----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
I'm going to return this line of inquiry to computer source code, since
that's an aspect of certain digital objects that I feel fairly confident in
separating from analogue ones (thinking of Christian's struggle to define
the "'ontological' and 'practical' differences between the sorts of objects
- digital/analogue"). Perhaps there are examples of analog objects that
are programmed, but I'm going to bracket them for now.
As we pursue the ontological distinctions between digital and analogue
objects and their relation to memory, how does computer source code
distinguish software in relation to memory?
In the sense of code, some of the implications are obvious. Comments in
code remind us of what someone (possibly ourselves) was trying to do or had
done. Variable and function names can also serve as memory cues. The
architecture of a program can be thought of as a remnant of they way we
conceived of a certain process, a material manifestation. But what of the
source code in general?
But take this Sketchpad Demo by Ivan Sutherland
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX9yvq5F4Wo
I've been told that Alan Kay considers this to be one of the most important
moments in computer history. In the video Sutherland is seen working a
device lined with switches with one hand and drawing geometric shapes with
a kind of stylus on the screen with the other. With a few gestures (that
seem to cover a magician's level of familiarity with the interface),
Sutherland is able to create a vector-based image of a movable object
subject to a physics that can interoperate with other objects.
Sutherland is, I am told, programming (which destabilizes a distinction we
might have between drawing and programming or using an interface and
programming). However, what's the one thing his programming does not leave
(as far as the demo indicates)? A trace of the creation process. This is
the obstacle to using such a language or environment for programming.
There is an expectation that interacting with software objects requires
this trace. That does not mean it is not a programming language, haptic
and visual though it may be, it just means it doesn't meet contemporary
expectations of programming languages. It seems more like what we'd
consider an authoring environment, like Flash.
And so for our discussion of digital objects, particularly software
objects, this example (and its responses) demonstrates the degree to which
the code and the program (and this accessible, discrete memory of the
process) are seen as fundamental requirements of software. The ability to
leave a trace that can be altered, revised.
Now where do we see that in our conceptualization of memory? How does
code become iconic of the modern prosthesis outside ourselves to which a
number of you have referred? It certainly seems to hold to Sean's sense of
memory in the digital relying on the "shifting frequency of future
iterations." For some reason I am put in mind of "auto-save" and again
versioning and histories -- yet I think these are probably too facile
analogies to the notion of a recorded procedure. I guess my large question
is: how does this sense of or expectation for a source code trace affect
broader cultural and personal psychological concepts of memory?
Best,
Mark
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