Artificial Paradises
"Artificial Paradises" (short ap02) is a code by Martin Howse, developed in 2002.
Artificial Paradises; V2_Lab images 2002
Software or code is often subjugated to the demands of functionality; a black box which performs defined tasks and whose inner workings are hidden from view. artificial paradises exposes code as environment and environment as code, examining and questioning the givens and layers of abstraction inherent in current technological models, exploring new modes of systems theory with wider consequences for contemporary culture.
Artificial paradises is concerned with the liberation of data encoding and generation from any given model or architecture (any fixed operating system in its widest sense). Such a liberation operates at the border of control and non-control.
ap02 presents a promiscuous model of data generation and self-display, making use of a virtual machine architecture to develop and execute self-modifying instruction sets across networked nodes. Reconfigurable code is interwoven with and determined by network and environmental data. Nodes expand virally through diverse machine environments as they actively seek for data across any network. The body of the work is code (material) and in work this code is made evident, visible. The only functionality of ap02 is in self-display; showing its own changing, performative code as it runs.
ap02 was presented at DasArts on March 29, 2002.
