[-empyre-] Process as paradigm: Time/Tools/Agency

[Yann Le Guennec]

Antoine Schmitt a écrit :
> Le 25 mai 10 à 06:38, christopher sullivan a écrit :
>> a computer IS a tool
> 
> Of course a computer is a tool, like anything else that an artists uses 
> to create the artwork, like paint or programs.
> The fact is that it is a very special tool because it executes programs 
> that implement processes. Programs and processes provide the artists 
> with a new way to make artworks. I think that this new way is radically 
> new, but this is another discussion. It is new and different. And we 
> like it (indeed).

So, from a materialist perspective, if you consider for example that 
there is a computer in your car, one in your cellphone, both 
communicating with satellites, and computers from your cellphone 
operator,  and computers from your car provider, and other systems on 
the road, etc... softwares and data are able to circulate from one point 
to another in this network, with or without your knowledge. Do you 
consider this kind of system is a tool or an environment ? Something you 
can use or something you are in ? Surely both, i think this is more like 
an environment, an usable environment, like a forest or city, but an 
environment. Today's "cloud computing" and "ubiquitous computing" are 
going that way. And considering that all radio communications (Wifi, 
GSM, bluetooth..) ,are literally going through our bodies, we are now 
physicaly living *in* computers.

But when i say that a computer is an environment and not (just) a tool, 
i think more about the logic contained in computed processes, based on 
boolean logical doors. When you use such tools, you must accept them, 
and adapt your mind to this kind of processes, your mind is in the 
process, the process surrounds it, it's an archetypal environment made 
of binary digits and processors.

At another level, this logic is now everywhere in the social, 
economical, political space. All these spaces are computed, processed by 
processors, and that's why we really live now in the computer, and 
that's why i can't see it just like a tool anymore.

So now the question could be: how is integrated processor's logic in 
processual art ?


Best,
Yann