[humbs]ION!!

Hello Arch.E.typal T[Claims of the n]ext W[h]orl.d
     --------------------(mo.dueling 1.1 )-------------------

N.terr.ing the net.wurk---
::du n.OT enter _here_ with fal[low]se genera.tiffs + pathways poking
va.Kant [c]littoral tomb[+age].
::re.peat[bogging] + b d.[on the l]am.ned.
::yr p[non-E-]lastic hollow play.jar.[*]istic[tock] met[riculation.s]hods
sit badly in yr vetoed m[-c]outh.

Pr[t]inting---
::spamnation. .r[l]u[re]ins. .all.

Exe.cut[up]able statements---
::do knot a p.arse.r .make.
::reti.cu[t]la[ss]te. yr. text.je[llied]wells .awe. .r[b]ust.

R[l]un[ge]ning the pro.gram[mar]---
::re.a[vataresque]ct[ors|actrestles] + provoke @ yr response per[b]il[e].
::con.Seed.quenches r 2 b [s|w]allowed.
::big boots make filth k.arm[N limb.ic cyst.M]a.
\end{verbatim}
\end{scriptsize}

\noindent A hybrid of net art, poetry, program and markup code, this piece by
Australian \index{net.art}net.artist \index{mez}mez (Mary Anne Breeze)
reflects a contemporary imagination of software, computation
and networks, disassembling it into its smallest symbolic particles and
reassembling them into a private language. \cit{(mo.dueling 1.1)} reads as
the name of a computer program with a version number. Through its
pointed and bracketed word fragments it expands, like running software
code, into the words ``module,'' ``duel'' and ``dueling.'' The
\index{syntax}syntactical notation is taken from wildcards and regular expressions in
programming languages and \index{Unix (operating system)}Unix command line interpreters
forming an archetypical world. In \index{mez}mez's own language
\index{mezangelle}``mezangelle,'' it is called ``Arch.E.typal T[Claims
of the n]ext W[h]orl.d,'' expanding into
\index{hardware}hardware/software
\index{architecture}architectures---``arch'' in computer tech lingo---,
``claims of the next world,'' and whores.  Slang and sexual language
exposes \index{mezangelle}mezangelle as a messy code, one that does not
run on machines, but on a human imagination that encompasses machines
and bodies alike. Unlike in the \index{Seagal, Steven}Steven Seagal
action movie and the \index{Voynich Manuscript}Voynich Manuscript, the
\index{semantics}semantic associations are not superimposed and
therefore external to the code, but are embedded into the code proper.
``Exe.cut[up]able statements'' and ``pro.gram[mar],'' for example, are
self-reflections of the text as ``executable statements'' and ``program
grammar.'' The words serve as a source code which generates ``execute,''
``executable,'' \index{cut-ups}``cut-up,'' ``able'' in the first word,
``programmer,'' ``grammar,'' ``program,'' ``gram'' in the second.  There
is simultaneous contraction and expansion, regularity and irregularity,
instruction and \index{chaos}chaos in these words. Like a piece of
software code that gets executed, the writing expands beyond itself,
generating dozens to hundreds of possible readings. As it says, its
``big boots make filth,'' and text disperses in a ``spamnation.''
``Spamnation'' also is a technical description of \index{mez}mez's
\index{E-Mail}E-Mail work that is sent, spam-style, to a large number of
net cultural mailing lists at once.

From a literary history viewpoint, the word hybrids and onomatopoetics
of \index{mezangelle}mezangelle resemble the poetic language in
\index{Joyce, James}James Joyce's last novel \cit{Finnegans Wake}:

\begin{quotation}The fall
(ba\-ba\-ba\-dal\-g\-har\-agh\-ta\-kam\-mi\-nar\-ro\-ni\-ni\-konn\-bronn\-ton\-n\-er\-ronn\-tu\-onn\-th\-unn\-tr\-o\-v\-ar\-rho\-u\-n\-awn\-sk\-awn\-to\-o\-ho\-o\-ho\-o\-r\-d\-e\-n\-en\-thur\-n\-uk!)
of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later on life
down through all christian minstrelsy. The great fall of the offwall
entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan, erse solid
man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sends an unquiring one
well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes: and their
upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the park where oranges
have been laid to rust upon the green since devlinsfirst loved livvy.
What clashes here of wills gen wonts, oystrygods gaggin fishygods!
Brékkek Kékkek Kékkek Kékkek! Kóax Kóax Kóax! Ualu Ualu Ualu! Quaouauh!
\end{quotation}

\noindent This paragraph, from the first page of the book, demonstrates
\index{Joyce, James}Joyce's word \index{poetics}poetics while
referencing its literary prototypes. The onomatopoetic ``Bkkek Kkkek
[\ldots]'' is taken from \index{Aristophanes}Aristophanes' 4th century
B.C. Greek comedy \cit{The Frogs}. ``Humptyhillhead,'' ``prumptly'' and
``tumptytumtoes'' allude to Humpty Dumpty, the nursery rhyme character
and fantastic creature in \index{Carroll, Lewis}Lewis Carroll's
\cit{Through the Looking-Glass}, the sequel to \cit{Alice in
Wonderland}. In its sixth chapter, Alice and Humpty Dumpty discuss the
seemingly nonsensical poem \cit{Jabberwocky}:

\begin{verse}
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves\\
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;\\
All mimsy were the borogoves,\\
And the mome raths outgrabe.
\end{verse}

Humpty Dumpty explains that ``slithy'' is a combination of ``lithe
and slimy'': ```Lithe' is the same as `active.'  You see it's like a
portmanteau---there are two meanings packed up into one word.''
Originally, and before it appeared in the novel, the ``Jabberwocky''
poem had been written in 1855 and published under \index{Carroll,
Lewis}Carroll's proper name Charles L. Dodgson as a parody of romantic
poetry. Dodgson was a mathematician by profession and taught at Oxford.
As \index{Gardner, Martin}Martin Gardner's annotated edition of the two
Alice novels shows,---which also became published as one of the first
electronic hypertext books ever---the books are rich with mathematical
and logical puns and humor. In the ``Humpty Dumpty'' chapter, absurdity
stems from a seemingly straightforward, pseudo-logical explanation of
the nonsense poem.  Humpty Dumpty takes the attitude of a mathematician
or logician who reads the poem like a formula. \index{Joyce,
James}Joyce's portmanteau words hybridize languages, nature and history,
but while they hardly ever mix in formal or machine language, they work
as a kind of reverse computer code that expands multiple input into a
single output. His novel is infinitely looping, with its last page of
the novel ending where the first page begins. \index{McLuhan,
Marshall}Marshall McLuhan, \index{Joyce, James}``Joycean hippie'' (as
\index{Paik, Nam June}Nam June Paik called him) and founder of the term
\index{media theory}``media theory,'' took \cit{Finnegans Wake} as his
``textbook.''\footnote{According to
\url{http://www.geocities.com/hypermedia_joyce/theall3.html}} According
to his biographer \index{Theall, Donald}Donald Theall, he perceived the
blend of ``orality, tactility, simultaneity and synaesthesia'' in the
novel as a blueprint for a ``techno-poetic''
language.\footnote{According to
\url{http://www.mindjack.com/feature/mcluhan.html}}

Having created, more or less, the field of ``media'' with its endless
unresolved terminological ambiguities and contradictions,
\index{McLuhan, Marshall}McLuhan's techno imagination appears to bridge
the gap between the technopoetic \index{codeworks}codework of mez and
her \index{net.art}net contemporaries on the one hand and its protoype
in \index{Carroll, Lewis}Carroll and \index{Joyce, James}Joyce on the
other.\footnote{Outside the Anglo-American tradition, the word
recombinations and cosmological imagination of Russian futurist poet
\index{Khlebnikov, Velimir}Velimir Khlebnikov manifests another pretext
which itself triggered the quasi-computational structuralist
\index{poetics}poetics of \index{Jakobson, Roman}Roman Jakobson}
``Spamnation,'' code flowing out and spilling over, is the common
denominator of \index{Carroll, Lewis}Carroll's ``slithy toves,''
\index{Joyce, James}Joyce's ``riverrun'' and \index{mez}mez's collapsing
of program, grammar and programmer into a ``pro.gram[mar]''.  All three
artists write in the aesthetic mode of the sublime; the category of the
boundless, unshapely, obscure, threatening first described in the Greek
\index{rhetoric}rhetorical treatise of
\index{Pseudo-Longinus}Pseudo-Longinus, reinvigorated in the 18th
century aesthetic theories of \index{Burke, Edmund}Burke, \index{Kant,
Immanuel}Kant and \index{Schiller,
Friedrich}Schiller,\footnote{\citereplace{W.~Rhys Roberts, editor.
\newblock {\em Longinus on the Sublime}. \newblock Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, 1899.} \cite{longinus:sublime}, \citereplace{Edmund
Burke. \newblock {\em A {Philosophical Enquiry} into the Origin of our
Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful}. \newblock Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 1990 (1757).} \cite{burke:enquiry}, \citereplace{Immanuel Kant.
\newblock {\em Critique of the Power of Judgment}. \newblock The
Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant in Translation.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001.} \cite{kant:judgment},
Friedrich Schiller, \cit{On The Sublime},
\url{http://members.aol.com/abelard2/schiller.htm}} and which paved the
ground for the \index{gothic}gothic novel and other forms of dark
\index{romanticism}romanticism (up to the \index{gothic}gothic, dark
wave and ``new romantic'' pop cultures that originated the 1980s).
Computer and software imagination is only inscribed into
\index{mez}mez's piece. The software her coding conceives of is a
monster, an alien resembling that of the eponymous \index{science
fiction}Science Fiction movies. Unlike the
\index{cyberpunk}``cyberpunk'' \index{science fiction}Science Fiction
imagination of the late 1980s and early 1990s whose sublime technopoesis
consisted of an imaginary pictorial hyperrealism, \index{mez}mez's
monsters are made up purely by abstract symbols and computational
processes.



\section{Magic and religion}

\noindent Words becoming flesh, the symbolic turning physical -- these
are by no means recent phantasmagorias and
\index{speculative}speculations.  The beginning of the Gospel of John in
the New Testament reads:

\begin{quotation}

1:1  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with \index{God}God, and the Word
was \index{God}God. [\ldots]

\noindent 1:14  And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we
beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full
of grace and truth.

\end{quotation}

\noindent This figure of thought, of a speech act that affects physical
matter instantly and directly, is \index{magic}magical in its root.
Material creation from the word is an idea central to \index{magic}magic
in all cultures; it is precisely what \index{magic}magic spells perform.
Magic therefore is, at its core, a technology, serving the rational end
of achieving an effect, and being judged by its efficacy.  According to
scholar \index{Dornseiff, Franz}Franz Dornseiff and his 1922 German
study on the alphabet in \index{mysticism}mysticism and
\index{magic}magic,\footnote{\citereplace{Franz Dornseiff. \newblock
{\em Das {Alphabet in Mystik und Magie}}. \newblock Teubner, Leipzig,
Berlin, 1925.} \cite{dornseiff:alphabet}.} the idea of divine creation
through the letter has its roots in early Middle Eastern and Egyptian
mystic cults.  \index{gnosticism}Gnosticism transformed it into
\index{theurgy}theurgy, the invocation of divine powers for achieving
concrete, material effects.  Adopting many of its concepts from
\index{gnosticism}Gnosticism and \index{Neoplatonism}Neoplatonist
philosophy, Christianity introduced the prayer as its own form of
\index{theurgy}theurgy, itself a practical communicative act between the
individual, the divine and physical matter through a symbolic agent, or,
medium.  Magical thinking is even more strongly present in the Catholic
Christian idea of transubstantiation, the transformation of wine into
blood and bread into the body of Christ effected through the liturgic
speech act of the priest.---The \index{magic}magical formula ``hocus
pocus'' is derived from the Catholic liturgic formula ``hoc
est corpus meum,'' this is my body.\footnote{This link was first made by
English prelate \index{Tillotson, John}John Tillotson in 1742, according
to \cit{The American Heritage Dictionary of the English
Language}}---Rationalization of this remnant of \index{magic}magical
thinking occurred within Christianity itself when Protestantism
abandoned the concept of transubstantiation and thought of communion
service as a purely allegorical practice.\footnote{A rationalization
that has been progressively extended in non-evangelical Protestant
theology to practically all miracles and para-\index{magic}magical acts
described in the \index{Bible}Bible, most or all of which were
subsequently declared allegorical.}

\noindent
\begin{figure}[hbt]
{\center\resizebox*{1\columnwidth}{!}
{\includegraphics{pics/magic_software.png}}}
\caption[Google search results for the keyword combination
``software'' and ``magic'']{\label{magic_software}Result of a Google
search on ``software'' and ``magic''} \end{figure}

Religion sublimates magic as a common, popular into a privilege of the
\index{God}god creating the world and, subsequently, his son.  Magic
wasn't considered \index{occult}occult until \index{religion}religion and
later science and technology rivalled and marginalized it. The technical
principle of \index{magic}magic, controlling matter through manipulation
of symbols, is the technical principle of computer software as well. It
 isn't surprising that \index{magic}magic lives on in software, at
least nominally.  References to \index{magic}magic abound in computer
software branding, from programs like \index{Partition Magic
(software)}\cit{Partition Magic}, \index{Magix Musicmaker
(software)}\cit{Magix Musicmaker}, the \cit{/etc/magic} filetype
\index{database}database in \index{Unix (operating system)}Unix to the
program genre of ``Setup Wizards'' or operating systems like
\index{GNU}\cit{Sorcerer GNU/Linux} in which software packages are
installed with the command ``cast.'' A \index{Google}Google search on
\index{magic}``magic'' and ``software'' today yields more than fifteen
million results (see figure \ref{magic_software}). Searching the word
\index{magic}``magic'' only brings up the homepage of a software company
as the third result.

Such links between \index{magic}magic and software remain metaphorical
though unless they are based on common concepts of formalism, language
and execution of statements. Since \index{magic}magic was marginalized
in Western culture through science, it went underground. While
\index{magic}magical practices as those of \index{Crowley,
Aleister}Aleister Crowley claimed to be ``scientific,'' they doubtlessly
existed outside a system of science and rationality which before, until
roughly the late 17th century, still had included \index{occult}occult
science in its canon. Of the ``two cultures'' described by scientist and
novelist \index{Snow, C. P.}C.P. Snow in 1956, hard sciences and
engineering versus humanities and culture, \index{Crowley,
Aleister}Crowley's \index{magic}magic clearly sides with the second
despite its scientific claims, de-emphasizing \index{magic}magic as a
practical technique in favor of \index{magic}magic as an
\index{occult}occult philosophy of life. His influence was strong
particularly in pop and non-mainstream culture, forming one
philosophical formulation of the underground \emph{per se}.  Followers
of \index{Crowley, Aleister}Crowley include experimental filmmaker
\index{Anger, Kenneth}Kenneth Anger, the \index{industrial
music}industrial music movement founded by \index{P-Orridge,
Genesis}Genesis P-Orridge and others, The \index{Rolling Stones}Rolling
Stones whose song \cit{Sympathy for the Devil} was Crowley-inspired and
The \index{Beatles}Beatles who put \index{Crowley, Aleister}Crowley on
the cover of \cit{St. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band}.

Magic as \index{Crowley, Aleister}Crowleyan \index{occult}occult
philosophy, art and programming converged in the poetic language
experiments of \index{Gysin, Brion}Brion Gysin and \index{Burroughs,
William S.}William S. Burroughs:

\begin{verse}
IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD\\
IN THE BEGINNING WAS WORD THE\\
IN THE BEGINNING WORD THE WAS\\
IN THE BEGINNING WORD WAS THE\\
IN THE THE BEGINNING WAS WORD\\
IN THE THE BEGINNING WORD WAS\\
IN THE THE WAS BEGINNING WORD\\
IN THE THE WAS WORD BEGINNING\\
IN THE THE WORD BEGINNING WAS\\
IN THE THE WORD WAS BEGINNING\\
IN THE WAS BEGINNING THE WORD\\
IN THE WAS BEGINNING WORD THE\\
\lbrack\ldots\rbrack\footnote{\citereplace{Brion Gysin. \newblock
Permutation poems. \newblock In: William~S. Burroughs. \newblock {\em
The {Third Mind}}. \newblock Viking, New York, 1978.}
\cite{gysin:poems}.}
\end{verse}

\noindent The poem shuffles its words according to a formal
\index{algorithm}algorithm. Its total of 720
\index{permutation}permutations were calculated, in the early 1960s, on
a Honeywell computer with the aid of mathematician \index{Sommerville,
Ian}Ian Sommerville. Spoken by the author on a tape recording, this and
other \index{permutation}permutation poems of \index{Gysin, Brion}Gysin
were not solely mathematical computations, but also incantations. It
therefore does not seem incidental that the beginning of the Gospel of
John was chosen to be computed. The power of creation in the word is
being resurrected in the text from a previously hidden potential.
Combinatory computation turns into the technical agent, or spell of this
\index{magic}magic act, but its power is ultimately embodied by the
speaking voice. The principle of text \index{cut-ups}cut-ups, as they
were developed and practiced by \index{Gysin, Brion}Gysin and
\index{Burroughs, William S.}Burroughs (see p. \pageref{cut-ups}) is
contained also in the \index{permutation}permutational poems since they
work with the same principle of slicing out and shuffling portions of a
text: lines in \index{Gysin, Brion}Gysin's poems, columns in
\index{Gysin, Brion}Gysin's and \index{Burroughs, William S.}Burroughs'
cut-up prose.  In his essay, \cit{\index{cut-ups}Cut-ups
self-explained}, \index{Gysin, Brion}Gysin argues that ``Words have a
vitality of their own.'' Through permuting them, he writes, one can make
them ``gush into action.'' The result is an ``expanding ripple of
meanings which they [i.e. the words] did not seem to be capable of when
they were struck into that phrase.''

Likewise, \index{Burroughs, William S.}William S. Burroughs' essay
\cit{The Electronic Revolution}, which theoretically sums up, although
not very coherently, his \index{cut-ups}cut-up \index{poetics}poetics,
begins with the sentence: ``In the beginning was the word and the word
was god and has remained one of the mysteries ever since. The word was
\index{God}God and the word was flesh we are told. In the beginning of
what exactly was this beginning word? In the beginning of WRITTEN
history.''\footnote{\citereplace{William~S. Burroughs. \newblock {\em
Electronic Revolution}. \newblock Expanded Media Edition, Bonn, 1982.}
\cite{burroughs:electronic-revolution}.} In \cit{The Electronic
Revolution}, written in 1970, the tape recorder takes the place of the
technical agent for dissecting and reassembling language and cultural
codes for which \index{Gysin, Brion}Gysin employed the computer.  But
for both writers, technology is a formal means to ultimately manipulate
meaning, not formalisms, whereas a computer program, be it a compiler, a
word processor, an image or sound manipulation program, is conceived of
as a symbolic formalism employed for an equally formal manipulation of
symbols. \index{Burroughs, William S.}Burroughs' and \index{Gysin,
Brion}Gysin's insistence on the cultural power of speech acts and media
manipulation instead aims at a programmation that is
\index{semantics}semantic, not formalist. So they transfigure the
\index{cut-ups}cut-up method from a formalism to a technique that is
\index{semantics}semantic \emph{in itself}, being an
\index{occult}occult and \index{magic}magical practice likened to drugs
and \index{ecstatic}ecstatic experience.

Another such technical device, \index{Gysin, Brion}Gysin's \cit{Dream
Machine}, is a visual flicker generator based on a visual pattern cut
into a cylindric piece of cardboard rotating on a record player. The
visual frequencies it generates can interfere with brain frequencies and
create optical illusions, a psychedelic technology used also in
\index{Conrad, Tony}Tony Conrad's experimental films from the 1960s, and
with roots in military behaviorist research. That technology is
semantic, \index{ecstatic}ecstatic and magic is a point made also in an
1984 underground movie aptly called \cit{Decoder} which stars
\index{Burroughs, William S.}Burroughs and \index{P-Orridge,
Genesis}Genesis P-Orridge in cameos and whose accompanying \cit{Decoder
Handbuch} [\cit{Decoder Handbook}] includes texts by him and
\index{Crowley, Aleister}Crowley as background
material.\footnote{\citereplace{Klaus Maeck and Walter Hartmann,
editors. \newblock {\em Decoder Handbuch}. \newblock Trikont, Duisburg,
1984.} \cite{maeck:decoder}}

According to anthropologist \index{Frazer, James George}James George
Frazer, it is a general feature of \index{magic}magic that
\index{magic}magical practices tend to cloud their technical and
formalist nature, enmeshing themselves with the
\index{semantics}semantics of the objects and subjects they are intended
to affect.  In his study \cit{The Golden Bough} (1922), Frazer
differentiates two types of \index{magic}magic, imitative and contagious
magic.  In imitative \index{magic}magic, the action or effect to be
achieved is being mimetically reproduced, for example in the Voodoo-like
``attempt which has been made by many peoples in many ages to injure or
destroy an enemy by injuring or destroying an image of
him.''\footnote{\citereplace{James~George Frazer. \newblock {\em The
{Golden Bough}}. \newblock Macmillan, London, 1950.}
\cite{frazer:bough}, p. 12} Contagious \index{magic}magic, on the other
hand, works through physical proximity, and is best exemplified,
according to \index{Frazer, James George}Frazer, by ``the
\index{magic}magical sympathy which is supposed to exist between a man
and any severed portion of his person, as his hair or nails; so that
whoever gets possession of human hair or nails may work his will, at any
distance, upon the person from whom they were cut.''\footnote{ibid., p.
38}

Both operations can are fundamental operations in language and art as
well.  \index{Jakobson, Roman}Roman Jakobson, a founding theorist of
20th century \index{linguistics}linguistic and literary
\index{structuralism}structuralism, made \index{Frazer, James
George}Frazer's concept of imitative \index{magic}magic---or the
principle of similarity---the basis of a new definition of metaphor, and
contagious \index{magic}magic---or the principle of proximity or
contiguity---the foundation of metonymy.\footnote{\citereplace{Roman
Jakobson. \newblock Two {Aspects of Language} and {Two Types of Aphasic
Disturbances}. \newblock In {\em Fundamentals of Language}, pages
115--133. Mouton, The Hague, Paris, 1971.} \cite{jakobson:aspects}} In
commercial computer programs like \cit{Partition Magic}, the relation
between software and \index{magic}magic is metaphorical in this sense of
imitation and similarity; the software is sought to achieve
\index{magic}magical powers by referring to them only nominally, putting
them onto its label rather than into its code.  

In \index{Gysin, Brion}Gysin's and \index{Burroughs, William
S.}Burroughs' \index{cut-ups}cut-up \index{poetics}poetics however, the
technical process renders itself \index{magic}magic not just
metaphorically, but physical  by inclusion. The the opening phrase of
the Gospel of John is a prime example. Both the
\index{permutation}permutation poem \cit{IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD}
and \cit{The Electronic Revolution} contain the \index{magic}magical
spell of the Gospel not as an allusive imitation, but as a physical
inscription and contagious agent, just like the scalp of an enemy ripped
out and worn on the body as an amulet. Through the \index{cut-ups}cut-up
process, the words regain their original contagious quality and ``gush
into action,'' as \index{Gysin, Brion}Gysin puts it.  \index{Burroughs,
William S.}Burroughs literally links \index{cut-ups}cut-ups and
linguistic contagion in what is perhaps his best-known
\index{speculative}speculation---that language is a \index{virus}virus.
If language is a virus, then \index{cut-ups}cut-up literature is about
unleashing and applying its viral potential. For \index{Burroughs,
William S.}Burroughs, the affinity of language and \index{virus}viruses
is quite literal. It amounts to more than the idea that
\index{virus}viruses could be created in language or, like in
\index{Dawkins, Richard}Richard Dawkins' concept of the
\index{meme}``meme,'' that certain speech acts had contagious
effects.\footnote{\citereplace{Richard Dawkins. \newblock {\em The
{Selfish Gene}}. \newblock Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1989
(1976).} \cite{dawkins:gene}} Burroughs stresses that

\begin{quote}

I have frequently spoken of word and image as \index{virus}viruses or as
acting as \index{virus}viruses, and this is not an allegorical
comparison.\footnote{\citereplace{William~S. Burroughs. \newblock {\em
Electronic Revolution}. \newblock Expanded Media Edition, Bonn, 1982.}
\cite{burroughs:electronic-revolution}, p.59}

\end{quote}

\noindent \index{Burroughs, William S.}Burroughs' language
\index{magic}magic is contagious in a double respect. It has a
contagious effect and it is contagious in its very structure.  It
therefore differs from \index{Frazer, James George}Frazer's contagious
\index{magic}magic in which the contact is firstly limited to one object
and its bearer, and secondly not inscribed into the system of signs
itself. With his phantasmagoria of all-pervasive infection that cannot
be contained, \index{Burroughs, William S.}Burroughs totally
\index{semantics}semanticizes the mobilization of matter through symbols
in the \index{magic}magical speech act. This corresponds, oddly and in a
non-canonical way, with older philosophical concepts of codes permeating
the cosmos.

\section{Pythagorean harmony as a cosmological code}

\subsection{\noindent Pythagorean musicology}

\index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean thinking is founded on the idea that the
world is organized in numerical proportions which are coded equally into
\index{music}music and mathematics. There exists no record of
\index{Pythagorean}Pythagoras' original philosophy though because it
existed only as secret knowledge within an \index{occult}occult society.
\index{Heraclitus}Heraclitus is one of the earliest purveyors of
\index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean ideas: ``Combinations, wholes and
not-wholes, conjunction and separation, concord and discord---out of all
things comes One, and out of One all things,'' or, in a different
translation: ``What goes against each other is joining; what strives
apart creates the most beautiful
\index{harmony}harmony.''\footnote{\citereplace{Jonathan Barnes, editor.
\newblock {\em Early {Greek Philosophy}}. \newblock Penguin,
Harmondsworth, 2002.} \cite{barnes:greek}} When
\index{Pythagorean}Pythagoras discovered the arithmetic principle of the
\index{music}musical octave by splitting the string of a monochord in
half, and from that concluded that there was a mathematical
\index{harmony}harmony of the cosmos, he founded an aesthetic philosophy
that closely linked art, science and nature and whose impact was immense
through the Renaissance and beyond.  

\noindent
\begin{figure}[thb]
{\center\resizebox*{1\columnwidth}{!}
{\includegraphics{pics/gaffurio.png}}}
\caption[Franchino Gaffurio, \cit{De Harmonia Musicorum}, Milan, 1518
\cite{gaffurio:harmonia},
title page illustration]{\label{gaffurio}Franchino Gaffurio, \cit{De Harmonia
Musicorum} (1518)}
\end{figure}

\index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean \index{aesthetics}aesthetics centers
around the idea that beauty is made up from mathematical proportions.
The mathematical proportions of sound were first described with the
numbers 3-4-6 as the relative numerical values of keynote, quint and
octave. This code was written down in the treatise \cit{De musica} of
\index{Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus}Anicius Manlius Boethius, a
6th century B.C. Latin philosopher.\footnote{\citereplace{Boethius.
\newblock De {Musica}. \newblock In {\em Opera omnia}. Firmin-Didot,
Paris, 1882.} \cite{boethius:musica}} It remained canonical until the
invention of tempered tuning and Mersenne's mathematical
\index{music}musicology (see p.  \pageref{Mersenne}) in which intervals
smaller than the octave were no longer determined by absolute integer
values, but relative to each other.  On the title illustration of his
1518 treatise \cit{De Harmonia Musicorum},\footnote{Franchino Gaffurio.
\cit{De harmonia musicorum}. Forni, Bologna, 1972 (1518).
\cite{gaffurio:harmonia}} the Italian Renaissance composer and
\index{music}musicologist \index{Gaffurio, Franchino}Franchino Gaffurio
has himself portrayed teaching \index{Boethius, Anicius Manlius
Severinus}Boethius' \index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean 3-4-6 code to his
pupils.  The picture illustrates the equivalence of \index{music}musical
tuning and mathematical values with organ pipes and a pair of compasses.
With speech drawn in anticipation of comic strip balloons,
\index{Gaffurio, Franchino}Gaffurio tells his pupils
\index{harmony}``Harmonia est discordia concors,''
\index{harmony}harmony is concordant discord, the Pythagorean credo
previously voiced by \index{Heraclitus}Heraclitus (figure
\ref{gaffurio}).

This concept of \index{harmony}harmony is very distinct from the modern
understanding of the term, because it includes \emph{both} melodics and
\index{harmony}harmonics. In other words, a melody can, according to
this concept, be \index{harmony}harmonic as well. Secondly, it
integrates dissonance with consonance. This understanding is implied
already in the original Greek word \index{harmony}``harmonia'' which
literally means ``joining'' or ``combining.'' Beauty, it follows, is not
plainly nice and agreeable, but made up of agreeable and disagreeable
elements in equal proportions. This is not only the general principle of
\index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean \index{aesthetics}aesthetics, but also of
any refined classicism.\footnote{Like that of \index{Winckelmann, Johann
Joachim}Winckelmann and \index{Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim}Lessing in the
late 18th century in their respective analyses of the Greek Laocoon
sculpture, or the aesthetic philosophy of \index{Pater, Walter}Walter
Pater; see \citereplace{Simon Richter. \newblock {\em {Laocoon's Body}
and the {Aesthetics of Pain}: Winckelmann, Lessing, Herder, Moritz,
Goethe}. \newblock Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1992.}
\cite{richter:laocoon} and \citereplace{Harold Bloom, editor. \newblock
{\em {Selected Writings} of {Walter Pater}}. \newblock Columbia
University Press, New York, 1982.} \cite{bloom:pater}}

\subsection{\noindent Rhetoric of the acumen}

\label{acumen}In the 17th century, the joining of opposites became a
principle of witty or ``conceited'' \index{poetics}poetics and poetry.
This literature later became historicized as anti-classicist,
``mannerist'' or ``baroque.''  Wit, or ``acumen,'' was a part of
\index{rhetoric}rhetoric and \index{poetics}poetics since the 16th
century. It became systematically taught in Jesuitical academia. Wit was
considered the principle of epigram poetry, and epigrams in turn
functioned as the ``subscriptio,'' explanatory verse underneath
pictorial \index{emblems}emblems. Emblems, allegorical images, were
hugely popular in the Renaissance since Italian humanist scholar
\index{Alciatus, Andreas}Andreas Alciatus published the first
\index{emblems}emblem book in 1531.\footnote{\citereplace{Andreas
Alciatus. \newblock {\em Emblematum Libellus}. \newblock
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1991 (1542).}
\cite{alciatus:emblemata}} Just as desktop icons on computer operating
systems were invented in the 1970s in the \index{Xerox PARC}Xerox PARC
labs in order to simplify interaction with the computer as a machine
performing formal-logical manipulations of coded symbols,
\index{emblems}emblems served to simplify and popularize interaction
with religious and philosophical meaning. They became an important part
of humanist education---and of Jesuit counter-reformational propaganda,
likewise based on the humanist canon.  Seminal treatises on epigrammatic
wit, some of them covering also the creation of wit in
\index{emblems}emblems, were written by the Jesuits \index{Sarbiewski,
Kazimierz}Kazimierz Sarbiewski, \index{Gracián, Baltasar}Baltasar
Gracián and \index{Tesauro, Emanuele}Emanuele Tesauro.\footnote{A
comprehensive survey of their work can be found in \citereplace{Mercedes
Blanco. \newblock {\em Les {rh{\'e}toriques de la pointe}}. \newblock
Librairie Honoré Champion, Paris, 1992.} \cite{blanco:pointe}.}

\noindent
\begin{figure}[thb]
{\center\resizebox*{1\columnwidth}{!}
{\includegraphics{pics/sarbiewski.png}}}
\caption[Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski, \cit{De acuto et arguto}, 1628
\cite{sarbiewski:acuto}, diagram illustrating the construction of a
witty statement]{\label{sarbiewski}Diagram from Maciej Kazimierz
Sarbiewski's \cit{De acuto et arguto} (1627)}
\end{figure}

\index{Sarbiewski, Kazimierz}Kazimierz Sarbiewski, famous in his time as
the ``Polish Horace,'' is of particular interest since his treatise
\cit{De Acuto et Arguto}, published in
1627,\footnote{\citereplace{Maciej~Kazimierz Sarbiewski. \newblock De
{Acuto et Arguto} liber unicus. \newblock In {\em Wykladi Poetyki},
pages 1--20. Wydawnictwo Polskiej Akademii Nauk, Wroclaw, Krakow, 1958.}
\cite{sarbiewski:acuto}} uses a \index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean model to
sketch a quasi-\index{algorithm}algorithm for composing wit. He defines
acumen, \index{rhetoric}rhetorical wit, as a junction of a converging
and a diverging meaning that culminate in a paradoxical union, or,
point.  This point is explained with the \index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean
formula used earlier by \index{Gaffurio, Franchino}Gaffurio, ``discordia
concors.''  Just like other \index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean thinkers who
explain laws of form in the arts and technology through numerical
models, \index{Sarbiewski, Kazimierz}Sarbiewski equates
\index{rhetoric}rhetorical composition to mathematics and geometry. His
\index{rhetoric}rhetorical acumen is juxtaposed to an ``acumen
mathematicum,'' a triangle, and explained with a triangular diagram
(figure \ref{sarbiewski}). The base represents the material, left and
right arms/sides the elements of dissent and consent respectively, the
edge the union, or witty point. So \index{Sarbiewski,
Kazimierz}Sarbiewski's acumen is indebted to the
\index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean and Renaissance idea of
\index{harmony}harmony as a product made up of opposites striving
against each other. His triangle functions as a computation device for
wit. Yet it is not an \index{algorithm}algorithmic text generator in a
strict sense because it presupposes \index{semantics}semantics.  Unlike
in proper computations, \index{Sarbiewski, Kazimierz}Sarbiewski's wit
cannot be computed through a purely formal, \index{syntax}syntactical
manipulation of symbols.

Another reading of Jesuit acumen \index{rhetoric}rhetoric as computation
can be found in \index{Eco, Umberto}Umberto Eco's novel \cit{The Island
of the Day Before}.\footnote{\citereplace{Umberto Eco. \newblock {\em
The {Island of the Day Before}}. \newblock Penguin, Harmondsworth,
1996.} \cite{eco:island}} Its ninth chapter, \cit{The \index{Aristotle;
Aristotelian}Aristotelian Telescope}, bears the title of Emanuele
\index{Tesauro, Emanuele}Tesauro's 1654 acumen treatise \cit{Il
cannocchiale aristotelico}.\footnote{See \citereplace{Mercedes Blanco.
\newblock {\em Les {rh{\'e}toriques de la pointe}}. \newblock Librairie
Honoré Champion, Paris, 1992.} \cite{blanco:pointe}} \index{Tesauro,
Emanuele}Tesauro himself apppears in the novel as ``Padre Emanuele.''
His idea of using---not \index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean triangles,
but---\index{Aristotle; Aristotelian}Aristotelian logic as a formal
device for synthesizing ingenious metaphors is taken up by the novel and
gets transcribed into the fiction of a computing device:

\begin{quotation}
The base consisted of a great chest or case whose front held eighty-one
drawers-nine horizontal rows by nine vertical, each row in both
directions identified by a carved letter (BCDEFGHIK). On the top of the
chest, to the left stood a lectern on which a great volume was placed, a
manuscript with illuminated initials. To the right of the lectern were
three concentric cylinders of decreasing length and increasing breadth
(the shortest being the most capacious, designed to contain the two
longer ones); a crank at one side could then, through inertia, make them
turn, one inside the other, at different speeds according to their
weight. Each cylinder had incised at its left margin the same nine
letters that marked the drawers. One turn of the crank was enough to
make the cylinders revolve independently of one another, and when they
stopped, one could read triads of letters aligned at
\index{random}random, such as CBD, KFE, or BGH.\footnote{Eco, ibid.,
chapter 9}
\end{quotation}

\noindent \index{Eco, Umberto}Eco's fiction conflates two
logical-\index{rhetoric}rhetorical proto-computers with each other,
\index{Tesauro, Emanuele}Tesauro's acumen \index{rhetoric}rhetoric with
the ``ars'' of medieval Catalan monk \index{Llull, Ramon}Ramon Llull
(see p. \pageref{Llull}).\footnote{\citereplace{Anthony Bonner, editor.
\newblock {\em Doctor Illuminatus: A Ramon Llull Reader}. \newblock
Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1993.}
\cite{lullus:illuminatus}} Even if \index{Tesauro, Emanuele}Tesauro's
machine is a modern fiction, it is true that the Jesuit
\index{rhetoric}rhetorical manuals on the acumen sought to radically
formalize the production of ``ingenium,''\footnote{\index{Gracián,
Baltasar}Gracián's book has the according title \cit{Agudeza y arte de
ingenio}. An electronic version of the 1648 book exists at
\url{http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/12259950118927841194513/}}
an ingenuity that would be spelled one century later, as
\index{genius}``genius.''  The Renaissance ``ingenium'' however is not
the irregular, anti-methodical \index{genius}genius of
\index{romanticism}romanticism, but an effect that can be syntheticly
created by anyone.  The rise of the romantic \index{genius}genius as the
model of an artist who does not calculate in turn explains the crisis of
computational methods and games in poetry and arts between ca. 1800 and
1900.



\subsection{\noindent Continuity of Pythagorean thinking}

The \index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean project consists of the extraction
and application of a universal numerical code that organizes both
nature and art.  This code allows the creation of a correspondence between
\index{macrocosm}macrocosm and \index{microcosm}microcosm and describes
\index{harmony}harmony, in the sense of beautiful numerical proportions,
as the guiding principle of the world.  And for the first time, 
it allows the computation of nature and art. Any natural and symbolic
system can be broken up into numerical proportions and values which in
turn may be compared to the numerical proportions and values of another
observed system.  It is this principle of universal similarity and
correspondence which \index{Eco, Umberto}Eco calls the
\index{hermetic}``hermetic paradigm'' and sums it up under the maxim
``sicut superius sic inferius,'' ``as above, so below'' to describe a
correspondence of macro- and \index{microcosm}microcosm.\footnote{From
his book \cit{Streit der Interpretationen} which, so far, has only been
published in German, \citereplace{Umberto Eco. \newblock {\em Der Streit
der Interpretationen}. \newblock Universitätsverlag Konstanz, Konstanz,
1987.} \cite{eco:streit}}
In \index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean and later \index{hermetic}hermetic
thinking, numerical proportions can be universally equated to
geometrical proportions and \index{music}musical intervals. Letters,
likewise, can be computed as numbers and set into relation to the
numerical intervals which are thought to be the foundations of the
cosmos.  \index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean thought therefore first coined
and systematically expressed the idea that a symbolic-mathematical
source code underlies the universe and describes nature and culture
alike.

The \index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean tradition anticipates the modeling of
culture through software, very literally in the case of \index{music}music. The law
that an octave is a division of a frequency into its half, for example, is
implemented into every sound synthesis computer program in the world.
Computer-generated \index{music}music and computer-generated digital instrument
programming remains the most systematic elaboration of the original
\index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean project of finding numerical and
arithmetic models for sound. The models reach from simple
\index{algorithm}algorithms like the division of the octave to more
recent and complex ones such as \index{Fourier, Jean Baptiste
Joseph}Fourier overtone frequency transformations, originally put down
by the French mathematician \index{Fourier, Jean Baptiste Joseph}Jean
Baptiste Joseph Fourier in 1822.  The relative success of mathematical
modeling of \index{music}music explains why music is the oldest and formally
most advanced type of computer-based art. Algorithmic \index{music}musical
composition software such as \index{MAX (software)}\cit{MAX} and
\index{Pure Data (software)}\cit{Pure Data} by \index{Puckette,
Miller}Miller Puckette has grown into a number of complete, self-contained programming
environments and \index{interface}user interfaces whose application is
no longer restricted to audio processing.\footnote{See Miller Puckette's
homepage \url{http://www-crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/software.html}}

Twentieth century \index{avant-garde}avant-garde \index{music}music
composition technique forms a major link between
\index{Pythagorean}Pythagoras' discovery of mathematical laws in
\index{music}music and music composition software like \index{Pure Data
(software)}\cit{Pure Data}. The dodecaphonic \index{music}music of
\index{Schönberg, Arnold}Arnold Schönberg was based on the principle of
\index{permutation}permuting the order of the twelve halftones of an
octave. All twelve halftones are treated equally,  resulting in a
composition with no tonality and no tonal center such as ``C major.''
The techniques used to permute twelve tone rows, retrograding and
numerical inversion for example, were in fact
\index{algorithm}algorithms.  In his late work, Anton Webern expanded
the \index{permutation}permutation row principle to all
\index{music}musical parameters, not only pitch, and  laid the ground
for the \index{serial \index{music}music}serial \index{music}music of
Karlheinz \index{Stockhausen, Karlheinz}Stockhausen and \index{Boulez,
Pierre}Pierre Boulez in the 1950s and 1960s.\footnote{Stockhausen's
analysis of an orchestra piece by Webern laid the groundwork for serial
composition: \citereplace{Karlheinz Stockhausen. \newblock {Weberns
Konzert für neun Instrumente} op. 24. \newblock In {\em Texte zur
elektronischen und instrumentalen Musik}, pages 24--31. M. DuMont
Schauberg, Köln, 1963 (1953).} \cite{stockhausen:webern}} The latter
sought to scientifically define the parameters of sound, organizing
composition according to \index{permutation}permutation rows and their
complex polyphonic variation. Twentieth century compositional
\index{music}music thus reapproached the 17th century \index{music}music
of \index{Bach, Johann Sebastian}Johann Sebastian Bach.  Bach's
composition techniques particularly in \cit{The Goldberg Variations},
\cit{The Art of the Fugue} and \cit{The Musical Offering} brought the
Renaissance \index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean concept of \index{music}music
to its highest and most rigorous formal level---which explains its
fascination for present-day computer programmers and artificial
intelligence theorists like \index{Hofstadter, Douglas R.}Douglas R.
Hofstadter in \cit{Goedel, Escher,
Bach}.\footnote{\citereplace{Douglas~R. Hofstadter.  \newblock {\em
Gödel, Escher, Bach}. \newblock Basic Books, New York, 1979.}
\cite{hofstadter:goedel-en}}

When \index{serial music}serial composition in the 1950s and 1960s put
all sound parameters under the regime of numerical
\index{permutation}permutation, \index{music}musical composition became
thoroughly computational. Yet most its computations were still
calculated by hand.  From this, it was only a short route to analog
electronic sound generation, like in Stockhausen's Studie II, and
computer-aided composition.  In 1977, \index{Boulez, Pierre}Pierre
Boulez founded and directed the \index{IRCAM}IRCAM electronic
\index{music}music center in Paris where seminal audio software like
\index{MAX (software)}MAX was developed. For \index{Stockhausen,
Karlheinz}Stockhausen, total numerical control over sound eventually led
to a historical reversion of the secularization process that began with
\index{Pythagorean}Pythagoras' \index{occult}occult cosmology and ended
with modern mathematics and computing.  In the course of the 1960s,
\index{Stockhausen, Karlheinz}Stockhausen turned from rationalism to
\index{mysticism}mysticism, arriving at the idea that the cosmos exists
through \index{harmony}harmonic waves that permeate all matter and
existence. The result is a total \index{music}musicality of the
universe. At the same time, \index{Stockhausen, Karlheinz}Stockhausen
became subject to harsh criticism by anti-art activist and philosopher
\index{Flynt, Henry}Henry Flynt who in the 1960s was associated with
\index{Fluxus}Fluxus\footnote{Most of Flynt's writings are online under
\url{http://www.henryflynt.org}} and by his own former student and
assistant, the English composer \index{Cardew, Cornelius}Cornelius
Cardew. Independently from each other, \index{Flynt, Henry}Flynt and
\index{Cardew, Cornelius}Cardew attacked \index{Stockhausen,
Karlheinz}Stockhausen as an ``imperialist'' and suprematist of the
Western \index{music}musical tradition, and, by implication, its
\index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean heritage.

The idea that beauty materializes in numerical proportions according to
mathematical laws continues to be popular in scientific and engineering
cultures, too. Since the early 1970s, \index{Knuth, Donald}Donald Knuth,
widely considered the founder of computer science as an independent
academic discipline, published his textbooks under the title
\cit{The Art of Computer Programming}.\footnote{\citereplace{Donald~E.
Knuth. \newblock {\em The {Art of Computer Programming}}. \newblock
Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1973-1998.} \cite{knuth:art}} He
understands ``art'' as the formal beauty and logical elegance of the
source code. The software \index{TeX (software)}\cit{TeX} which he wrote
to typeset his books correspondingly implements a classicist
post-Renaissance typography whose notions of beauty are embedded in
Knuth's \index{algorithm}algorithms for line spacing and paragraph
adjustment.  At \index{MIT (Massachusetts Institute of
Technology)}MIT, Knuth initiated a project \cit{\index{God}God and
computers} whose results were an exhibition of Bible calligraphies and,
in 2001, a book \cit{Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks
About}.\footnote{\citereplace{Donald~E. Knuth. \newblock {\em Things a
Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About}. \newblock CSLI Publications,
Stanford, 2001.} \cite{knuth:things}} In this book, Knuth remembers how
as a student he read a computer program code that he found ``absolutely
beautiful. Reading it was just like hearing a
symphony.''\footnote{\index{Knuth, Donald}Donald Knuth, Things a
Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About, p. 130} This was how he ``got
into software,'' teaching it as an art rather than a science. The
\index{hacker}hacker credo put down by \index{Levy, Steven}Steven Levy
in 1983 that ``you can create art and beauty with computers'' has its
roots in Knuth's teaching.\footnote{\citereplace{Steven Levy. \newblock
{\em Hackers}. \newblock Project Gutenberg, Champaign, IL, 1986 (1984).}
\cite{levy:hackers}} It ultimately means that a program is not a
transparent tool for creating beauty---like, for example, a graphics
program---, but that it is beautiful by itself.  Both schools, highbrow
academic computer science and more underground \index{hacker}hacker
culture, perpetuate a \index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean, classicist
understanding of art as formal beauty. This concept blatantly lags
behind modern concepts of art.  Since \index{romanticism}romanticism and
20th century art, \index{aesthetics}aesthetic understandings of art were
not just about beauty, but included the sublime, grotesque and ugly as
well.  The same is true, implicitly at least, for the Greek and Roman
antiquity whose highest art form, tragedies, were about violence and
despair.

\index{fractals}Fractal geometry and the widespread aesthetic
fascination for Mandelbrot sets are another example of contemporary
\index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean \index{aesthetics}aesthetics.  They prove
that mathematical concepts of beauty do not necessarily have to be
founded on strict order and regular proportions, but can also be
built on \index{chaos}chaotic iteration (see p. \pageref{recursion}).
The idea, after all, is the same; that the cosmos can be mathematically
decoded and art realizes itself as a formal beauty that includes nature
and culture alike. Moreover, the \index{chaos}``chaos'' in the
\index{fractals}fractals is relative---and not an \index{ontology}ontological
\index{chaos}chaos, i.e. it is not unpredictable---as it is, first of all,
framed within a finite surface of a graphical screen, and secondly the
\index{fractals}fractal forms generate subjectively repetitive and hence
predictable patterns (see p. \pageref{Cage}). \cit{The Beauty of
\index{fractals}Fractals}---the title of a book by \index{Peitgen, Hans
Otto}Hans Otto Peitgen which popularized Mandelbrot graphics in
1986---,\footnote{\citereplace{Hans~Otto Peitgen. \newblock {\em The {Beauty of Fractals}}. \newblock Springer, Heidelberg, New York, 1986.} \cite{peitgen:fractals}}
boils down to a static beauty just like that of the
\index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean fixed proportions from the octave to the
golden section.

The \index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean tradition, and with it the
contemporary aesthetic thinking in hard science and engineering
cultures, understands correspondences between art and mathematics in
terms of numerical \index{harmony}``harmony.'' These numbers can be
considered a code and formal language, but they are, in the classical
\index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean model, not yet a source code and language
that instigates processes. There is code, but no execution in the code.
Magic, on the other hand, lacks the concept of a formal language just
because it conflates, through its two modes of similarity and contact,
its own language with the objects and subjects involved in its act.
\index{Gysin, Brion}Gysin and \index{Burroughs, William S.}Burroughs
still follow this tradition when they fashion computers and tape
recorders into \index{occult}occult \index{ecstatic}ecstatic devices and
transform gramophones into ``dream machines.'' Language
\index{magic}magic thus conceives of execution, but typically does not
have a mathematical understanding of itself.

With their respective corresponding deficiencies,  
\index{magic}magic and \index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean thinking 
are two prototypes of programming and software, the former lacking a
rigorous concept of abstract mathematical symbol language, the latter
lacking a concept of executing symbols. The history of software begins,
in Western cultures at least, where \index{magic}magic and
\index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean thinking coincide.


\section{Kabbalah}

\noindent In Hebrew, letters and numbers are mapped into the same
notation of the ``alefbet.''  Unlike Latin where only a small subset of
the alphabet corresponded to numbers, every Hebrew letter is also a
number.  In combination with the idea of divine creation out of the
word, or letter, this amounted in the Middle Ages to a complex system of
Jewish \index{mysticism}mystical letter computations. The
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah effectively combined the
\index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean idea of the world being composed of
numbers so that everything can be described in numerical terms and
proportions, with the \index{magic}magical concept of language as an
agent that affects matter. The religious sublimation of this concept
exists in the idea that \index{God}God created the world through
language and that even humans possessed the power of influencing things
through the Adamic language spoken in paradise.
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah may  be regarded a
\index{speculative}speculative science of reconstructing the grammar and
vocabulary of the Adamic and divine language---through among others
computational and \index{Pythagorean}pythagorean-numerological readings
of the \index{Torah}Torah. In its practical application,
\index{magic}magical, respectively \index{theurgy}theurgic, acts are
performed. In 1800, the Jewish German rationalist philosopher and
\index{Kant, Immanuel}Kant scholar \index{Maimon, Solomon}Solomon Maimon
published an autobiography in which he recollects his
juvenile Talmudic and \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah studies in
Lithuania.\footnote{\citereplace{Solomon Maimon. \newblock {\em An
{Autobiography}}. \newblock University of Illinois Press, Chicago, 2001
(1792).} \cite{maimon:autobiography}} He defines
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah almost \index{linguistics}linguistically as
``the doctrine teaching how to willingly affect nature by means of the
manifold names of \index{God}God which represent specific modes of
working upon, and relations to, natural objects. These names are
regarded not just as arbitrary, but as natural signs so that everything
done with these signs affects the objects they represent.''

As in \index{magic}magical language, \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalist
\index{mysticism}mystics conceive of letters and words not merely as
abstract, artificial denominators which are culturally defined and
shared. They thus stood in opposition to rationalist definitions of
language in \index{Aristotle; Aristotelian}Aristotelian philosophy,
medieval nominalism and the late 19th century structuralist
\index{linguistics}linguistics of \index{Saussure, Ferdinand
de}Ferdinand de Saussure which all insisted upon the constructedness of
language. Since \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah is mystical scholarship aimed
at retrieving the original power of the divine letters and words, it
also aims at applying this power practically.  Modern
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah scholarship, including that of \index{Scholem,
Gershom}Gershom Scholem, has obscured this end by focusing solely
on theoretical \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah.  Today, practical
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah includes the politics of the ultraorthodox Shas
party in Israel and, on opposite fronts, the popularized, no more
exclusively Jewish New Age \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah of the
\cit{\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah Centre} whose adepts include
\index{Madonna}Madonna, \index{Taylor, Liz}Liz Taylor, \index{John,
Elton}Elton John, \index{Jagger, Mick}Mick Jagger, \index{Love,
Courtney}Courtney Love and \index{Spears, Britney}Britney Spears. In its
historical form, practical \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah is
\index{theurgy}theurgy, i.e. \index{magic}magical rituals performed
within \index{religion}religion as invocations of \index{God}god.
\index{Maimon, Solomon}Maimon remembers his own attempts at practical
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah as follows:

\begin{quotation}

With the \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah Ma'asith or practical
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah, I did not not succeed so well as with the
theoretical. The preacher boasted, not publicly indeed, but to everybody
in private, that he was a master of this also; especially he professed
roeh ve-eno nireh (to see everything, but not to be seen by others),
i.e., to be able to make himself invisible.  I was particularly eager
for this artifice in order that I, a young person, might practice
certain kinds of mischief on my comrades without being punished.
[\ldots] Three days in succession I had to fast, and every day to say
some Ichudim. These are \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalistic phrases of prayer
whose \index{occult}occult meaning aims at inducing sexual unions in the
intellectual world in order to achieve certain effects in the physical
world.  I did everything with pleasure, made the conjuration he had
taught me and believed with all confidence that I was now invisible.
Immediately, I hurried to the Beth Hamidrash, the Jewish academy, went
straight up to one of my comrades and gave him a good slap round his
face. He, however, was no fool and returned the blow with interest. I
was baffled and unable to understand how he could have recognized me
since I had followed the instructions of the preacher with utmost
accuracy [\ldots].\footnote{Maimon, ibid.}

\end{quotation}

\noindent The earliest known foundation of the \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah
is the \index{Sefer Yetzirah}\cit{Sefer Yetzirah} (\cit{Book of Creation})
whose origin and history is unkown, but which was in circulation at
least since the 9th century.
The book, a concise work consisting of a total of 65 paragraphs, is a
proto-\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalistic work as it speaks, for example of the
\index{Sefirot}Sefirot, or attributes of \index{God}God, but has not
developed them yet into the system of the ten \index{Sefirot}Sefirot
which is central to the \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah. The creation as told
in the book is a creation of the world through letters. The fourth
chapter tells it as follows:


\begin{quotation}

1. There were formed seven double letters, Beth, Gimel, Daleth, Kaph,
Pe, Resh, Tau, each has two voices, either aspirated or softened.

\noindent [\ldots]

\noindent 3. These seven double letters He formed, designed, created,
and combined into the Stars of the Universe, the days of the week, the
orifices of perception in man; and from them he made seven heavens, and
seven planets, all from nothingness [\ldots].\footnote{\cit{Sepher
Yetzirah or The Book of Creation}, translated by W.W. Wescott (1887),
\url{http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/yetzirah.htm}}

\end{quotation}

\noindent In the next paragraph, these letters create things by the
virtue of an \index{algorithm}algorithm:

\begin{quotation}
4. From two letters, or forms He composed two dwel\-lings; from three,
six; from four, twenty-four; from five, one hundred and twenty; from
six, seven hundred and twenty; from seven, five thousand and forty; and
from thence their numbers increase in a manner beyond counting; and are
incomprehensible.\footnote{\cit{Sephe Yetzirah}, ibid.}

\end{quotation}

\noindent What is being described here is precisely the combinatory,
mathematical law of \index{permutation}permutation. According to this
law, two discrete elements can be permuted---or shuffled---$2!=2*1=2$
times, three discrete elements $3!=3*2*1=6$ and seven elements
$7!=7*6*5*4*3*2*1=5040$ times. It is the same mathematical law that is
at the heart of dodecaphonic and \index{serial \index{music}music}serial
music composition, anagram poetry and computed word
\index{permutation}permutation poetry like that of \index{Gysin,
Brion}Brion Gysin (whose \cit{IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD} permutes
six words 720 times according to the same principle described in the
quotation above).  In the divine creation according to the \index{Sefer
Yetzirah}\cit{Sefer Yetzirah}, letter \index{combination}combinations
function as a straightforward \index{algorithm}algorithmic source code.
Unlike the executable code of a \index{magic}magical spell with its
metaphoric and metonymic qualities, the execution is strictly formal, a
proper computation.  The second chapter of the \index{Sefer
Yetzirah}\cit{Sefer Yetzirah} even describes a mechanical computing
device:

\begin{quotation}

1. The foundations are the twenty-two letters, three mothers, seven
double, and twelve single letters. 

\noindent [\ldots]

\noindent 4. These twenty-two letters, the foundations, He arranged as
on a sphere, with two hundred and thirty-one modes of entrance. If the
sphere be rotated forward, good is implied, if in a retrograde manner
evil is intended.\footnote{\cit{Sepher Yetzirah}, ibid.}

\end{quotation}

\noindent The second paragraph describes another combinatory
\index{algorithm}algorithm, namely that of
\index{combination}combinations---calling them ``modes of
entrance''---of two elements according to the formula
$1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17+18+19+20+21=231$.
The ``sphere'' may therefore be imagined as a device with two mobile,
concentric circles each of which have the 22 letters inscribed.  The
device can be used to compute all possible 231 letter pairs, on the
premise that, unlike in a \index{permutation}permutation, a
\index{combination}combination like ``aleph+bet'' is the same as
``bet+aleph.'' This assumption still applies in the modern
mathematical definition of a \index{combination}``combination.'' The
letter ``aleph''  can be combined 21 times with the remaining 21
letters of the alphabet, the next letter ``bet'' only 20 times since the
\index{combination}combination with ``aleph'' had already been
exhausted, and so on, resulting in the above formula.  The creation of
the world is, according to this \index{speculative}speculation,
computational. Later \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalist \index{Torah}Torah
readings employed \index{algorithm}algorithmic methods for
reconstructing  or, in modern computer programmer terminology,
\index{reverse-engineering}reverse-engineering divine creation through
and within the letter.  The \index{Torah}Torah was read, among others,
as an acrostic (notaricon), as letter \index{permutation}permutation
(temurah) or a numerological code (gematria) for the name JAHWE. The
\index{ecstatic}ecstatic \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah, practiced in 13th
century Spain by Abraham \index{Abulafia, Abraham}Abulafia and others,
 become probably the first comprehensive
\index{speculative}speculative science and art of language computation.

\noindent
\begin{figure}[thb]
{\center\resizebox*{0.8\columnwidth}{!}
{\includegraphics{pics/torah_codes_2000.png}}}
\caption[\cit{Torah Codes 2000}, a commercial software application for
Kabbalistic text analysis, screenshot from the online store of
\url{http://www.jewishsoftware.com}]{\label{torah-codes}Advertising for Kabbalistic software}
\end{figure}

Superficially, the model of creation through mathematical combinatorics
in the \index{Sefer Yetzirah}\cit{Sefer Yetzirah} appears to converge
with \index{Einstein, Albert}Einstein's belief that \index{God}``God
does not play \index{dice}dice with the
universe.''\footnote{\index{Hawking, Stephen}Stephen Hawking discusses
this claim in depth in his lecture \cit{Does God Play Dice},
\url{http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html}} However, it imagines
\index{God}God to have computed it since a \index{dice}die is a simple,
one-purpose computer. The difference lies alone in the respective
\index{algorithm}algorithms, the \index{stochastics}stochastic
computation of the \index{dice}die versus the combinatory computation of
the concentric circles in the \index{Sefer Yetzirah}\cit{Sefer
Yetzirah}.  Both models converge, with order turning into
\index{chaos}chaos and vice versa, in the imagination of \index{Pynchon,
Thomas}Thomas Pynchon's novels. In ``Gravity's Rainbow,'' set in the
historical context of \index{Turing, Alan}Alan Turing's computer
research in World War II England, \index{occult}occult and computational
methods are being used alike to predict the impact points of German
missiles. The analysts include \index{Kabbalah}``Kabbalists who study
the Rocket as \index{Torah}Torah, letter by letter rivets, burner cup
and brass rose, its text is theirs to \index{permutation}permute and
combine into new revelations, always
unfolding.''\footnote{\citereplace{Thomas Pynchon. \newblock {\em
Gravity's Rainbow}. \newblock Vintage, London, 1995 (1973).}
\cite{pynchon:gravity}, p.  717} In Pynchon's \cit{The Crying of Lot 49}
from 1967, an exploding spray can flies through a bathroom so that only
``something fast enough, \index{God}God or a digital machine, might have
computed in advance the complex web of its
travel.''\footnote{\citereplace{Thomas Pynchon. \newblock {\em The
{Crying of Lot 49}}. \newblock Perennial Classics, New York, 1999
(1967).} \cite{pynchon:crying}} In \index{Eco, Umberto}Umberto Eco's
novel ``Foucault's Pendulum,'' a computer named \index{Abulafia,
Abraham}``Abulafia'' is used to calculate \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalistic
letter \index{permutation}permutations of the name YHWE. The novel 
contains a \index{BASIC (programming language)}BASIC source code of the
program, commenting it with a detailed discussion of the combinatorics
in the fourth chapter of the \index{Sefer Yetzirah}\cit{Sefer
Yetzirah}.\footnote{\citereplace{Umberto Eco. \newblock {\em Foucault's
Pendulum}. \newblock Ballantine Books, 1990.} \cite{eco:pendulum}}
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah computer programs, as tools of theoretical
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah, however exist not only in fiction.  The
commercial PC software package \index{Torah}\cit{Torah Codes 2000} (see
figure \ref{torah-codes}), available from Internet shops like
\url{http://www.jewishsoftware.com} and \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah
Software \url{http://www.kabsoft.com}, is being advertised as the
``ultimate \index{Bible}Bible codes analysis tool.'' The program renders
the \index{Torah}Torah as a \index{database}database and features, among
others, ``Gematria look up of Word, Phrase, and sentence. Letter
Substitution. Letter Analysis.  Verse, Word, and Letter count.
\index{Bible}Bible statistics Query, and Search.'' 

\noindent
\begin{figure}[thb]
{\center\resizebox*{0.8\columnwidth}{!}
{\includegraphics{pics/kircher-jhwe.png}}}
\caption[Athanasius Kircher, \cit{Oedipus Aegyptiacus}, 1652-4,
sunflower-shaped diagram of the name of God in different
languages \cite{godwin:kircher}]{\label{kircher-jhwe}Diagram of the names of God in Athanasius
Kircher's \cit{Oedipus Aegyptiacus}} \end{figure}

The idea of divine creation through computations of the letters of
\index{God}God's name was adapted by Christian
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalists in the Renaissance. In 1652-54, Jesuit priest
and \index{speculative}speculative scientist \index{Kircher,
Athanasius}Athanasius Kircher published a book \cit{Oedipus Aegypticius}
that sought to reconstruct ``Egyptian wisdom, Phoenician theology,
Chaldaic astrology, Hebraic \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah, Persian
\index{magic}magic, \index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean mathematics, Greek
\index{theosophy}theosophy, mythology, Arabic Alchemy, Latin
philology.''\footnote{According to \citereplace{Joscelyn Godwin.
\newblock {\em Athanasius Kircher}. \newblock Edition Weber, Berlin,
1994 (1979).} \cite{godwin:kircher}, p. 57} The link between
\index{magic}magic, \index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean thinking and
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah is however being made here less through a
historical analysis, but through syncretist combination. The book was
founded on the assumption that all these practices and fields of
knowledge contained residues of original Egyptian sciences and
\index{hieroglyphs}hieroglyphs.\footnote{ibid.} Before
\index{Napoleon}Napoleon's discovery of the \index{Rosetta stone}Rosetta
stone, \index{hieroglyphs}Hieroglyphs had not been deciphered in the
modern age and  became subject to \index{occult}occult-scientific
\index{speculative}speculation. \index{Kircher, Athanasius}Kircher's
chapter on the \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah contains a diagram of the ten
\index{Sefirot}Sefirot and a combinatory dial in the shape of a
sunflower in which the tetragrammaton JHWH is permuted into 72 names of
\index{God}God (figure \ref{kircher-jhwe}). On the outer concentric
circles, these names get equated to four-letter names of
\index{God}god in contemporary European languages.

\index{Kircher, Athanasius}Kircher's model is obviously the Renaissance
Italian \index{Neoplatonism}Neoplatonist philosopher and first
self-acclaimed Christian \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalist Giovanni \index{Pico
della Mirandola, Giovanni}Pico della Mirandola. Pico was first to make
the \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah known to a non-Jewish audience. He defended
his \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah studies against allegations of heresy in
his \cit{Oration on the Dignity of Man}.\footnote{\citereplace{Giovanni
Pico~della Mirandola. \newblock {\em Oration on the Dignity of Man}.
\newblock MacMillan, 1985 (1486).} \cite{pico:dignity}} In his writings,
he christianized Jewish \index{mysticism}mysticism by pointing out
trinitarian structures in the \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah and extending the
tetragrammaton with the Hebrew letter \cit{Shin} so that it turned into
``YHSVH,'' Jesus. The same occurs in \index{Kircher,
Athanasius}Kircher's sunflower in which Shin is the central letter.
Still, \index{Kircher, Athanasius}Kircher maintains the idea of creation
through the divine letters and their \index{permutation}permutation.
After all, this is in accordance to the (Christian) Gospel of John and
its claim that in the beginning there was the word. The things created
and symbolized in \index{Kircher, Athanasius}Kircher's diagram are the
seven planets and angels, the twelve signs of the Zodiac and tribes of
Israel.\footnote{According to Godwin \cite{godwin:kircher}, p. 63}



\section{Ramon Llull and Lullism}

\noindent A later work of \index{Kircher, Athanasius}Kircher, the
\cit{Ars magna sciendi sive combinatoria} from 1669, contains a
\index{permutation}permutation table very much like that in the 
\index{Sefer Yetzirah}\cit{Sefer Yetzirah}. It lists the
\index{permutation}permutations of all integer numbers from 1 to 50 in a
purely numerical, formal way. This book, however, is not an explicitly
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalistic work, but a recapitulation and partial
modification of another complex of \index{speculative}speculative
language computation, the \cit{Ars} of 14th century Catalan monk
\index{Llull, Ramon}Ramon Llull, or Raimundus Lullus.

\noindent
\begin{figure}[thb]
{\center\resizebox*{1\columnwidth}{!}
{\includegraphics{pics/lullus-figurae.png}}}
\caption[Ramon Llull (Raimundus Lullus), \cit{Ars brevis},
1308 \cite{lullus:illuminatus}, the four \cit{figurae}, or algorithms, for processing
the table (\cit{tabula}) of elements]{\label{lullus-figurae}The four algorithms of Llull's \cit{Ars}}
\end{figure}

\label{Llull}The \cit{Ars} is a shorthand for a formal-computational
system of composing and deriving philosophical-theological statements
\index{Llull, Ramon}Llull laid out in two books, \cit{Ars generalis
ultima} (1305) and, in shorter version, \cit{Ars brevis}. The roots of
the \index{Llull, Ramon}Llull's ars lie in a \index{mysticism}mystical
revelation in 1265 on mount Randa on the island of Mallorca. During this
event \index{God}God allegedly revealed his own attributes to Llull. In
the ars, these nine attributes are systematized and indexed with letters
from B-K as follows: B -- \cit{bonitas} (goodness),  C --
\cit{magnitudo} (magnitude), D -- \cit{duratio} (duration), E --
\cit{potestas} (power),  F -- \cit{sapientia} (wisdom), G --
\cit{voluntas} (will), H -- \cit{virtus} (virtue), I -- \cit{veritas}
(truth) and  K -- \cit{gloria} (glory). \index{Llull, Ramon}Llull's nine
divine attributes bear striking resemblance to the ten divine attributes
of the \index{Sefirot}Sefirot: 1. \cit{Keter}, crown, 2. \cit{Hokmah},
wisdom, 3. \cit{Binah}, intelligence, 4. \cit{Hesed}, love, 5.
\cit{Gevurah}, power, 6. \cit{Tifaret}, compassion, 7. \cit{Netzah},
endurance, 8. \cit{Hod}, majesty, 9. \cit{Yesod}, foundation, 10.
\cit{Malkut}, kingdom. It  has been assumed, among others by
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah scholar \index{Idel, Moshe}Moshe Idel, that
\index{Llull, Ramon}Llull took his inspiration less from \index{God}God
himself than from 13th century Spanish \index{ecstatic}ecstatic
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah.\footnote{\citereplace{Moshe Idel. \newblock
{Ramon Lull} and {Ecstatic Kabbalah}. \newblock {\em Journal of the
Warburg and Courtauld Institutes}, 51:170--174, 1988.} \cite{idel:lull}}
Only one century after \index{Llull, Ramon}Llull, \index{Pico della
Mirandola, Giovanni}Pico della Mirandola describes what he calls the
``ars raimundi'' as a second form of \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah. The
theological idea behind Llull's system is that the nine attributes
should be universally valid across all cultures and
\index{religion}religions, so that the \cit{Ars}, by providing an
objective, formal system for creating statements from these universal
truths, could prove the single truth of Christian
\index{religion}religion and be used as a missionary device.
\index{Llull, Ramon}Llull, as a matter of fact, did make several mission
travels to Muslim countries in his lifetime. According to legend, he
died a martyr in 1316, having been stoned to death by Muslims.

\medskip

\noindent
\begin{tiny}
\begin{tabular}{|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|}
\hline
&\textsc{Fig. A}&\textsc{Fig. T}&\textsc{Questions}&\textsc{Subjects}&\textsc{Virtues}&\textsc{Vices}\\
\hline
B&goodness&difference&whether?&God&justice&avarice\\
C&greatness&concordance&what?&angel&prudence&gluttony\\
D&eternity&contrarierty&of what?&heaven&fortitude&lust\\
E&power&beginning&why?&man&temperance&pride\\
F&wisdom&middle&how much?&imaginative&faith&accidie\\
G&will&end&of what kind?&sensitive&hope&envy\\
H&virtue&majority&when?&vegetative&charity&ire\\
I&truth&equality&where?&elementative&patience&lying\\
K&glory&minority&how?&instrumentative&pity&inconstancy\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{tiny}

\medskip

The nine attributes form the nucleus of a table which juxtaposes them
with nine logical relations (like \cit{is equal to}, \cit{is smaller
than}, \cit{is greater than}), nine questions as they were taught in
\index{rhetoric}rhetoric as part of the inventio, i.e. the gathering of
ideas---``how,'' ``what,'' ``where from,'' ``by what'' etc.---, nine
cosmological entities from \index{God}God to angels, heaven, man, etc.
down to instruments, in analogy to the \index{Neoplatonism}Neoplatonist
ordering of the cosmos as a hierarchy of hypostases, or instances, in
which each instance is a minor reflection of a higher instance. Finally
the Christian virtues and vices form two categories, and for this
purpose are expanded from seven to each nine in order to fit the system. 

The resulting ``tabula'' is what computer science calls a ``flat''
\index{database}database with index fields (B-K). Through the unified
number of nine entries per category, the index can reference any column.
It provides, as a symbolic code, an abstract ``alphabetum,'' or
artificial meta-language for the entries of the table.  The letter ``A''
is omitted in this artificial language, expressing the taboo of
representing \index{God}god as the absolute beginning and therefore the
first letter in the alphabet. \index{Llull, Ramon}Llull's letter B-K may
be the first example of what computer science calls the
\index{semantics}``semantics'' of a programming language.  From a
\index{linguistics}linguistic standpoint, it is odd to call a language
\index{semantics}semantic, meaningful, which expresses no meaning in the
sense of a judgement or interpretation, or reference to an idea.
Instead, formal languages describe purely technical manipulations of
symbols that require no cognitive interpretation, like ``substitute all
occurences of the letter a with the letter b'' as opposed to
``substitute the melancholic tone of a text with an optimistic tone.''
The second operation would require (significantly advanced)
\index{Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)}artificial intelligence, and it
has not yet been proven that it can be achieved through a more complex
formal manipulation of symbols in a satisfactory way (see p.
\pageref{AI}).  The \index{semantics}``semantics'' of a programming
language however have nothing to do with \index{Artificial Intelligence
(A.I.)}artificial intelligence or cognitive computing, but simply refer
to the style in which the artificial language is coded, i.e. which
denominators, metaphors and other \index{semantics}semantic handles are
being used to reference non-\index{semantics}semantic operations.
\index{Llull, Ramon}Llull's ``alphabetum'' demonstrates that no formal
code functions without such a \index{semantics}semantics, and culture
coded into it.  Any such code is thus a \index{interface}user
interface---\index{Llull, Ramon}Llull makes the Latin alphabet the user
\index{interface}interface of his system---and any code, whether
\index{assembly (programming language)}assembly language or an iconic
computer desktop, inevitably is an anthropomorphism that involves
translation of processes into human-readable signs.

\index{Llull, Ramon}Llull's formal alphabet however is not yet a
programming language. As the index of a tabular, 
``flat'' \index{database}database, it references only data,
not \index{algorithm}algorithms.
His \cit{Ars} includes four \index{algorithm}algorithms for transforming
elements of the table into statements, but they are non-alphabetically
represented by four circular graphic diagrams or ``figurae'' (see figure
\ref{lullus-figurae}). The first \cit{figura} links every of nine
``principia absoluta,'' i.e. \index{God}god-given attributes, to every
other of those principles in the grammatical form of an attributes.  The
\index{combination}combination ``BC''  results in the statement
``goodness is great,'' ``BD'' in ``goodness is constant,'' etc.  The
figure works like an exhaustive cross-reference, or hypertextual linking
of all possible \index{combination}combinations, in this case $9*8=72$
if one excludes tautological \index{combination}combinations like BB,
``goodness is good.''

The second figure links every logical relation to one of three subject
matters. It therefore has a similar function as the cross-reference in
figure one.

The third figure yields all possible two letter
\index{combination}combinations. In that, it differs from the first
figura because it considers, just as in the modern mathematical
understanding of a \index{combination}combination, ``BC'' the same as
``CB'' and  results in $8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1=36$ letter pairs. This is
exactly the same combinatory \index{algorithm}algorithm as the one used
earlier in the \index{Sefer Yetzirah}\cit{Sefer Yetzirah} to determine
231 names of \index{God}god from pairing 22 letters.

The fourth figure is used to combine three letter
\index{combination}combinations instead of just pairs. Again, there is a
resemblance to the \index{Sefer Yetzirah}\cit{Sefer Yetzirah} and the
device with concentric, rotating circles described in its second
chapter.  \index{Llull, Ramon}Llull writes that ``in hac quarte figura,
et ultima comprehenditur Ars tota,'' that his whole \cit{Ars} is
contained in this fourth figure. Yet it can't be used without
restraints.  Redundant \index{combination}combinations like ``BBB'' are,
again, excluded.  Through a complicated, and mathematically incoherent
procedure which would take up to much space to explain here,
\index{Llull, Ramon}Llull arrives at $28*9=252$ three letter
\index{combination}combinations which may be generated with the fourth
figure.  Unlike the \index{Sefer Yetzirah}\cit{Sefer Yetzirah},
\index{Llull, Ramon}Llull's ars does not conceive of letter
\index{permutation}permutations, but of \index{combination}combinations
only, and only renders \index{combination}combinations of two elements
mathematically correct.  

Aside from these formal limitations, there are implicit
\index{semantics}semantic limitations and self-restraints in
\index{Llull, Ramon}Llull's \cit{Ars}. For example, a reading of
\index{combination}combination BDC as
``Deus---contrarietas---magnitudo,'' \index{God}God is contrary to
magnitude, would be invalid, respectively illegal. A whole set of
heretical applications of the ``ars'' needs to be suppressed: which
\index{Llull, Ramon}Llull's writing, however, does not mention.  The
system  only allows building statements which are ``true'' a priori
and then, applying its transformation methods, derive different true
statements from them through formal-\index{algorithm}algorithmic means.
This make \index{Llull, Ramon}Llull's ars a first prototype of modern
symbolic logic in which logical statements are transformed according to
purely formal rules. This resemblance is not coincidental.
\index{Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm}Leibniz, the inventor of symbolic
logic, took his inspiration from \index{Llull, Ramon}Llull's \cit{Ars}
when he wrote his first book, \cit{Dissertatio de arte combinatoria} in
1666, 12 years after \index{Kircher, Athanasius}Kircher's \cit{Ars magna
sciendi}.

After \index{Bruno, Giordano}Giordano Bruno's
\index{theosophy}theosophical Lullism in the 16th century, \index{Llull,
Ramon}Llull's \cit{Ars} was resurrected in the early 17th century
through the \index{encyclopedism}encyclopedist \index{Alsted, Johann
Heinrich}Johann Heinrich Alsted. \index{Kircher, Athanasius}Kircher's
\cit{Ars magna sciendi} later marked the end point of 17th century
scientific \index{Lullism}Lullism.  Via \index{Alsted, Johann
Heinrich}Alsted, \index{Lullism}Lullist combinatorics changed its
character in the 17th century from a theological device to a generative
classificatory system of knowledge.  Before \index{Diderot,
Denis}Diderot and \index{d'Alembert, Jean-le-Rond}d'Alembert and their
revolutionary reinvention of the encyclopedia in the late 18th century,
knowledge in encyclopedias was not structured arbitrarily by the
alphabet, but in a systematic order of things according to their place
in a cosmology. \index{Lullism}Lullist combinatorics allowed the
generation of complex hierarchical systems for knowledge classification
through the exhaustive \index{combination}combination of categories.
While \index{Llull, Ramon}Llull's use of \index{algorithm}algorithms was
synthetic and meant to create complexity, a wealth of statements and
reflections from only nine ``absolute principles,'' the
\index{encyclopedism}encyclopedist appropriation of his method should on
the contrary handle and  reduce complexity, structuring a given,
unordered, large body of knowledge. It was probably the first historical
example of outsourcing organization to \index{algorithm}algorithms, not
unlike computer \index{algorithm}algorithms that manage payments and
bank accounts today.

\noindent
\noindent
\begin{figure}[thb]
{\center\resizebox*{1\columnwidth}{!}
{\includegraphics{pics/orbis-pictus.png}}}
\caption[Jan Amos Komenský (Comenius), \cit{Orbis pictus}, 1657
\cite{komensky:orbis-pictus}. Correlating sounds, images and letters
on its opening pages, the book creates a graphical user interface for
written language]{\label{orbis-pictus}Comenius' \cit{Orbis pictus}: A graphical
interface for alphanumeric code}
\end{figure}

Still in the 17th century, the theologist, \index{hermetic}hermetic
philosopher and educational reformer \index{Comenius, Jan Amos}Jan Amos
Comenius developed \index{Lullism}Lullist computational
\index{encyclopedism}encyclopedism into a knowledge system with a
graphical user \index{interface}interface (figure \ref{orbis-pictus}). A
pupil of \index{Alsted, Johann Heinrich}Alsted, \index{Comenius, Jan
Amos}Comenius wrote an immensely popular encyclopedist work with his
schoolbook \cit{Orbis pictus}.\footnote{\citereplace{Jan~Amos Komenský.
\newblock Orbis sensualium pictus. \newblock In {\em Opera Omnia},
volume~17, pages 69--271. Academia Praha, Praha, 1970.}
\cite{komensky:orbis-pictus}} The \cit{Orbis pictus}, \cit{the world in
pictures} was the first illustrated children's book in history. Each
double page shows one aspect of the world---the planets in the
beginning, then one area of human civilization like, for example,
agriculture---, marking up every illustration with numbered footnotes
that explained the objects both in Latin and the pupil's native
language. With the book, pupils would learn both the order of the world
and their native and a foreign language.  \index{Comenius, Jan
Amos}Comenius' idea, inspired by the utopian thinkers \index{Campanella,
Tommaso}Campanella and \index{Andreae, Johann Valentin}Johann Valentin
Andreae (see p.  \pageref{Andreae} and \pageref{Campanella}), was to use
pictorial language as firstly a universal language and secondly as an
aestheticly concrete means to represent an abstract order of knowledge.
Just like the \index{interface}graphical user interface of the early
\index{Apple Macintosh (operating system)}Macintosh competed with the
alphabetic command line interface of \index{DOS (operating system)}DOS
and \index{Unix (operating system)}Unix, the pictures in
\index{Comenius, Jan Amos}Comenius' book compete with \index{Llull,
Ramon}Llull's nine letter alphabet as the interface, or ``semantics,''
of a formal system.

Although there were radical conflations of \index{Lullism}Lullism and
Christian-\index{Kabbalah}kabbalistic \index{mysticism}mysticism later
in the 17th century (see p. \pageref{Kuhlmann}), Llull and the 17th
century scientific \index{Lullism}Lullists do not, unlike the Jewish
\index{Kabbalah}kabbalists, conceive of letter combinatorics as the
source of creation. Instead, they treat it as method of logical
reasoning, generation and classification of statements and knowledge.
\index{God}God is implicit, not explicit in their combinatorial systems.
The systems do not serve a \index{Kabbalah}kabbalistic reconstruction or
\index{reverse-engineering}reverse-engineering of a divine language.
The divine is present as an inscription and representation of divine
order within the categories,  but \index{God}God does not materialize in
the computations. Performing them is not a \index{theurgy}theurgic act,
as opposed to \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalism and, for example, Rabbi Loew's
creation of the \index{golem}golem through practical
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalistic application of the \index{Sefer
Yetzirah}\cit{Sefer Yetzirah}.\footnote{The legend of Rabbi Loew has
been told many times in books and films, see
\url{http://www.pantheon.org/articles/r/rabbi_loeb.html}} The
secularization of the Jewish \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah through
\index{Llull, Ramon}Llull and Christian \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalism
continues with 17th century \index{Lullism}Lullist science, analytic
philosophy since \index{Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm}Leibniz, up to the
20th century concept of machine computation and computer software. It
leaves, on the other hand, the question as to what extent
\index{religion}religion, \index{metaphysics}metaphysics and speculative
thinking might still be present in contemporary computer culture.


\section{Rhetoric and poetics}

\subsection{\noindent Classical rhetoric}

Next to \index{magic}magical, \index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean, and
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalist thinking, an independent tradition of poetic
language computations exists in classical \index{rhetoric}rhetoric and
\index{poetics}poetics. A 1874 monograph of German poet and oriental
scholar Friedrich Rückert, \cit{Grammatik, Poetik und Rhetorik der
Perser} (\cit{Grammar, Poetics and Rhetoric of the Persians}) suggests,
with its examples of word \index{permutation}permutations and rotary
dial word combinatorics in ancient Persian rhetoric and poetry, that
rhetorical language computation might have non-Western
sources.\footnote{\citereplace{Friedrich Rückert. \newblock {\em
Grammatik, Poetik und Rhetorik der Perser}. \newblock
Verlagsbuchhandlung Otto Zelle, Antiquariat Otto Harrassowitz,
Wiesbaden, Osnabrück (Gotha), 1966 (1874).} \cite{rueckert:perser}}
Other prominent examples of computational writing are the Chinese \cit{I
Ching} oracle (see p. \pageref{Cage}) and Tibetan prayer wheels.  In
fact, no historical Western computational text has been transcribed as
early and frequently into electronic computer software as the \cit{I
Ching} (see p. \pageref{culver-ic}). Classical Greek and Roman
\index{rhetoric}rhetoric advocated the virtue of ``copia,'' multitude of
expressions and wealth of variation in speech. Part of this virtue was
the ability to create an abundance of speech from a limited amount of
ideas and material. The part of \index{rhetoric}rhetoric that taught
brainstorming for an oration, the ``inventio,'' was concerned with this
problem. Word \index{permutation}permutation became one of generative
means of brainstorming and text composition, for example in a poem of
the Greek poet \index{Athenaios}Athenaios of the second century B.C.. It
had its closest parallel in an elaborated form of chiasm---i.e. the
crossing of two similar phrases---called ``commutatio'' or
``permutatio,'' like, for example ``ego tu sum, tu es ego'' (``I am you,
and you are me'') in line 721 of Plautus' \cit{Stichus}, a comedy that
made fun of \index{Plato}Plato's \cit{Symposium}.


\noindent
\begin{figure}[thb]
{\center\resizebox*{0.8\columnwidth}{!}
{\includegraphics{pics/looking_glass.jpg}}}
\caption[The three-dimensional \cit{Looking Glass}
desktop, an experimental software development project of Sun
Microsystems]{\label{looking_glass}Sun's \cit{Looking Glass} computer
desktop: spatial-pictoral representation of items very similar to the
\cit{ars memoria}}
\end{figure}

In classical \index{rhetoric}rhetoric, ``inventio,'' the creation of
topics, dialectically corresponded to ``memoria,'' the mental
recollection of those topics in the act of speech.  Memoria taught the
memorization of a speech in an age where paper notes were unaffordable.
The mnemotechnics of classical \index{rhetoric}rhetoric is described in
the Latin \cit{Rhetorica ad Herennium} which attributes its origins to
the Greek poet Simonides.\footnote{\citereplace{Frances Yates. \newblock
{\em The {Art of Memory}}. \newblock Routledge \& Kegan Paul, London,
1965.} \cite{yates:memory}} It is a very particular, today obscure,
system of visual-metaphoric memorization based on the imagination of
architectural spaces, typically houses with separate rooms. These rooms
are mentally filled with objects that represent concrete and
abstract topics of the speech, by the virtue of metaphor, onomatopoetic
resemblance or other figures of speech. While memoria involves no
algorithmic computations in itself, it could be regarded as the first implementation of a
visual \index{interface}user interface for alphanumeric codes, and
certainly influenced \index{Comenius, Jan Amos}Comenius' \cit{Orbis
pictus}, too. The ``memory palaces'' and ``memory theaters'' developed
later in the Renaissance bear a striking resemblance to GUI (graphical
user \index{interface}interface) desktops and their representation of
files through icons arranged in a space.  \index{rhetoric}Rhetorical
memoria even anticipates three-dimensional user
\index{interface}interfaces (like \index{3dwm (software)}\cit{3dwm} or
\index{Sun (company)}Sun's \index{Looking Glass (software)}\cit{Project
Looking Glass}) in practically every aspect of the design.

Visual mnemotechnics became obsolete as paper 
became an affordable and more capable medium for scrap
notes, a development that might have also have implications for software user
\index{interface}interfaces.  The question remains whether
extending the visual illusionism and immersion of computer user
\index{interface}interfaces to 3D simulation will really yield systems
superior to software \index{interface}interfaces based on the notation
and grammar of written language.  If one compares graphical computer
\index{interface}interfaces in their first mass market incarnation, the
Apple \index{Apple Macintosh (operating system)}Macintosh desktop of
1984, to contemporary graphical user \index{interface}interfaces on
\index{Apple Macintosh (operating system)}MacOS, \index{Microsoft
Windows (operating system)}Windows and the \index{X11 Window System
(software)}X11 Window System, it is obvious that much of the original
iconic representations---the desk, the waste paper basket, the file
cabinet---became obsolete and that the visual metaphors took up a life
of their own. As opposed to a \index{Apple Macintosh (operating
system)}Macintosh of 1984, it is hardly possible to introduce a novice
computer user to a contemporary graphical user
\index{interface}interface by pointing out its resemblance to an analog
desktop. With \index{Apple Macintosh (operating system)}MacOS X, the
original mass market graphical operating system in fact reverted to also
providing a \index{Unix (operating system)}Unix command line shell.

Rhetoric as such can be seen as a discipline concerned with the
formalization and quasi-formal manipulation of language. It is not
genuinely formal because its tropes, such as metaphors, are
\index{semantics}semantic and not just the purely
\index{syntax}syntactical operations that would be necessary in a
computation.  Still, the concept underlying \index{rhetoric}rhetoric is
that any speech and writing can be created through formal instruction,
and---unlike in concepts of divine inspiration or artistic
\index{genius}genius (see p.  \pageref{genius})---composition is a
technique that can be learned by anyone.  The more formal
\index{rhetoric}rhetorical instruction became, the more it approached
language computation. In the step from chiasm to word
\index{permutation}permutation, poetic formalism finally went from
\index{semantics}semantic to formal-mathematical manipulation of
symbols.  Such texts have input data (the words to be transformed), an
\index{algorithm}algorithm (\index{permutation}permutation, often
explained separately, just as in an algorithmic source code) and an
execution, for example in writing down the multiple output of a
\index{permutation}permutation.


\subsection{\noindent Proteic poetry}

In the fourth century A.D. permutational poem \cit{Carmen XXV} written
by the Latin
poet \index{Optatianus Porfyrius}Optatianus Porfyrius, twenty stanzas
are generated from a single stanza of source
material.\footnote{\citereplace{Publilius~Optatianus Porfyrius.
\newblock {\em Publilii Optatiani Porfyrii Carmina}. \newblock Paravia,
Turin, 1973.} \cite{optatian:carmina}} These source words can be
permuted within and between single lines. According to the mathematical
law of \index{permutation}permutation, more than 1.6 billion
permutations of the stanza exist. The poem ironically relates the
\index{semantics}semantics of the words to the \index{syntax}syntax of
their computation since it tells about \index{permutation}permutations
and confusion in the songs of the muses.  Another early known example of
word \index{permutation}permutational verse is a poem of the medieval
Irish monk \index{Dicuil}Dicuil.\footnote{Anagrams likewise are
\index{permutation}permutations of letters; however, since anagram poems
never or rarely ever permit all possible letter
\index{permutation}permutations, there formal-mathematical permutations
typically do not correspond to the \index{semantics}semanticly permitted
\index{permutation}permutations.}

In 1561, humanist scholar \index{Scaliger, Julius Caesar}Julius Caesar
Scaliger for the first time described word
\index{permutation}permutational poetry as a regular poetic form.  In
his \cit{Poetices}, a \index{poetics}poetics that become canonical for
16th and 17th century poetry, the form is called ``Proteus'' after the
god who perpetually changes his
face.\footnote{\citereplace{Julius~Caesar Scaliger. \newblock {\em
Poetices libri septem}. \newblock Frommann, Stuttgart, 1964 (1561).}
\cite{scaliger:poetices}} It includes a proteic poem ``Perfide sperasti
divos te fallere Proteu'' (``Perfidiously, you, Proteus, hoped to fool
the \index{God}Gods'') whose words can be permuted at will as long as
the hexametric meter is kept.  As a humanist, \index{Scaliger, Julius
Caesar}Scaliger conceived of his \cit{Poetices} as a continuation of the
Greek and Latin \index{rhetoric}rhetorical and poetic tradition.  Most
probably, his ``Proteus'' verse had \index{Optatianus
Porfyrius}Optatianus Porfyrius' \cit{Carmen XXV} as its model. Through
\index{Scaliger, Julius Caesar}Scaliger's canonization and sanctioning
of the form in the Renaissance, a boom of word
\index{permutation}permutational poetry resulted, especially in the
early 17th century. The form was popular particularly among Christian
ecclesiastical poets writing in Latin. In the period of the Thirty Years
War, with its destruction of large parts of Middle Europe, proteic peace
prayers were written whose \index{permutation}permutations often span,
like a hardcopy of computer program output, several dozens or hundreds
of book pages. In them, language computation had become
\index{theurgy}theurgy again, the activation of divine powers in the
celestial \index{macrocosm}macrocosm to change matters in the earthly
\index{microcosm}microcosm.

Since the \index{permutation}permutation of \index{Scaliger, Julius
Caesar}Scaliger's verse ``Perfide sperasti divos te fallere Proteu'' was
restrained through the hexameter, not mapping its mathematical
\index{permutation}permutation, the proteic verse form became modified
later in the 17th century in attempts to combine it with
\index{Lullism}Lullist combinatorics. \index{Lansius, Thomas}Thomas
Lansius, a professor of \index{rhetoric}rhetoric and politics, wrote a
proteic poem whose two lines consisted only of monosyllabic words. They
 could be shuffled without metrical \index{constraint}constraints.
In fact, his poem merged the ``Proteus'' with a monosyllabic double
verse \index{Scaliger, Julius Caesar}Scaliger calls ``Correlativi'' (and
which are known as ``versus rapportati'' otherwise).\footnote{Scaliger,
ibid.}  Through the \index{permutation}permutation of monosyllabic
words, the poetic combinatorics of the verse for the first time was
identical to its mathematical \index{combinatorics}combinatorics, and
the \index{rhetoric}rhetorical and poetic tradition of
\index{Athenaios}Athenaios, \index{Optatianus Porfyrius}Optatianus and
\index{Scaliger, Julius Caesar}Scaliger for the first time converged
with \index{Lullism}Lullism.


\noindent
\begin{figure}[thb]
{\center\resizebox*{0.8\columnwidth}{!}
{\includegraphics{pics/denckring.png}}}
\caption[Georg Philipp Harsdörffer, \cit{Fünffacher Denckring der
teutschen Sprache}, 1636 \cite{harsdoerffer:erquickstunden}, a
morphological generator of German words]{\label{denckring}Georg Philipp Harsdörffer's \cit{Denckring},
a word generator}
\end{figure}

\index{Alsted, Johann Heinrich}Johann Heinrich Alsted consequently
reprints Lansius' poem along with a computation table of its
\index{permutation}permutations in his \index{Lullism}Lullist
encyclopedia.\footnote{\citereplace{Johann~Heinrich Alsted. \newblock
{\em Encyclopaedia}. \newblock Holzboog, Stuttgart (Herborn), 1989
(1630).} \cite{alsted:encyclopaedia}}  \index{Leibniz, Gottfried
Wilhelm}Leibniz' \cit{Dissertatio de arte combinatoria} is, through its
many examples and citations, one of the richest sources of 17th
century proteic poetry.\footnote{\citereplace{G.W. Leibniz. \newblock
Dissertatio de arte combinatoria. \newblock In {\em Sämtliche
Schriften}, volume~1 of {\em VI}, pages 165--230. Akademie-Verlag,
Berlin, 1989.} \cite{leibniz:combinatoria}} Between Alsted and
\index{Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm}Leibniz, the mid-17th century German
poet, language researcher and \index{Lullism}Lullist \index{Harsdörffer,
Georg Philipp}Georg Philipp Harsdörffer sought to systematically exhaust
the potential of combinatorics in \index{linguistics}linguistics and
\index{poetics}poetics. Not only did he write two Proteic monosyllabic
poems after \index{Lansius, Thomas}Lansius' model---and with a footnote
that credits Lansius---, but he also designed a combinatory morphologic
word creation machine after the model of \index{Llull, Ramon}Llull's
third ``figura.'' The \cit{Fünffacher Denckring der teutschen Sprache}
(\cit{Five-fold Thought Ring of the German Language}) (figure
\ref{denckring}) should permit anyone to generate all existing and
potential words of the German language by the \index{combination}combination
of what \index{Harsdörffer, Georg Philipp}Harsdörffer calls syllables,
but which in modern \index{linguistics}linguistic terminology are
morphemes. At this point, computation is no longer a
\index{rhetoric}rhetorical, \index{magic}magical or
\index{theurgy}theurgic means of manipulating language. Instead,
language in itself is thought to be computational and
\index{algorithm}algorithmic, a program. While \index{Llull,
Ramon}Llull, in his anticipation of symbolic logic, separates what is
later called ``artificial'' from ``natural'' language with his index
letter B-K versus the word entries of the ``tabula,''
\index{Harsdörffer, Georg Philipp}Harsdörffer thinks of everyday natural
language as being identical to artificial combinatory language. All
language thus is programming language. This idea also sets Harsdörffer
apart from the \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalists who assigned computational
power to divine and \index{theurgy}theurgic language only---the code of
creation---, not to everyday language.

\label{Kuhlmann}An ultimate hypertrophy of everyday language into
program code is reached with the sonnet \cit{XIV. Libes-kuss: Vom
Wechsel menschlicher Sachen} (\cit{14th Kiss of Love: On the Permutation
of Human Matters}) written in 1671 by the German poet, and later
heretical ``prophet'' and ``monarch'' \index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Quirinus
Kuhlmann.\footnote{\citereplace{Quirinus Kuhlmann. \newblock {\em
Himmlische Libes-küsse}. \newblock Niemeyer, Tübingen, 1971 (1671).}
\cite{kuhlmann:libes-kuesse}} Adapted straightforwardly from
\index{Harsdörffer, Georg Philipp}Harsdörffer's second proteic poem,
reusing most of its words and word poems just like an open source
program reuses earlier source code, it also mixes language material from
\index{Solomon}Solomon's proverbs and, very likely, the preamble of
Johann Valentin Andreae's \index{Rosicrucian}Rosicrucian \cit{Fama} of
1614 (see p.  \pageref{Andreae}). The result is a monumental proteic
sonnet whose \index{permutation}permutations even the author can no
longer calculate.  The afterword stops at spelling out the
\index{permutation}permutation of 50, a number copied straightforwardly
from the permutation table in \index{Kircher, Athanasius}Athanasius
Kircher's \cit{Ars magna sciendi sive combinatoria}. (Kuhlmann uses
Kircher's modified \index{Lullism}Lullist letter code in other poems of
the same volume.)  The sonnet however is composed not of 50, but of
$12*13=169$ words, amounting to a total of $13!^{12}=3.399*10^{117}$
\index{permutation}permutations.  It functions as a world machine,
permuting, both in the meaning of its words and in its combinatory
mechanics, an inventory of the micro- and \index{macrocosm}macrocosm.
Its own couplet, and its afterword, claims that to grasp the principle
of the \index{permutation}permutation of things means to have wisdom of
the world. This alludes to the both to the use of Solomon's proverbs in
the poem and adaptions of \index{Solomon}Solomon's Song Celestial in the
volume in which it appeared. Through this intertextuality, the poem
renders itself a \index{Solomon}Solomonic machine. It is a computational
\index{reverse-engineering}reverse engineering of
\index{Solomon}Solomon's wisdom, considering the proverbs as they are
written in the \index{Bible}Bible the fragmentary output of an
\index{occult}occult machine. 

Beyond being the principle of wisdom, \index{permutation}permutation
also is the principle of micro- and \index{macrocosm}macrocosm itself:
``everything permutes, everything loves, everthing seems to hate
something,'' as the first line of the couplet puts it. Not only does the
poem enrich \index{rhetoric}rhetoric and \index{poetics}poetics with
encyclopedic \index{Lullism}Lullism.  It also practices Christian
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah through its concept of creation as the
\index{permutation}permutation of words, in a similar manner as
in the \index{Sefer Yetzirah}\cit{Sefer Yetzirah}.


\section{Combinatory poetry and the occult}

\noindent Written in 1671, \index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmann's poem
concludes 16th and 17th century word \index{permutation}permutation
poetry, manifesting the climax and temporary end point of the form. By
its hypertrophy of word \index{permutation}permutations into a
cosmology, it contradicts the secularist tendency of 17th century
\index{Lullism}Lullism of reassessing an originally theological device
as a rational method of knowledge classification or, as in
\index{Harsdörffer, Georg Philipp}Harsdörffer,
\index{linguistics}linguistic analysis and synthesis. \index{Leibniz,
Gottfried Wilhelm}Leibniz who on the grounds of rational science
transforms \index{Lullism}Lullism into symbolic logic and an early
mechanical calculation device,  stands for an opposite to
\index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmann's \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalist
cosmology.

In a less baroque and more minimal-modernist fashion,  \index{Gysin,
Brion}Brion Gysin's \index{permutation}permutation poem \cit{IN THE
BEGINNING WAS THE WORD} manifests an epistemology with striking
parallels to Kuhlmann's, regardless of its employment of a \index{Honeywell
(company)}Honeywell digital computer as the end product of rationalist
computation.  \index{Gysin, Brion}Gysin conflates divine speech,
creation through speech and language \index{permutation}permutation as
an \index{ecstatic}ecstatic practice just like \index{Abulafia,
Abraham}Abulafia and \index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmann did before him.
While the poetic \index{algorithm}algorithm is the same and its
\index{metaphysics}metaphysical connotations are similar, the
implications differ. The \index{theosophy}theosophic and
\index{gnosticism}gnostic tradition in \index{Gysin, Brion}Gysin's work
is a ``dark,'' \index{satanism}satanic one. It could not be thought of
without \index{Crowley, Aleister}Aleister Crowley's
\index{satanism}satanic travesty of \index{theosophy}theosophy and
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah (such as in \cit{The Book of
Lies}).\footnote{\citereplace{Aleister Crowley. \newblock {\em The Book
of Lies}. \newblock Red Wheel Weiser, 1970 (1913).} \cite{crowley:lies}}
As in the work of \index{Burroughs, William S.}William S. Burroughs,
ecstasy is linked to psychedelic drugs and revelation of a Freudian
unconscious rather than religious epiphany.

While \index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmann remained within the boundaries
of Christian faith, he too ended up as a heretic. Two years after the
sonnet was published, he embarked on an
\index{occult}occultist-chialistic career.  His book
\cit{Neubegeisterter Böhme} (\cit{Newly Inspired Böhme}, a work
ostensibly on the German \index{mysticism}mystic \index{Böhme,
Jakob}Jakob Böhme) re-employed the \index{Lullism}Lullist combinatory
method for generating one thousand \index{theosophy}``theosophical
questions.'' From there on, Kuhlmann considers himself a prophet,
travels through Europe to forge an alliance of Muslims, Lutherans,
Orthodox and Calvinists against the pope, fails to convert the sultan in
Constantinople, and ends up being burned as a heretic in Moscow.---In
striking similarity, Abraham \index{Abulafia, Abraham}Abulafia tried to
bring down the pope with his \index{ecstatic}ecstatic
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah four centuries
before.\footnote{\citereplace{Moshe Idel. \newblock {\em The {Mystical
Experience in Abraham Abulafia}}. \newblock State University of New York
Press, Albany, 1988.} \cite{idel:abulafia}}---On his itinerary,
\index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmann writes a monumental book
\cit{Kühlpsalter} (\cit{Cool Psalm}), his testament and spiritual poetic
diary that in parts continues to employ
\index{combinatorics}combinatorial-\index{permutation}permutational
methods of text generation and wordplay.

Both \index{Abulafia, Abraham}Abulafia's and \index{Kuhlmann,
Quirinus}Kuhlmann's biographies exemplify how computational execution of
language transgresses the formal and intellectual realm, turning into a
radical practice. It  appears that the \index{semantics}semantics of
executable code does not only reside in its culturally chosen, arbitrary
denominators (like \index{Llull, Ramon}Llull's letters B-K), but also in
the very act of execution.  Once formal execution is considered a
cosmological principle, it becomes synonymous with performative
execution.
The same formal-performative extremism can be found in the more rigorous
early 1960s \index{Fluxus}Fluxus action scores like \index{Young, La
Monte}La Monte Young's instruction to ``Draw a straight line and follow
it.''\footnote{\citereplace{La~Monte Young. \newblock {Composition 1960}
\#10 to {Bob Morris}. \newblock In Harald Szeemann and Hans Sohm,
editors, {\em happening \& fluxus}. Kölnischer Kunstverein, Köln, 1970
(1960).} \cite{young:line}} It implies a philosophical defiance of space
and time \index{constraint}constraints,
and reverses subject and object in that the artifice, the line, becomes
the subject and the performer its follower, respectively object. In
\index{Burroughs, William S.}Burroughs' \cit{The Electronic Revolution},
technology turns into an autonomous subject, too: language becomes a
biological \index{virus}virus, tape recorders take upon the identity of
Adam and Eve, typewriters turn into speaking bugs like in
\index{Cronenberg, David}David Cronenberg's filmic adaption of
\cit{Naked Lunch}. The consequences are similar to those of
\index{Abulafia, Abraham}Abulafia and \index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmann
in that a \index{poetics}poetics of executing code transgresses into
performance and politics:

\begin{quotation}

Here is a sample operation carried out against The Moka Bar at 29 Frith
Street London W1 beginning on August 3, 1972 \ldots Reverse Thursday
\ldots Reason for operation was outrageous and unprovoked discourtesy
and poisoned cheese cake\ldots

\noindent Now to close in on The Moka Bar. Record. Take pictures. Stand
around outside.  Let them see me. They are seething around in there. The
horrible old proprietor, his frizzy haired wife and slack jawed son, the
snarling counter man. I have them and they know it.

\noindent ``You boys have a rep for making trouble. Well come on out and
make some. Pull a camera breaking act and I'll call a Bobby. I gotta
right to do what I like in the public street.''

\noindent If it came to that I would explain to the policeman that I was
taking street recordings and making a documentary of Soho. This was
after all London's First Expresso Bar was it not? I was doing them a
favor. They couldn't say what both of us knew without being
ridiculous\ldots

\noindent ``He's not making any documentary. He's trying to blow up the
coffee machine, start a fire in the kitchen, start fights in here, get
us a citation from the Board of Health.''

\noindent Yes I had them and they knew it. I looked in at the old Prop
and smiled as if he would like what I was doing. Playback would come
later with more pictures. I took my time and strolled over to the Brewer
Street Market where I recorded a three card Monte Game. Now you see it
now you don't.

\noindent Playback was carried out a number of times with more pictures.
Their business fell off. They kept shorter and shorter hours. October
30, 1972 The Moka Bar closed. The location was taken over by The Queens
Snack Bar.\footnote{\citereplace{William~S. Burroughs. \newblock {\em
Electronic Revolution}. \newblock Expanded Media Edition, Bonn, 1982.}
\cite{burroughs:electronic-revolution}}

\end{quotation}

\noindent An extension of the logic of \index{algorithm}algorithmic code
into political action exists, more prominently, in the \index{Free
Software}Free Software movement founded by \index{Stallman,
Richard}Richard Stallman with the \index{GNU}\cit{GNU Manifesto} in
1983.\footnote{Richard Stallman, \cit{The GNU manifesto},
\url{http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html}} The popular, anonymous
\index{hacker}hacker credo that ``information wants to be free''
supposes a political \index{semantics}semantics embedded into formal,
digital code, by its technical virtue of boundless and lossless
replication. This replication already happens when program code gets
executed, i.e. copied from a storage device into the \index{CPU}CPU.
The \index{Free Software}Free Software movement translates the logic of
executable code into a number of other executable codes: the GNU
manifesto as a political instruction code, the \index{GNU}GNU licenses
as a legal code, free software documentation as a technical instruction
code. Even religious activation is involved, although ironically, in
dubbing software experts and prominent hackers ``gurus,'' activists as
``evangelists'' and, finally, supreme guru and evangelist
\index{Stallman, Richard}Stallman himself as \cit{Saint Ignutius} of the
\index{Emacs (software)}\cit{Church of Emacs}.\footnote{Emacs is the
universal text editor and integrated development environment of the
\index{GNU}GNU project.}

\label{recursion}Unlike \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalism and its
\index{permutation}permutations, the computational poetic trope of the
\index{GNU}GNU project is \index{recursion}recursion, the potentially
infinite looping iteration of a statement (on which \index{Hofstadter,
Douglas R.}Douglas R. Hofstadter's book \cit{Goedel Escher \index{Bach,
Johann Sebastian}Bach} is one long meditation). \index{GNU}``GNU''
itself stands for ``GNU is Not \index{Unix (operating system)}Unix.'' It
is, in other words, an acronym that contains itself, \index{recursive
acronym}recursively expanding into ``GNU is not \index{Unix (operating
system)}Unix is not Unix,'' ad infinitum.
\index{recursion}Recursion is a technical principle also of the
\index{Lisp (programming language)}Lisp programming language in which
much of the \index{Emacs (software)}Emacs is written. It is furthermore
the core logic of the \index{GNU}GNU General Public License (\index{GNU
General Public License (GPL)}GPL) which commands that a derivative work
of a \index{GNU}GNU-licensed code---be it a modification or
extension---must in turn be released under the terms of the \index{GNU
General Public License (GPL)}GPL.  Microsoft therefore calls the
\index{GNU General Public License (GPL)}GPL a \index{virus}``virus'' and
refers to code licensed under its terms as a contagion.\footnote{Microsoft states on
its page
\url{http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/Articles/LicensingOverview.mspx}
that the copyleft rule ``is what makes the GPL `viral,' because it
causes GPL terms to apply to software that incorporates or is derived
from code distributed under the GPL, regardless of whether the program's
developer intended that result or even knew of the presence of GPL code
in the program.''} Indeed, the larger the public body of \index{GNU
General Public License (GPL)}GPLed program code is, the higher the
incentive of programmers to use it for new projects. Since this 
requires the subsequent release of those projects under the \index{GNU
General Public License (GPL)}GPL, the body of available \index{GNU
General Public License (GPL)}GPLed code increases in turn and attracts
even more developers to take from and contribute to it.
``Freedom'' is the \index{metaphysics}metaphysical center of the
movement. The \index{GNU}GNU manifesto defines it only in its practical
meaning for software and software usage, but not theoretically, in
philosophical or political terms. It appears to be a freedom
founded on the structure of executable code and digital information---an
\index{ontology}ontology derived from technical function.
\index{recursion}The place of a theory of freedom is taken by the figure
of recursion. It becomes the poetic, philosophical and economic trope in
which freedom both materializes and through which it can be grasped,
described as in a source code and therefore, paradoxically, controlled.

\label{Andreae}Information as a code that executes into political action
and into utopia existed before the \index{Free Software}Free Software
movement. It was central to the 17th century educational utopias of
\index{Comenius, Jan Amos}Comenius, his collaborator and ``Royal
Society'' founder \index{Hartlib, Samuel}Samuel Hartlib and their
intellectual mentor and correspondent, German Protestant theologist and
co-author of the original 1614 \index{Rosicrucian}Rosicrucian manifesto
\cit{Fama Fraternitatis}, \index{Andreae, Johann Valentin}Johann
Valentin Andreae.\footnote{\citereplace{Johann~Valentin Andreae.
\newblock {\em Fama Fraternitatis, Confessio Fraternitatis, Chymische
Hochzeit: Christiani Rosencreutz Anno 1459}. \newblock Calwer Verlag,
Stuttgart, 1994 (1973).} \cite{andreae:fama}} Andreae's 1619 pamphlet
\cit{Turris Babel} (\cit{The Tower of Babel}) documents his passage from
the \index{Rosicrucian}Rosicrucian ``ludibrium,'' ``playful fancy'' as
he called it later in his autobiography, to a more concrete educational
reform politics.\footnote{\citereplace{Johann~Valentin Andreae.
\newblock {\em Turris Babel}. \newblock Zetzner, Strasbourg, 1619.}
\cite{andreae:turris}} The text is a dialogical satire on the
\index{Rosicrucian}Rosicrucian craze \index{Andreae, Johann
Valentin}Andreae himself had instigated and which, in the first five
years only, had yielded more than 150 public replies from authors who
sought to get in touch with the unknown \index{hermetic}hermetic
brotherhood.

With \cit{Turris Babel}, \index{Andreae, Johann Valentin}Andreae joins
that debate under his own name and mocks the
\index{Rosicrucian}Rosicrucian hype.  However, instead of busting it and
outing himself as the plotter, he brings up seventy-five allegorical
protagonists who each pronounce their own opinion about the
\index{Rosicrucian}Rosicrucians. In chapter 16, three characters
enter the scene, the ``reformator,'' the ``deformator'' and the
``informator.'' While the deformator wants to do away with all
traditional ties and institutions including church and state, the
reformator hopes for their restoration.  The informator finally
supersedes their debate by demanding to ``inform'' mankind so that ``the
divine law will be saved from the deformator's corruption and the
reformator's eagerness and become the constitution of this world.''

``Information'' refers to its literal Latin sense of ``impregnation,''
``shaping,'' or ``instruction.'' The informator is an agent of a new
\cit{Christiana Societas} (\cit{Christian Society}) which the final
chapter of the book and \index{Andreae, Johann Valentin}Andreae's later
writings propagate and describe. With the
\index{Rosicrucian}Rosicrucians being superseded by the Christian
Society, fama is superseded by information, respectively education.
\label{Campanella}In the ideal state of this information society,
\index{Andreae, Johann Valentin}Andreae's utopian Christian-communist
republic \cit{Christianopolis}, all knowledge is denoted in public mural
paintings.  It is precisely the concept of the graphical user
\index{interface}interface---borrowed from Tommaso \index{Campanella,
Tommaso}Campanella's 16th century utopian text \cit{City of the
Sun}---which \index{Comenius, Jan Amos}Comenius implements in the
\cit{Orbis pictus}. Defined against de-formation, re-formation and fama,
\index{Andreae, Johann Valentin}Andreae's information is not only loaded
with pedagogics and theology, its definition also is radically
performative. Information is only what has an impact, reaching and
impregnating its recipients just like the execution of a program code
mobilizes matter.  In \index{Andreae, Johann Valentin}Andreae's
\cit{Christiana Societas}, the origin of the impregnation is ``heaven,''
the informant is called \index{God}``God.'' Almost four hundred years
later, this analysis of ``information'' seems to be politically and
philosophically more precise and rigorous than concepts like
``information society'' and ``information wants to be free'' which,
passing off ``information'' as a culturally autonomous, ahistorical and
self-perpetuating agent, in fact write a crypto-theology of information.

Setting information free through code and activism, and bringing down
the Moka bar, both the Free \index{Free Software}Software movement and
\index{Burroughs, William S.}Burroughs' \cit{The Electronic Revolution}
turn their theoretical \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah into practical
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah solely through their technical understanding of
information, language, code.  Executable code not only mobilizes
matter, but also people. In \index{Abulafia, Abraham}Abulafia's and
\index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmann's \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalism, the code
and its execution takes up a life of its own. Both think of them not
merely as a reflection, but as a materialization of the divine, and develop
this thought from theory into \index{ecstatic}ecstatic and
political-theological practice. The step from writing to action is no
longer metaphorical, as it would be with a \index{semantics}semantic
text such as a political speech or a manifesto. It is concrete and
physical because the very code is thought to materially contain its own
activation; as \index{permutation}permutations,
\index{recursion}recursions or viral infections.  It is not only words
made flesh, but words being flesh.


\section{Computation as a figure of thought}

\subsection{\noindent Lullist imagination}

 Explicit and hidden theological politics seem to run
through the various \index{poetics}poetics and cultural practices of formally
executable code, yet contradictory tendencies exist as well:

\begin{enumerate}

\item Totalism vs. Fragmentation

	\begin{enumerate}

	\item Totalism / Synthesis

	The employment of \index{algorithm}algorithmics,
\index{permutation}permutation, \index{combination}combination and
\index{recursion}recursion to exhaust all existing aspects of a matter:
The exhaustion of topics in \index{rhetoric}rhetoric, the exhaustion of
theological truth in \index{Llull, Ramon}Llull's \cit{ars}, the
exhaustion of knowledge in \index{Lullism}Lullist
\index{encyclopedism}encyclopedism, the exhaustion of wisdom in
\index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmann's poem through
\index{reverse-engineering}reverse-engineering \index{Solomon}Solomon.

	Algorithmics functions as expansion of a small
	source code into a near-infinitude of material.

	This tendency culminates in  \index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Quirinus
Kuhlmann's theoretical sketch of an \cit{Ars magna librum scribendi}, a
universal letter \index{combination}combination machine designed to
write all existing and potential books in the world (see p.
\pageref{ars_magna_librum_scribendi}).

	\item Fragmentation / Analysis

	Generative classification of knowledge in turn compartmentalizes
it into specialist domains. Program execution can be seen as the
handling of complexity, the possiblity of reducing, for example, one
hundred pages of proteic verse \index{permutation}permutations to one
line of material and one paragraph of instruction; or the reduction of
several thousands statements created by \index{Llull, Ramon}Llull to
three \index{algorithm}algorithms and one table of terms. 

In other words, combinatory knowledge classification embodies the
dialectic that not only an abundance of information can be generated
from a minimal source code, but that vice versa an abundance of
information can be analytically reduced to one
\index{algorithm}algorithm.
	
	\end{enumerate}

\item Rationalization vs. \index{occult}Occultism

	\begin{enumerate}

	\item Rationalism

	The indexing and classification of knowledge, the development of
artificial formal languages as ``user \index{interface}interfaces'' for
data and \index{algorithm}algorithms, computation as such.

	\item \index{occult}Occultism

Theurgy, totalism expanding into \index{demiurgy}demiurgic creation,
code execution translating into practical political theology. 

\index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmann's example shows that
\index{theurgy}theurgy and \index{demiurgy}demiurgy are not necessarily
precursors of a scientific rationalization, but that scientific
rationalization (like that of 17th century encyclopedic
\index{Lullism}Lullism) itself can be used as a philosophical ground for
\index{occult}occult theology, precisely as an attempt to exceed
scientific \index{Lullism}Lullism in a physical and
\index{metaphysics}metapysical, \index{microcosm}microcosmic and
\index{macrocosm}macrocosmic grasp of totality. This further proves
that the cultural history of executable code cannot simply
be written as a linear Hegelian progress from \index{magic}magical to
scientific practices.

	\end{enumerate}

\item Hardware vs. \index{Free Software}Software

	\begin{enumerate}

	\item Hardware

There is a tendency of building computational \index{hardware}hardware
for \index{algorithm}algorithms: the device described in the
\index{Sefer Yetzirah}\cit{Sefer Yetzirah}, \index{Llull, Ramon}Llull's
and \index{Bruno, Giordano}Giordano Bruno's
\index{combination}combination wheels, \index{Harsdörffer, Georg
Philipp}Harsdörffer's \cit{Denckring}.  \index{Kuhlmann,
Quirinus}Kuhlmann, too, designs a \cit{Wechselrad}
(\cit{\index{permutation}permutation wheel}) to speed up the
\index{permutation}permutation of his sonnet. %% expand

	\item \index{Free Software}Software


The \index{rhetoric}rhetorical tradition of mental computation and
memorization, in the ``inventio'' and ``memoria.''

Abstraction from mechanical devices through symbolic handles and
denominators, for example in the replacement of \index{Llull,
Ramon}Llull's mechanical ``figurae'' through abstract symbolic
denominators in later symbolic logic and computer programming languages.

	\end{enumerate}

\item Syntax vs. \index{semantics}Semantics

	\begin{enumerate}

	\item Syntax

Program code as purely formal and therefore \index{syntax}syntactical
abstraction from human language.

	\item \index{semantics}Semantics

The inscription of metaphors and \index{semantics}semantic handles, from
\index{Llull, Ramon}Llull's letters B-K up to statements like ``for,''
``while,'' ``if'' in programming languages.

	\end{enumerate}

\item Artificial vs. Natural Language

	\begin{enumerate}
	\item Artificial Language

The idea that language can be computed only through a purely formal,
\index{syntax}syntactical metalanguage that exists separately from
natural language.

	\item Natural Language

The idea that common human language itself is a product of computation,
and can be described with \index{algorithm}algorithms, such as in
\index{Harsdörffer, Georg Philipp}Harsdörffer's \cit{Denckring},
\index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmann's poetry or \index{Artificial
Intelligence (A.I.)}artificial intelligence research.

	\end{enumerate}

\end{enumerate}


\chapter{Computation as Fragmentation}


\noindent Pre-modern concepts of computation typically relied on an
equivalence of \index{macrocosm}macrocosm and \index{microcosm}microcosm
and so conceived of \index{algorithm}algorithms as
\index{demiurgy}demiurgic creation, metaphysically.  The game by contast
is a central model of 20th century computation, both in the arts and in
technology. The main \index{ontology}ontological difference between
\index{theosophy}theosophic and game computing is that games can do
without a reference to higher powers---which is why
\index{religion}religions declared many games, \index{dice}dice and card
games for example, sinful---and may impose arbitrary restrictions that
do not logically follow from a higher natural order. A game, in other
words, can be its own autonomous, self-contained world.  

\noindent
\begin{figure}[ht]
{\center
\resizebox*{0.49\columnwidth}{!}
{\includegraphics{pics/conway.png}}
\resizebox*{0.49\columnwidth}{!}
{\includegraphics{pics/conway-2.png}}
}
\caption[\cit{xlife}, a free software implementation of
\cit{Conway's Game of Life} for Unix-like operating
systems]{\label{conway}\index{xlife (software)}\cit{xlife}, a computer
program playing \cit{Conway's Game of Life}} \end{figure}

Any game is a process based on rules, a formal source code that can be
expressed in logical language. There exist multiple models of computing
as games.  Best known might be \index{Conway's Game of
Life}\cit{Conway's Game of Life} (figure \ref{conway}) with its
particular implementation of so-called \index{cellular automata}cellular
automata. Cellular automata consist of simple elements in a matrix that
have a finite amount of states. Most typical is a binary state of either
zero or one or, in a graphical matrix, black and white. Obeying very
simple transformation rules, the automata alter their states in
dependency of the states of neighboring cells. Cellular automata have
existed as a computational model since the 1940s. \index{Conway's Game of
Life}\cit{Conway's Game of Life}, first published by the British
mathematician \index{Conway, John Horton}John Horton Conway in 1970, is
based only on the following rules: ``If a black cell has 2 or 3 black
neighbors, it stays black. If a white cell has 3 black neighbors, it
becomes black.  In all other cases, the cell becomes
white.''\footnote{Wikipedia concisely covers the subject in
\url{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_automaton} and
\url{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life}.} Remarkably,
this simple game allows \index{Turing, Alan}Turing-complete computation.
That means, any calculation can be made, and computer programs can be
written on the basis of cellular automata. There also exist computer
programming languages like \index{Logo (programming language)}\cit{Logo}
which are based on a game logic. Designed for children, \index{Logo
(programming language)}\cit{Logo} allows arbitrary computations with the
help of the screen graphic of a turtle. Users have to program the turtle
to make certain movements on the two-dimensional screen and this way
perform calculations.  In the 17th century, \index{Harsdörffer, Georg
Philipp}Georg Philipp Harsdörffer conceived of his
\index{linguistics}linguistic and poetic combinatorics as games, worked
under the name of ``The Playing One'' in a language research society and
described most of his combinatory devices in dialogical fiction books
that instructed poetry as a social
game.\footnote{\citereplace{Georg~Philipp Harsdörffer. \newblock {\em
Mathematische und philosophische Erquickstunden}. \newblock Texte der
frühen Neuzeit. Keip, Frankfurt (Nürnberg), 1990 (1636).}
\cite{harsdoerffer:erquickstunden} and \citereplace{Georg~Philipp
Harsdörffer. \newblock {\em Frauenzimmer Gesprächspiele}. \newblock
Deutsche Neudrucke: Reihe Barock. Niemeyer, Tübingen, 1968-69
(1643-57).} \cite{harsdoerffer:gespraechspiele}} But the playful nature
of these poetic and artistic language computations made them subject to
parody and ridicule, later oblivion, from 1700 onwards until roughly
1900.

\section{Gulliver's Travels}

\noindent In 1705, German universal scientist \index{Morhof, Daniel
Georg}Daniel Georg Morhof published a treatise \cit{De Arguta Dictione},
which for the first time combined the Jesuit \cit{acumen}
\index{rhetoric}rhetoric (see p.  \pageref{acumen}) of witty points with
\index{Lullism}Lullism in a \index{rhetoric}rhetoric based on
combinatory principles.\footnote{\citereplace{Daniel~Georg Morhof.
\newblock {\em De {Acuta Dictione}}. \newblock Petrus Böckmannus,
Lübeck, 1705.} \cite{morhof:acuta}}  Next to \index{Harsdörffer, Georg
Philipp}Harsdörffer's mid-17th century works of scientific and poetic
instruction, \index{Morhof, Daniel Georg}Morhof's book is one of the few
systematic computational \index{poetics}poetics, and theories of
language and composition, based on \index{algorithm}algorithms.  It
stands, next to \index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Quirinus Kuhlmann's poetry, as
another culmination and end point of the 17th century boom of
\index{Lullism}Lullist thought. In many respects, \index{Lullism}Lullism
was a continuation of the medieval scholastic thinking in
\index{Aristotle; Aristotelian}Aristotelian categories. Through
\index{Newton, Isaac}Newton and scientific empiricism, and the shift
towards individual \index{genius}genius and against poetic rules in
literature, \index{Lullism}Lullism became outmoded. As an obsolete and
seemingly bizarre scientific and poetic method it ended up being subject
to rationalist parody. 

\noindent
\begin{figure}[ht]
{\center
\resizebox*{0.8\columnwidth}{!}
{\includegraphics{pics/swift.png}}
}
\caption[Jonathan Swift, \cit{Gulliver's Travels}, 1726
\cite{swift:gulliver}, original illustration of the combinatorial
``engine'' at the Grand Academy of Lagado]{\label{swift}The writing machine in the Grand Academy of
Lagado, illustration from \cit{Gulliver's Travels}}
\end{figure}

In \index{Swift, Jonathan}Swift's \cit{Gulliver's Travels} from 1726,
the first-person-narrator visits the flying academic island of Lagado
and witnesses the mechanics of a \index{combinatorics}combinatorial
machine (figure \ref{swift}):

\begin{quotation}

The first professor I saw was in a very large room, with forty
pupils about him. After salutation, observing me to look earnestly
upon a frame, which took up the greatest part of both the length and
breadth of the room, he said perhaps I might wonder to see him employed
in a project for improving speculative knowledge by practical and
mechanical operations. But the world would soon be sensible of its
usefulness, and he flattered himself that a more noble exalted thought
never sprang in any other man's head. Everyone knew how laborious the
usual method is of attaining to arts and sciences; whereas by his
contrivance the most ignorant person at a reasonable charge, and with a
little bodily labor, may write books in philosophy, poetry, politics,
law, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius
or study.  He then led me to the frame, about the sides whereof all his
pupils stood in ranks. It was twenty feet square, placed in the middle
of the room. The superficies was composed of several bits of wood, about
the bigness of a die, but some larger than others. They were all linked
together by slender wires. These bits of wood were covered on every
square with paper pasted on them, and on these papers were written all
the words of their language, in their several moods, tenses, and
declensions, but without any order. The professor then desired me to
observe, for he was going to set his engine at
work.\footnote{\citereplace{Jonathan Swift. \newblock {\em Gulliver's
Travels}. \newblock Washington Square Press, New York, 1960.}
\cite{swift:gulliver}, part 3, chapter 5}

\end{quotation}

\noindent \index{Swift, Jonathan}Swift's ``Grand Academy of Lagado'' is
believed to be a parody on the Royal Society, the British academy of
sciences.  The Royal Society was founded out of the \index{Invisible
College}\cit{Invisible College} in the mid-17th century by, among
others, \index{Boyle, Robert}Robert Boyle and astronomer and
\index{Lullism}Lullist mathematician \index{Wilkins, John}John Wilkins,
and \index{Andreae, Johann Valentin}Johann Valentin Andreae's
correspondent \index{Hartlib, Samuel}Samuel Hartlib.
The \cit{\index{Hartlib, Samuel}Hartlib papers} CD-ROM which documents
the correspondence between Hartlib and others on the foundation of the
Royal Society,\footnote{\citereplace{Mark Greengrass, editor. \newblock
{\em The {Hartlib Papers}}. \newblock University Microfilms, Michigan,
1996. \newblock CD-ROM.} \cite{hartlib-papers}} shows that
\index{Lullism}Lullist combinatorics was indeed a major subject of
discussion and occupation in the \index{Invisible College}\cit{Invisible
College}. Almost one century later, \index{Swift, Jonathan}Swift writes
a rationalist satire on what he perceives to be the
\index{speculative}speculative fancy of \index{Lullism}Lullism in
academia.  The chapter also mocks a universal language project in which
words, i.e. abstract symbols, are replaced with concrete things, a
parody, as it seems, on pictorial universal languages as they were
envisioned by \index{Campanella, Tommaso}Campanella, \index{Andreae,
Johann Valentin}Andreae and \index{Comenius, Jan Amos}Comenius (who was
a close correspondent of the \cit{Invisible College} and stayed in
London between 1641 and 1642).

A shift in culture manifests in the fact that \index{Swift,
Jonathan}Swift's description of the text writing machine could work as a
parody at all. \label{ars_magna_librum_scribendi}In 1674,
\index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Quirinus Kuhlmann had envisioned, without a
bit of irony, an \cit{Ars magna librum scribendi}, a
\index{Lullism}Lullist \cit{ars} of writing books, which would
mechanically generate all existing and all possible books.\footnote{In
his Latin treatise \citereplace{Quirinus Kuhlmann. \newblock {\em
Prodomus}. \newblock Lotho de Haes, Amsterdam, 1674.}
\cite{kuhlmann:prodomus}} Unlike \index{Swift, Jonathan}Swift
whose fictitious machine computes foreign, unreadable letters,
\index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmann thought, just as \index{Harsdörffer,
Georg Philipp}Harsdörffer, of human language as something inherently
computable. %% Schottelius His \cit{Ars magna librum scribendi}
therefore suffices as a potentiality and thought experiment on language
and writing, and needs either an actual machine, nor its output to make
its point. 

\section{The Library of Babel}

\noindent The \index{speculative}speculative premise of \index{Borges,
Jorge Luis}Jorge Luis Borges' short story \cit{The Library of Babel}
from 1941 is very similar to \index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmanns
\cit{ars magna librum scibendi}.\footnote{\citereplace{Jorge~Luis
Borges. \newblock The {Library of Babel}. \newblock In {\em Ficciones},
pages 79--88. Grove Press, New York, 1941.} \cite{borges:library}} It
envisions a nearly total library whose books are generated from a
combinatorial mechanism and arranged into a virtually infinite array of
hexagons. Yet the story is told from the point of view of an inmate of
the library. He has no access to its source code, but tells how this
source code, or generative principle, became
\index{reverse-engineering}reverse-engineered. In the first sentence of
the story, he refers to the library as ``The universe (which others call
the Library),'' expressing a personal opinion that echoes cosmological
\index{Lullism}Lullism. Like in other stories of \index{Borges, Jorge
Luis}Borges, the subjective account is a simulatenous device of
uncertainty and irony. Fictitious editorial footnotes and remarks make
the text a product of fake philology. Because of the subjective
narrative perspective, all information about the library has to be taken
with a grain of salt. The first-person narrator appears to be a
librarian since he speaks of ``the hexagons under my administration.''
But his reliability as an information source is no better than that of
an inmate of \index{Plato}Plato's cave. So it is merely his theory that
``the Library includes \emph{all} verbal structures, \emph{all}
variations permitted by the twenty-five orthographical symbols.'' In
fact, the opposite can be concluded from his statement. He also says
that ``each book is of four hundred and ten pages; each page, of forty
lines, each line, of some eighty letters which are black in color,'' so
there are $80*40*410=1344000$ characters per book, consequently
$25^{1344000}$ books in total, then, from other data he gives, 32 books
$*$ 5 shelves $*$ 5 walls = 575 books per hexagon, and thus
$\frac{25^{1344000}}{575}$ hexagons in the entire library.

But it is just the \index{speculative}speculation of the first person
narrator that the library can be explained by ``combinative analysis,''
as a computed whole. Twelve years before the story appeared,
\index{Gödel, Kurt}Gödel had found the logical paradox that formal
systems cannot fully describe themselves, or, if they are consistent,
cannot prove their own consistency.  In the Library of Babel, the book
that describes the computation and hence source code of the library, is
only one arbitrary book of $25^{1344000}$ at least one of which contains
a refutation of this theory.
The cataloguing systems are part of the dilemma rather than its
solution.  There exist ``thousands and thousands of false catalogues,''
and a ``catalogue of catalogues.'' Through the letter
\index{combinatorics}combinatorics, differentiation between data (books)
and metadata (catalogues) becomes arbitrary. The library ends up being a
self-referential linguistic universe in which subject can no longer be
told from object, and it is not clear what represents what. While the
library may contain all knowledge---as envisioned by \index{Kuhlmann,
Quirinus}Kuhlmann earlier---it is incapable of classifying it. In
computer science terms, the \cit{namespace} of its classifications is
either flat or infinite.  And while \index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmann
believes that the \cit{Ars magna librum scribendi} expands knowledge and
wisdom, the \cit{Library of Babel} marks a melancholy and sceptical view
of the same intellectual experiment: Through its totality, the library
is contingent. Everything that can be thought has been thought in it
already. At the same time, this melancholy subverts itself.  After all,
there is a story, written by \index{Borges, Jorge Luis}Jorge Luis
Borges, called \cit{The Library of Babel}. This story is one clear-cut
and solid block of reference and metadata. The Library of Babel might
refute itself in any possible sense, but it does not refute itself being
the \cit{Library of Babel}. According to its inmate's
\index{speculative}speculation, it is objective, mechanical, without
history, existing ``\cit{ab aeterno}.'' Yet the library functions only
through its human inmates who read the books. Without them, it would be
just storage of blotted paper. The books are meaningless without human
interpretation. While all human acts might be anticipated in the book,
those acts don't exist without the acts of reading.  The melancholic
contingency of writing, it follows, is the motor of its
interpretations. Only the interpretations, i.e. the cultural
appropriation of what only appears to be a natural, not human-made
artefact, make the library what it is.  Its code is cultural even if no
culture, subjectivity and interpretation were involved in its initial
creation.

Finally, the account of the first person narrator has to be seen as a
product of the library. So it implies its own refutation---a refutation
that such a library does exist at all. In the end, as the narrative
points out, even the \index{combinatorics}combinatorics of the library
itself is subjective, a phantasm of its inmates. On the one hand, the
systems of order, structure and control inherent in the library are
non-\index{semantics}semantic. On the other hand they get continuously
destroyed through \index{semantics}semantics being read into
them---theological semantics, for example since there are religious
sects in the library holding certain beliefs about its sense and inner
workings.

\index{Borges, Jorge Luis}Borges' story renders
\index{combinatorics}combinatorics a purely
\index{speculative}speculative figure of thought. It is a
\index{speculative}speculation about a \index{speculative}speculation: a
\index{speculative}speculation created around the
\index{speculative}speculative, subjective account of the first-person
narrator. This self-destructive, paradoxical moment sets the story apart
from a plainer, non-ironic \index{speculative}speculation like
\index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmann's. For \index{Kuhlmann,
Quirinus}Kuhlmann, there is still an identity of art, science,
technology, philosophy, \index{religion}religion and cosmology. This
leads to an integralist model of computation as totality. Computation
does not yet imply, as in \index{Borges, Jorge Luis}Borges, the negative
of fragmentation and disintegration.  \index{Swift, Jonathan}Swift's
fiction of the Grand Academy of Lagado stands precisely between
\index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmann and \index{Borges, Jorge Luis}Borges
because it cuts into the totality of \index{Lullism}Lullist epistemology
and, with its rationalist agenda, separates science from fancy, and
observation from \index{speculative}speculation.  As a result,
\index{Lullism}Lullist language computation is no longer part of serious
science, but ends up in the realm of the obscure, \index{occult}occult,
para-philosophical thought experiments, and from there in the realm of
fiction and the arts.  Only as arcane and \index{speculative}speculative
knowledge, is \index{Lullism}Lullism able to enter \index{Borges, Jorge
Luis}Borges' fantastic fiction.


\section{Romanticist combinatorics}

\noindent After Swift, combinatorial \index{encyclopedism}encyclopedism
survives only in the niches of literature and
\index{speculative}speculative poetic science. In his 1798/99
encyclopedic fragment \cit{Das Allgemeine
Brouillon},\footnote{\citereplace{Novalis. \newblock {\em Das
{Allgemeine Brouillon}}. \newblock Meiner, Hamburg, 1993 (1798/99).}
\cite{novalis:brouillon}} German \index{romanticism}romanticist poet and
essayist \index{Novalis}Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg) sketches a
new comprehensive integration of all science and knowledge on the
grounds of an---itself sketchy and fragmentary---``calculus.'' It is a
new attempt of a \index{Lullism}Lullist encyclopedia after
\index{Alsted, Johann Heinrich}Alsted, a \index{speculative}speculative,
essayistic encyclopedia which consists of fragmentary entries on
knowledge in the light of a transcendental poetic philosophy.  Its
systematics takes inspiration from \index{Leibniz, Gottfried
Wilhelm}Leibniz' \cit{mathesis universalis}, the project of a thorough
mathematical language and description of thought. However,
\index{Novalis}Novalis' ``sketches'' do not technically pursue the
concept, but remain an idealist experiment. They shift combinatorics and
computation from concrete, formal-technical manipulation of symbols---as
before in 17th century proetic poetry---to a purely
intellectual-reflexive, rather vague figure of thought: a
meta-computational reflection of philosophical computability.

Computation as a romantic figure of reflection exists also in the
\cit{Livre}, the last project of French symbolist poet \index{Mallarmé,
Stéphane}Stéphane Mallarmé.\footnote{\citereplace{Jacques Scherer.
\newblock {\em Le {livre de Mallarmé}}. \newblock Gallimard, Paris, 1977
(1957).} \cite{scherer:livre}}  The book, which was never finished,
should consist of ten volumes which could be shuffled at will.  Like
17th century \index{Lullism}Lullism, and like the
proto-\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah of the \index{Sefer Yetzirah}\cit{Sefer
Yetzirah}, \index{Mallarmé, Stéphane}Mallarmé calculates the
\index{permutation}permutations of the \cit{Livre}, as 3628800. The
volume which did get published and is best known today is a
visual-typographic poem, \cit{Un coup de dès} (\cit{A Throw of the
Dice}).\footnote{\citereplace{Stéphane Mallarmé. \newblock {\em Un {coup
de dés} jamais n'abolira le hasard}. \newblock Gallimard, Paris, 1993
(1914).} \cite{mallarme:coup}}  It juxtaposes, so-to-speak, the
mathematical \index{permutation}permutation of the \cit{Livre} with the
\index{random}random computation of a die that gets superimposed on its
protagonist. A sailor, the poet's alter ego as it seems, navigates a
ship in a storm.  Having forgotten to make nautical calculations, he
still refuses to throw the \index{dice}dice and give up to fate:
``\cit{Un coup de dès jamais n'abolira le hasard},'' a throw of the
\index{dice}dice will never abolish chance, is a key sentence of the
poem.
The last page imitates, by its typographic arrangement of words on the
page, a starry sky showing the polar star with the little bear,
culminating in the line ``\cit{UNE CONSTELLATION},'' ``A
\index{constellation}CONSTELLATION.'' It is, just as the mention of a
book on combinatorial analysis in \index{Borges, Jorge Luis}Borges'
\cit{Library of Babel}, a point where the text turns,
\index{recursion}recursively, into an index (or meta-data) of itself.
After all, \index{constellation}``constellation'' references both the
spatial arrangement of elements on the page and literally means the
arrangement of stars in the sky.

With its double meaning, ``constellation'' rehashes the correspondence
of \index{macrocosm}macrocosm and \index{microcosm}microcosm known from
\index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean, \index{Neoplatonism}Neoplatonist and
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalist thought.  It no longer does so in the context
of a scientific worldview, but on the contrary, in self-chosen
resistance to the modern scientific paradigm. Its formal experiment of
integrating poetry, visual arts and \index{music}musical composition
into a \index{Wagner, Richard}Wagnerian total artwork is close to
pre-modern art and thought such as \index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Quirinus
Kuhlmann's integration of \index{combinatorics}combinatorics, cosmology,
\index{metaphysics}metaphysics and letter
\index{permutation}permutations on rotary dials.

\section{Concrete poetry}

\noindent \index{Mallarmé, Stéphane}Mallarmé's poem inspired and
instigated a whole experimental literary genre, the
\index{constellation}``constellations'' of \index{concrete
poetry}concrete poetry. Developed in the 1950s, they likewise stood for
spatial arrangements of letters on pages, sometimes in conjunction with
\index{permutation}permutational poetic forms.  Yet the philosophy and
\index{metaphysics}metaphysics of \index{concrete poetry}concrete poetry
was quite contrary to Mallarm\'e. Its name was derived from
\index{Bauhaus}Bauhaus artist and designer \index{Bill, Max}Max Bill and
his coinage of ``concrete art'' in 1936. In the spirit of high modernism
and functionalist \index{architecture}architecture, most of
\index{concrete poetry}concrete poetry sought to systematically reduce,
rationalize and functionalize literature. A
\index{constellation}constellation of concrete poet \index{Gomringer,
Eugen}Eugen Gomringer from 1969 reads:

\begin{verse}
no error in the system\\
no reror in the system\\
no rreor in the system\\
no rroer in the system\\
no rrore in the system\\
no rror ein the system\\
no rror ien the system\\
no rror ine the system\\
no rror in ethe system\\
no rror in tehe system\\
no rror in thee system\\
no rror in the esystem\\
no rror in the seystem\\
no rror in the syestem\\
no rror in the sysetem\\
no rror in the systeem\\
no rror in the systeem\\
no rror in the systeme\\
eno rror in the system\\
neo rror in the system\\
noe rror in the system\\
no error in the system\footnote{Translated from German from
\citereplace{Eugen Gomringer. \newblock 3 variationen zu {kein fehler im
system}. \newblock In Eugen Gomringer, editor, {\em konkrete poesie},
pages 63--64. Reclam, Stuttgart, 1972.} \cite{gomringer:fehler}}
\end{verse}

\noindent \index{Gomringer, Eugen}Gomringer's poem is a strictly
programmed \index{permutation}permutational text: The error as embodied
by the letter ``e'' shifts one position to the right in every next line.
The \index{algorithm}algorithm stays intact throughout the whole poem
despite its reference to an error. It could as well be implemented as a
computer program. Indeed, \index{Gomringer, Eugen}Gomringer and his
fellow concrete poets \index{Bremer, Claus}Claus Bremer and
\index{Ullrichs, Tim}Tim Ullrichs created word
\index{permutation}permutational poems on computers in the early 1970s.
``no error in the system'' is tautological in two respects: First of
all, the lines become redundant and repetitive as soon as one has
grasped the \index{algorithm}algorithm. In contrast to a Proteus poem
like \index{Scaliger, Julius Caesar}Scaliger's ``perfide sperasti divos
te fallere Proteu,'' the \index{algorithm}algorithm is not being put
down as a source code, but as its full execution. Secondly, there is no
\index{Gödel, Kurt}Gödelian moment like in \index{Borges, Jorge
Luis}Borges and \index{Mallarmé, Stéphane}Mallarmé, no self-reference
which would make the system implode in a \index{recursion}recursive
paradox of text and context. There is, plainly, no error in the system
\index{Gomringer, Eugen}Gomringer creates. The error---as the misplaced
``e''--- is visible on the first glance, but ceases to be an error in
the light of \index{algorithm}algorithm that perpetuates it throughout
the lines.  There is an error in the system on the first glance, but no
error in the system on the second glance so that the message of the poem
proves right and therefore is superfluous. In \index{Borges, Jorge
Luis}Borges and \index{Mallarmé, Stéphane}Mallarmé there is on the
contrary no obvious contradiction in the system on the first glance, but
an abyss of epistemological paradoxes upon more thorough reflection.

\section{Max Bense and ``information aesthetics''}

\noindent The \index{poetics}poetics of \index{concrete poetry}concrete
poetry and its \index{constellation}constellations was first written
down by \index{Gomringer, Eugen}Gomringer himself in his 1954 essay
\cit{From Line to Constellation}:\footnote{\citereplace{Eugen Gomringer.
\newblock vom {vers zur konstellation}. \newblock In Eugen Gomringer,
editor, {\em zur {sache der konkreten}}, volume~1, pages 7--12.
Erker-Verlag, St. Gallen, 1988 (1954).} \cite{gomringer:konstellation},
English translation from
\url{http://www.ubu.com/papers/gomringer01.html}}

\begin{quotation}
Our languages are on the road to formal simplification, abbreviated,
restricted forms of language are emerging. The content of a sentence is
often conveyed in a single word. Longer statements are often represented
by small groups of letters. Moreover, there is a tendency among
languages for the many to be replaced by a few which are generally
valid. Does this restricted and simplified use of language and writing
mean the end of poetry? Certainly not. Restriction in the best
sense---concentration and simplification---is the very essence of
poetry. [\ldots] The aim of the new poetry is to give poetry an organic
function in society again, and in doing so to restate the position of
poet in society. Bearing in mind, then, the simplification both of
language and its written form, it is only possible to speak of an
organic function for poetry in terms of the given linguistic situation.
So the new poem is simple and can be perceived visually as a whole as
well as in its parts. It becomes an object to be both seen and used: an
object containing thought but made concrete through play-activity
(denkgegenstanddenkspiel), its concern is with brevity and conciseness.
It is memorable and imprints itself upon the mind as a picture. Its
objective element of play is useful to modern man, whom the poet helps
through his special gift for this kind of play-activity.  Being an
expert both in language and the rules of the game, the poet invents new
formulations. By its exemplary use of the rules of the game the new poem
can have an effect on ordinary language.

\end{quotation}

\noindent The \index{constellation}constellations were, in this sense,
not strictly a computational text form; the definition of the poet as an
inventor of ``new formulations'' which apply ``rules of the game''
however expresses a computational understanding of writing and
literature.  This idea found its theoretical underpinning in the
philosophy of \index{Bense, Max}Max Bense, the major intellectual mentor
of \index{concrete poetry}concrete poetry.  \index{Bense, Max}Bense's
theory, dubbed ``\index{information aesthetics}information aesthetics,''
combined \index{Shannon, Claude}Claude Shannon's technical information
theory with \index{Peirce, Charles S.}Charles S. Peirce's
\index{semiotics}semiotics and philosophical
\index{aesthetics}aesthetics into a formalist, computational theory of
modern art. By dialectical implication, it was also an aesthetic theory
of computation based on formalist modern art.  Formalisms in modern art,
\index{architecture}architecture and design, especially those in
abstract painting and \index{Bauhaus}Bauhaus design, formed an important
pretext for \index{Bense, Max}Bense's theory and its project of
radically abandoning \index{semantics}semantics.\footnote{His extreme
formalism was counterbalanced, one could argue, by his partisanship for
artistic experimentation and play, and for
\index{avant-garde}avant-garde art in the 1950s, a period where
particularly in Germany realism, existentialism and post-symbolist
introversion dominated literature.} Classical \index{semiotics}semiotics
still thought of signs having a meaning---for example through an
artificial, abstract relation between sign and object (``symbol'')
through outer resemblance (``icon'') or through the sign being a trace
of the thing it represents (``index'').  In 1948, \index{Shannon,
Claude}Claude Shannon, a telecommunication engineer at the \index{AT\&T
(company)}AT\&T \index{Bell Labs}Bell Labs, coined a concept of
information that did away with all
\index{semantics}semantics.\footnote{\citereplace{Claude~E. Shannon.
\newblock A {Mathematical Theory of Communication}. \newblock {\em Bell
System Technical Journal}, 27:379--423, July 1948.}
\cite{shannon:communication}} It made information a technically
quantifiable, measurable entity for determining (a) the transmission
capacity of a channel and (b) the technical redundancy of data.  These
concepts, and Shannon's mathematical formulas, are still fundamental to
digital information processing, for example for determining the
throughput capacity of a network line and compression of data and files.

\index{Bense, Max}Bense wasn't interested in  \index{Shannon,
Claude}Shannon's theory as a pragmatic engineering perspective, but as a
philosophical tool with which to reinvent \index{aesthetics}aesthetics
and \index{poetics}poetics, stripping it bare, as he hoped, from any
concept of meaning.  His combination of \index{semiotics}semiotics with
technical information theory was an artifice for turning the humanities
and art criticism upside down. It resulted in a purist modernism which
was ideological just in its ostensible refusal of ideology, and
metaphysical in its radical refusal of \index{metaphysics}metaphysics.
After all, \index{Bense, Max}Bense's conflation of information theory
with \index{semiotics}semiotics stripped computational forms of art and
writing from their historical, intellectual implications.
\index{Mallarmé, Stéphane}Mallarmé and other late
\index{romanticism}romanticist poets like the German \index{George,
Stefan}Stefan George had been the main sources of inspiration for the
formal innovation of \index{concrete poetry}concrete poetry.
\index{Bense, Max}Bense's theory however sought to look only at the form
and cut all philosophical-metaphysical ties.

\index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean and \index{occult}occult
\index{metaphysics}metaphysics of \index{macrocosm}macrocosmic and
\index{microcosm}microcosmic equivalence had been pushed outside
rational science since the 18th century.  But not only
\index{romanticism}romanticism remained heavily indebted to this
tradition, but also, for example, the avant-garde wordplay poetry of the
Russian Futurist \index{Khlebnikov, Velimir}Velimir Khlebnikov. On the
contrary, \index{Bense, Max}Bense and the post-war formalist
\index{avant-garde}avant-garde wanted to do away with
\index{metaphysics}metaphysics entirely and refound
\index{aesthetics}aesthetics on the grounds of modern science and
technology. This move obscured the \index{romanticism}romanticist roots
not only of concrete poetry,\footnote{In his preface to the anthology
\cit{konkrete poesie}, Reclam-Verlag 1972, \index{Gomringer,
Eugen}Gomringer credits, among others, \index{Mallarmé,
Stéphane}Mallarmé and sinologist \index{Fenollosa, Ernest}Ernest
Fenollosa whose essay \cit{The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for
Poetry} was a major influence on the \index{poetics}poetics of
\index{Pound, Ezra}Ezra Pound.} but also of \index{Bense, Max}Bense's
philosophy itself.  Like \index{Novalis}Novalis in his encyclopedic
project, \index{Bense, Max}Bense took heavy inspiration from
\index{Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm}Leibniz' \cit{mathesis universalis},
the post-\index{Lullism}Lullist attempt of unifying all human knowledge
on mathematical grounds.  \index{Bense, Max}Bense's move to clear the
project from \index{romanticism}romanticist connotations and indeed any
kind of overt \index{metaphysics}metaphysics reflects, obviously, his
experience with totalitarian politics of The Third Reich and Stalinist
post-war East-Germany.  

Bense's idea of formal programmation as a model of an `objective' art
and philosophy ran in parallel to French \index{linguistics}linguistic
\index{structuralism}structuralism of the 1950s and 1960s. It
anticipated the so-called ``linguistic turn'' in the humanities of the
late 1960s. The linguistic turn did not only happen in theory, but also
in art in what critic \index{Lippard, Lucy}Lucy Lippard described as the
``dematerialization of art'' around 1970. Pop art and
\index{Fluxus}Fluxus turned into concept art that, in the works of
\index{Kosuth, Joseph}Joseph Kosuth, \index{Art and Language}Art and
Language, \index{Weiner, Lawrence}Lawrence Weiner and \index{Kawara,
On}On Kawara for example, consisted only of written instructions. The
first concept art show, curated by critic \index{Burnham, Jack}Jack
Burnham in New York in 1970, accordingly had the title \cit{Software}.
It juxtaposed concept art works with experimental computer software
development projects such as Ted Nelson's first prototype of a hypertext
system.  \index{Burnham, Jack}Burnham, a close collaborator of artist
\index{Haacke, Hans}Hans Haacke before the latter turned from rigorous
formalism to politically activist art, took his inspiration from
\index{cybernetics}cybernetics and general systems theory. The
theoretical base  was similar, but not identical to that of the
continental European discourse of \index{Bense, Max}Bense and literary
\index{semiotics}semiotics and
\index{structuralism}structuralism.\footnote{Although a volume of
\index{Burnham, Jack}Burnham's collected essays appeared, alongside the
German translation of \index{Moles, Abraham M.}Abraham M. Moles'
\cit{Art and Computer}, in a German art book series under the title
\cit{Kunst und Strukturalismus} (\cit{Art and Structuralism}).}
Burnham's ideas, too, imposed a rigorous scientific formalism onto art.
They were more concerned with the visual arts than poetry though, and
with the detachment of art from material objects more than with
computational \index{algorithm}algorithmics. \cit{Software}  was, as
\index{Shanken, Edward A.}Edward A. Shanken puts it in an essay on
\index{Burnham, Jack}Burnham's exhibition, a ``metaphorical premise,''
or device, that emphasized software as being different from
\index{hardware}hardware, not software as executable instruction code.

The underground art and activist journal \cit{Radical Software} appeared
under that metaphorical premise as well. Founded in the same year as the
\cit{Software} exhibition, it propagated an ``Alternate Television
Movement,'' juxtaposing aesthetic reflection with political debates
about free media and publicly accessible radio spectrum, much like the
contemporary free wireless network movement. In addition, it contained
hands-on technical instruction for building and manipulating video
equipment. Otherwise, the journal conceived of ``software'' purely as
dematerialized art, and did not cover computer programming.

Modelled after the \index{Bauhaus}Bauhaus, \index{Bense, Max}Bense's
older program turned poetry, \index{concrete poetry}concrete poetry in
particular, into language design and art into visual design.  These
efforts were systematically pursued at the \cit{Hochschule für
Gestaltung} (\cit{School for Design}) in Ulm, where \index{Bense,
Max}Bense taught next to his regular professorship in nearby Stuttgart.
\cit{Hochschule für Gestaltung} was founded as a ``second
\index{Bauhaus}Bauhaus.'' Its director was \index{Bill, Max}Max Bill and
faculty included former \index{Bauhaus}Bauhaus professors \index{Itten,
Johannes}Johannes Itten and \index{Albers, Josef}Josef Albers. Later in
the 1990s, the \index{ZKM (media arts center)}\cit{ZKM} media arts
center nearby in Karlsruhe was established as yet another attempt of a
new \index{Bauhaus}Bauhaus, this time as a \index{Bauhaus}``Bauhaus of
Second Modernism'' according to its initiators.

\section{Situationism, Surrealism and psychogeography}

\noindent In a counter-reaction to \index{Bill, Max}Bill, \index{Bense,
Max}Bense and their functionalist thinking, Danish painter \index{Jorn,
Asger}Asger Jorn, previously a member of a \index{Surrealism}Surrealist
splinter group in 1940s Paris, founded a \cit{International Movement for
an Imaginist \index{Bauhaus}Bauhaus} in 1956. In 1958, it became part of
the \index{Situationism}Situationist International.  In January 1959,
the German section of the S.I. continued the opposition to Bense and
Bill with a prankish attack on \index{Bense, Max}Bense in Munich: A
public lecture of Bense was announced and once the audience had
gathered, a tape recorder was switched on and the voice on the tape
declared that \index{Bense, Max}Bense was unable to come and would
instead give his talk in \index{cybernetics}``cybernetic form.'' The
talk was a deliberately nonsensical \index{cut-ups}cut-up of German,
Latin and French phrases with garbled quotations from Marx and Hegel.
Yet the audience stayed through the lecture and applauded in the end.
In the prank, the \index{Situationism}Situationists took \index{Bense,
Max}Bense's \index{cybernetics}cybernetic \index{poetics}poetics and
turned it as a tactical device against himself.  The stunt displayed
that his attempt to do away with \index{semantics}semantics has its
blind spot precisely in the \index{semantics}semantics of his own
statements that negated semantics.  Secondly, it debunked the concept of
technologically produced information as objective which the
\index{Situationism}Situationists countered with a post-romantic and
post-\index{Surrealism}surrealist concept of \index{aesthetics}aesthetic
subjectivity.  Like \index{Jorn, Asger}Jorn, the German
\index{Situationism}Situationists attacked \index{Bense, Max}Bense,
according to the S.I.'s report of its 3rd conference, for his ``perfect
continuation of constructivism.''  In his essay \cit{Open Creation and
its Enemies}, published in 1960 in the fifth issue of the journal of the
\index{Situationism}Situationist
International,\footnote{\citereplace{Asger Jorn. \newblock La {création
ouverte} et ses ennemis. \newblock In: Internationale Situationniste,
editor. \newblock {\em Internationale situationniste. Édition
augmentée}. \newblock Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris, 1997
(1958-1969)., pages 175--196.} \cite{jorn:creation-ouverte}, English
translation online at \url{http://www.infopool.org.uk/6004.html}}
\index{Jorn, Asger}Jorn likened \index{Bense, Max}Bense to the concrete
poetry-like French \index{Lettrism}Lettrist poets, declaring him ``the
German equivalent of this anecdote of systematic, paradialectic, and
deadly boring `Lettrist thought'.''

The flip-side of this critique was hostility of the
\index{Situationism}Situationists to both artistic experimentation with
new technology and philosophical reflection on computation.  This
hostility manifested itself particularly in the repeated Situationist
attacks on communication theorist \index{Moles, Abraham M.}Abraham Moles
(see p. \pageref{Moles}). With their polemics against formalism and for
``imagination,'' the S.I. clearly continued the ideas of the French
\index{Surrealism}Surrealists who in turn were heavily indebted to
\index{romanticism}romanticism. In his 1924 \cit{Manifesto of
\index{Surrealism}Surrealism}, \index{Breton, Andr\'e}Andr\'e Breton
wrote that ``We are still living under the reign of logic: this, of
course, is what I have been driving at. But in this day and age logical
methods are applicable only to solving problems of secondary
interest.''\footnote{\citereplace{André Breton. \newblock {Manifesto} of
{Surrealism}. \newblock In {\em {Manifestoes} of {Surrealism}}, pages
1--48. Ann Arbor Paperbacks, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1924.}
\cite{breton:manifesto}, p. 9} His \index{Surrealism}surrealism
expresses laconic indifference to new technology: ``Radios?  Fine.
Syphilis? If you like.  Photography? I don't see any reason why not. The
cinema? Three cheers for darkened rooms. War?  Gave us a good laugh. The
telephone?  Hello.''\footnote{Breton \cite{breton:manifesto}, p. 46}
Along the lines of this technological scepticism,
\index{Surrealism}Surrealist ``automatic writing'' for example was not
computational, but a psychic automatism that took the unconscious as its
source code, not a calculus. It was still a foreign idea to
\index{Surrealism}Surrealism that computational formalisms could
themselves be highly subjective and culturally coded, as the
\index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean and \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalist tradition
and the \index{semantics}``semantics'' of, for example, \index{Llull,
Ramon}Llull's ``alphabetum'' suggest. The
\index{Situationism}Situationist concept of
\index{psychogeography}``psychogeography'' had its roots in the aimless
\index{Surrealism}Surrealist drifts through Paris described in Breton's
1928 novel \cit{Nadja} and in Louis Aragon's 1926 novel \cit{Le Paysan
de Paris}, and meant a purely subjective, para-scientific exploration of
(chiefly) urban spaces through aimless drift. The surrealist drifts in
turn were indebted to the romanticist ``flâneur,'' a wanderer
``botanising the asphalt'' as cultural theorist \index{Benjamin,
Walter}Walter Benjamin put it in his essay on 19th century poet
\index{Baudelaire, Charles}Charles
Baudelaire.\footnote{\citereplace{Walter Benjamin. \newblock {\em
Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism}.
\newblock New Left Books, London, 1973.} \cite{benjamin:baudelaire-en}.}

Computation and \index{romanticism}romanticist urban drift did not
converge until the invention of ``generative
\index{psychogeography}psychogeography'' in the late 1990s through the
Dutch artistic project
\index{socialfiction.org}\url{http://www.socialfiction.org}. Its
\index{.walk}\cit{.walk} is a ``psychogeographic computer,'' operated by
pedestrians who walk through street grids like electrons flow through
the gates of computer chips. The \index{.walk}\cit{.walk} computer can
 execute simple program code like the following:

\begin{quotation}
\begin{verbatim}
// Classic .walk
Repeat
{
1 st street left
2 nd street right
2 nd street left
}
\end{verbatim}
\end{quotation}

\noindent Psychogeographic computing has a double effect: It demystifies
computing, turning it into a radically simple and popular low-tech and
low-cost operation. Secondly, in the spirit of
\index{Surrealism}Surrealism and \index{Situationism}Situationism, it
liberates the imagination of what a computer can be and which purposes
it may serve. Socialfiction.org thought has expanded and systematized
this idea into a \cit{University of \index{speculative}Speculative
Programming}, collectively editable \index{Wiki (software)}Wiki website
\url{http://twenteenthcentury.com/uo/index.php/SpeculativeProgramming}.
The site sketches the experimental potential of
\index{speculative}speculative programming as follows:

\begin{itemize}

\item \index{pataphysics}pataphysical; \index{pataphysics}pataphysics is
a ``science of imaginary solutions'' according to its inventor, late
19th century pre-\index{Surrealism}Surrealist novelist and dramatist
\index{Jarry, Alfred}Alfred Jarry. It could also be called a poetic,
absurdist para- and anti-science. A \index{pataphysics}pataphysical
appropriation of computing factually exists in the work of the
\index{Oulipo}Oulipo poetry workshop (see p. \pageref{Oulipo});

\item ``casting spells on the OS,'' reflecting \index{magic}magic as a
forerunner of code execution;

\item ``social engineering,'' especially in the form of artificial
intelligence \index{chat roboter}chat robots; which reminds of the
\index{Situationism}S.I.'s tactical use of a manipulated tape recording
as an analog \index{Bense, Max}Max Bense \index{chat roboter}chat
roboter. Since \index{Turing, Alan}Alan Turing, \index{chat roboter}chat
robots are the fundamental to \index{Artificial Intelligence
(A.I.)}artificial intelligence research (see p. \pageref{AI})

\item questioning the traditional computer; thus, by implication also
reflecting on the cultural history of computing aside from its
materialization in electronic \index{hardware}hardware.

\end{itemize}

\noindent \index{speculative}``Speculative programming'' reads as an
attempt to sum up all philosophies and the complete cultural-imaginative
history of computation, including everything that is described in this
booklet, too.  Computing becomes a figure of thought and reflection
not only in theory, but also in artistic practice. While the same could
be said about \index{Bense, Max}Bense's philosophy, the implications are
contrary. Instead of acknowledging subjectivity and imagination put into
computations, computation becomes a token for a culture of scientific
and engineering objectivity. Where \index{Bense, Max}Bense models art,
criticism and \index{aesthetics}aesthetics \emph{after} computing,
superimposing the latter on the former, \index{speculative}speculative
programming does the opposite. It models computation after the arts and
and \index{speculative}speculative imagination.

\section{Markov chains}

\noindent In \index{Bense, Max}Bense's ``information
\index{aesthetics}aesthetics,'' art criticism turns, literally, into
computation of data.  Interpretation of meaning is substituted with
formal analysis according to objectively quantifiable parameters, for
example through word statistical analyses of writing.  In
\index{Calvino, Italo}Italo Calvino's 1979 novel ``If on a Winter's
Night a Traveller,'' the first person narrator, a writer, encounters a
woman who refuses to read his novels, but instead feeds them as data
into a statistical program:

\begin{quotation}
She explained to me that a suitably programmed computer can read a novel
in a few minutes and record the list of all the words contained in the
text, in order of frequency. ``That way I can have an already completed
reading at hand,'' Lotaria says, ``with an incalculable saving of time.
What is the reading of a text, in fact, except the recording of certain
thematic recurrences, certain insistences of forms and
meanings?\ldots''\footnote{\citereplace{Italo Calvino. \newblock {\em If
on a {Winter's Night} a {Traveller}}. \newblock Everyman Publishers,
London, 1993 (1979).} \cite{calvino:traveller}} \end{quotation}

\noindent Three subsequent pages of the novel are dedicated to the word
statistics Lotaria computes. A footnote explains that \index{Calvino,
Italo}Calvino took them from a computer-philological research work
``Spogli elettronici dell'italiano contemporaneo'' edited by
\index{linguistics}linguist \index{Alinei, Mario}Mario Alinei in
1973.\footnote{\citereplace{Mario Alinei and Alfredo Schiaffini.
\newblock {\em Spogli elettronici dell'italiano delle origini e del
Duecento}. \newblock Mouton, The Hague, 1968.} \cite{alinei:spogli}} So
\index{Calvino, Italo}Calvino's novel writes a parodistic critique of
Bensian \index{information aesthetics}``information aesthetics'' much
like \index{Swift, Jonathan}Swift early 18th century satire of
\index{Lullism}Lullism.  \index{Shannon, Claude}Claude Shannon's 1948
paper \cit{A Mathematical Theory of Communication} describes such an
\index{algorithm}algorithm for statistical text analysis: 

\begin{quotation}

``To construct [order-1 letter-level text] for example, one opens a book
at \index{random}random and selects a letter at \index{random}random on
the page. This letter is recorded. The book is then opened to another
page and one reads until this letter is encountered. The succeeding
letter is then recorded.  Turning to another page this second letter is
searched for and the succeeding letter recorded, etc.  A similar process
was used for [order-1 and order-2 letter-level text, and order-0 and
order-1 word-level text]. It would be interesting if further
approximations could be constructed, but the labor involved becomes
enormous at the next stage.''\footnote{\citereplace{Claude~E. Shannon.
\newblock A {Mathematical Theory of Communication}. \newblock {\em Bell
System Technical Journal}, 27:379--423, July 1948.}
\cite{shannon:communication}}

\end{quotation}

\noindent \index{Shannon, Claude}Shannon's method is, in other words, to
scan a text for the transition probability of letter occurences,
resulting in transition probability tables which can be computed even
without any \index{semantics}semantic or grammatical natural language
understanding.  (Otherwise, the program would require \index{Artificial
Intelligence (A.I.)}artificial intelligence.)  This
\index{algorithm}algorithm implements the \index{stochastics}stochastic
model of \index{Markov chains}Markov chains invented by the Russian
mathematician \index{Markov, Andrei}Andrei Markov in 1906.
\index{Markov chains}Markov chains can be used not only for analyzing
texts---and any other kind of information---, but also for recombining
them based on the transition probabilities of their syntactical
elements. In 1959, \index{Lutz, Theo}Theo Lutz, a computer scientist who
collaborated with \index{Bense, Max}Max Bense at Technische Hochschule
Stuttgart, processed phrases from \index{Kafka, Franz}Kafka's novel
\cit{The Castle} with a \index{Markov chains}Markov chain program. The
result, called \index{stochastics}``stochastic Texts,'' was published in
\index{Bense, Max}Bense's journal for contemporary experimental poetry.
Shortly after, the first manifesto of the \index{Oulipo}Oulipo (see p.
\pageref{Oulipo}) proposed to reinvigorate the old poetic collage form
of the cento ``by a few considerations taken from Markov's chain
theory.''\footnote{\citereplace{François Le~Lionnais. \newblock Lipo:
First manifesto. \newblock In: Warren~F. Motte, editor. \newblock {\em
{Oulipo}. A {Primer of Potential Literature}}. \newblock University of
Nebraska Press, Lincoln, London, 1986., pages 26--28.}
\cite{lionnais:lipo-en}, p. 27}

Independently from \index{Bense, Max}Bense, \index{Lutz, Theo}Lutz and
\index{Oulipo}Oulipo, critic and \index{Joyce, James}Joyce expert Hugh
\index{Kenner, Hugh}Kenner wrote, in collaboration with programmer
\index{O'Rourke, Joseph}Joseph O'Rourke, a text recombination program
based on \index{Markov chains}Markov chains. Dubbed \index{travesty
(software)}\cit{Travesty}, its source code was published in a 1984 issue
of the popular computer magazine \index{BYTE (computer
magazine)}\cit{BYTE}. For the \index{algorithm}algorithm, \index{Kenner,
Hugh}Kenner credited the ``long-ago idea from the Father of Information
Theory, \index{Shannon, Claude}Claude Shannon.'' The code was adapted in
1990 by \index{Wall, Larry}Larry Wall, creator of the \index{Perl
(programming language)}Perl programming language, and published as a
programming example in the first edition of the book \index{Perl
(programming language)}\cit{Programming Perl}.---The second edition of
the same book featured examples of ``\index{Perl poetry}Perl
poetry''\footnote{\citereplace{Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and
Randal~L. Schwartz. \newblock {\em Programming Perl}. \newblock
O'Reilly, Cambridge, Köln, Paris, Sebastopol, Tokyo, 1996.}
\cite{wall:perl}} (see p. \pageref{Perl Poetry})---With poet
\index{Hartman, Charles O.}Charles O. Hartman, \index{Kenner,
Hugh}Kenner co-authored \cit{Sentences}, a volume of poems generated
with the help of \index{travesty
(software)}\cit{travesty}.\footnote{\citereplace{Charles~O. Hartman and
Hugh Kenner. \newblock {\em Sentences}. \newblock Sun and Moon Pres, Los
Angeles, 1995.} \cite{hartman:sentences}} In 1994, experimental poet and
former \index{Fluxus}Fluxus member \index{MacLow, Jackson}Jackson MacLow
generated a number of his \cit{42 Merzgedichte in memoriam
\index{Schwitters, Kurt}Kurt Schwitters} with the \index{Kenner,
Hugh}Kenner's \index{travesty (software)}travesty program
and, one year later, Austrian contemporary composer \index{Essl,
Karlheinz}Karlheinz Essl reassembled a \index{Bach, Johann
Sebastian}Bach violin sonata through \index{Markov chains}Markov chain
computation, calling it ``Bach sausage.''  Likewise, the \index{DOS
(operating system)}DOS-based poetic language manipulation toolkit
\index{POE (software)}\cit{POE} designed by Austrian experimental poets
\index{Schmatz, Ferdinand}Ferdinand Schmatz and \index{Czernin, Franz
Josef}Franz Josef Czernin (see p. \pageref{POE}) includes a
\index{Markov chains}Markov chain function.  Around the same time,
numerous popular \index{Markov chains}Markov chain-based text
manipulation programs were written, such as \index{Dissociated Press
(software)}Dissociated Press, a standard function of the
\index{GNU}\index{Emacs (software)}GNU Emacs text editor,
\index{TextMangler (software)}TextMangler and \index{Deconstructor
(software)}Deconstructor for \index{Apple Macintosh (operating
system)}MacOS, \index{dadadodo (software)}dadadodo by \index{Zawinsky,
Jamie}Jamie Zawinsky, the former project leader of the \index{Mozilla
(software)}Mozilla web browser, or \index{Mark V. Chaney (software)}Mark
V. Chaney for \index{DOS (operating system)}DOS.

Since \index{Shannon, Claude}Shannon's \cit{Mathematical Theory of
Communication}, \index{Markov chains}Markov chains have arguably become
the third most popular \index{algorithm}algorithm for computational text
generation, next to \index{permutation}permutation and
\index{recursion}recursion. \index{Markov chains}Markov chains are a
stricly analytical, not synthetic method, being agnostic to the data
they process.  They work on arbitrary input, contrary to older
syntheticly combinatory methods such as \index{Llull, Ramon}Llull's
\cit{Ars} and Renaissance proteus poems which always processed fixed,
pre-inscribed words. While \index{Llull, Ramon}Llull's ars abstracts
data from \index{algorithm}algorithms through its separation of the
\cit{tabula} from the \cit{figurae}, the \cit{figurae} are designed to
process only the particular, immutable elements of the static
\cit{tabula}.  Even \index{Swift, Jonathan}Swift's and \index{Borges,
Jorge Luis}Borges' dystopias of language computing, with their
\index{ontology}ontological \index{random}randomness and contingency,
still rely on a fixed data set, the alphabet.


\section{Tristan Tzara and cut-ups}

\noindent One could believe that poetic computations of mobile
data sets could not be imagined before modern computers were
invented. 
However, the first modern art work based on a computational process and
arbitrary input data dates back to 1923. \index{Tzara, Tristan}Tristan
Tzara's advised \cit{To Make a \index{Dada}Dadaist Poem} as follows:

\begin{quotation}
Take a newspaper.\\
Take some scissors.\\
Choose from this paper an article the length you want to make your
poem.\\
Cut out the article.\\
Next carefully cut out each of the words that make up this article
and put them all in a bag.\\
Shake gently.\\
Next take out each cutting one after the other.\\
Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag.\\
The poem will resemble you.\\
And there you are---an infinitely original author of charming
sensibility, even though unappreciated by the vulgar
herd.\footnote{\citereplace{Tristan Tzara. \newblock Pour fair une
po{\`e}me dadaïste. \newblock In {\em Oeuvres compl{\`e}tes}. Gallimard,
Paris, 1975.} \cite{tzara:poeme-dadaiste}, English translation online
at, among others, \url{http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5774}}
\end{quotation}

\noindent What \index{Tzara, Tristan}Tzara describes here is an
\index{algorithm}algorithmic process, in fact, a simple computer
creating \index{random}random \index{permutation}permutations of
arbitrary input. For the first time after the
\index{romanticism}romantic period, \index{poetics}poetics defies the
concept of the genius and turns into formal instruction again; formal to
the point where it can be mechanized. The 18th and 19th century ridicule
of formalisms in composition and art that began with \index{Swift,
Jonathan}Swift is taken up here and turned against itself. Tzara's
``infinitely original author of charming sensibility, even though
unappreciated by the vulgar herd'' clearly mocks the romantic
\index{genius}genius. 

While the Dadaist poetic \index{algorithm}algorithm is the same as the
word \index{permutation}permutations in the \index{Sefer Yetzirah}Sefer
Yetzirah and in proteic poetry since \index{Optatianus
Porfyrius}Optatianus and \index{Scaliger, Julius Caesar}Scaliger, its
imagination and ideology is reversed: There is \index{chaos}chaos
instead of order, fragmentation instead of totality.  It also lacks, on
the first glance at least, any \index{metaphysics}metaphysics and
cosmology of macro- and \index{microcosm}microcosm.  If one juxtaposes
the \index{Dada}Dadaist poem to \index{Mallarmé, Stéphane}Mallarmé's
\cit{Livre}, then it reads as the latter's radical other; it uses a
similar \index{algorithm}algorithm, by implication also a similarly free
form typography, but contradicts both the \index{romanticism}romanticist
\index{aesthetics}aesthetics of the \index{genius}genius and the
representation of a \index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean
\index{macrocosm}macrocosmic order in the \index{microcosm}microcosm of
the artwork.

\label{cut-ups}Still, the ostentative nihilism of \index{Tzara,
Tristan}Tzara's random computation creates another
\index{metaphysics}metaphysics.  \index{Gysin, Brion}Gysin's and
\index{Burroughs, William S.}Burroughs' \index{cut-ups}``Cut-ups'' for
example are a straight-forward adaption of \index{Tzara, Tristan}Tzara's
method.  \index{Burroughs, William S.}Burroughs' essay \cit{The
\index{cut-ups}Cut-Up Method of \index{Gysin, Brion}Brion Gysin}
acknowledges this in its first sentence:

\begin{quotation}

At a \index{Surrealism}surrealist rally in the 1920s \index{Tzara,
Tristan}Tristan Tzara the man from nowhere proposed to create a poem on
the spot by pulling words out of a hat. A riot ensued wrecked the
theater.  [\ldots] In the summer of 1959 \index{Gysin, Brion}Brion Gysin
painter and writer cut newspaper articles into sections and rearranged
the sections at \index{random}random.\footnote{\citereplace{William~S.
Burroughs. \newblock The {Cut-Up Method} of {Brion Gysin}. \newblock In:
William~S. Burroughs. \newblock {\em The {Third Mind}}. \newblock
Viking, New York, 1978.} \cite{burroughs:cut-up}}

\end{quotation}

\noindent However, the \index{cut-ups}cut-up differs from \index{Tzara,
Tristan}Tzara's \index{Dada}Dadaist \index{poetics}poetics in several
respects.  In the same text, \index{Burroughs, William S.}Burroughs
refers to the ``place of mescaline hallucination: seeing colors tasting
sounds smelling forms.'' As a \index{magic}magical and
\index{ecstatic}ecstatic technique, the \index{cut-ups}cut-up 
resuscitates the old \index{metaphysics}metaphysics that \index{Tzara,
Tristan}Tzara seemed to have done away with.


\section{John Cage's indeterminism}

\noindent \label{Cage}The same can be observed in the adaption of the
\index{Dada}Dadaist \index{random}random montage \index{music}music in
the \index{indeterminism}``indeterminist'' \index{music}music of
\index{Cage, John}John Cage his contemporaries and students from
\index{Brown, Earle}Earle Brown, \index{Feldman, Morton}Morton Feldman,
\index{Wolff, Christian}Christian Wolff to the \index{Fluxus}Fluxus
movement. In \index{Cage, John}John Cage's piece \cit{Atlas
Eclipticalis}, an astronomical map serves as a superficially
\index{random}random score, and establishes, once again, a
\index{macrocosm}macrocosmic-\index{microcosm}microcosmic correspondence
which justifies a \index{random}randomness of art through a higher-order
\index{random}randomness of nature.  \index{Cage, John}Cage also uses
the Chinese \index{I Ching}\cit{I Ching}, the \cit{Book of Changes}, as
a compositional \index{algorithm}algorithm for a number of his works,
among them \cit{Music of Changes} and
\cit{Roaratorio}.\footnote{\citereplace{John Cage. \newblock {\em
Roaratorio. Ein irischer Circus über Finnegans Wake}. \newblock
Athenäum, Königstein/Taunus, 1982.} \cite{cage:roaratorio}}
\label{culver-ic}For these purposes, he later used a computer software
adaption of the \index{I Ching} called \index{IC (software)}\cit{IC},
written in \index{C (programming language)}C for \index{DOS (operating
system)}DOS by \index{Culver, Andrew}Andrew Culver.\footnote{The program
is still available under \url{http://www.newmus.net/apps/iching.exe}.}
\index{Cage, John}Cage replaces the cosmological-mathematical order of
\index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean Western \index{music}music with a
metaphysical \index{anarchism}anarchism. This anarchism nominally draws
from Eastern philosophy, but in fact relied only on superficial
studies---through the attendance of a few evening lectures---of the
non-traditional, highly Americanized \index{Zen}Zen of \index{Suzuki,
Daisetz T.}Daisetz T. Suzuki.

Just like \index{Tzara, Tristan}Tzara's \index{Dada}Dadaist poem
manifests an anti-\index{romanticism}romanticism that nevertheless
shares many formal traits with late-\index{romanticism}romanticist
literary experimentation, \index{Cage, John}Cage's approach to
\index{music}musical composition could be seen as anti-romantic and
ultimately anti-Western while owing more to Western tradition than it
acknowledged.  \index{Cage, John}Cage's anti-tradition is most
pronounced in \cit{Credo in Us} from 1942, a piece that pokes fun at
late \index{romanticism}romanticist symphony \index{music}music by
playing it randomly from gramophone records. It could be called the
first \index{music}musical piece using \index{scratching}``scratching''
and \index{Plunderphonics}``Plunderphonics.'' Still, Cagean
\index{indeterminism}indeterminism remained reciprocal to the
mathematical determinism of Western \index{music}music. It only replaced
the \index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean formula of symmetry through a formula
of \index{random}chance.  It  seems only logical that \index{Cage,
John}Cage formalized his composition methods and implemented them into
computer software tools. He used 24 custom-written computer programs for
his composition.\footnote{According to \index{Culver, Andrew}Culver's
website
\url{http://www.anarchicharmony.org/People/Culver/CagePrograms.html}.}
\index{Cage, John}Cage wrote computational poetry, too.  With his method
of ``reading through,''\footnote{\citereplace{John Cage.  \newblock {\em
Roaratorio. Ein irischer Circus über Finnegans Wake}.  \newblock
Athenäum, Königstein/Taunus, 1982.} \cite{cage:roaratorio} contains a
chapter \cit{Reading through Finnegans Wake}} he compressed literary
works like \index{Joyce, James}Joyce's \cit{Finnegans Wake} to a
fraction of their original size. The \index{algorithm}algorithm he used
were mesostichs, the retrieval of words in a text whose middle letters
match the letters of a name; electronic poet \index{Rosenberg, Jim}Jim
Rosenberg wrote him a custom computer program \index{Mesolist
(software)}\cit{Mesolist} for this purpose.\footnote{Referenced on
\index{Culver, Andrew}Andrew Culver's website}

It seems paradoxical that \index{Cage, John}Cage sought to create
\index{indeterminism}indeterminacy through \index{algorithm}algorithms.
While this contradiction superficially resembles the link of
\index{algorithm}algorithms and the imaginary in
\index{psychogeography}psychogeographical computing, it in fact is more
naive since it relies on a dubious understanding of
\index{random}``chance.'' \index{algorithm}Algorithms can be used for
chance operations as \index{Tzara, Tristan}Tzara's \index{Dada}Dadaist
poem shows, and---with much older origins probably in ancient
India---the \index{dice}dice as a \index{random}random computing device.
But such \index{random} random operations create
\index{stochastics}stochastic chance, not
philosophical-\index{ontology}ontological chance. Throwing a
\index{dice}die is a \index{stochastics}stochastic chance operation with
the possible outcome of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Since these results are
foreseeable as the set of potential results, they represent not an
\index{ontology}ontological, but a deterministic chance.
\index{Mallarmé, Stéphane}Mallarmé describes it precisely in his
sentence: ``throwing the \index{dice}dice never abolishes chance.''
Ontological chance, and therefore true
\index{indeterminism}indeterminacy, would occur if the die would crack,
vanish, or show the number seven. With pieces like \cit{Atlas
Eclipticalis}, \cit{Variations I/II} and all \index{I Ching}\cit{I
Ching}-based compositions, it seems as if \index{Cage, John}Cage
misreads \index{stochastics}stochastic chance for
\index{ontology}ontological chance.  The mere fact that a
\index{music}musical piece sounds ``like \index{Cage, John}John Cage''
or ``Cagean'' because of its atonality and lack of development for
example, disproves \index{Cage, John}Cage's claim of
\index{indeterminism}``indeterminacy.'' If his \index{music}music were
really, \index{ontology}ontologically
\index{indeterminism}indeterminate, it should---for example---be able to
sound like a \index{Spears, Britney}Britney Spears song, too.

This example illustrates a general limit of computation and software.
There is, first of all, no way of turning them into anti-formal,
anti-determinist technology, either through
\index{stochastics}stochastic chance, disruption of
\index{semantics}semantics (as in the \index{cut-ups}cut-ups) or a
higher-order complexity of programming (as in artificial intelligence,
see p. \pageref{AI}). Secondly, the formalisms are always meaningful. In
the case of \index{Cage, John}Cage, they seem to subvert the intended
\index{anarchism}anarchist \index{ontology}ontology of chance---as it is
grounded in 20th century \index{aesthetics}aesthetics, philosophy and
\index{religion}religion---into a \index{stochastics}stochastic
determinism. This unveils the blind spots of \index{Cage, John}Cage's
compositional approach and the reason why an
\index{indeterminism}``indeterministic'' chance composition of
\index{Cage, John}Cage can sound strikingly similar to totally
deterministic \index{serial \index{music}music}serial compositions of
\index{Stockhausen, Karlheinz}Stockhausen or \index{Boulez,
Pierre}Boulez. If one compares \index{Cage, John}Cage and
\index{Stockhausen, Karlheinz}Stockhausen and their seemingly contrarian
understanding of \index{music}musical composition, one can practically
observe how deterministic over-complexity turns into \index{chaos}chaos
and conversely, \index{chaos}chaos ends up as a formalism and cliché.

\index{Tzara, Tristan}Tzara's poem struggles with this problem only to a
lesser degree. As a parodistic and cynical device, it does not have to
match up to an \index{ontology}ontological
\index{indeterminism}indeterminism.  The relative lack of cynicism is
what distinguishes \index{Cage, John}Cagean \index{aesthetics}aesthetics
from \index{Dada}Dadaist provocation.  Neither do \index{Burroughs,
William S.}Burroughs' \index{cut-ups}cut-ups run into the trap of
deterministic \index{chaos}chaos because they are tools for reaching
another, \index{magic}magical, hallucinatory and
\index{ecstatic}ecstatic order, and use language to overcome it.

In addition to \index{permutation}permutational shuffling, the
\index{cut-ups}cut-ups frequently employ \index{recursion}recursion, the
processing of something through itself, as their poetic method.  In
\index{cut-ups}\cit{Cut-Ups Self-Explained}, the last paragraph of
\index{Burroughs, William S.}Burroughs' \cit{The \index{cut-ups}Cut-Up
Method of \index{Gysin, Brion}Brion Gysin} applies the method---or
\index{algorithm}algorithm---to its own instruction:

\begin{quotation}

ALL WRITING IS IN FACT CUT-UPS OF GAMES AND ECONOMIC BE HAVIOR
OVERHEARD?  WHAT ELSE? ASSUME THAT THE WORST HAS HAPPENED EXPLICIT AND
SUBJECT TO sTRATEGY lS AT SOME POINT CLASSICAL PROSE.  CUTTING AND
REARRANGING FACTOR YOUR OPPONENT WILL GAIN INTRODUCES A NEW DIMENSION
YOUR STRATEGY. [\ldots]\footnote{\citereplace{William~S. Burroughs.
\newblock The {Cut-Up Method} of {Brion Gysin}. \newblock In: William~S.
Burroughs. \newblock {\em The {Third Mind}}. \newblock Viking, New York,
1978.} \cite{burroughs:cut-up}}

\end{quotation}

\noindent But what is the practical effect of this self-processing of
text?  As in \index{Cage, John}Cage's conflation of
\index{stochastics}stochastic chance and \index{ontology}ontological
\index{indeterminism}indeterminacy, there seems to be a surplus of
imagination projected into the formalism; as if texts were becoming
lucid, pronouncing hidden truths and achieving occult effects through
their underlying formal operations. However, the results perpetually fail to match up to
those expectations. The \index{recursion}recursive processing of the
\index{cut-ups}cut-up instruction through itself at least points out a
paradox:  within a \index{permutation}permutative, \index{random}random
or \index{stochastics}stochastic process that mobilizes and rearranges
words, the \index{algorithm}algorithm itself remains an immutable
center.  A \index{random}random poem like \index{Tzara, Tristan}Tzara's
is \emph{not} \index{random}random to the extent it relies on a clearly
defined, fixed \index{algorithm}algorithm.  It can digest and transform
all writing with the singular exception of itself. Otherwise, it would
destroy its own instruction and with it the digestion and transformation
of writing.  Once again, the problem remains that in any running
computational program, the instruction---or game rule---remains,
internally, a formalism that is not part of the game.

\section{Italo Calvino and machine-generated literature}

\noindent In his 1967 lecture \cit{Cybernetics and
Ghosts},\footnote{\citereplace{Italo Calvino. \newblock {Cybernetics and
Ghosts}. \newblock In {\em The {Uses of Literature}}, pages 3--27.
Harcourt, San Diego, 1982 (1967).} \cite{calvino:cybernetics}} Italian
novelist Italo \index{Calvino, Italo}Calvino concludes that
computer-generated poetry tends to be ``classicist;'' classicist in the
understanding of Italian, French and Spanish literary history, as a
poetry governed by strict normative \index{poetics}poetics and rules of
form.  In spite of this restriction, he sketches a general model of
language and narration as computations. \index{Calvino, Italo}Calvino
speculates that early humans had a limited repertory of sounds and words
and therefore needed \index{combinatorics}combinatorics to expand a
scarcity of vocabulary into a richness of communicative means. It
follows for him that literature is a ``combination game.'' He, the poet,
can be replaced by a ``mechanical device.'' In his reasoning,
\index{Calvino, Italo}Calvino cites the \index{linguistics}linguistic
and \index{semiotics}semiotic \index{structuralism}structuralism of
ethnologist \index{L\'evi-Strauss, Claude}Claude L\'evi-Strauss and
Russian philologist \index{Propp, Vladimir}Vladimir Propp. This
reference reflects \index{Calvino, Italo}Calvino's exposure to the
\index{structuralism}structuralism of the \index{Tel Quel}Tel Quel group
around \index{Kristeva, Julia}Julia Kristeva and \index{Barthes,
Roland}Roland Barthes whose meetings he attended in Paris.  

In his 1927 book \cit{Morphology of the Folktale}, \index{Propp,
Vladimir}Vladmir Propp concluded from a structural analysis of Russian
fairy tales that their plots could be reduced to one universal
formula.\footnote{\citereplace{Vladimir Propp, editor. \newblock {\em
Morphology of the Folktale}. \newblock University of Texas Press,
Austin, Texas, 1968 (1927).} \cite{propp:morphology}} This formula
denotes both possible \index{combination}combinations and variations.
It is, in fact, an \index{algorithm}algorithm which could be adapted as
a computer program for generating arbitrary fairy tale plots.
\index{Propp, Vladimir}Propp's formalist philology  appears like a
straightforward continuation of \index{Lullism}Lullist
\index{encyclopedism}encyclopedism, the exhaustion of a field of
knowledge through \index{combinatorics}combinatorial means. Vice versa a
Lullist language generator like \index{Harsdörffer, Georg
Philipp}Harsdörffer's \cit{Denckring} manifests
\index{structuralism}proto-structuralist \index{linguistics}linguistics.
In both \index{Harsdörffer, Georg Philipp}Harsdörffer and \index{Propp,
Vladimir}Propp, synthetic totalism and analytical fragmentation are two
sides of the same coin, and their \index{algorithm}algorithms can be
used for either.

As a device of analysis, \index{Propp, Vladimir}Propp's morphology first
of all gives insight into the formulaic, constructed nature of folk
tales. It thoroughly debunked the 19th century
\index{romanticism}romanticist view of the folk tale as an irregular and
\index{chaos}chaotic manifestation of popular fantastic imagination
(which  was superior to highbrow art). The same
\index{romanticism}romanticist idea continued in
\index{Surrealism}surrealism, with its fondness of popular culture and
trash---like, for example, the \index{Grand Guignol}\cit{Grand Guignol}
gore theater shows---and to some degree in
\index{Situationism}Situationism with its detournement of comic strips
and martial arts movies (like \index{Vienet, Ren\'e}Ren\'e Vienet's
\cit{Can Dialectics Break Bricks?}). With its discovery of a popular
culture which is so formulaic that it is computable, \index{Propp,
Vladimir}Propp's analysis could on the other hand be considered a
forerunner of \index{psychogeography}psychogeographical computing with
its populist low-tech approach to programming. With their emphasis on
popular imagination and popular cultural practices, both \index{Propp,
Vladimir}Propp and \index{psychogeography}psychogeographical computing
themselves owe to \index{romanticism}romanticist thinking.
\index{Calvino, Italo}Italo Calvino's \cit{Invisible Cities}, a novel
which describes imaginary cities and generates them through a
\index{combinatorics}combinatorics of fantastic attributes, manifests
another intersection of computation and \index{romanticism}romantic
urbanism.\footnote{\citereplace{Italo Calvino. \newblock {\em Invisible
Cities}. \newblock Harvest Books, Fort Washington, 1978.}
\cite{calvino:cities}}


\section{Software as industrialization of art}

\subsection{\noindent Movie plot generators}

In a newspaper essay \cit{Make Your Own Movie} which appeared in the
book \cit{Misreadings}, \index{Eco, Umberto}Umberto Eco turns
\index{Propp, Vladimir}Propp's combinatory plot generation and, by
implication, structuralist morphologies into a parody. He proposes a
number of \index{algorithm}algorithms for generating movie plots, each
of which sums up the stereotypical mannerisms of the prototypical angry
young film director and the filmmakers \index{Antonioni,
Michelangelo}Michelangelo Antonioni, \index{Godard, Jean-Luc}Jean-Luc
Godard, \index{Olmi, Ermanno}Ermanno Olmi and \index{Visconti,
Luchino}Luchino Visconti.\footnote{\citereplace{Umberto Eco. \newblock
{\em Misreadings}. \newblock Harvest, San Diego, 1993.}
\cite{eco:misreadings}, p. 145-155}  The \index{Antonioni,
Michelangelo}Antonioni \index{algorithm}algorithm works as follows:

\begin{quotation}
\noindent An$^{x}$ empty$^{y}$ lot.$^{z}$ She$^{k}$ walks away.$^{n}$

\noindent \textit{Variants Key}

\begin{description}

\item[x] Two, three an infinity of. An enclosure of. A maze of.

\item[y] Empty. As far as the eye can see. With visibility limited due
to the sun's glare. Foggy. Blocked by wire-mesh fence. Radioactive.
Distorted by wide-angle lens.

\item[z] An island. City. Superhighway cloverleaf. McDonald's. 

[\ldots]

\end{description}

\end{quotation}

\noindent \index{Eco, Umberto}Eco's theoretical works assume a
rationalist and scepticist position within European
\index{semiotics}semiotics and \index{structuralism}structuralism,
rejecting \index{ontology}ontological concepts of structure like those
of \index{L\'evi-Strauss, Claude}L\'evi-Strauss. In the same spirit,
this parody pokes fun at an \index{ontology}ontologization of structure.
It also dismantles the predictable elements and clich\'es of 1960s/70s
European ``auteur cinema'' with its perpetuation of the
\index{romanticism}romanticist author-\index{genius}genius.  When
\index{Eco, Umberto}Eco wrote the text in 1972, he couldn't foresee that
a very similar recipe was to be used, twenty years later, in the
commercial software \index{Plots Unlimited (software)}\cit{Plots
Unlimited}, a PC program for screenwriters which generates plot lines
out of an internal \index{database}database of plot
elements.\footnote{\citereplace{Tom Sawyer and Arthur~David Weingarten.
\newblock {\em Plots Unlimited}. \newblock Ashleywilde, Malibu, 1994.}
\cite{plots-unlimited}} Since \index{Plots Unlimited
(software)}\cit{Plots Unlimited} was published as a book with
cross-referenced numbered paragraphs, its \index{algorithm}algorithm is
transparent; it's the same
\index{combinatorics}combinatory-morphological formula of \index{Llull,
Ramon}Llull, \index{Harsdörffer, Georg Philipp}Harsdörffer,
\index{Propp, Vladimir}Propp and \index{Eco, Umberto}Eco, using only a
more elaborate set of data elements. With its title alone, \index{Plots
Unlimited (software)}\cit{Plots Unlimited} puts itself into the
tradition of encyclopedic combinatory \index{poetics}poetics, but does
so as a commercial and pragmatic industrial tool. It is naive, and not
sarcastic like \index{Eco, Umberto}Eco's combinatorics. That, though,
does not change its implication that much of contemporary movies and
television soap operas might be based on its formulas, product of the
\index{Plots Unlimited (software)}\cit{Plots Unlimited} matrix,
so-to-speak. (The program is in fact a popular tool among
screenwriters.) Much of popular culture could be machine products in a
more literal sense than even Frankfurt School sociologists
\index{Adorno, Theodor W.}Adorno and \index{Horkheimer, Max}Horkheimer
imagined when they coined the term ``culture industry'' to describe
Hollywood in the 1940s.\footnote{\citereplace{Theodor~W. Adorno and Max
Horkheimer. \newblock {\em Dialectic of Enlightenment}. \newblock Verso,
London, 1979 (1947).} \cite{adorno:dialectic}}

\section{Authorship and subjectivity}

\subsection{Cornelia Sollfrank's \cit{Net.art Generators}}

Perhaps the most consequent, if ironic, project of industrializing art
was \index{Warhol, Andy}Andy Warhol's ``factory'' art. It industrialized
its production, \index{aesthetics}aesthetics and even the identity of
the artist: \index{Warhol, Andy}Warhol's art was collectively and
industrially produced, used industrial mass media images as its
material, and factory members with silver wigs appeared as
\index{Warhol, Andy}Andy Warhol for public lectures.  Through its
seriality, his work resembles machine-generated art and later proved to
be ideal source material of artistic computations.  In 1997, artist
Cornelia \index{Sollfrank, Cornelia}Sollfrank developed, in
collaboration with a number of programmers---\index{Johnston, Ryan}Ryan
Johnston, \index{Frelih, Luka}Luka Frelih, \index{Thoens,
Barbara}Barbara Thoens, \index{Prehn, Ralf}Ralf Prehn, \index{Leopold,
Richard}Richard Leopold---, a series of \index{net.art}\cit{Net.art
Generators}, web-based software programs that retrieve websites
according to user-entered search terms, reassembling them as digital
collages. \index{Sollfrank, Cornelia}Sollfrank was not interested in an
autonomous generative art, but in the political and philosophical issues
the net.art generators create. She and her programmers, for example, did
not anticipate that the generators would create endless variations of
\index{Warhol, Andy}Andy Warhol's flower pictures (figure
\ref{sollfrank})---which in turn are based on a botanical photograph by
American photographer \index{Caulfield, Patricia}Patricia Caulfield from
1962. Next to the many unauthorized variations of the \index{Warhol,
Andy}Warhol flowers circulating as postcards and poster prints, the
computer-modified flowers created unforeseen questions of authorship and
originality. No dubious \index{Artificial Intelligence
(A.I.)}``artificial intelligence'' (see p. \pageref{AI}) was necessary
to create these issues. It was sufficient that the artwork was transformed
from a solid entity to an automatic process. Moreover, it was designed 
by multiple people and working on arbitrary input data.  As a result, an
exhibition of \index{Sollfrank, Cornelia}Sollfrank's
\index{net.art}net.art generators and their \index{Warhol, Andy}Warhol
variations was cancelled by the organizers out of fear of being sued
for copyright violation.

\noindent
\begin{figure}[ht]
{\center\resizebox*{0.8\columnwidth}{!}
{\includegraphics{pics/sollfrank.jpg}}}
\caption[Cornelia Sollfrank et.al., \cit{Net.art generators}
\cite{sollfrank:generator}, automatically generated
variations of Andy Warhol's \cit{Flowers}]{\label{sollfrank}Variations of Andy Warhol's \cit{Flowers}
created by a \cit{Net.art generator}}
\end{figure}

What \index{Tzara, Tristan}Tzara's \index{Dada}Dadaist poem puts into
ironic terms, the ``charming sensibility'' or subjectivity of the artist
who creates a work according to an \index{algorithm}algorithm, is at the
center of \index{Sollfrank, Cornelia}Sollfrank's philosophical and legal
reflections. Who exactly is the creator of a \index{Warhol, Andy}Warhol
flower variation computed by the \index{net.art}net.art generators?
\index{Caulfield, Patricia}Caulfield as their original photographer,
\index{Warhol, Andy}Warhol as their first artistic adopter,
\index{Sollfrank, Cornelia}Sollfrank as the artist who created the
concept of the \index{net.art}net.art generators, the programmers who
technically designed and implemented them, the users of the
\index{net.art}net.art generator, or the running program itself?

Conventional software for artists still sells the idea of the artist as
an autonomous creator who works with the aid of, but isn't replaced by,
\index{algorithm}algorithms. Artistic generators like those of
\index{Sollfrank, Cornelia}Sollfrank reverse the model.  They redefine
authorship as the artistic design of an \index{algorithm}algorithmic
process and, once this process is set into motion, the observation and
reflection of its effects.  The industrial nature of its results 
puts into question traditional categories of authorship, originality and
\index{genius}genius. This approach builds and expands on the questions
and provocations \index{Tzara, Tristan}Tzara's Dada poem instigated.
Programmer \index{Leopold, Richard}Richard Leopold who wrote one of
\index{Sollfrank, Cornelia}Sollfrank's generators credits
\index{Dada}Dada as its main inspiration and calls the generated pages
\index{Dada}``Dada content'' (but employs \index{Markov chains}Markov
chains instead of \index{permutation}permutation as the generative
\index{algorithm}algorithm).

What sets apart \index{Sollfrank, Cornelia}Sollfrank's generator from
\index{Tzara, Tristan}Tzara's poem however is that it explores its
philosophical, aesthetic, legal and political implications in a more
rigorous and systematic way.  The idea that artists turn into designers
and philosophical explorers of computations, paying only secondary
attention to the output of the process per se, contradicts and subverts
the industrial logic of the artistic software tool.  Even \cit{Plots
Unlimited}, a rare example of computational-generative
\index{poetics}poetics within a commercial software package, still clings
to the myth of being a transparent ``aid'' to the artist.  Its
advertising literally says that ``with Plots Unlimited you'll develop
your \cit{own original} material [\ldots]---stories that sell [emphasis
as in the original text].''\footnote{\citereplace{Tom Sawyer and
Arthur~David Weingarten. \newblock {\em Plots Unlimited}. \newblock
Ashleywilde, Malibu, 1994.} \cite{plots-unlimited}, cover text} Other
computer programs for artists disguise themselves as mere tools in the
hands of artists in more subtle ways.  Word processors, graphics
editors, desktop publishing and \index{music}musical composition
software are all based on two cultural premises:

\begin{enumerate}

\item To emulate, in look and feel, analog tools---typewriters, paint
brushes, layout desks, scores and pianola rolls;

\item To pass themselves off as ``transparent'' tools, i.e. technology
that obeys the user.

\end{enumerate}

The latter is a fiction to the degree that those tools create their own
\index{aesthetics}aesthetics and have their own implied politics.

Software involves \index{interface}interface paradigms with encoded
cultural preconceptions of what, for example, a ``document,''
``writing,'' ``designing'' is. It has embedded concepts of the order of
things, of communication and workflows. To this extent, software
controls its users. Yet it sells the illusion that the user is fully in
charge. Since the early 1990s, pop cultural graphic design has largely
been driven by short-lived fashionable gimmicks and plug-ins in programs
like \index{Photoshop (software)}. The whole \index{music}musical genre
of bootleg pop remixes would not exist without the programs \index{Acid
(software)}\cit{Acid} by \index{Sonic Foundry (company)}Sonic Foundry
and \index{Traktor (software)}\cit{Traktor} by \index{Native Instruments
(company)}Native Instruments. Even these programs maintain the fiction
of transparency and user control, excluding \index{algorithm}algorithms
that do not just aid, but actually generate work. Among the few
exceptions are \index{Plots Unlimited (software)}\cit{Plots Unlimited}
and \index{Band-in-a-Box (software)}\cit{Band-in-a-Box}, a program that
automatically creates \index{music}musical arrangements.

\subsection{\noindent Signwave Auto-Illustrator}

The taboo of ``transparent'' software---to not openly interfere with the
artist---is systematically addressed and subverted in \index{Ward,
Adrian}Adrian Ward's computer program \index{Auto-Illustrator
(software)}\cit{Signwave
Auto-Illustrator}.\footnote{\url{http://www.signwave.co.uk}} It
transforms vector graphics software into a generative program with an
agenda of its own, or rather, of its programmer who codes his
subjectivity into \index{algorithm}algorithms.  With a user
\index{interface}interface that precisely mimicks the commercial
graphics program \index{Adobe (company)}Adobe \index{Adobe Illustrator
(software)}Illustrator, \index{Auto-Illustrator
(software)}Auto-Illustrator implements, for example, a text tool that
writes its own, \index{random}randomly generated texts. Other functions
turn artwork into ``instant \index{Bauhaus}Bauhaus,'' leave ``bugs''
that wander around in the illustration, or render circles as smilies.
However, the program is functional.  It generates proper graphics files
and has been practically employed for the graphic design of flyers and
record covers.  \index{Auto-Illustrator
(software)}\cit{Auto-Illustrator} combines
\index{encyclopedism}encyclopedism and fragmentation as anticipated by
\index{Lullism}Lullism and \index{Dada}Dadaism respectively. They do not
contradict, but complement each other in the program.  In the many years
of its development since 2000, \index{Auto-Illustrator
(software)}Auto-Illustrator has acquired an encyclopedic wealth of
features, similar to commercial software that, incorporating more and
more functions, strives to be the ultimate tool for its purpose.
\index{Auto-Illustrator (software)}Autor-Illustrator openly renders the
same totality absurd by accumulating eccentricities and personal
fancies.

\noindent
\begin{figure}[ht]
{\center\resizebox*{0.8\columnwidth}{!}
{\includegraphics{pics/auto-illustrator.jpg}}}
\caption[Adrian Ward, \cit{Auto-Illustrator}, screenshot of the random
text tool]{\label{auto-illustrator}Random text tool of
\cit{Auto-Illustrator}}
\end{figure}

\index{algorithm}Algorithms as subjective expression were not conceived
of in classical computational \index{poetics}poetics. Both
\index{occult}occult and scientific computations, be it
\index{magic}magic, \index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah,
\index{encyclopedism}encyclopedism or \index{algorithm}algorithmic
calculus, rely on the idea that computation expresses a higher objective
order; be it divine law, or the laws of logic and mathematics.  It's
hardly surprising that computation often oscillated between the occult
and scientific poles, blurring its boundaries: from
\index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean mathematics to eventually metaphysical
computations such as those of \index{Stockhausen,
Karlheinz}Karlheinz Stockhausen and \index{Cage, John}John Cage. Nevertheless, as
the \index{semantics}``semantics'' of formal languages, i.e. the choice
of their cultural denominators like \index{Llull, Ramon}Llull's
\cit{alphabetum} indicates, computations were never able to do without
superimposed meaning, inscribed subjectivity, embedded metaphors.

Since the 1970s, the field of ``generative art'' relies on the same
illusion of objectivity through computation. The most comprehensive
theoretical foundation for this field is provided by \index{Bense,
Max}Max Bense's writings. Even today, \index{media theory}media theory
remains centered around and preoccupied with the idea of an
anti-subjective, post-human autonomy of machine processes. 
The roots of this \index{media
theory}media theory prominently lie in \index{McLuhan,
Marshall}McLuhan's statement that the medium is the message---i.e. the
technology itself bears the meaning instead of being its neutral
purveyor---and \index{Heidegger, Martin}Heidegger's philosophy of matter
and technology. These theories neglect that the machine processes were
designed by humans in the first place and  can be seen on the
contrary as embedding subjectivity into formulas, processes and
hardware. When \index{Sollfrank, Cornelia}Cornelia Sollfrank states that
``a clever artist makes the machine do the work,'' it still implies that
the artist \emph{makes} it work in the first
place.\footnote{\citereplace{Cornelia Sollfrank, editor. \newblock {\em
net.art generator}. \newblock Verlag für moderne Kunst, Nürnberg, 2004.}
\cite{sollfrank:generator}} Poiesis, making,  becomes a second-order
poeisis of making something that makes something else.  So poetry,
making, turns into \index{poetics}poetics, the making of making. When
making  turns into meta-making, subjectivity simply shifts to a
second order position, residing in the formula instead of the product.
This fact is being repeatedly ignored by critical observers whose
perspective remains fixated on the product and who wrongly conclude, in
a fallacy reminiscent of \index{Plato}Plato's cave, that technology has
done away with the subject behind the work.

\index{Calvino, Italo}Calvino's lecture on \cit{Cybernetics and Ghosts}
ends its theory about language and poetry as a
\index{combination}``combination game'' with the speculation that one
day, the machine might be able to defy its own rules. This utopian hope
has been, throughout the history of arts and computing, frustrated again
and again (see chapter \ref{automatic_generation}). It is an ultimately
\index{magic}magical hope: That computing may one day transcend
formalisms, and thereby its own technical grounds and limitations, in a
moment of \index{ontology}ontological chance similar to that of a
\index{dice}die displaying the number 7. The same utopian hope drives
\index{Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)}artificial intelligence research,
\index{artificial life}artificial life research and \index{virtual
reality}``virtual reality'' computing. It also underlies the expectation
of more ``humane,'' ``fuzzy'' computer \index{interface}interfaces which
began with the invention of the graphical user
\index{interface}interface at \index{Xerox PARC}Xerox PARC and its
popularization with the \index{Apple Macintosh (operating system)}Apple
Macintosh.---The ``Humane Interface'' was the last, unfinished
software development project of \index{Apple Macintosh (operating
system)}Macintosh co-creator \index{Raskin, Jef}Jef Raskin before his
death in 2005.---The same hopes and expectations drove the mainstream of
digital ``media art'' and \index{media theory}media theory in the 1990s.
More critical artistic works, notably those of \index{Jodi}Jodi and
\index{I/O/D}I/O/D (see p. \pageref{IOD} and \pageref{Jodi}) next to
\index{Sollfrank, Cornelia}Sollfrank's and \index{Ward, Adrian}Ward's,
have questioned these utopias and contrasted them with the criticial
insight that

\begin{itemize}

\item computation remains, technically, a formalism;

\item contrary to the assumptions of ``\index{Artificial Intelligence
(A.I.)}artificial intelligence,'' \index{virtual reality}``virtual
reality'' and company, \index{semantics}semantics can be had, and
already exists, even without transcending formalisms or making them
complex.

\item formalisms, on the contrary, have a cultural
\index{semantics}semantics of their own, even on the most primitive and
basic level. With a cultural \index{semantics}semantics, there
inevitably is an \index{aesthetics}aesthetics, subjectivity and
politics in computing.

\end{itemize}


\section{Pataphysics and Oulipo}

\subsection{\noindent Alfred Jarry and the Collège de Pataphysique}

\label{Oulipo}The insight that even the most simple formalism has a
cultural impact resolves the old conflict between computational
\index{poetics}poetics as higher-order, \index{metaphysics}metaphysical
or scientific objectivity on the one side and subjectivist
\index{aesthetics}aesthetics on the other.  Since Jonathan \index{Swift,
Jonathan}Swift, empirical and aesthetic thinkers opposed computation
precisely on those premises. Romantic technology, such as
\index{Surrealism}Surrealist games, \index{Situationism}Situationist and
computational \index{psychogeography}psychogeography, is another model
of resolving the opposites. The contradiction between ``objective''
science and eccentric subjectivism however is most comprehensively
subverted, through a simple clashing or ``discordia concors'' of the two
poles, in ``mad'' or ``poetic science.'' \index{pataphysics}Pataphysics
was coined by its inventor, 19th century absurdist French dramatist and
novelist \index{Jarry, Alfred}Alfred Jarry as a ``science of imaginary
solutions.'' His 1898 novel \cit{Dr. Faustroll} defines
\index{pataphysics}pataphysics as the ``science that added to
\index{metaphysics}metaphysics, either in itself or outside itself, and
extend as far beyond \index{metaphysics}metaphysics as the latter
extends beyond physics.''\footnote{\citereplace{Alfred Jarry. \newblock
{\em {Exploits and Opinions} of {Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician}}.
\newblock Exact Change, Berkeley, 1996 (1911).}
\cite{jarry:faustroll-en}} With this humorous foundation,
\index{pataphysics}pataphysics is, factually, a poetic science.  Unlike
previous poetic sciences and epistemologies such those of
\index{Novalis}Novalis and \index{Mallarmé, Stéphane}Mallarmé, it does
not take refuge in older \index{metaphysics}metaphysical and
\index{theosophy}theosophical paradigms of \index{macrocosm}macrocosmic
and \index{microcosm}microcosmic analogy. It is a poetic science that
may, as \index{Jarry, Alfred}Jarry's novel shows, be founded on
empirical absurdism, but in general exists outside the categories of
rationalist physics and \index{theosophy}theosophical
\index{metaphysics}metaphysics.

Founded in 1949 by among others \index{Queneau, Raymond}Raymond Queneau,
\index{Leiris, Michel}Michel Leiris and \index{Vian, Boris}Boris Vian,
the \index{Collège de Pataphysique}\cit{Collège de Pataphysique}
continued a Parisian-French \index{avant-garde}avant-garde tradition at
whose center previously had been \index{Breton, Andr\'e}Andr\'e Breton's
\index{Surrealism}surrealist group.  \index{Queneau, Raymond}Queneau had
been a member of \index{Surrealism}surrealism for a short period, and
satirized it in his novel \cit{Odile}. His chief fields of interests
were mathematics and \index{linguistics}linguistics, and his day job was
to be the editor of encyclopedias in the Editions Pléiade.  Perhaps
under his influence, the \index{Collège de Pataphysique}Coll\'ege de
Pataphysique abandoned the \index{romanticism}romanticist,
communist-political and psychoanalytical pretext of
\index{Surrealism}surrealism. This legacy was continued instead by the
\index{Situationism}Situationist International which consequently
criticized pataphysics as a \index{religion}``new religion in the
making.''\footnote{This is the title of a text \index{Jorn, Asger}Asger
Jorn published in the 6th issue of the \index{Situationism}Situationist
International journal in 1961, \citereplace{Internationale
Situationniste, editor. \newblock {\em Internationale situationniste.
Édition augmentée}. \newblock Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris, 1997
(1958-1969).} \cite{internationale-situationniste}.}

\subsection{\noindent Raymond Queneau's 100,000 Billion Poems}

In 1960, the \index{Collège de Pataphysique}\cit{Collège de
Pataphysique} founded its own literary chapter, the \index{Oulipo}Oulipo
(\cit{Ouvroir de littérature potentielle}, ``Workshop of Potential
Literature").  Its core members were \index{Queneau, Raymond}Raymond
Queneau and mathematician \index{Le Lionnais, François}François Le
Lionnais.  Earlier in 1947, \index{Queneau, Raymond}Queneau had spelled
out his own obsessions with mathematics,
\index{encyclopedism}encyclopedism and street slang in the \cit{Exercices
de Style}, a narrative of one short everyday scene in 99 different
stylistic variations.\footnote{\citereplace{Raymond Queneau. \newblock
{\em Exercices de style}. \newblock Gallimard, Paris, 1947.}
\cite{queneau:exercises}} In 1961, he extended this concept into a
computational poem, the \cit{100,000 Billion Poems}, a combinatory
sonnet in ten variations.\footnote{\citereplace{Raymond Queneau.
\newblock {\em Cent mille milliards de po{\`e}mes}. \newblock Gallimard,
Paris, 1961.} \cite{queneau:poemes}} It was printed in a book whose
lines were individually sliced so that each line of poem could be turned
like a page and picked from ten alternatives. From ten alternatives for
the twelve sonnet lines, $10^{12}$ possible poem
\index{combination}combinations result.  \index{Queneau, Raymond}Queneau
subverts the rigorous classicism of the sonnet form and its Alexandrine
meter through slang colloquialisms and through stereotypes sarcastically
perpetuated in the poems. His preface credits the playful form of the
book to children's books and disclaims any influence from
\index{Surrealism}surrealist games. The
\index{encyclopedism}encyclopedism of his 100,000 billion poems is one
of a perpetuated proverbial, trivial wisdom. As a
\index{pataphysics}pataphysical work, they contradict modern science
through their combination of a \index{Lullism}Lullist synthetic
scholasticism with an empirism of proverbial clich\'es. \index{Queneau,
Raymond}Queneau remarks that

\begin{quotation}
Dans un ordre plus abstrait, [\ldots] l'Absolu, selon \index{Jarry,
Alfred}Jarry, ``les clich\'es sont l'armature.''  (In an abstract order,
[\ldots] clich\'es are, according to \index{Jarry, Alfred}Jarry, ``the
armature of the absolute.'')
\end{quotation}

\noindent On its first page, the book quotes \index{Turing, Alan}Alan
Turing, and an afterword written by mathematician and
\index{pataphysics}pataphysician \index{Le Lionnais, François}Le
Lionnais cites one of \index{Harsdörffer, Georg Philipp}Georg Philipp
Harsdörffer's proteic poems along with the \index{music}music of
\index{Cage, John}John Cage and \index{Stockhausen,
Karlheinz}Stockhausen. Written in an ironic tone, it contains a
straightforward literary history of poetic and artistic computations
between the lines.  Furthermore, this afterword bears the title ``À
propos de la litt\'erature exp\'erimentale'' (\cit{Concerning
Experimental Literature}).\footnote{\citereplace{Raymond Queneau.
\newblock {\em Cent mille milliards de po{\`e}mes}. \newblock Gallimard,
Paris, 1961.} \cite{queneau:poemes}} A forerunner of the
\index{Oulipo}Oulipo, created by \index{Queneau, Raymond}Queneau and
\index{Le Lionnais, François}Le Lionnais in 1959, was called
``S\'eminaire de Litt\'erature Exp\'erimentale'' (\cit{Seminar of
Experimental Literature}). With the renaming of the project into
\index{Oulipo}Oulipo, the concept of ``experimental
literature''---bearing \index{Le Lionnais, François}Le Lionnais'
formalist signature---was dropped, too.  

\subsection{\noindent Algorithmics as constraint and anti-formalism}

\index{Oulipo}Oulipo's combination of poetry and mathematics
was neither strictly rationalist, nor formalist.  In an essay
\cit{Potential Literature} that appeared in 1964, \index{Queneau,
Raymond}Queneau clarifies that

\begin{quotation}
We are not are not concerned with experimental or
\index{aleatory}aleatory literature (as it is practiced, for example, by
\index{Bense, Max}Max Bense's group in
Stuttgart).\footnote{\citereplace{Raymond Queneau. \newblock Potential
literature. \newblock In: Warren~F. Motte, editor. \newblock {\em
{Oulipo}. A {Primer of Potential Literature}}. \newblock University of
Nebraska Press, Lincoln, London, 1986., pages 51--64.}
\cite{queneau:potential}, p. 51}
\end{quotation}

\noindent Instead, \index{Queneau, Raymond}Queneau explains,
\index{Oulipo}Oulipo is concerned with playing unpretentious games. He
charactericizes its \index{poetics}poetics as ``naive,''
``craftsman-like'' and ``amusing.'' Along these lines, the poetic
formalisms developed by \index{Oulipo}Oulipo do not employ
\index{algorithm}algorithms as an expansion of language, but literally,
and with darker humor, as \index{constraint}``constraints.'' This sets
\index{Oulipo}Oulipo apart from the poetic \index{Lullism}Lullism of the
17th century, the \index{cut-ups}cut-up \index{poetics}poetics of
\index{Burroughs, William S.}Burroughs/\index{Gysin, Brion}Gysin and the
``artificial poetry'' of the Stuttgart School, all of which understood
poetic computations as a means of transcending the limitations of human
creation and subjectivity.  

\index{Oulipo}Oulipo conceived of formalist \index{poetics}poetics as a
game-like artificial restriction on writing.  As in a game where players
have to find clever solutions around the hurdles superimposed by the
rules, the algorithmic restrictions had to be compensated by
imagination. 
A whole set of formalisms was created, such as lipogrammatic
\index{constraint}constraints which prohibit the use of certain letters.
Poetic imagination was  challenged to find a creative circumvention
around the \index{constraint}constraint.  \index{Oulipo}Oulipo member
\index{Perec, Georges}Georges Perec, for example, wrote a bulky novel
\cit{La Disparation} (English title: \cit{A Void}) without a single
occurence of the letter ``e.''\footnote{\citereplace{Georges Perec.
\newblock {\em A Void}. \newblock HarperCollins, New York, 1994 {1969}.}
\cite{perec:void}} \index{Oulipo}Oulipo's alleged naivit\'e was 
its sophistication.  It neither bought into the fallacy of scientific
objectivity and machinic intelligence like \index{Bense, Max}Bense's
group, nor did it regress into \index{magic}magical and
\index{theosophy}theosophic \index{metaphysics}metaphysics like
\index{Burroughs, William S.}Burroughs and \index{Gysin, Brion}Gysin.

Whilst the culture and pompous rites of the \index{Collège de
Pataphysique}Collège de Pataphysique with its ``satraps'' and
``magnificences'' parodically reworked the association of science and
\index{metaphysics}metaphysics, the parody of \index{Swift,
Jonathan}Swift's academy of Lagado was practically made a live
performance in the \index{Oulipo}Oulipo. It operates on the grounds of
the \index{Swift, Jonathan}Swiftian assumption that poetic
\index{combinatorics}combinatorics are a fancy, but therefore have an
artistic-fantastic potential to be exploited and explored. At the same
time, the formalist \index{constraint}constraints create a program for
channeling artistic subjectivity, as opposed to---for example---the
boundless \index{romanticism}romantic subjectivism of the anti-formal,
but pointless \index{Lettrism}Lettrist sound poetry of \index{Isou,
Isidore}Isidore Isou and \index{Lemaître, Maurice}Maurice Lemaître from
which the \index{Situationism}Situationist group emerged, too.

As opposed to \index{Bense, Max}Bense's school with its rigorous
constructivist modernism, \index{Oulipo}Oulipo considered formalisms and
computations neither a poetic end in themselves, nor a
philosophical-ideological base. \index{Oulipo}Oulipo created a
computational \index{poetics}poetics as anti-computational
\index{poetics}poetics, using computational formalisms for the sole end
of circumventing them artistically. While \index{Bense, Max}Bense fought
against \index{semantics}semantics and imagination, \index{Oulipo}Oulipo
made it their game to let imagination fight against self-imposed
formalism and have it triumph in the end.

Still, \index{Oulipo}Oulipo's \index{poetics}poetics did not really
reflect computations as cultural, and formalisms as loaded with meaning.
Like others, it conceives of culture, imagination and meaning as
something foreign to and struggling against formal rules.  The slogan of
1990s digital art collective \index{I/O/D}I/O/D, ``software is mind
control, get some'' is anticipated in \index{Oulipo}Oulipo only in its
first half. Mind control is not embraced in \index{Oulipo}Oulipian
\index{poetics}poetics, but overcome in  a factually
\index{romanticism}romanticist move. It comes as little surprise that
\index{Oulipo}Oulipo largely gave up on
formal-\index{algorithm}algorithmic methods after spinning off a
computer programming division \index{ALAMO}\cit{ALAMO} (``\cit{Atelier
de Litt\'erature Assist\'e par la Math\'ematique et l'ordinateur},''
``Laboratory of Mathematically and Computer-Assisted Literature'') in
1973 and the deaths of \index{Queneau, Raymond}Raymond Queneau in 1977
and \index{Perec, Georges}Georges Perec in 1982. Nowadays,
\index{Oulipo}Oulipo focuses on improvisational, non-computational games
like the writing of poems in between two subway stops.

\index{Calvino, Italo}Italo Calvino's \index{speculative}speculation on
literature as computation also reflects upon \index{Oulipo}Oulipo in
which he had been a regular member.  \cit{Cybernetics and Ghosts}
documents his exposure both to the \index{structuralism}structuralism of
\index{Tel Quel}Tel Quel and \index{Oulipo}Oulipian
\index{poetics}poetics, synthesizing the former's theoretical, analytic
understanding of language as a \index{combinatorics}combinatorial system
with the latter's practical, synthetic
\index{poetics}poetics.\footnote{\citereplace{Italo Calvino. \newblock
{Cybernetics and Ghosts}. \newblock In {\em The {Uses of Literature}},
pages 3--27. Harcourt, San Diego, 1982 (1967).}
\cite{calvino:cybernetics}} In a later contribution to
\index{Oulipo}Oulipo proceedings, \index{Calvino, Italo}Calvino refers
to his combinatorial prose composition as
``anticombinatorics.''\footnote{\citereplace{Italo Calvino. \newblock
Prose and anticombinatorics. \newblock In: Warren~F. Motte, editor.
\newblock {\em {Oulipo}. A {Primer of Potential Literature}}. \newblock
University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, London, 1986., pages 143--152.}
\cite{calvino:anticombinatorics}} He  distances himself from his
earlier theory that the poet could be replaced by a machine, and adopts
the \index{Oulipo}Oulipo angle of the \index{algorithm}algorithm as a
self-imposed \index{constraint}constraint. With his own personal
background as a neorealist and fantastic novelist who heavily drew from
folk tales, his late prose works like \cit{Invisible Cities}, \cit{The
Castle of Crossed Destinies} and ``If on a Winter's Night a Traveller''
combine rigorous \index{Oulipo}Oulipian composition---comparable to the
novels of \index{Perec, Georges}Georges Perec---with a fantastic
imagination of space rendering them (and in particular the novel
\cit{Invisible Cities}) another para-manifestation of
\index{psychogeography}psychogeographical computing.

\section{Abraham M. Moles' computational aesthetics}

\noindent \label{Moles}Just as \index{Oulipo}Oulipo's anti-formalist
thrust was less clear when the group started off as a ``seminar of
experimental literature,'' its literary work was initially perceived as
computational experimental literature. In 1962, physicist and
philosopher \index{Moles, Abraham M.}Abraham M. Moles wrote a \cit{first
manifesto of \index{permutation}permutational art} (\cit{erstes manifest
der permutationellen
kunst})\footnote{\citereplace{Abraham~A. Moles. \newblock erstes
{manifest der permutationellen kunst}. \newblock Stuttgart, 1963.}
\cite{moles:manifest}} which was published by \index{Bense, Max}Max
Bense in Stuttgart. Later, in 1971, he expanded it into a book \cit{Art
et Ordinateur} (\cit{Art and
Computer}).\footnote{\citereplace{Abraham~A. Moles. \newblock {\em Art
et Ordinateur}. \newblock Casterman, Paris, 1981 (1971).}
\cite{moles:ordinateur}}  The ``manifesto'' combines structuralist and
\index{cybernetics}cybernetic theory with examples of concrete poetry,
\index{Oulipo}Oulipo works and pre-modern \index{Lullism}Lullist and
proteic literature.  In \index{Moles, Abraham M.}Moles' definition,
\index{permutation}permutational art is---unlike the
\index{Oulipo}Oulipian concepts of naive artisanships and self-imposed
\index{constraint}constraints---``experimental to the highest degree,''
striving to ``narrow down and exhaust the field of possibilities
accessible through a set of rules.'' Along with \index{Bense, Max}Bense
and his \index{information aesthetics}information aesthetics, he even
conceives of perception as something that can be formally described
through technical information theory and functions as a reverse
\index{combinatorics} combinatory process.

In a seeming rehash of 17th century encyclopedic \index{Lullism}Lullism,
\index{Moles, Abraham M.}Moles proposes to refound the arts on the basis
of \index{permutation}permutational combinatorics. The disciplines his
manifesto covers in brief individual sections are mathematics,
\index{music}music, literature and poetry, \index{mysticism}mysticism,
erotica and painting.  These disciplines are, as in \index{Leibniz,
Gottfried Wilhelm}Leibniz' and \index{Novalis}Novalis' mathesis,
reunited on the grounds of mathematical combinatorics. In tune with
\index{Bense, Max}Bense, \index{Moles, Abraham M.}Moles writes both a
\index{poetics}poetics and an \index{aesthetics}aesthetics in which a
near-infinity of generative output likewise corresponds to a
computational decoding of aesthetic phenomena.  It is a totalism that
includes both synthetic creation and analytical perception.  In the
attempt to map all arts and thinking onto \index{algorithm}algorithmic
processes, \index{Moles, Abraham M.}Moles' theory resembles
\index{Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)}artificial intelligence research
and its project to formally describe \index{semantics}semantics as a
higher complexity \index{syntax}syntax. \index{Moles, Abraham M.}Moles'
program appears not as rigorously totalist, however, because of its
sketchy and highly \index{speculative}speculative elaboration in this
brief manifesto. In tune with \index{Bense, Max}Bense's philosophy and
its grounding of \index{aesthetics}aesthetics on technical information
theory, it conceives of \index{permutation}``permutational art'' as a
``fundamentally anti-\index{semantics}semantic activity.'' The manifesto
is a historical document of \index{cybernetics}cybernetics and its
attempt at a universal science of technology that investigates
human-machine interaction.  \index{cybernetics}Cybernetics largely faded
out and was often considered obsolete in the 1970s until many of its
ideas---most importantly the description of cultural processes in terms
of technical processes---resurfaced in the 1990s, in the guise of
technical \index{media theory}media theory.

\section{Source code poetry}

\noindent One year after \index{Moles, Abraham M.}Moles' manifesto, the
9th issue of the \index{Situationism}Situationist International journal
ran a polemic against \index{Moles, Abraham M.}Abraham Moles.
\index{Debord, Guy}Guy Debord calls him upon to ``m\'edite sur la valeur
anti-combinatoire du mot,'' ``ponder the anti-combinatory value of a
word.''\footnote{\citereplace{Internationale Situationniste, editor.
\newblock {\em Internationale situationniste. Édition augmentée}.
\newblock Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris, 1997 (1958-1969).}
\cite{internationale-situationniste}, p. 411} The phrase is reminiscent
of \index{Oulipo}Oulipo \index{poetics}poetics and \index{Calvino,
Italo}Calvino's ``anti-combinatorics.'' Such overlaps actually existed.
\index{Arnaud, Noël}Noël Arnaud, member of the \index{Collège de
Pataphysique}Collège de Pataphysique since 1952 and co-founder of the
\index{Oulipo}Oulipo, was involved also in the
pre-\index{Situationism}situationist \index{Cobra (group)}\cit{Cobra}
painters group and later, after the schism between Northern European
\index{Situationism}Situationists and \index{Debord, Guy}Debord's
circle, became co-editor with \index{de Jong, Jacqueline}Jacqueline de
Jong of the \cit{\index{Situationism}Situationist Times}. In 1968,
\index{Arnaud, Noël}Arnaud published a book \index{Algol (programming
language)}\cit{Algol}. The poems it contains are based on the vocabulary
of the \index{Algol (programming language)}Algol programming language
translated into French.  The idea of Algol poetry came from \index{Le
Lionnais, François}Le Lionnais' first \index{Oulipo}Oulipo manifesto
from 1962. Still in the spirit of ``experimental literature,'' it
proposed ``forays [\ldots] notably into the area of special vocabulary
(crows, foxes, dolphins; \index{Algol (programming language)}Algol
computer language, etc.).''\footnote{\citereplace{François Le~Lionnais.
\newblock Lipo: First manifesto. \newblock In: Warren~F. Motte, editor.
\newblock {\em {Oulipo}. A {Primer of Potential Literature}}. \newblock
University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, London, 1986., pages 26--28.}
\cite{lionnais:lipo-en}, p. 27} 

For the first time, and unlike in classical computer-generated poetry
like that of \index{Lutz, Theo}Theo Lutz and \index{Gysin, Brion}Brion
Gysin, the programming language source code was acknowledged as having a
poetic quality of its own. \index{Arnaud, Noël}Arnaud's \index{Algol
(programming language)}Algol source code no longer generated poetry, but
was the poem itself. Program code  ceased to be seen merely as a
``transparent'' technical tool detached from the perceived art work, but
as an aesthetic object itself. For the first time, artistic programming
was not a means to another end.  Computer programming languages appealed
to the \index{Oulipo}Oulipo as yet another formal
\index{constraint}constraint.  In comparison to standard human
languages, all programming languages are drastically limited in their
vocabulary and \index{syntax}syntax, \index{Algol (programming
language)}Algol even more than others.  A ``poor'' language that limited
a writer's freedom, \index{Algol (programming language)}Algol was yet
another playground for \index{Oulipo}Oulipo poets to overcome artificial
constraints through imagination and cleverness.

This \index{poetics}poetics highly resembles a \index{hacker}``hacker''
approach.  Hacker culture, which---according to its mainstream
historifications and legends---originated at \index{MIT
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)}MIT in practically the same
years as the \index{Oulipo}Oulipo,\footnote{\citereplace{Steven Levy.
\newblock {\em Hackers}. \newblock Project Gutenberg, Champaign, IL,
1986 (1984).} \cite{levy:hackers}} had the very similar goal of
appropriating technology in creative ways which could, if necessary,
include clever circumvention of superimposed barriers and limitations.
\label{Perl Poetry}So it is perhaps not surprising that
\index{hacker}hacker culture re-invented the genre of programming
language poetry, but without knowing of its \index{Oulipo}Oulipo
precursors.  In an internet newsgroup posting of 1991, \index{Wall,
Larry}Larry Wall, creator of the \index{Perl (programming language)}Perl
programming language (itself a ``hack'' in its \index{syntax}syntactical
mixture of older \index{Unix (operating system)}Unix scripting
languages), left the message

\begin{quotation}
\begin{verbatim}
Print STDOUT q
Just another Perl hacker
Unless $pring
\end{verbatim}
\end{quotation}

\noindent \ldots which is proper executable \index{Perl (programming
language)}Perl code. After his example, a number of \index{Perl
(programming language)}Perl programmers wrote source code poems in Perl.
They were collected, still in the same year, in \index{Hopkins,
Sharon}Sharon Hopkins' paper \cit{Camels and Needles: Computer Poetry
Meets the \index{Perl (programming language)}Perl Programming
Language}.\footnote{\citereplace{Sharon Hopkins. \newblock {Camels and
Needles} : {Computer Poetry} meets the {Perl Programming Language},
1991. \newblock \url{www.wall.org/~sharon/plpaper.ps}.}
\cite{hopkins:needles}} All the poems included in the volume are
``artisanship'' as \index{Oulipo}Oulipo had advocated it. However, they
are naive, non-ironic artisanship, being quite conventional and
stereotypical poems about love or nature, only in the form of
\index{Perl (programming language)}Perl source code or, the most cases,
pseudo-code that looks like \index{Perl (programming language)}Perl but
can't be machine-executed. It is poetry as a popular social game similar
to limericks or Haikus.

\section{Jodi}

\noindent \label{Jodi}Source code poetry was reinvented for a third time
in the mid-1990s \index{net.art}net.art of \index{Jodi}Jodi. Jodi stands
for \index{Heemskerk, Joan}Joan Heemskerk and \index{Paesmans, Dirk}Dirk
Paesmans, a Dutch-Belgian artist couple.  They were part of a network of
artists who radically redefined digital art from so-called
\index{interactive art}``interactive'' high-tech graphical simulations
to ironic low-tech works that played with bugs, incompatibilities and
disruptions in software. Contrary to a slick, visually immersive digital
art which treated the computer as a black box, \index{Jodi}Jodi
aestheticize computers as self-immersed, often absurd generators of
contingent data streams. The work \cit{OSS}, for example, makes small
browser windows which evade manual control pop up and fly about, forcing
the user to take down the computer in order to regain control.  The
\cit{OSS} desktop expands the misbehaving, uncontrollable user interface
onto the entire \index{Microsoft Windows (operating system)} Windows
desktop. Yet \index{Jodi}Jodi's art does not tell an imaginary truth
underneath the surfaces of software user \index{interface}interfaces.
Instead, it exposes the \index{Surrealism}surrealism of formalisms. A
newer \index{Jodi}Jodi work for example simply uses a commercial car
driving computer game, and lets the car make infinite, lawnmower-like
circles, with high speed and squeaking tires, in the front garden of an
American suburban family home. On \url{http://www.jodi.org} visitors are
confronted with code in the form of cryptic error messages, blinking
machine symbols and contigent tabular listings of numbers. It is code
which often simply refers to other code---an error message for example
linking to another error message linking to yet another error message.
But moreover it is code which is not what it seems to be. The web site
features fake software which in reality is just animated graphics and
blinking browser text.  `Surgery/havoc''
\url{http://wwwwwwwww.jodi.org/100cc/havoc/} looks like a jump'n'run
computer game with several zoom functions, but is actually a clever
arrangement of animated graphics files. Employing the same means,
\cit{BinHeX} \url{http://wwwwwwwww.jodi.org/100cc/hqx/i900.html}
simulates system crashes and computer \index{virus}virus infection.

Next to their web site, \index{Jodi}Jodi began to use net cultural
mailing lists as their medium, bombarding them likewise with cryptic,
repetitive code messages such as the following:

\begin{scriptsize}
\begin{verbatim}
Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2001 23:35:19 +0100
From: 7061 <404@jodi.org>
Subject: [P1] : [P1] Auto-Su(MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 200
              1 21:48:24(MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 200
          1 21:48:24mitted (MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 200
             1 21:48:24: auto-g(MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6
 200              1 21:48:24enerated (failure)  Mime-(MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001
 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 200              1 21:48:24sion:   1.0 Subject:
 Returned   Resent-From: rspi  Sta >> iBo f  Ap k. >> FAQ istFAQ.shtml> >>
 >> To u gu(MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 200              1
 21:48:24m> >> To sw   ibook- >> dige  shguy.com> >> Nee(MMi6 2001 (MMi6
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 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 200              1 21:48:24(MMi6 2001
 (MMi6 2001 >> ---------- >> Sm o >> ---------- >> Sm o >> ---------- >>
 Sm o >> ---------- >> Sm o >> ---------- >> Sm o >> ---------- >> Sm o >>
 ---------- >> Sm o >> ---------- >> Sm o >> ---------- >> Sm o >>
 ---------- >> Sm o >> ---------- >> Sm o >> ---------- >> Sm o >>
 ---------- >> Sm o >> ---------- >> Sm o 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 200
      1 21:48:24k- >> requ com> >> ---------- >> Sm o To Win A  | >>  ---
 Cano iBook!   | >> >> iBookPl ore. >> >>    Road es, $20  >>  Traveler >>
   Cool tools.com> 01 21:48:24 +0100 (M Mi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (M Mi6
 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (M Mi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (M Mi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100
 (M Mi6 2001 2(MMi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 200              1 21:48:24
 +0100 (MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 200              1
 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 200
  1 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 200
     1 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 200
        1 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 200
           1 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 200
              1 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6
 200              1 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100
 (MMi6 200              1 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24
 +0100 (MMi6 200              1 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001
 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 200              1 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 2001 (MMi6
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 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 200              1 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6
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 (MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 200              1 21:48:24
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  1 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 200
     1 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 200
        1 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 200
           1 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 2001 (Mon the discussions between
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            1 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6
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 (MMi6 200              1 21:48:24 +0100 (MMi6 2001 (MMi6 2001 21:48:24

[...]
\end{verbatim}
\end{scriptsize}

\noindent The above message appeared not in the \index{E-Mail}E-Mail
message body, but entirely in the subject line, trying to provoke
errors, crashes and confusion in the distribution and display of the
message. With such interventions, \index{Jodi}Jodi tried to refashion
net cultural discussion forums from theoretical discussion forums about
art and culture into practical artistic playgrounds. At the same time,
their \index{E-Mail}E-Mail art once more reduced the technical
complexity of digital art, in sharp contrast to high tech museum
installations. With their conflation of English everyday language, code
fragments from programming languages, character encodings, markup
languages and network protocol code, these messages furthermore created
uncertainty and paranoia among naive readers who might think that the
signs were malicious and contained viral code. Consequently, the
\index{Jodi}Jodi website was temporarily shut down because its network
provider believed that \cit{OSS} was a computer \index{virus}virus.
This was the practical proof that \index{Jodi}Jodi's artistic
simulations of code in the medium of code were efficacious. (More on
\index{Jodi} on p. \pageref{Jodi2}.)

As imagined viruses, the codes raised doubt about their origins. All the
more when a growing number of pseudonymous entities began sending out
similar messages to mailing lists. \index{media theory}Media
theoretician \index{Wark, McKenzie}McKenzie Wark characterized those
message as follows:

\begin{quotation}
This might be mangled machine English, or perhaps an English written
by a machine programmed by someone who speaks English as a second
language, or someone producing a simulation of some
such.\footnote{\citereplace{McKenzie Wark. \newblock Essay: Codework.
\newblock {\em American Book Review}, 22(6):1--5, September 2001.}
\cite{wark:codework}}
\end{quotation}

\noindent It also remained unclear to which degrees computation had been
at work in composing the messages. Just like it was doubtful whether
their symbols were plain English or machine code, it was doubtful
whether their originators were humans, computer programs, computer
programs filtering and modifying human language, or the opposite, humans
filtering the output of computer programs. \index{Wark,
McKenzie}McKenzie Wark and artist \index{Sondheim, Alan}Alan Sondheim
later coined the term \index{codeworks}``codeworks'' for this kind of
\index{net.art}net.art.\footnote{\citereplace{Alan Sondheim. \newblock
Introduction: Codework. \newblock {\em American Book Review},
22(6):1--4, September 2001.} \cite{sondheim:codework}} With its
uncertain origins and bizarre human-machine involvement, experimentation
with artistic identity and subjectivity remained its core
characteristic.

\section{1337 speech}

\noindent \index{codeworks}Codeworks reflect the uncanny underbelly of
network communication in an age where the Internet is accessed largely
by graphical browser and client programs, but with the constant
awareness that non-graphical codes are running underneath the system. In
mainstream computing, these codes revealed themselves only in error
messages or as ``blue screens of death'' when the operating system
crashes.  Computer \index{hacker}hackers had written source code poems
and typograms with \index{ASCII art}ASCII characters out of the
\index{aesthetics}aesthetic limitation of non-graphical terminal and
command line computing between the 1960s and early 1990s. For the
\index{net.art}net.artists who worked in the age of the web browser,
these non-graphical \index{constraint}constraints were voluntary and
self-imposed, very much like \index{Oulipo}Oulipo's
\index{constraint}constraints.  Since \index{ASCII art}ASCII typograms
were \index{hacker}hacker circumventions of technical limitations, they
had an aura of subversion, and were hybridized with slang.  

\label{leet}A particular slang developed in the subculture of
``crackers,'' \index{hacker}hackers who break into network computers or
crack the copy-protecting schemes of computer games. It replaces letters
with numbers, for example ``e'' with ``3'' and ``t'' with ``7'' (because
of their typographic similarity), so that a \index{leet speech}``1337
[leet] hax0r'' becomes code speech for ``elite \index{hacker}hacker.''
These substitutions originated in about the same time as similar codes
in hip hop culture where, for example, ``2pac'' stood for rapper
\index{Shakur, Tupac}Tupac Shakur. Writing in \index{leet speech}1337
slang, among others on websites defaced by crackers, became digital
graffiti. Since the letter substitutions can be automated, there also
exists simple text filter software---like the \index{Unix (operating
system)}Unix filter ``b1ff''---which transforms standard English writing
into \cit{733t speech}:

\begin{quotation}
SINCE THE LETTUR SUBSTITUSHUNZ CAN BE AU2M8D. THURE ALSO
EXISTZ SIMPLE TEXT F1LTUR SOFTWARE---LIKE THE 
THE MANEFRA1M O/Z F1LTUR B1FF---WH1CH TRANS4MZ STANDARD ENGLISH WR1T1NG
IN2 733T SPEECH.
\end{quotation}

\noindent Clearly, the cracker slang and graffiti were a source of
inspiration for net artists like \index{Jodi}Jodi.  When net cultural
mailing lists started to filter out their disruptive
\index{codework}codework around 1997, \index{Jodi}Jodi co-founded a
mailing list \cit{7-11} which had no editorial restraints of artistic
\index{E-Mail}E-Mail experimentation, and even let through all
commercial spam.  On this and other lists, artists like \index{mez}mez
(Mary Anne Breeze) and \index{Sondheim, Alan}Alan Sondheim transformed
the former disruption aesthetic into new hybrid computer-English poetic
vocabularies and languages. The result were works like the
``Exe.cut[up]able statements'' described in the very beginning of this
paper.

\section{Codework}

\noindent In the early 1970s, \index{Sondheim, Alan}Alan Sondheim began to work with
programming code as material in the larger context of conceptual art. He
experimented with \index{Unix (operating system)}Unix command line code
in experimental writing as early as in the 1980s, and collaborated with
younger \index{net.art}net.artists since the 1990s.  One of his
\index{codeworks}codeworks reads as follows:


\begin{scriptsize}
\begin{verbatim}
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: _arc.hive_@lm.va.com.au
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 17:17:20 -0500 (EST)


sleeping and running zombies through bodies


CPU states:  4.7% user, 5.8% system, 0.0% nice, 89.4% idle:36 processes:
35 sleeping, 1 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped:1m 4:20pm up 8 min, 1 user,
load average: 0.54, 0.26, 0.11: :Mem:  38664K av, 35084K used, 3580K free,
14956K shrd, 15080K buff Write vaginas through my CPU states:  4.7% user,
5.8% system, 0.0% nice, 89.4% idle! CPU states:  4.7% user, 5.8% system,
0.0% nice, 89.4% idle:36 processes: 35 sleeping, 1 running, 0 zombie, 0
stopped:1m 4:20pm up 8 min, 1 user, load average: 0.54, 0.26, 0.11: :Mem:
38664K av, 35084K used, 3580K free, 14956K shrd, 15080K buff Write vaginas
through my CPU states:  4.7% user, 5.8% system, 0.0% nice, 89.4% idle!
load average: 0.54, 0.26, 0.11: :Mem:  38664K av, 35084K used, 3580K
free,:35 sleeping, 1 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped:1m 4:20pm up 8 min, 1
user,:CPU states:  4.7% user, 5.8% system, 0.0% nice, 89.4% idle:36
processes::Write vaginas through my CPU states:  4.7% user, 5.8% system,
0.0% nice,:89.4% idle! CPU states:  4.7% user, 5.8% system, 0.0% nice,
89.4% idle:36 processes: is sufficiently well-inscribed. - I consider the
following again, your CPU states:  4.7% user, 5.8% system, 0.0% nice,
89.4% idle:36 processes: ... enunciation inscribes me upon your token! CPU
states:  4.7% user, 5.8% system, 0.0% nice, 89.4% idle:36 processes:, load
average: 0.54, 0.26, 0.11: :Mem:  38664K av, 35084K used, 3580K free,
remembers my chisel My load average: 0.54, 0.26, 0.11: :Mem:  38664K av,
35084K used, 3580K is your language... load average: 0.54, 0.26, 0.11:
:Mem:  38664K av, 35084K used, 3580K free, calls forth births inscription,
hungered, making things. upon the time, load average: 0.54, 0.26, 0.11:
:Mem:  38664K av, 35084K used, 3580K free, is here, 00], 35 sleeping, 1
running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped:1m 4:20pm up 8 min, 1 user,? ... inscription
is stopped:1m 4:20pm up 8 min, 1 user, load average: 0.54, 0.26, 0.11:
:Mem:  on black stone, it's inscription? Are you satisfied with your load
average: 0.54, 0.26, 0.11: :Mem:  38664K av, 35084K used, 3580K free,?
load average: 0.54, 0.26, 0.11: :Mem:  38664K av, 35084K used, 3580K free,
1086 is the perfect proclamation. CPU states:  4.7% user, 5.8% system,
0.0% nice, 89.4% idle:36 processes: 35 sleeping, 1 running, 0 zombie, 0
stopped:1m 4:20pm up 8 min, 1 user, load average: 0.54, 0.26, 0.11: :Mem:
38664K av, 35084K used, 3580K free, 14956K shrd, 15080K buff Write vaginas
through my CPU states:  4.7% user, 5.8% system, 0.0% nice, 89.4% idle!
load average: 0.54, 0.26, 0.11: :Mem:  38664K av, 35084K used, 3580K
free,:35 sleeping, 1 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped:1m 4:20pm up 8 min, 1
user,:CPU states:  4.7% user, 5.8% system, 0.0% nice, 89.4% idle:36
processes::Write vaginas through my CPU states:  4.7% user, 5.8% system,
0.0% nice,:89.4% idle! load average: 0.54, 0.26, 0.11: :Mem:  38664K av,
35084K used, 3580K free,:35 sleeping, 1 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped:1m
4:20pm up 8 min, 1 user,:CPU states:  4.7% user, 5.8% system, 0.0% nice,
89.4% idle:36 processes::free,:35 sleeping, 1 running, 0 zombie, 0
stopped:1m 4:20pm up 8 min, 1:38664K av, 35084K used, 3580K free, 14956K
shrd, 15080K buff Write vaginas Your enunciation names my stopped:1m
4:20pm up 8 min, 1 user, load average: 0.54, 0.26, 0.11: :Mem:  !

\end{verbatim}
\end{scriptsize}

\noindent The work is based on the output of the \index{Unix (operating
system)}Unix system command ``top'' which displays a 
list of running processes, memory and central processor load. ``Zombie''
is a technical \index{Unix (operating system)}Unix term for a program
process that can no longer be terminated with the ``kill'' command.
\index{Sondheim, Alan}Sondheim's text takes these descriptors---or
\index{semantics}``semantics,'' as computer science would call
it---literally.  He reads the output of the program as a physical
inscription of bodies, as performance art and a subjective utterance in
the medium of computer software. It gets reformatted and partially
rewritten, in an operation that blurs the boundaries of machine and
human, \index{syntax}syntax and \index{semantics}semantics, with words
and phrases mapping bodies and sexuality. Subject and object,
\index{syntax}syntax and \index{semantics}semantics, formalism and
culture become inseparably entangled, crisscrossing and writing over
each other.

This is not simply a poetic metaphorization because the technical
apparatus of writing becomes a part of the text. There is a feedback of
textual input, output and processing inside the text and within the
medium of code. This conflation of source code, data and processing
could be called \index{recursion}recursive, since
\index{recursion}recursion means that a process processes itself.  Yet
it is not a formal-mathematically ``clean'' \index{recursion}recursion.
The text is not a result of a pure computation, but involves human
editing, rendering the \index{recursion}recursion a simulation,
rhetorical, reflexive. 

The \index{codeworks}``codeworks'' by \index{Jodi}Jodi, \index{mez}mez,
\index{Sondheim, Alan}Alan Sondheim and other artists manifest a most
radical understanding of formalisms as meaningful. That their
\index{codeworks}codeworks rarely execute properly, being imaginary code
and conflations of machine code with human conversational language,
reflects this understanding.  The \index{codeworks}codeworks appropriate
languages that were designed to be asemantic---programming languages,
protocol code, shell commands---to unveil and elaborate their
metaphorical and physical inscriptions, implications, and engendered
meanings lurking between the lines. In other words, they do not just
reflect words made flesh, but words and codes being flesh.


\chapter{Automatisms and Their Constraints}

\label{automatic_generation}

\section{Artificial Intelligence}

\noindent From \index{magic}magic to \index{codeworks}codeworks, three cultural
modes of computation have evolved:

\begin{enumerate}

\item Instruction code as synthesis.

A small amount of code generates, from a fixed set of data inscribed
into that code, a large body of output. The principle applies to all
\index{combinatorics}combinatorics from \index{Lullism}Llull to
generative art. In this kind of computation, the code itself is exempt
from the \index{algorithm}algorithmic process. It triggers the process,
but is not being processed itself.  The result of the synthetic process
is often imagined to be infinite, total and exhaustive. 

\item Instruction code as analysis.

Either

	\begin{enumerate}

	\item In a reciprocal operation to synthetic
\index{combinatorics}combinatorics, a large body of information is being
reduced to a smaller amount of source code. Prominent examples are the
\index{Kabbalah}kabbalistic condensation of the \index{Torah}Torah to
the letters JHWE and the reduction of language to a
\index{combinatorics}combinatorial set or transformational grammar in
structuralist and \index{Chomsky, Noam}Chomskyan
\index{linguistics}linguistics.

	\item Alternatively, the code does not synthesize a fixed set of
data into a whole, but takes apart arbitrary input. This the principle
of \index{Tzara, Tristan}Tzara's \index{Dada}Dadaist poem,
\index{cut-ups}cut-ups and \index{Markov chains}Markov chains. The
resulting work is not conceived as exhaustive or total, but contingent
and collage-like. The instruction code however exists outside that
contigency.  It has to remain intact, and not take itself apart, in
order to be operational. The strict separation of static instructions
and contingent data contradicts the assumption of a ``chance
operation.'' This is the paradox of all \index{aleatory}aleatory art,
including \index{concrete poetry}concrete poetry and the
\index{music}music of \index{Cage, John}John Cage.

	\end{enumerate}

\item Self-processing instruction code

	\begin{enumerate}

	\item as formal \index{recursion}recursion; the instruction goes
into strange loops by processing itself. It modulates or modifies itself
in that process.  This is a standard procedure in programming languages
such as \index{Lisp (programming language)}Lisp. The classical Greek
paradox of the lying Cretan (``all Cretans are liars. I am a Cretan'')
is the oldest known example of a logical \index{recursion}recursion in
language.

	\item as informal conflation.

Unlike formal \index{recursion}recursions, \index{codeworks}codework
processes instruction codes \index{semantics}semanticly since it
understands formalisms as meaningful, loaded with metaphors, physical
and subjective inscriptions. The historical precondition of this
\index{poetics}poetics is an understanding, and availability, of
computational instruction codes as material. Code is no longer
synthesized and created from sratch in clean-room laboratories, but
abundantly flows through computers and networks. It is understood as
unclean, messy, strangely meaningful, a trigger not only of mathematical
processes, but imagination and phantasms.

These imaginations and phantasms exist in the synthetic and analytical
\index{poetics}poetics of computational instruction code as well, but it
is either---as in \index{Lullism}Lullism for example---not reflected
upon as imaginative, or is so reflected outside the medium of
computational code itself, such as in the descriptive realist prose of
\index{Swift, Jonathan}Swift and \index{Borges, Jorge Luis}Borges.

	\end{enumerate}

\end{enumerate}

\noindent Except for synthetic \index{combinatorics}combinatorics, the
question implicit in the above approaches is no longer whether
\index{algorithm}algorithms can replace human creativity and cognition.
Instead, they reflect computation as a cultural phenomenon of its own.
The connection between computations and human subjectivity,
imagination, politics and economy is therefore intricate, contradictory
and rich with metaphors.  That computation
could simply replace human creation by mapping human cognition
one-to-one onto \index{algorithm}algorithms appears as naive, or only an
idea about the cultural impact of computation. Nevertheless, the idea
did not die out with encyclopedic \index{Lullism}Lullism and its
\index{Swift, Jonathan}Swiftian satire, but was reinvented in the 20th
century as \index{Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)}artificial
intelligence.  In \index{linguistics}linguistic-cognitive terms, the
project of \index{Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)}A.I. research is to
prove that such a thing as \index{semantics}``semantics'' does not exist
and is just a higher-order \index{syntax}syntax. So far,
\index{Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)}A.I.  has failed to deliver the
practical proof.  Instead, outside of its stated goal it has produced
interesting technological and cultural by-products for fifty years, such
as the \index{Lisp (programming language)} programming language Lisp, or
the \index{GNU}GNU project that was initiated in the \index{MIT
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)} MIT \index{Artificial
Intelligence (A.I.)}artificial intelligence lab.

\section{Athanasius Kircher's box}

\noindent The idea of automating language, art and cognitive reasoning
existed already in 17th century \index{Lullism}Lullism. Its
computational device, both in the form of \index{algorithm}algorithms
and \index{hardware}hardware, were orders of magnitude more
primitive. In 1674, three years after his
\index{permutation}permutational sonnet, \index{Kuhlmann,
Quirinus}Quirinus Kuhlmann published his correspondence with
\index{Kircher, Athanasius}Athanasius Kircher in a book \cit{epistolae
duae}.\footnote{\citereplace{Quirinus Kuhlmann. \newblock {\em Epistolae
duae}. \newblock Lotho de Haes, Amsterdam, 1674.}
\cite{kuhlmann:epistolae}} It documents an early debate about
automatically generated art and its cognitive limitations. In his
letters, \index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmann rejects a purely technical
application of \index{Llull, Ramon}Llull's
\index{combinatorics}combinatorics, claiming that ``knowing Lullus does
not mean to have knowledge in the \cit{alphabetum} of his \cit{Ars} in
order to build syllogisms with it, but to grasp the true power from the
universal book of nature that is hidden underneath it, and apply it to
everything.'' 

\noindent
\begin{figure}[ht]
{\center\resizebox*{0.8\columnwidth}{!}
{\includegraphics{pics/kircher-music.jpg}}}
\caption[Athanasius Kircher, \cit{Musurgia universalis}, 1650, design of
an algorithmic music composition machine]
{\label{kircher-music}Athanasius Kircher's design of a music composition
machine}
\end{figure}

\index{Kircher, Athanasius}Kircher rejects this viewpoint on theological
grounds, warning \index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmann in drastic words
that he might cross the line of heresy. His own application of
\index{Lullism}Lullism, \index{Kircher, Athanasius}Kircher writes,
forays more into technical realms, including a \index{music}music
generation machine; a device described also in his book \cit{Musurgia
Universalis} and of which a graphical reproduction exists.
\label{Mersenne}Along with the \index{music}musicology of early 17th
century \index{Lullism}Lullist \index{Mersenne, Marin}Marin Mersenne,
\index{Kircher, Athanasius}Kircher's \cit{Musurgia} is often cited as a
precursor of contemporary computer-generated \index{music}music.

\index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmann's insistence on a
\index{theosophy}theosophical ``book of nature'' underneath
\index{Lullism}Lullist computation might seem like traditional
metaphysical thinking, but his critique of automatically generated arts
is hands-on: He rejects the idea of a machine, or ``box''
(``\cit{cista}'') as \index{Kircher, Athanasius}Kircher calls it, that
generates poetry, arguing that such a machine could indeed be built, but
it would not produce good artistic results.  One could teach,
\index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmann writes, every little boy verse
composition through simple formal rules and tables of elements
(``\cit{paucis tabellis}''). The result however would be versifications,
not poetry (``\cit{sed versûs, non poëma}'').
\label{genius}Unlike artists before and after him, \index{Kuhlmann,
Quirinus}Kuhlmann does not consider \index{algorithm}algorithmic
composition and artistic subjectivity contradictory.  He reconciled what
he saw as the \index{macrocosm}macrocosmic order in computation and his
own \index{microcosm}microcosmic artistic subjectivity by eventually
fashioning himself into a prophet and messiah. This way, he took the
concept of the artistic \index{genius}genius to its ultimate extreme
even before it was nominally invented in the 18th century.  The
\index{rhetoric}rhetorical ``ingenium'' as it had been laid out in 17th
century \index{rhetoric}rhetoric from \index{Sarbiewski,
Kazimierz}Sarbiewski to \index{Morhof, Daniel Georg}Morhof was a pretext
of this development.  With its odd condition of being at once (a)
technical and (b) human subjective wit, it later branched into
\index{genius}``genius'' and ``engineer'' and paved the way for all
controversies over art and the extent to which it could be formalized
and automated. It is an issue which applies not only to art, but to any
meaningful, \index{semantics}semantic phenomenon, including language and
culture.  The debate between \index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmann and
\index{Kircher, Athanasius}Kircher therefore was a first controversy
over \index{Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)}artificial intelligence, and
the potentials and limitations of machine cognition.

\section{John Searle's Chinese Room}

\noindent \label{AI}Three hundred years later, in 1980, \index{Kircher,
Athanasius} Kircher's and \index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmann's debate
was partially rehashed in a dispute between language philosopher
\index{Searle, John R.}John R.  Searle and various artificial
intelligence researchers. In his paper \cit{Mind, brains, and programs},
\index{Searle, John R.}Searle sketches a thought experiment of
artificial language cognition.\footnote{\citereplace{John~R. Searle.
\newblock Minds, brains, and programs. \newblock {\em The {Behavioral
and Brain Sciences}}, 3:417--456, 1980.} \cite{searle:programs}} A
person who does not understand Chinese is enabled to communicate in
Chinese solely by formal instruction. The person sits in a closed room
and is given questions written in Chinese characters from outside
(figure \ref{chinese-room}). He transforms the Chinese characters into
other Chinese characters solely through the completely formal,
step-by-step guidance of an English rule book. Thanks to the precise
transformation rules, the results are flawless Chinese replies to the
Chinese questions. \index{Searle, John R.}Searle argues that the person,
although people outside would think it spoke Chinese perfectly, would
not understand the language at all. 

\noindent
\begin{figure}[ht]
{\center\resizebox*{0.8\columnwidth}{!}
{\includegraphics{pics/chinese-room.png}}}
\caption[John Searle, the Chinese room thought experiment
\cite{searle:programs} as illustrated
on the website
\url{http://www.macrovu.com/CCTMap4ChineseRm.html}]{\label{chinese-room}Illustration
of Searle's Chinese Room from
\url{http://www.macrovu.com/CCTMap4ChineseRm.html}} \end{figure}

When \index{Searle, John R.}Searle's paper first appeared in the journal
\cit{The Behavioural and Brain Sciences}, it was accompanied by a number
of critical responses and attempts at refutation by \index{Artificial
Intelligence (A.I.)}A.I. scholars.  From a ``hard'' \index{Artificial
Intelligence (A.I.)}A.I. standpoint as \index{Searle, John R.}Searle
calls it, one could argue that human cognition is no more than
higher-order formal computation and \index{syntax}syntax manipulation,
only that humans don't have an understanding and self-awareness of the
formal processing in the brain. Another counter-argument is that the
resulting whole consisting of the chamber, the inmate and the book
should be considered intelligent, i.e. the entire system and not its
single components such as the room's inmate.  Perhaps the strongest
critique is that \index{Searle, John R.}Searle's argument is entirely
\index{ontology}ontological and \index{metaphysics}metaphysical because
it does not matter whether the system has an ``understanding'' as long
as it perfectly acts as if it would understand. When the simulation of
cognition is as good as cognition itself, it does not matter---or is
just a \index{metaphysics}metaphysical question--- whether it's a
simulation or not. This topic has been reflected in many \index{science
fiction}Science Fiction novels, most popular is \index{Dick, Philip
K.}Philip K. Dick's \cit{Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep} from 1968
in its adaption as the Hollywood film \index{Blade Runner
(film)}\cit{Blade Runner}.

Remarkably, both \index{Searle, John R.}Searle and his \index{Artificial
Intelligence (A.I.)}A.I. research critics assume that something was
technologically feasible which, in its time and still today, is
\index{science fiction}science fiction. There simply exists no rule
book---in other words: no \index{algorithm}algorithm---for transforming
Chinese questions into Chinese answers. The proof that such a book could
be written solely on the basis of mathematical computation, or formal
logic, is still outstanding.  Both \index{Artificial Intelligence
(A.I.)}A.I. critics and \index{Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)}A.I.
adherents assume in pure speculations that the technology is capable of
what they describe. 

The whole field of \index{Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)}``artificial
intelligence'' is somewhat odd in that there exists no hard scientific
notion of intelligence yet in the first place. So there is no clearly
defined objective of the research. If intelligence, for example, is
simply defined as logical-mathematical calculation, then of course
computers are intelligent machines. If intelligence is defined through
the ability of forming opinions, then a thermostat is ``intelligent''
having the opinion that a room is too cold or too hot (to use an
original example from the \index{Searle, John R.}Searle debate).

\index{Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)}A.I. contradicts basic principles of
modern empirical science. Research is supposed to be based on
observation and heuristics, not superimposed notions or categories which
are not even clearly defined themselves. Unlike empirical science,
\index{Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)}A.I. as exemplified by the
\index{Turing, Alan}Turing test, knows its results including the proof
beforehand. It searches for a process that fits the predefined result
and proof, forcing reality to fit the result instead of having the
result fit reality. This makes \index{Artificial Intelligence
(A.I.)}A.I. research an heir of medieval scholastic science and brings
up very similar philosophical issues to those of \index{Lullism}Lullism
as criticized by \index{Kuhlmann, Quirinus}Kuhlmann and \index{Swift,
Jonathan}Swift.

The debate over \index{Searle, John R.}Searle's Chinese room reveals how
the question of whether computational \index{hardware}hardware and
software is capable of cognition is completely ruled by a cultural
imagination and phantasm---both on behalf of \index{Artificial
Intelligence (A.I.)}A.I.  research and of \index{Searle, John
R.}Searle---of what mathematical computations might be capable of. The
debate is like a hypothetical argument over the environmental impact of
perpetuum mobiles, instigated by perpetuum mobile research and its
entirely \index{speculative}speculative promises.

\section{Georges Perec's \cit{Maschine}}

\noindent Commissioned in 1968 by Saarländischer Rundfunk in Germany,
\index{Oulipo}Oulipo poet \index{Perec, Georges}Georges Perec wrote a
radio play \cit{Die Maschine} (\cit{The Machine}), in collaboration with
his German translator Eugen Helml\'e. The play simulates, as the
foreword explains, a computer ``systematically analyzing and dissecting
\index{Goethe, Johann Wolfgang}Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's poem `The
Wanderer's Night Song'.'' In the English translation contained in
Perec's script, \index{Goethe, Johann Wolfgang}Goethe's short poem
(a classic of German literature taught at every high school) reads as
follows:

\begin{verse}
over every hill\\
is repose\\
in the trees, you feel\\
scarcely goes\\
the stir of a breeze.\\
hushed birds in the forest are nesting.\\
wait, you'll be resting\\
soon too like these.\footnote{ibid., p. 46}
\end{verse}

\noindent \index{Perec, Georges}Perec's imaginary computer consists of
three ``memory'' units and one ``control'' unit. In the radio play, they
appear as different speakers (figure \ref{perec-maschine}). The control
unit commands the performance of certain computations on \index{Goethe,
Johann Wolfgang}Goethe's text, for example, on the structure of rhyme,
the number of letters, or the average of letters per verse. It commands
word by word readings, readings of groups of two words and further
transformations of the text which implement practically all the poetic
\index{algorithm}algorithms the \index{Oulipo}Oulipo invented or
reinstated from pre-modern \index{poetics}poetics. The three memory
units recite the different results of the text transformations according
to the control unit's instructions.  Taking up eighty pages in the
manuscript, the computations show a \index{pataphysics}pataphysical
machine at work.  They render themselves absurd in creating more and
more pointless variations of \index{Goethe, Johann Wolfgang}Goethe's
poem. In the end, the machine performs synonym lookups and international
translations of ``rest'' into ``silence'' and ``peace,'' and exhausts
itself in the process. The words uttered by the three memory units are
also spoken by the control unit; the data overwrites the program
code, and the system crashes.  The \index{semantics}semantics of
\index{Goethe, Johann Wolfgang}Goethe's poem, with the instruction to
``wait'' and ``find rest,'' becomes the instruction code of the machine
eventually. The text which originally should be input data  turns
into a program, overwriting the original program of the pataphysical
machine.  So it works just like an \index{E-Mail}E-Mail
\index{virus}virus.  Such a virus, thought to be only data for
transmittance, actually executes on a computer system as an
\index{algorithm}algorithm, takes over control, and brings the infected
system to a grinding halt. \cit{Die Maschine} is a tribute to
\index{Goethe, Johann Wolfgang}Goethe's poem as a powerful text which
makes all formal processing running amok and fail because its
\index{semantics}semantics resist \index{syntax}syntactical processing.

\noindent
\begin{figure}[ht]
{\center\resizebox*{0.8\columnwidth}{!}
{\includegraphics{pics/perec-maschine.png}}}
\caption[Georges Perec, \cit{Die Maschine}, 1968 \cite{perec:maschine},
script pages of the radio play]{\label{perec-maschine}Manuscript of Perec's radio play, with the
text of the three memory units and the control unit in separate columns}
\end{figure}

\index{Perec, Georges}Perec's radio play is perhaps the first work of
computational art reflecting the limitations of computers and
aestheticizes computer crashes.  It demonstrates, in a sometimes comic,
sometimes painful formal exercise, how the pure
\index{syntax}syntactical processing of language by itself is poetically
pointless, except as a cultural reflection of computation. It
dramatizes, so-to-speak, the practical failure of \index{Searle, John
R.}Searle's Chinese room because the \index{algorithm}algorithmic
rulebook does not work as advertised. The \index{poetics}poetics and artistic use of
\index{algorithm}algorithmic processes therefore does not lie in
simulated language composition, but in a cultural reflection of
computations as computations, with all their formal limitations. This
\index{poetics}poetics was either not understood or not continued before net art and
\index{codeworks}codeworks created an ironic digital art in the 1990s.

The \index{algorithm}algorithmic processing of \index{Goethe, Johann
Wolfgang}Goethe's poem in \index{Perec, Georges}Perec's radio play is in
the end no different from the \index{stochastics}stochastic computer
analysis of literature \index{Perec, Georges}Perec's fellow
\index{Oulipo}Oulipian \index{Calvino, Italo}Italo Calvino ridicules in
``If on a Winter's Night a Traveller,'' and the analytical methods of
\index{Bense, Max} Bense's \index{information aesthetics}information
aesthetics.  According to \index{Döhl, Reinhard}Reinhard Döhl, an
experimental poet, radio artist and member of \index{Bense, Max}Bense's
group, \index{Perec, Georges}Perec's \cit{Die Maschine} was such a
critical blow to the efforts of the Stuttgart group that, after
listening to the radio play, it completely gave up computer poetry. The
effect could only be so devastating because the group had conceived of
computational or, to use \index{Bense, Max}Bense's term, ``artificial''
poetry and art not in ironic and cultural terms, but as a
formalist-scientific foray into new realms of language.  \index{Perec,
Georges}Perec showed that poetic algorithms weren't new and involved
major limitations.  In an essay on computer poetry, \index{Döhl,
Reinhard}Döhl writes that \index{Perec, Georges}Perec's radio play
``seemed to us, as people who had gone from text to computing, like a
preliminary end point. [\ldots] We then did not follow these approaches
anymore except in lectures and discussions, but extended our interest in
artistic production with new media and notation systems into different
directions.''

\section{Enzensberger's and Schmatz's / Czernin's poetic machines}

\noindent In the 1970s, both \index{Oulipo}Oulipo and \index{concrete
poetry}concrete poetry had largely left computer experimentation behind
or delegated it to specialist subprojects.  At the same time, German
poet \index{Enzensberger, Hans Magnus}Hans Magnus Enzensberger occupied
himself with machine-generated poetry, as he wrote in 2000, out of
boredom and frustration with the 1968 political movement having
``dissolved into hangovers, sectarianism and violent
fantasies.''\footnote{\citereplace{Hans~Magnus Enzensberger. \newblock
{\em Einladung zu einem Poesie-Automaten}. \newblock Suhrkamp,
Frankfurt/M., 2000.} \cite{enzensberger:einladung}, p. 13} He retreated
to ``certain language and mind games which had the advantage of being
obsessive.''\footnote{ibid.} For months, he worked on the design of a
poetry machine, ``day and night,'' as he writes, like
\index{hacker}``hackers, gamblers who place their hopes in systems, and
kids who are addicted to computer games.''\footnote{ibid.} The result
was a synthetic combinatory verse generation device similar to
\index{Queneau, Raymond}Queneau's \cit{100,000 Billion poems} which
\index{Enzensberger, Hans Magnus}Enzensberger knew and referred to in
his 1974 project paper. He also references \index{Harsdörffer, Georg
Philipp}Harsdörffer, \index{Kircher, Athanasius}Kircher and
\index{Llull, Ramon}Llull. The machine wasn't built until 2000, with a
basic configuration of a PC computer program as a control unit and a
mechanical letter display as used on airports as the letter display.
Like \index{Oulipo} Oulipo and \index{concrete poetry} concrete poetry,
\index{Enzensberger, Hans Magnus}Enzensberger no longer pursued
computer-generated poetry after this first experiment and even
considered leaving the design paper unpublished.

\label{POE}In 1990, the Austrian experimental poets \index{Czernin,
Franz Josef}Franz Josef Czernin and \index{Schmatz, Ferdinand}Ferdinand
Schmatz commissioned the development of a computer program \index{POE
(software)}\cit{POE} intended to serve as a computational toolkit for
poets just like \index{music}music composition and sound synthesis
software served \index{music}musical
composers.\footnote{\citereplace{Franz~Josef Czernin and Ferdinand
Schmatz. \newblock Notes about the {Poetry Program POE}, 1990. \newblock
\url{http://www.aec.at/en/archives/festival_archive/festival_catalogs/festival_artikel.asp?iProjectID=8950}.}
\cite{czernin:poe-en}} \index{POE (software)}POE differed from previous
poetry programs in that it wasn't a poetry generator, but a piece of
software for computer-aided poetry composition.  It did not synthesize
built-in words, but worked with any input, and provided a whole set of
transformation \index{algorithm}algorithms to choose from instead of
only one.  As such, it very much resembled the command line userland of
\index{Unix (operating system)}Unix with its multiple single-purpose
text filtering tools like \cit{grep}, \cit{wc} and \cit{sort}.  Among
the \index{algorithm}algorithms provided in \index{POE (software)}POE
were \index{Markov chains}Markov chains and
\index{permutation}permutations.  \index{Czernin, Franz Josef}Czernin
and \index{Schmatz, Ferdinand}Schmatz abandoned the project soon,
however, drawing a similar conclusion to \index{Perec, Georges}Perec;
namely that the machine would not help to modify text according to
\index{semantics}semantic criteria or, in the case of \index{POE
(software)}POE, not even be able to perform grammatical transformations
of input text. For \index{Bense, Max}Bense's Stuttgart group, for
\index{Enzensberger, Hans Magnus}Enzensberger and for \index{Czernin,
Franz Josef}Czernin and \index{Schmatz, Ferdinand}Schmatz, poetic
computing failed with the insight that its reality did not live up to
\index{Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)}artificial intelligence promises.

\section{Software dystopia: Jodi}

\noindent \label{Jodi2}In its \index{pataphysics}pataphysical subversion
of artistic and scientific formalisms, \index{Perec, Georges}Georges
Perec's \cit{Die Maschine} parodies computation and its ideological use
as a weapon against an \index{aesthetics}aesthetics of human
subjectivity.  The mere concept of anti-subjectivity through
programmation turned out to be driven by likewise subjective, personal
agendas. That formalisms could be bizarre and eccentric was one of the
aesthetic insights of \index{net.art}net.art in the second half of the
1990s. \index{Cosic, Vuc}Vuc Cosic, who coined the ``net.art'' name,
credits \index{Oulipo}Oulipo as one of his major
influences.\footnote{\citereplace{Vuk Cosic. \newblock {\em Contemporary
ASCII}. \newblock Kapelica, Ljubljana, 2000.} \cite{cosic:ascii}, p. 14
and 32} He and his fellow \index{net.art}net.artists also drew heavily
from \index{hacker}hacker cultural artisanship such as \index{ASCII
art}ASCII art, program code poetry, graphics demos, games and viral
code.  \index{Jodi}Jodi's artistic exploration of the
\index{aesthetics}aesthetics of computer crashes, of source and protocol
code, the contingency and absurdity of operating system and browser user
\index{interface}interfaces, the \index{aesthetics}aesthetics of
computer games is computational art under the new conditions of
ubiquitous personal and network computing.  Jodi take apart the codes of
everyday computer culture and modern art, combining the electronic
graffiti \index{aesthetics}aesthetics of \index{hacker}hacker culture
with \index{pataphysics}pataphysical subversions of high modernism like
those of the \index{Oulipo}Oulipo.  

While the crash of \index{Perec, Georges}Perec's machine affected only a
fictitious, partly metaphorical computer, \index{Jodi}Jodi let real
computers crash, or at least pretended it via computer graphical trompe
l'oeil.  In \index{Jodi}Jodi's works, computing turns from a tool into
an aesthetic end in itself. It is not a means of production like
\index{algorithm}algorithms in generative art, and it does not even
pretend to produce anything meaningful at all, in contrast to the way
\index{Perec, Georges}Perec's \cit{Maschine} processed \index{Goethe,
Johann Wolfgang}Goethe's poem.  In \index{Jodi}Jodi's art, software,
computations, code, user \index{interface}interfaces themselves are the
medium of aesthetic reflection and play. The underlying concept of
technology corresponds to that of \index{Oulipo}Oulipian
\index{pataphysics}pataphysics since it reads computations as
\index{constraint}constraints, not expansions, of possibilities.  Just
like \index{Perec, Georges}Perec's \cit{Maschine} put an end to the
utopian hopes of transgressing human limitations in early computer art,
\index{Jodi}Jodi's art puts a sarcastic end to the utopias of
audiovisual personal computing, from the graphical user
\index{interface}interface as it was invented in the 1970s at
\index{Xerox PARC}Xerox PARC Labs to the utterly failed expectations of
immersive three-dimensional \index{virtual reality}``virtual reality''
computing in the 1990s. 

Unlike 1960s computing and generative art and its indebtedness to
\index{cybernetics}cybernetics, these newer developments and utopias had
been driven by a \index{McLuhan, Marshall}McLuhanite concept of
``media.'' The inventor of the GUI, \index{Kay, Alan}Alan Kay credits
\index{McLuhan, Marshall}McLuhan for the initial inspiration of his
work, saying that it began with the insight that the computer was a
``medium.''\footnote{\citereplace{Alan Kay. \newblock {User Interface}:
A {Personal View}. \newblock In Brenda Laurel, editor, {\em The {Art of
Human-Computer Interface Design}}, pages 191--207. Addison Wesley,
Reading, Massachusetts, 1990.} \cite{kay:interface}} In its most
powerful manifestations, ``media art'' took the same theoretical base
apart.  \index{Paik, Nam June}Nam June Paik's early gutted-out TV sets
were the critical counterpart to \index{McLuhan, Marshall}McLuhan's
``global village,'' the work of \index{Jodi}Jodi and fellow
\index{net.art}net.artists the much-needed counterpoint to the high tech
kitsch of ``virtual reality.''

\index{Jodi}Jodi's contingent, anti-usable website and software does not
perpetuate utopian promises, but reflects failed promises as they
manifest themselves in a daily life experience with software bugginess,
instability, unreliability, user \index{interface}interface absurdity
and other constant frustrations of ``ease,'' ``transparency'' and ``plug
and play.'' But like the \index{Oulipo}Oulipian
\index{constraint}constraints, \index{Jodi}Jodi's dystopian computing
creates a paradoxical moment of freedom.  The computer is no longer
all-encompassing, it no longer provides an imaginary screen of unlimited
expressive possibilities. Instead it controls its users, turns them---as
\index{Jodi}Jodi's art reflects---into clicking slaves and prisoners of
a maze of icons, menus and unintelligible code.  By mapping this maze
and tracing the limitations of the system, \index{Jodi}Jodi's art allows
playful human agency. \index{interactive art}``Interactive art'' in
\index{Jodi}Jodi's work is not, as in classical ``\index{interactive
art}interactive art,'' a behaviorist simulation of interactivity through
a predefined set of actions and reactions. Instead, it is a true
interactivity which encourages humans to interact with the system in
unforeseen ways, in \index{ontology}ontological and not
\index{stochastics}stochastic \index{indeterminism}indeterminacy---for
example, by simply shutting off the machine or throwing it out of the
window.

\section{Software dystopia: Netochka Nezvanova}

\subsection{\noindent Code as cult}

\label{antiorp}\index{Jodi}Jodi's aesthetic of contingent codes and user
\index{interface}interfaces has been contrarily adapted as outright user
enslavement. Using a comparable aesthetic of contingent and
unintelligible code, the antiorp / integer / \index{Nezvanova,
Netochka}Netochka Nezvanova project turned the notion of proprietary
software to its ultimate extreme.  Dubbed by online magazine Salon.com
the ``most feared woman on the
Internet,''\footnote{\citereplace{Katharine Mieszkowski. \newblock The
most feared woman on the internet. \newblock {\em Salon.com}, 2002.
\newblock \url{http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/03/01/netochka/}.}
\cite{mieszkowski:nezvanova}} \index{Nezvanova, Netochka}N.N. turned up
in the mid-1990s on various \index{net.art}net.art and electronic
\index{music}music-related mailing lists and bombed them with messages
written in a private \index{codeworks}codework language:

\begin{scriptsize}
\begin{verbatim}
 Empire = body.

 hensz nn - simply.SUPERIOR

 per chansz auss! `reazon` nn = regardz geert lovink + h!z !lk
 az ultra outdatd + p!t!fl pre.90.z ueztern kap!tal!zt buffoonz

 ent!tl!ng u korporat fasc!ztz = haz b!n 01 error ov zortz on m! part.
 [ma!z ! = z!mpl! ador faz!on]
 geert lovink + ekxtra 1 d!menz!onl kr!!!!ketz [e.g. dze ultra unevntfl \
 borrrrrrr!ng andreas broeckmann. alex galloway etc]
 = do not dze konzt!tuz!on pozez 2 komput dze teor!e much
 elsz akt!vat 01 lf+ !nundaz!e.

 jetzt ! = return 2 z!p!ng tea + !zolat!ng m! celllz 4rom ur funerl.

 vr!!endl!.nn



 1001 ventuze.nn


     /_/
                           /
              \            \/       i should like to be a human plant
             \/       _{
                     _{/
                                    i will shed leaves in the shade
         \_\                        because i like stepping on bugs
\end{verbatim}
\end{scriptsize}

\noindent The messages were obviously composed with the help of
\index{algorithm}algorithmic filters, substituting for example the
letter ``i'' with ``!'' or the word ``and'' with ``+.'' The project was
radical chic not only in its \index{syntax}syntax, but also in the
\index{semantics}semantic content of the messages that attacked
well-known net cultural activists as ``korporat fasc!ztz'' (``corporate
fascists''). The style much resembled that of cracker cultural
\index{leet speech}\cit{leet speech} (see p. \pageref{leet}).  To
obscure the origins of \index{Nezvanova, Netochka}N.N.'s messages, a web
of servers and domain registrations spanning New Zealand, Denmark and
Italy was created. The messages pointed to likewise cryptic websites
such as \url{http://www.m9ndfukc.org} and \url{http://www.eusocial.org}.
After displaying \index{codeworks}codework writing similar to that on
the mailing lists, the sites eventually lead to pages advertising
\index{NATO (software)}\cit{NATO.0+55}, an expensive video realtime
processing plug-in for the \index{music}musical composition program
\index{MAX (software)}MAX. It is known today that \index{Nezvanova,
Netochka}N.N. was a collective international project, with the person
who wrote \cit{\index{NATO (software)}NATO} differing from the one who
wrote the message quoted above. The project presented itself as a
sectarian cult, with its software as the object of worship. In a wilful
perversion of proprietary software licensing, \index{NATO
(software)}NATO licenses were revoked if licensees critically commented
upon \index{Nezvanova, Netochka}Netochka Nezvanova in public.  The
business model was to let people buy into an underground and a cult.
Digital artist \index{Shulgin, Alexei}Alexei Shulgin characterized
\index{Nezvanova, Netochka}N.N. as a corporation posing as an artist,
reciprocal to artists who had posed as corporations before.  Local cults
of \index{NATO (software)}NATO VJs used \index{Nezvanova, Netochka}N.N.
style in their names and acronyms.  Like a successful leader of a sect,
the programmer of \index{NATO (software)}NATO eventually bought himself
a Ferrari sportscar.

\subsection{\noindent Scientological mind programming}

That the mind could be programmed like a computer was (and is) the basic
idea of \index{Hubbard, L. Ron}L. Ron Hubbard's
\index{Scientology}\cit{Scientology} cult.  It developed and continues
to sell an \index{occult}occult system of systematic mind reprogramming.
Its emblem, an ornamented cross, was derived from both the
\index{Rosicrucian}Rosicrucian cross (see p. \pageref{Andreae}) and
\index{Crowley, Aleister}Aleister Crowley's OTO cross. \index{Hubbard,
L. Ron}Hubbard had been a member of a \index{Rosicrucian}Rosicrucian
organization and the OTO (\cit{Ordo Templis Orientis}) before he went on
to found \index{Scientology}Scientology.  \index{Scientology}Scientology
was his refashioning of \index{occult}occult and \index{magic}magical
techniques into, at least superficially, a ``scientific'' technology
that used lie detectors and borrowed from popular science behaviorism,
\index{cybernetics}cybernetics and \index{linguistics}linguistics.  A
device which Scientology credits as a precursor of its ``tech'' is the
\index{semantics}``semantic differential'' of fringe language
philosopher \index{Korzybski, Alfred}Alfred Korzybski.  Looking like an
abstract string puppet, it was used as a meditative object and
linguistic para-computer to teach students the radical dissociation of
signs from things.

Both \index{Crowley, Aleister}Crowley and \index{Scientology}Scientology
made ``total freedom'' their main slogan. \index{Scientology}Scientology
sought to achieve this freedom through methods that included a
\index{Korzybski, Alfred}Korzybskian reprogramming (or deprogramming) of
the meaning of words and word-\index{permutation}permutational mind
games.  Enlightenment is gained in a \index{gnosticism}gnostic hierarchy
of gradual stages of reprogramming. Like other religions and belief
systems, \index{Scientology}Scientology creates its own reality and
involves capitalist commercialism in marketing its program.---A
commercialism that has been rivalled only lately, but very successfully
and with a similar clientele of pop cultural celebrities by the
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah Centre. One could say that it counters
\index{Hubbard, L. Ron}Hubbard's crypto-\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah with a
modernized and simplified version of the original
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah.---\index{Scientology}Scientology pioneered the
legal crackdown on the Internet when, as early as in 1995, it sued
critics for copyright violation because they had published details of
the \index{Scientology}Scientology course programs online. The idea of
internal knowledge as ``intellectual property,'' a capitalist asset with
infinite value propositions, was pre-empted by \index{Hubbard, L.
Ron}Hubbard himself when he ordered the continuous increase of prices
for his writings.  Living on a capitalist marketing of immaterial goods
whose value was secured through copyright,
\index{Scientology}Scientology is the oldest proprietary software
company of the world. It showed that a profitable business could be
founded on selling programs.  \index{Scientology}Scientology actually
converged with the proprietary computer software world when
\index{Microsoft (company)}Microsoft decided to integrate
\cit{Diskeeper}, a PC program written by the
\index{Scientology}Scientology company \cit{Executive Software}, into
its \index{Microsoft Windows (operating system)}Windows 2000 operating
system. 

The similarity of \index{Nezvanova, Netochka}Netochka Nezvanova's
\index{aesthetics}aesthetics, the ``m9ndfukc'' and of her business model
to \index{Scientology}Scientology might not be accidental. One of the
key players in the \index{Nezvanova, Netochka}N.N. project,
\index{McKenzie, Andrew}Andrew McKenzie, makes numerous references to
\index{Scientology}Scientology in the work he is better known for, his
\index{industrial music}industrial music project \cit{Hafler Trio}. One
of their tracks is called \cit{the sea org} which was the name of
\index{Hubbard, L. Ron}L. Ron Hubbard's ``cadet'' organization on the
ship where he lived, cruising international waters to circumvent arrest
warrants.  The Hafler Trio slogan ``wash your brain think again''
strongly resembles the \index{Scientology}Scientology program of
``clearing'' one's brain through erasing ``engrams,'' traumatic
memories.\footnote{In an interview with John Duncan, \index{McKenzie,
Andrew}McKenzie says: ``This is one of the good things about
\index{Scientology}Scientology---they've got this big list of the things
which are used subliminally, they say, in control techniques to subdue
people because it tells you something that you must be anyway, you can't
help being, to be a body. To be here. To be now.  And of course you hear
this and go `fuck!' And they have this thing about having simultaneous
commands, stand up / sit down. Well you can't do them both at once, so
what they call your `reactive mind' gets completely confused.''
\url{http://www.johnduncan.org/stop.html}} \index{Burroughs, William
S.}William S. Burroughs, the main source of inspiration of the
\index{industrial music}industrial music movement, too stands for the
role \index{Scientology}Scientology and its concept of the mind as a
reprogrammable behavioral machine played in the \index{occult}occult
underground history of 20th century software and computational arts.
(Other followers of \index{Hubbard, L. Ron}Hubbard's ideas were,
temporarily, \index{Cage, John}John Cage and \index{Feldman,
Morton}Morton Feldman.)

In \cit{The Electronic Revolution}, \index{Burroughs, William
S.}Burroughs writes: \index{Hubbard, L. Ron}``Ron Hubbard, founder of
\index{Scientology}Scientology, says that certain words and word
\index{combination}combinations can produces serious illnesses and
mental disturbances.'' While commenting on the theory with some scepticism,
he goes on \index{speculative}speculating about \index{Hubbard, L.
Ron}Hubbard's ``engrams'' and ``reactive mind.'' He sketches a
scenario of a \index{cut-ups}cut-up movie that reads as if it were
directly taken from a \index{Scientology}Scientology session:

\begin{quotation}
\noindent Here are some sample RM [``reactive mind''] screen effects \ldots

\noindent As the theatre darkens a bright light appears on the left side of the
screen. The screen lights up.

\noindent To be nobody \ldots On screen shadow of ladder and soldier incinerated
by the Hiroshima blast

\noindent To be everybody \ldots Street crowds, riots, panics

\noindent To be me \ldots A beautiful girl and a handsome young man point to
selves \ldots To be you \ldots They point to audience
\end{quotation}

\noindent \index{Burroughs, William S.}Burroughs experimentally accepts
\index{Scientology}Scientology concepts because they cater to his idea
that language is a viral code yielding immediate physical effects. After
all, \index{Hubbard, L. Ron}Hubbard's ideas had the same
\index{magic}magical and \index{occult}occult sources as his own
underground computational \index{linguistics}linguistics. 

In this thinking, ``total freedom'' dialectically coincides with total
control. \label{IOD}The \index{I/O/D}I/O/D slogan of software as ``mind
control'' plays with the same dialectic. When \index{I/O/D}I/O/D's
experimental \index{Web Stalker (software)}\cit{Web Stalker} browser
removes \index{interface}interface abstraction, typographical
sugar-coating and smoothness and unveils the underlying code---including
HTML source code and http protocol communication---, it frees the
cultural technique and imagination of web browsing from its conventional
metaphors.\footnote{\index{I/O/D}I/O/D \index{Web Stalker (software)}Web
Stalker homepage: \url{http://www.backspace.org/iod/iod4.html}} At the
same time, it maps the World Wide Web as a tightly ordered and
controlled space. Freedom and mind control, in the end, don't contradict
each other.

\section{From dystopia to new subjectivity}

\noindent If there is a common denominator of such diverse
\index{net.art}net.artists as \index{Jodi}Jodi, \index{I/O/D}I/O/D and
\index{Nezvanova, Netochka}Netochka Nezvanova, it could be called the
dystopia of computer software.  Its manifestations however are diverse:
playful-\index{anarchism}anarchic dystopias of \index{Jodi}Jodi's
browser, desktop and game software; political-analytical dystopias of
the \index{Web Stalker (software)}Web Stalker;
\index{occult}occult-corporate dystopias of \index{Nezvanova,
Netochka}Netchoka Nezvanova's operation \cit{m9ndfukc}.  To think of
computation in dystopian, not naive utopian terms is what makes a
critical and analytic approach to software possible in the first place.
It implies thinking outside the system, and allows appropriation of
computation as artistic material and subjective expression.  The poetic
\index{codeworks}codeworks of \index{mez}mez rephrase computer utopias
on \index{net.art}net.art's dystopian grounds, imagining a fusion of
human bodies and machines in the medium of code. It is a \index{virtual
reality}``virtual reality'' and ``cyberspace'' art that, unlike its
techno-naive forerunners, is iconoclastic. Having given up on real
computations and immersive imagery, it creates imaginary, impure
computations, for example in the text cited at the beginning of the
second chapter:

\begin{scriptsize}
\begin{quotation}
\begin{verbatim}
N.terr.ing the net.wurk---
::du n.OT enter _here_ with fal[low]se genera.tiffs + pathways poking
va.Kant [c]littoral tomb[+age].
::re.peat[bogging] + b d.[on the l]am.ned.
::yr p[non-E-]lastic hollow play.jar.[*]istic[tock] met[riculation.s]hods
sit badly in yr vetoed m[-c]outh.
\end{verbatim}
\end{quotation}
\end{scriptsize}

These codes create, in the original sense of the word, science fiction.
They generate a ``new flesh'' as it is imagined in \index{Cronenberg,
David}David Cronenberg's film \cit{Videodrome}, a melting of technology
and human bodies.  In this piece, this fusion happens purely in the
medium of the imagination of the subject ``N.terr.ing the net.wurk.''
\index{mez}Mez's text is, at it seems, based on a chat server login
message that warns people not to enter with false identities. She
transcodes it into ``du n.OT enter \char`\_here\char`\_ with fal[low]se
genera.tiffs + pathways poking va.\index{Kant, Immanuel}Kant [c]littoral
tomb[+age].'' The old \index{science fiction}science fiction \emph{of}
computing as cultural and epistemological disturbance morphs into
computing \emph{as} a fiction. The code in this fiction is sexual as it
is attached to the subjectivity of the person who interacts with it.
Computer and network codes  accumulate into personal diaries, and
build cyborgs in the imagination. One could call \index{mez}mez's
\index{codeworks}codeworks a fantastic realism of the Internet. 

This realism is part of a larger network of a post-constructivist,
post-clean room computational art that had been instigated by
\index{net.art}net.art.  In this art, software has turned from a
purified machine process into something embedded into cultural codes:
version numbers, updates, protocols, \index{interface}interfaces,
visible and invisible codes and cultural conventions of network
communication.

\chapter{What Is Software?}

\section{A cultural definition}

\noindent The previous chapters have spoken of ``computations,'' meaning
calculation and \index{algorithm}algorithms performed either in the
medium of language itself or with the help of mechanical or electronic
devices. For many \index{speculative}speculative computations, like
those in the \cit{\index{Sefer Yetzirah}\cit{Sefer Yetzirah}} with its
obscure mechanical device, it's difficult, if not impossible, to draw a
clear line between symbolic-imaginary and material processing, software
and \index{hardware}hardware.

What is software? Simply defined as \index{algorithm}algorithms,
software would fail, first of all, to encompass the vast
\index{speculative}speculative imagination from \index{magic}magic to
\index{codeworks}codework in which computational code rarely is pure
\index{algorithm}algorithms, but a metaphorical hybrid.  A strictly
formal definition of software would also fail to describe the line of
the \index{Seagal, Steven}Steven Seagal movie, ``300,000 pages of code.
Or 60 minutes of triple-X rubber-and-leather interactive bondage
porno.'' That line shows that such a cultural understanding isn't
far-fetched, but is already street wisdom.  Why, after all, did the
mathematician \index{Tukey, John W.}John W. Tukey invent the term
``software'' in 1957 given that the term \index{algorithm}algorithm,
phonetically derived from the 9th century Persian mathematician
\index{al-Khwarizmi, Muhammad ibn Musa}Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi,
existed centuries before?  Obviously, software referred to
\index{algorithm}algorithms as control logic that was abstracted from
the machine. The \index{Unix (operating system)}Unix operating system
which runs on almost any kind of \index{hardware}hardware\footnote{The
free \index{Unix (operating system)}Unix clone NetBSD supports runs
almost any existing hardware platform including \index{IBM
(company)}IBM-compatible PCs, palmtops, video game consoles, old
\index{Amiga (operating system)}Amiga and \index{Atari (company)}Atari
home computers and proprietary \index{Unix (operating system)}Unix
servers.} is a prime example of software as an abstraction from
\index{hardware}hardware. But just as the cultural history of
computation is rich with metaphorizations and meanings inscribed into
formal processes, the same is true for software. In 1970, only 13 years
after \index{Tukey, John W.}Tukey's coinage, \index{Burnham, Jack}Jack
Burnham's \cit{Software} exhibition appropriated the term
metaphorically. In a 1968 essay \cit{Systems Esthetics}, \index{Burnham,
Jack}Burnham observed that a written piece of conceptual artist
\index{Judd, Donald}Donald Judd ``resembles what a computer programmer
would call an entity's /list structure/.''\footnote{\citereplace{Jack
Burnham. \newblock Systems {Esthetics}. \newblock {\em Artforum}, 9
1968. \newblock
\url{http://www.arts.ucsb.edu/faculty/jevbratt/classes_previous/fall_03/arts_22/Burnham_Systems_Esthetics.html}.}
\cite{burnham:systems}} Reading these semblances, \index{Burnham,
Jack}Burnham did not only adopt software as a metaphor for conceptual
art, but also turned, and aestheticized, computer software into concept
art.
 
\section{Software as practice}

\noindent Just as, for example, literature is not only what is written,
but all cultural practices it involves---such as oral narration and
tradition, poetic performance, cultural politics---software is both
material and practice.  As the verb ``to google'' for using the
\index{Google}Google search engine shows, or in their computational
sense, ``to browse,'' ``to chat''  and ``to download,'' human practices
are born out of the use of software. Googling is nothing but the
shorthand for using the web-based client-server software written by
\index{Google}Google corporation's programmers. In this sense, software
is no longer just machine \index{algorithm}algorithms, but something
that includes the interaction, or, cultural appropriation through
users. This appropriation is more than just a
\index{cybernetics}cybernetic human-machine interaction and what
computer science and \index{media theory}media theory often reduce to
pointing, clicking and other Pavlovian responses within the restraints
of a programmed system.---The same reductive understanding of
interaction has turned \index{interactive art}``interactive art'' in its
common phenomonen of behavioral video installations into an artistic
dead-end.---True interaction with technical systems involves
creative use and abuse outside the box, metaphorization, writing and
rewriting, configuring, disconfiguring, erasing. All these practices
also make up software.

It wasn't just artistic appropriations that inscribed metaphors into
software.  High-level, machine-independent programming languages and
operating systems such as \index{C (programming language)}C and
\index{Unix (operating system)}Unix gave birth, around the same time, to
a culture that gradually detached software from the concept of code
running on a machine. Through program code listings in books and
computer magazines, source code snippets and patches exchanged in
electronic networks or even oral conversations, software took up a life
of its own.  The results were political-philosophical movements like
\index{Free Software}Free Software, programming puns such as
\index{recursive acronym}recursive acronyms, \index{hacker}hacker slang
that mixed English and computer language constructs and poetry in
computer languages such as \index{Wall, Larry}Larry Wall's first
\index{Perl (programming language)}Perl poem from 1990.  Free
software---in the \index{GNU}GNU understanding of an embedded value that
is not only engineering freedom, but \index{ontology}ontological
freedom---is perhaps the strongest example of a cultural and
philosophical notion of software.  An artistic understanding of software
also abounds in computer science from \index{Knuth, Donald}Donald
Knuth's \cit{Art of Computer Programming} to \index{Graham, Paul}Paul
Graham's recent \cit{Hackers and
Painters},\footnote{\citereplace{Donald~E. Knuth. \newblock {\em The
{Art of Computer Programming}}. \newblock Addison-Wesley, Reading,
Massachusetts, 1973-1998.} \cite{knuth:art}, \citereplace{Paul Graham.
\newblock {\em Hackers and Painters}. \newblock O'Reilly, Sebastopol,
2004.} \cite{graham:painters}} although it might be based on a narrow
understanding of art as high craftsmanship. To no longer define software
as just \index{algorithm}algorithms running on \index{hardware}hardware
helps to avoid common misunderstandings of software art as some kind of
of \index{genius}genius programmer art. If software is a broad cultural
practice, then software art can be made by almost any artist.


\section{Software versus hardware}

\noindent Aside from the blurriness of software as a machine process and
software as a human cultural practice, the technical distinction between
software and \index{hardware}hardware is blurry itself. Is instruction
code hardware once it is burned into an EPROM, is it software when it is
stored in an erasable flash ROM? What about microcode, computer programs
stored right within chips in any modern
\index{CPU}CPU? Or chips like the \index{Transmeta (company)}Transmeta
Crusoe which has only minimal \index{hardware}hardware wiring and
implements its \index{CPU}CPU instruction set---like \index{Intel
(company)}Intel-compatible x86---solely through an embedded emulation
software (written originally by Linux creator \index{Torvalds,
Linus}Linus Torvalds)? What about the \index{BIOS}BIOS or firmware of
computer mainboards, graphics cards, network adaptors without which this
\index{hardware}hardware simply isn't operational? Isn't it a totally
arbitrary distinction whether a circuit is hardwired into the layout of
chip transistors, or whether the same logic is stored within a memory
chip?  The definition of \index{hardware}hardware, in turn, is not less
doubtful.  The first modern computing \index{hardware}hardware, the
\index{Turing, Alan}Turing machine, did not materially exist, but was
theoretical and imaginary. The same applies to \index{Knuth,
Donald}Donald Knuth's \index{Mix computer}\cit{Mix} computer. The
cultural history of computation proves that \index{hardware}hardware can
be metaphorical when \index{algorithm}algorithms run on any imagined
material including the entire cosmos in \index{Kuhlmann,
Quirinus}Quirinus Kuhlmann's \index{speculative}speculation. Still, in
the end the distinction between software and \index{hardware}hardware
relies on Cartesian categories: Is, for example, a human brain that
performs a computation a piece of \index{hardware}hardware?

If the duality of software and \index{hardware}hardware needs to be
suspended, it follows that the notion of software as immaterial versus
\index{hardware}hardware as material must be suspended, too. The
difference between materiality and immateriality exists within 
software itself: an \index{algorithm}algorithm is material in its
stored, coded form and most of its cultural practices.  The immaterial
component might be the imagination and phantasms invested into the
software, that inserting a CD-ROM, to refer to the previous example,
might blow up the earth or get you a sexual turn-on (or turn-off
perhaps). Some software chiefly or purely exists in imaginary form:

\begin{itemize}

\item \index{vaporware}vaporware, the constantly promised ``stable
upgrade'' of a crashing computer program for example, or the
ever-procrastinated new version of a piece of software, like the
computer game \index{Duke Nukem Forever (software)}\cit{Duke Nukem
Forever};

\item \index{virus}hoax viruses, i.e. \index{E-Mail}E-Mail
\index{meme}``memes'' which instruct gullible readers to erase critical
system files on their computer;

\item imaginary \index{virus}virus infection; \index{hardware}hardware
failures or human mistakes wrongly interpreted as computer
\index{virus}virus infections.

\end{itemize}

\noindent If the location or even existence of some software isn't quite
clear, if a piece software isn't code running on machine because it
appears as pseudo code in a book or is, like most \index{Perl
poetry}Perl poetry for example, not even a working
\index{algorithm}algorithm, then a technical definition of software is
too limited. In the end, ``software'' and ``computation'' can't be
strictly differentiated from each other. The cultural history of
software is the cultural history of computation.

\section{Conclusion}

\noindent Software, it follows, is a cultural practice made up of (a)
\index{algorithm}algorithms, (b) possibly, but not necessarily in
conjunction with imaginary or actual machines, (c) human interaction in
a broad sense of any cultural appropriation and use, and (d)
\index{speculative}speculative imagination.  Software history can thus
be told as intellectual history, as opposed to \index{media theory}media
theories which consider cultural imagination a secondary product of
material technology. This booklet took language computations as its
primary examples mostly because language can be computational in itself.
Thanks to its abstraction and grammatical structure, it also expresses
computation better than any other symbolic form.  Programming languages,
with their modified English, are the proof. But \index{music} or
\index{architecture}architecture, too, could serve as the main examples
in a cultural history of computation since they both combine formal
instruction with imagination.

The cultural history of computation shows that it is as rich and
contradictory as that of any other symbolic form. It encompasses
opposites, \index{algorithm}algorithms as a tool versus algorithms as a
material of aesthetic play and \index{speculative}speculation,
computation as inner workings of nature (as in
\index{Pythagorean}Pythagorean thought) or \index{God}God (as in
\index{Kabbalah}Kabbalah and \index{magic}magic) versus computation as
culture and a medium of cultural reflection (starting with
\index{Oulipo}Oulipo and \index{hacker}hacker cultures in the 1960s),
computation as a means of abolishing \index{semantics}semantics
(\index{Bense, Max}Bense) versus computation as a means to structure and
generate \index{semantics}semantics (as in \index{Lullism}Lullism and
\index{Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)}Artificial Intelligence),
computation as a means of generating totality (\index{Kuhlmann,
Quirinus}Quirinus Kuhlmann) versus computation as a means of taking
things apart (\index{Tzara, Tristan}Tzara, \index{cut-ups}cut-ups),
software as \index{ontology}ontological freedom (\index{GNU}GNU) versus
software as ontological enslavement (\index{Nezvanova, Netochka}Netochka
Nezvanova), \index{ecstatic}ecstatic computation (\index{Kuhlmann,
Quirinus}Kuhlmann, \index{Kabbalah}Kabbala, \index{Burroughs, William
S.}Burroughs) versus rationalist computation (from \index{Leibniz,
Gottfried Wilhelm}Leibniz to \index{Turing, Alan}Turing) versus
\index{pataphysics}pataphysical computation as the parody of both
rationalist and irrationalist computation (\index{Oulipo}Oulipo and
generative \index{psychogeography}psychogeography),
\index{algorithm}algorithm as expansion (\index{Lullism}Lullism,
generative art) versus \index{algorithm}algorithm as
\index{constraint}constraint (\index{Oulipo}Oulipo,
\index{net.art}net.art), code as \index{chaos}chaotic imagination
(\index{Jodi}Jodi, \index{codeworks}codeworks) versus code as structured
description of \index{chaos}chaos (\index{Tzara, Tristan}Tzara,
\index{Cage, John}John Cage).

Computation and its imaginary are rich with contradictions, and loaded
with \index{metaphysics}metaphysical and \index{ontology}ontological
\index{speculative}speculation. Underneath those contradictions and
speculations lies an obsession with code that executes, the phantasm
that words become flesh. It remains a phantasm, because again and again,
the execution fails to match the boundless
\index{speculative}speculative expectations invested into it.  Cultural
and political \index{semantics}semantics result merely from its dull
formalisms and their interference with daily life, from account balance
statements to ``end-user software.'' Formalisms create
\index{semantics}semantics in a wholly different way than people expect
from an allegedly ``intelligent machine.'' Computers therefore exist, as
\index{hacker}hacker wisdom says, to solve problems which we would not
even be aware of having if not for the computers themselves.


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