[NetBehaviour] a new Microcode: Vito Acconci's 'Seedbed'

Thu Jul 2 16:52:04 CEST 2009

Hi Alan,
Thanks for the comments. I guess by "the essence" of the work, I'm
considering the absolute minimum that it takes to bring to mind
"Seedbed" when looking at the code. In that sense, I think this and
"Sleep" are among the best Microcodes yet because it doesn't take an
accomplished programmer to understand the relationship given the
commands "touch $myself" and "sleep((8*60)*60)" featured prominently
in otherwise sparse code.

Regarding the body/psycological/"dis/comfort", these are interesting
only because I'm dealing with entities that are entirely void and/or
incapable of any of these. No matter what I make the machine do, it's
never going to experience and psychological effects nor discomfort. I
could attempt to create a script that disables the CPU fan and then
compiles the linux kernel in an infinite loop, causing the computer to
heat up and possibly even destroy the cpu (I don't know if this could
actually be done) but the machine still wouldn't feel any "discomfort"
because, despite sensors, it really doesn't "feel" anything and that
is an import aspect of what I'm doing with, for instance, "Seedbed" in
code.

I do understand, to an extent, what you mean but I think we're simply
approaching things from entirely different angles. I see the machine
as nothing more than that. There is no body, no feeling, no sensation
at all. If we attribute any of that to the machine then it's more
about our own body, feelings, sensations than the machine's. This is
what happens with "Seedbed" in code. If anyone looks at the code and
thinks the work has anything to do with autoeroticism, then it's their
own autoeroticism that is coming into play, not the machine's. There's
nothing inherently erotic about the "touch" command and the "$myself"
variable could be called anything at all and it wouldn't change the
functionality of the program.

best r.
Pall

On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 5:27 AM, Alan Sondheim<sondheim at panix.com> wrote:
>
>
> Hi Paul,
>
> The essence it seemed to me wasn't self-referentiality or touch (good unix
> command too), so much as it was about targeting the ab/use/er, as well as
> dirtiness. And code's always clean; even dirty code's clean, so there's that
> barrier which is interesting and the question is - which for me parallels
> the clean/dirty avatar phenomenology - how can that be broken down
> psychologically - how can that sort of dis/comfort be recreated, or can't
> it? With avatar, it's useful to create a kind of iconicity which also
> functions on an indexical plain - texturing a human face or sexual body for
> example. But code/ascii (pre-compiling which brings up, maybe it's in the
> binaries that this stuff lies) has a different kind of clarity and it's hard
> to see how dis/embodiment might function, even comfortably, this way. The
> difference between code as medium (strict code) might be clearer than ways
> of smudging it. Obviously I don't code, or code poorly, so in a way I don't
> know what I'm talking about, and I admire what you're doing - I'm just
> wondering about things like the body of code, the coded body, the decoded
> body...
>
> - Alan
>
>
> On Thu, 2 Jul 2009, Pall Thayer wrote:
>
>> Hi Alan,
>>
>> One of the primary reasons that I've "redone" a number of known pieces
>> by other artists in these Microcodes is more to point out the
>> difference between code as a medium and other media. So the point
>> isn't necessarily to emulate the work as closely as possible but
>> rather to capture a single "essence" of it in very compact code. I
>> think that trying to work the incline and fantasies into this
>> "version" of the work would result in considerably more code which
>> would in turn make the work overly complex.
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 12:04 AM, Alan Sondheim<sondheim at panix.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> I knew Vito well back then and visited Seedbed many times - you're
>>> missing
>>> the grittiness & the compression of the incline - hope you can write them
>>> in! The work was obviously uncomfortable, and anyone on the slope was the
>>> target of his fantasizing, not to mention the reverse as well - Alan
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, 1 Jul 2009, james morris wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Ahh! I deleted them! But they're archived on the net.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> a less clear version of seedbed:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> #!/usr/bin/perl
>>>> $myself = `id -un`;
>>>> $mybody = "/home/$myself";
>>>> while(1){
>>>>  `touch $mybody`;
>>>>  print `ls -ld $mybody`;
>>>>  print `finger $myself at localhost`;
>>>> }
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> james
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 1/7/2009, "Pall Thayer" <pallthay at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> ....revisited electronically. Those who follow the list closely may see
>>>>> immediately that this was inspired in part by James Morris'
>>>>> 'Microcrudities' a while back. Trying to emulate such human activities
>>>>> in short code is really interesting.
>>>>>
>>>>> http://pallit.lhi.is/microcodes/index.php?code_id=29
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> *****************************
>>>>> Pall Thayer
>>>>> artist
>>>>> http://www.this.is/pallit
>>>>> *****************************
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> NetBehaviour mailing list
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> | Alan Sondheim Mail archive:  http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
>>> | Webpage (directory) at http://www.alansondheim.org
>>> | sondheim at panix.com, sondheim at gmail.org, tel US 718-813-3285
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> *****************************
>> Pall Thayer
>> artist
>> http://www.this.is/pallit
>> *****************************
>>
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>>
>
>
>
> | Alan Sondheim Mail archive:  http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
> | Webpage (directory) at http://www.alansondheim.org
> | sondheim at panix.com, sondheim at gmail.org, tel US 718-813-3285
> ! http://www.facebook.com/alan.sondheim
>
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-- 
*****************************
Pall Thayer
artist
http://www.this.is/pallit
*****************************