What is Code? Computational Signification?

Instructor: Irene Fubara-Manuel
Week 2

What types of code are in “What is Code?”

Many Types

Codes—by name and by matter—are what determine us today, and what we must articulate if only to avoid disappearing under them completely

Friedrich Kittler (2008, p.40)

Code (or, How You Can Write Something Differently)

Etymology of Code

• Codicilla: Orders of the Emperor
  
• Caudex/Codex: A book of Law
  
• Codification: A juridical-bureaucratic act
  
• Coding and Decoding cryptographic information

Friedrich Kittler (2008)

Code (or, How You Can Write Something Differently)

Code as Algorithm

A specific process with enough detail to allow the instructions to be followed. […] just a precise way of explaining how to do something.

Reas, et al. (2010, p.13)

The Four Qualities of Algorithms

1. There are many ways to write an algorithm.
2. An algorithm requires assumptions.
3. An algorithm includes decisions.
   
4. A complex algorithm should be broken down into modular pieces.

Code as Perfomative Utterance

Code has become arguably as important as natural language because it causes things to happen, which requires that it be executed as commands the machine can run. Code that runs on a machine is performative in a much stronger sense than that attributed to language.

Katherine Hayles (2005, p.49-50)

My Mother Was a Computer

Code is the only language that is executable.

Alexander Galloway (2004, p.165)

Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization

Judith Butler (1997, p.50-51)

Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative

Must code be executable to be code?

Code as Computational Signification

Code works by being coded, and this code is encoded, that is, it is less than obvious or immediately legible. […] Without the ‘coding of code’, code has no force and it does not ‘execute’.

Adrian Mackenzie and Theo Vurdubakis (2011, p.7)

Codes and Codings in Crisis Signification, Performativity and Excess

Source code: The form of a program that is input to a compiler or translator [interpreter] for conversion into an equivalent object.

John Daintith and Edmund Wright (2008)

A Dictionary of Computing (6 ed.)

Human Language as a Metaphor For Code

In what ways does code differ from human language?

Coding in the Arts

Sol Lewitt, Instructions by Sol LeWitt for the exhibition Drawing Now: 1955-1975,

Coding in the Arts

Vera Molnar, Toward Aesthetic Guidelines forr Paintings with the Aid of a Computer, 1975

Lingo and ActionScript, Java and Processing

• Dynamic
• Dynamically typed
• It’s functional and object-oriented
• It fails silently
• It’s deployed as source code
• It’s part of the web platform
  And in the js runtime environment in Node.js

The Nature of JavaScript

Axel Rauschmayer (2014)

// Two slashes start single-line comments
var x; // declaring a variable
x = 3 + y; // assigning a value to the variable `x`
foo(x, y); // calling function `foo` with parameters `x` and `y` 
obj.bar(3); // calling method `bar` of object `obj`
// A conditional statement
if (x === 0) { // Is `x` equal to zero?
   x=123;  
}
// Defining function `baz` with parameters `a` and `b`
function baz(a, b) { 
  return a + b;
}

Basic Syntax, Axel Rauschmayer (2014)

var x; // Declaration
x = 12; // Assignment
var x = 12; // Shorthand

Variables, McCarthy, et. al (2016)

A variable created inside a block (code enclosed within braces: { and }) exists only inside that block.

Global vs Local Variables

McCarthy, et. al (2016)

ellipse(width/2, height/2, 100, 100); // What is the slash after width

P5-Specific Variables

!: PEMDAS (Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction) when using arithmetics

• Make an algorithm to draw your object like Sol Lewitt.
• Create your object according to the rules you set.

Using variables and maths make a simple object

Repetition and For Loops

• Create two fabric patterns using loops
• Complete readings for next week
• Have you started your research yet?

Prepare for Next Week