News from the Collective

Theory on Demand #53

Localizing Design Studies: Perspectives on Turkey

Edited by Deniz Hasirci, Tuba Doğu, Deniz Avci, Gozde Damla Turhan-Haskara, Aybüke Taşer

Contributors: Deniz Hasirci, Deniz Avci, Tuba Doğu, Gözde Damla Turhan-Haskara, Filiz Özbengi Uslu, Elif Karakuş, Selen Çiçek, Mine Özkar, Hande Yıldız Çekindir, Gökçe Çağatay, Tuba Doğu, Anıl Dinç Demirbilek, Canberk Yurt, Sölen Kipöz, Özgül Kılınçarslan, Osman Demirbaş

Localizing Design Studies: Perspectives on Turkey includes research that ranges from case/field implementation ideas to quantitative/scientific data surveys to social, theoretical, and historical studies from all subfields of design to address the countless parallel and overlapping realities of design in the post-pandemic era. The post-covid period and unprecedented earthquakes in Turkey have made us question the role of design in our everyday lives, while the advent of dynamic technologies in design has made us reconsider the design realities that surround us. Quality research showcases the state of graduate work in the various fields of design studies.

Since the early 2000s studies in design and design history in Turkey have been developing an
increasingly strong profile. This visibility has been evidenced by the growing number of related
international conferences, innovative research initiatives and book and journal publications. All of these have been sustained by a significant platform of innovative doctoral research which has in turn been informed by a wide and diverse range of contemporary theoretical and historical approaches. This edited book provides valuable insights to the complexities of design and its impacts from a variety of recent Turkish perspectives as articulated by a new generation of Turkish scholars.

— Professor Emeritus Jonathan M Woodham, Associate, Centre for Design History,
University of Brighton, UK

Since its inception nearly two decades ago, the design studies course has championed research
fostering critical thinking and examining the ever-evolving dimensions of design. This includes
diverse methodologies, from practical applications and empirical studies to theoretical and historical analyses. In a world increasingly fragile due to shifting political dynamics, environmental crises, ongoing conflicts and wars, the urgency for innovative design responses has grown. Turkey’s devastating 2023 earthquake and global challenges like pandemics demand adaptive solutions, integrating technological advancements such as AI, blockchain, and the metaverse while redefining the designer’s role. This book explores these pressing themes, offering a journey into uncharted territories where resilience, serendipity, and innovation intersect.

— Professor Tevfik Balcıoğlu

Links to the pdf, epub and the Lulu page to order a paper copy can be found HERE

12 Dec 2024 18:00 – 20:00, Framer Framed, Oranje-Vrijstaatkade 71, Amsterdam

On 12 December 2024 at Framer Framed, System of Systems launches the first two books in their Managing Displacement series: Outsourcing and Extraction. System of Systems is a research project that analyses the bureaucratic, spatial, and technological conditions shaping Europe’s migration landscape.

The themes of each edition will be discussed by three contributors: critical media scholar Ariana Dongus, spatial and visual researcher Stefanos Levidis, and lecturer Hassan Ould Moctar, and is followed by a Q&A.

Ariana Dongus is a critical media scholar. She researches refugees, migration, and technology, focusing on AI’s social aspects, digital labour exploitation, and invisible infrastructures. Formerly at HfG Karlsruhe, where she taught media theory and coordinated a research group on critical AI, she is now a Research Fellow at TU Dresden.

Stefanos Levidis is a spatial and visual researcher, and is the co-founder and co-director of Forensic Architecture Initiative Athens (FAIA). Stefanos has been working with Forensic Architecture and Forensis since 2016, overseeing the agencies’ work on borders and migration and holds a PhD from the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths.

Hassan Ould Moctar is a Lecturer in the Anthropology of Migration at SOAS, University of London. He holds a PhD in Development Studies which he obtained from SOAS. His research focuses on the relationship between migration, borders, and development processes, with a regional focus on Mauritania, the West African Sahel, and the Sahara.

Register here

More about the series:

Managing Displacement explores the intricate web of migration management within and beyond Europe’s borders. Each publication begins with a theme or term to examine processes that restrict, surveil, or obscure displaced people.

The first publication, Outsourcing, examines how the EU extends its borders beyond the continent by outsourcing border control. Recognising this practice within a historical trajectory of colonial ordering, it shows how responsibility is systematically deferred and how racist structures are propagated through border management.

Outsourcing contributors: Border Violence Monitoring Network, FRAUD, Nadine El-Enany, Hassan Ould Moctar.

The second publication, Extraction, offers a transhistorical perspective on contemporary border systems. The contributions explore extraction as a process that drives displacement, with enduring effects due to environmental devastation. They also examine extraction as a direct mechanism of border management that financially profits from those who are displaced.

Extraction contributors: Ariana Dongus, Radha D’Souza, Stefanos Levidis, Angela Melitopoulos.

‘Managing Displacement’ is a publication series that explores the intricate web of migration management within and beyond Europe’s borders. Each publication begins with a theme, or term, in order to examine processes that restrict, surveil or obscure displaced people.

—

Those displaced and seeking to inhabit the social, political, and economic imaginaries of ‘Europe’ are met with an increasingly hostile frontier. The confluence of obscure legal processes, rising anti-migrant rhetoric, and the use of heavily funded private contractors has enforced the idea of Europe as a ‘fortress’. The very notion of Europe – freedom of movement for some and restriction for others – is upheld through austere migration policy by the European Union, influencing many aspects of political life on the continent and beyond.

Each book in the series delves into a term and a process deployed to restrict, surveil, or obscure displaced peoples. Underpinning the publications is the understanding that displacement is deeply entangled with historical legacies of colonialism, resource extraction, and late-stage capitalism. We seek to redress the framing of displacement as something to be managed, by re-defining the processes employed to do so.

Edited by System of Systems
Published in December 2024

Designed by Rose Nordin
Copyedited by Harriet Foyster

Theory on Demand #54

In/Convenience: Inhabiting the Logistical Surround

Edited by Joshua Neves and Marc Steinberg

Convenience is the feeling and aspiration that animates our platformed present. As such, it poses urgent techno-political questions about the everyday digital habitus. From next-day delivery, gig work, and tele-health to cashless payment systems, data centers, and policing – convenience is an affordance and an enclosure; our logistical surround. Driving every experience of convenience is the precarious work, proprietary algorithms, or predatory schemes that subtend it. This collaborative book traces how the logistical surround is transformed by thickening digital economies and networked rituals, examining contemporary conveniences across a wide range of practices and geographies. Contributors examine the ineluctable relation between convenience and its constitutive opposite, inconvenience, considering its infrastructural, affective, and compulsory dimensions. Living in convenience is thus both a hyper visible manifestation of so-called late capitalism and a pervasive mood that fades into the background (like the data centers that power it). Bringing the agonistic relation of in/convenience to center stage, this volume analyzes the logistics of delivery, streaming porn, cloud computing, water infrastructures, smartness paradigms, convenience stores, sleep apps, surveillance, AI ethics, and much more – rethinking the cultural politics of convenience for the present conjuncture.

Contributors: Darren Byler, Orit Halpern, Armin Beverungen, Mél Hogan, Steven Gonzalez, Tung Hui-Hu, Susanna Paasonen, Neta Alexander, Rahul Mukherjee, Liza Rose Cirolia, Andrea Pollio, Tomasz Hollanek, Maya Indira Ganesh

Joshua Neves is Associate Professor, Concordia University, and author of Underglobalization: Beijing’s Media Urbanism and the Chimera of Legitimacy. Marc Steinberg is Professor of Cinema, Concordia University, and author of The Platform Economy: How Japan Transformed the Consumer Internet.

Order a copy or download publication HERE

multidimensionality

imperfection

instability

fluidity

In a world where technology redefines our perception of selfhood, identity becomes fluid, fragmented, and constantly evolving. My project, infiniteartist, is a multi-channel simulation that delves into this complexity by exploring alternative versions of identity through digital tools such as algorithms, AI, and generative processes.

infiniteartist embraces a multi-faceted approach, transcending the confines of a single medium or form. It combines performance, video performance, animation, and video to create a dynamic and integrative body of work. These diverse methods are not merely functional; they also serve as tools for delving into and reimagining the fluidity of identity in alternative forms. Through this exploration, I seek to capture the ongoing, boundless evolution and representation of my own identity, highlighting its complexity and multiplicity, while also acknowledging its instability, impermanence, and transformation.

Post-face and Fluidity of Identity

infiniteartist expands the term post-face, coined by Anna Szyjkowska-Piotrowska in her book Po-twarz. Przekraczanie widzenia w sztuce i technologii (Post-face. Transcending Vision in Art and Technology). Which plays a crucial role in understanding contemporary shifts in how identity and the face are perceived in art. The paradigm of the face, in its modern, proto-ethical version, still reaches for axiological concepts but is based on symbolic oppositional poles — emotions and affect, identity and subjectivity, all becoming unstable, fluid, and oscillating between self-affirmation and self-loss. This fluidity and uncertainty define the modern face paradigm, shaping it within the context of art. Contemporary artists, following these theories, blur the dichotomy of concepts such as interior/exterior, soul/body, human/animal, and feminine/masculine. The face, no longer just a face but a post-face, continues its presence in the realm of visual representation, undergoing dynamic transformations in the way it is depicted. It becomes a particular medium — a screen, carrying complex, often contradictory messages.

Szyjkowska-Piotrowska emphasizes that we no longer deal with a face in the traditional sense but with a post-face. It is a face in motion, subject to profanation, stripped of its sacred aura. The concept of post-face forces us to experience the sublime anew, revealing the uncertainty of identity and its constant transformation. The face transformed into a mask causes the disappearance of the traditional symbol of a fixed, singular identity, leading to its fluidity and instability, which in the modern paradigm, for many artists, takes the form of the post-face. This process is based on symbolic oppositional poles, questioning fundamental concepts of European humanism — identity, and unity.

Redefining the Traditional Face in The Digital Age

In the digital and media age, where the image of the face is often manipulated, processed, or even completely altered through digital technology. Unlike the traditional perception of the face as a carrier of identity and emotional expression, the concept of the post-face reveals the issue of the cultural and social construction of facial imagery, which can be shaped, modified, and distributed in various ways in the media space. The post-face becomes a tool for producing a subject, by annexing elements of identity, often utilizing already existing motifs in culture, symbols, and aesthetic paradigms. This practice involves the repetition of stereotypes, roles, and symbolic elements associated with visual culture. Contemporary art, characterized by the ubiquity of images and their ease of reproduction, enters a phase of a crisis of representation. The boundaries between reality and its digital representations are increasingly fluid, which, in turn, leads to the liquefaction of both identity and the medium itself. 

AI, as the next stage of the post-face, becomes a significant element in this process. It represents a technological evolution that allows for the generation of faces on demand, thus leading to the extreme virtualization of images. The emergence of artificially generated faces disrupts the balance between the biological and digital realms, changing the way we perceive the boundaries between dichotomies. As a result, we witness a new definition of identity, where the lines between the human and the non-human become increasingly blurred, and the post-face serves as a tool for expressing this ongoing transformation.

Generating Multiple Identities

Modern technologies and the increasingly radical virtualization of art create space for more sophisticated tools and opportunities to express complex and/or simulated identities. In the context of new media art, the multivoiced and multi-imaged nature of identity gains a clearer representation. Images no longer limit themselves to the simple reproduction of reality; on the contrary, they can transform or distort it, distancing us from its original essence. This uncertainty, or even ambiguity of images, has always evoked unease. There is also the possibility that images conceal an absence—a lack of something that has passed, disappeared, or perhaps never existed. Instead of reflecting reality, an image can replace or displace it, surpassing the boundaries of categorization as true or false. As a result, it becomes more real than reality itself, transitioning into the realm of simulation.

I broke down my identity, cataloged it, and then multiplied it. At the beginning, there was a database. A collection created from my thoughts and AI suggestions, divided into environments, art movements, media, nightmares, decisions, and health issues. From this, models were generated, further equipped with random levels of ego, condition, and susceptibility to external influences, as well as the degree of attitude toward academia, the world, and the art market. Next, they were cataloged with an individual number. 

Based on their traits, the AI-generated a verbal description of the image, which was then illustrated by an algorithm that created an image using my likeness as a reference point. Another algorithm brought them to life and allowed them to move and speak with my cloned voice. They narrate their characteristics, which were written by the AI.

The embodiment of specific traits with a given appearance reveals the physiognomic interpretation followed by AI. This way of perceiving is the result of analyzing visual data and machine learning algorithms, which attempt to assign specific internal meanings or values to particular external symptoms and signs, thus returning to the face as an icon. However, the focus on the aesthetic aspects of the face strips it of its privileged, metaphysical character. Making the algorithms, controlled and selected by humans, tools for creating new masks.

The presentation of multiple versions serves to articulate a fragmented and simulated identity. The infinitemodels represent alternative possibilities or paths that could have been or are still available, reflecting the constantly changing nature of identity. The fact that the models contain imperfections and flaws reflects the human condition—they do not represent an ideal or a singular form, but rather reveal the uncertainty and disorientation of the individual in today’s world, where identity is often defined by media representation and cultural consumption. In this context, the artist becomes an unstable product, subject to market and media pressure—this can lead to a loss of authenticity and personal integrity, encouraging the adoption of multiple masks.

These models are not valued in any way, meaning they are neither judged nor hierarchized in terms of their importance or quality; each is treated as equal to the others. The work focuses on the hybrid construct of identity—it operates within a symbolic system where the image and female identity receive a completely different representation, reflecting a more complex and multi-dimensional experience of existence that serves as a space for diverse narratives and perspectives.

The image, understood as a representation, transcends individuality in an attempt to reveal more general and symbolic layers — the presented work creates a symbiotic connection between technology and human expression — an artificiality and unnaturalness are palpable, emphasizing that, even today, there remains a boundary between the human and the non-human, while simultaneously provoking reflection on the impact of modern technologies on the future perception of identity. They are grotesque and unsettling, and some of them I can barely look at. They remind me of talking heads from TikTok, they remind me of myself. They are everything I can be and everything I cannot be. They are made by me, yet at the same time, I have nothing to do with them.

Algorithmic Identity

The blurring of dichotomy is revealed in the work actualmodel, which refers to aspirations to transform human identity into a database controlled by algorithms. The current identity is randomly selected from the data set, becoming a tool for the creation and refinement of the subject through the annexation of elements and paradigms from the digital world of life simulators. The work illustrates the continuous transformations of models, showcasing the current status, detached from my physical form. This dynamic relates to the process of cataloging and exposing inner values that are presented outwardly.

In this sense, the concept of actualmodel echoes the notion of the face-icon found in metaphysical thought and physiognomic interpretation. Here, external symptoms and signs serve as tools for inferring what is hidden, ineffable, and elusive. Just as the classical approach to the face in the tradition of portrait painting assumes the possibility of expressing the inner self through external features, actualmodel explores how identity—rooted in internal qualities—is externalized, shaped, and displayed, albeit through the mechanisms of the digital and algorithmic world.

In the context of a modern society where individuals are increasingly perceived as products, this approach refers to mechanisms in which people are compelled to display and promote their traits to attract attention and gain social acceptance. Identity is often not only revealed externally but also simulated to fit into desired frameworks. Like the classical portrait, which seeks to convey the inner through the outer, actualmodel underscores the interplay between internal substance and external representation, albeit through the lens of digital transformation and simulation.

These issues are explored in the video performance panelsofmodelselection, which delves into the construction of identity through the presentation of various interactions influencing identity formation. In the video, I am dressed in attire matching the animation’s color palette, surrounded by six panels, each presenting different decisions and aspects of identity-building within the artistic world. The work appropriates the interaction selection mechanism from the life simulation game The Sims 2. By incorporating this dynamic into the performance I draw a parallel between creating and altering identities within a virtual space and the process of constructing identity in the real world.

In The Sims 2, all actions are predefined by the game’s programming, and similarly, in real life, the “choices” individuals face are often shaped by societal structures, expectations, and technological interfaces. By appropriating this mechanic, the artwork blurs the boundary between digital and real-world identity construction, questioning to what extent our “authentic” selves are products of external systems and frameworks. The digital world of life simulators, originally modeled after real life, now loop back to influence it, blurring the boundaries between the two realms.

The final component of the artistic project is the modelenvironment, which represents a deeper engagement between the real image and the virtual world governed by algorithms. This performance utilizes the process of live keying, where my physical presence is captured in real time and then transferred into virtual environments generated entirely by an algorithm. During the exhibition, I physically stood in front of a green screen, and my image was streamed live onto the gallery space, merging my real-world presence with AI-generated environments. The live feed became a bridge between these two realms, allowing the audience to witness a real-time transformation of my body and image into a fully digital context. This dynamic process blurred the lines between what was physically present in the gallery and what was algorithmically created, challenging the traditional expectations of performance art.

By wearing the same outfit as in the panelsofmodelselection, I achieved an effect of physical/digital multiplicity, where the simultaneous presence of my physical form and two digital counterparts—one from the video and one generated live—obscured the reality of the performance. At first, the audience didn’t realize that one of the representations was a live projection, and later they struggled to distinguish which was the pre-recorded video and which was the live projection.

Instead of simply mirroring reality, the performance sought to transform and distort it, removing it from its original context and redefining the terms of authenticity. By transcending the binary of true and false, the act of transformation became a simulation of reality. Through this performance, I engage with the idea of identity as something malleable and shifting, especially in the context of contemporary digital culture. The performance questions how much of our identity is truly “real,” and to what extent it is shaped or even constructed through external systems, such as algorithms and digital media. Ultimately, the modelenvironment demonstrates the complex relationship between physical and virtual selves, offering a space where the boundaries between reality and simulation are no longer clear-cut but are in a constant state of negotiation.

Self

Using my own image has been a long-standing practice in my work, where I’ve consistently employed my likeness as a tool of expression. The act of presenting my face and body is not simply about performing an identity or creating an avatar; it’s about grounding the work in the lived, embodied self. A virtual persona lacks the inherent human experience that my identity carries—because, to have a true post-face, one must first have a face.

The artist’s face and body, as a result of tensions and the transformative power of art, have become an ongoing and essential reflection in the context of contemporary Western European culture. The artist’s physiognomy, in this sense, acts as a symbolic field where the dynamic interaction between art and society unfolds. This exploration is deeply tied to understanding how the artist’s face and body serve as artistic tools, as well as the implications of this in the creation of artworks.

By using my face and body, I am making a statement about the power of lived experience in the creation of art. My work isn’t simply about visual representation; it’s about the continuous transformation of my dentity through art, and ultimately, this process is about me. It’s rooted in my practice and my reflection on how we, as individuals, navigate and negotiate our identities in a world shaped by both traditional and digital forces.

The work premiered in June 2024 at Nowa Scena, Poznań. In November 2024, it was showcased during the Narracje as part of the 44th edition of the Maria Dokowicz competition in Poznań, where it received the Special Rector’s Award from the University of the Arts Poznań (UAP).

We are excited to announce the release of our first open access audiobooks! At OBP, we are always looking for ways to meet readers where they are. We are aware of an increased demand for audio formats in recent years, whether that be for accessibility reasons or simply because some readers enjoy listening over reading! We have thus decided to release a small sample of audio titles to gauge reader reception and listen to feedback.

Three out of the four titles in this initial collection were created with the help of AI technology, the use of which presents a number of ethical questions. We are monitoring and reflecting on the energy demands of AI in our effort to be as sustainable as possible in our publishing practice. We hope that in creating these audiobooks, we will save readers the effort (and energy) of using AI audio software themselves.

We also wish to address the potential displacement of human voice actors and other creative professionals involved in audio production. As a small, non-profit press, producing audiobooks read by professional voice actors is unfortunately beyond our means. Though we are thrilled that some of our authors have chosen to record their own books, we acknowledge that this is a time-consuming process which might not be possible or attractive to every writer. AI has enabled us to meet the demand for audio formats within these constraints.

Our decision to experiment with audiobook creation is rooted in our dedication to providing accessible, enjoyable formats for all readers. We would love to hear your feedback on these first titles as we evaluate the potential role of AI in our production process, so feel free to send your thoughts to raegan@openbookpublishers after you’ve had a listen. We hope you enjoy the books and look forward to hearing your feedback!

The following titles are now available as audiobooks:

• The Life of Nuns: Love, Politics, and Religion in Medieval German Convents by Henrike Lähnemann and Eva Schlotheuber
• Higher Education for Good: Teaching and Learning Futures edited by Laura Czerniewicz and Catherine Cronin
• Augustus De Morgan, Polymath: New Perspectives on his Life and Legacy edited by Karen Attar, Adrian Rice, and Christopher Stray
• After the Miners’ Strike: A39 and Cornish Political Theatre versus Thatcher’s Britain: Volume 1 by Paul Farmer

NOR // silhouette of a fluidic logic gate and its truth table, digital painting, lightbox, 2024

I am happy to teach computer history at a fine arts university. Besides, I also work with small kids. Part of my job is to pry phones out of their hands—not the most pleasant part of the day. This is partly because (as with every mandatory intervention) it stirs up more chaos than it prevents. Still, the phones really make the kids crazy. Behavioral modification and adaptive algorithms make us crazy–that’s their job after all.

People get deranged and depressed when they are told that they are not needed. When they feel that laws, state orders and and machines run their lives and their futures, or their humanity is reduced to an interplay between social and biological programs. And while we’re chipping away at real human agency, there’s a parallel admiration for (or a fear of) digital technology. Many people tend to call large language models “AI”, artificial intelligence, and as an extension to that, they see the future as the time of technocratic omnipotence, the coming era of untethered artificial minds. Artists and intellectuals often eat this up, because they are kinda lazy and naive—they want to seem forward-thinking or avoid looking outdated. Well, maybe it’s not that simple. As Jeffrey Kripal and Jacques Derrida would point out, the humanities have always been haunted by apparitions, prophecies, and mystical machines.1

Why do we conflate “computation” and “intelligence”? I’m no AI or sociology expert, but I have a few guesses. These aren’t exactly original ideas, and I’ll start with the boring ones. But first, let’s set aside the common belief that living beings are indeed machines, byproducts of genetic and social programs—a view so widely accepted that even a 13-year-old could tell you. They also tell you that God is dead and hell awaits us all. That might turn out to be true, but for now, let’s choose another angle.

1. AI as Marketing Scam: The idea of AI and the Singularity is a marketing tool for selling half-baked products or attracting money from investors, governments, and even military projects. This hype goes back to the cybernetic think tanks after WWII.2

2. Old-School Technocratic Thinking: We’ve always tried to model the human mind through whatever effective tech is in vogue: with the steam engine, we get the categories of Freudian psychology (the whole pneumatic theatre play of the libido and the various forces restricting, masking, or channeling it), and the factory-model of the mind. With cybernetics and computers, we get information processes, computational models, functionalism, and cognitivitism. Very neat abstractions and knowledge fields based on shaky metaphors.

3. Secular Mysticism: AI hype can also be seen as a secular twist on mystical ideas, especially from Abrahamic religions, where divine truths (and universal laws) are “out there”, external to the world. They are not intuitive or immanent—they are revealed through sacred or coded language. We could get more mystical with our programs: instead of vessels of the Apocalypse, we should treat them as oracles, like we did with Tarot or the Zairja.3 When people like Leibniz and Boole were inventing binary systems and formal logic (the foundations for our digital age), they felt lifted up, closer to divine order. So maybe AI is just an echo of that same drive to find  something beyond ourselves. It’s a shadow of a radically neutral, elevated reality.

4. Environment as Mind: AI is a variation of an even older experience through a Cartesian lens. Some thinkers view cognition as extending beyond the individual mind, with the surrounding environment playing an active role. A spider’s web, for example, may be part of its mind.4 We think with and by our surroundings, by our fellow creatures, routines and objects. With our songs, machines, works of art, and so on. Technology is not just an extension of us, neither a self-sustaining organism or a noosphere. Paradoxically, when we speak of the coming Singularity or artificial general intelligence, we may overlook the actual, integrative nature of technology. We could do better than that. We can be less dualistic about agency and thought. We can work without strict separations between the body and the mind, hardware and software, nature or culture. Computational models and human agency don’t have to compete in a zero-sum game.5

This is the starting point of my work and why I’m drawn to computational design that moves beyond black-box thinking. We should be modeling human activity and computation without fixating on code, rigid laws, or scripted languages. Interestingly, engineers and theorists can’t really agree on what “computation” means. Most often, they define it as information processing, describing computers as machines or networks that manipulate symbols. Other professionals are looking for a solution in automation theory and problem-solving.

Here is my take: a base level for any computation is a goal-oriented, non-random process. Or better yet, computation is about bringing together things that rely on future events, adjusting to changes in the environment. Things that change their shape or mediate change in a dynamic medium. Objects that can be efficiently described temporally. Animal traps and pollinating flowers share this nature. Along these lines we can connect natural and cultural events within the field of goal-oriented behavior. Seeking a goal, planning beforehand, these should be human things, right? We make plans by constructing mental representations in our head. But how plants and animals do it? Do they use mental representations? What is the ideal form of a beaver dam? Or nest-building birds—are they platonic about branches?

Living beings are maintained (and created) by several levels of goal-driven phenomena, some internal, some external. We can also change our environment so
that new situations and things can occur, which in turn will change our customs, and on a longer timescale, our physical form. Our environment can solve things for us. Our environment can kill or mutate us. This is the kind of computational design I’m interested in—design that draws on external processes, things that unfold on their own, often in dynamic settings like air or water.6

Full udder // plan of a full adder logic circuit, digital painting, lightbox, 2023

While we are familiar with computational systems that use sophisticated software to add new functions to already existing products and environments, enriching our experience by recontextualization (smart watches, smart homes, VR and AR applications, dating apps) we rarely think of objects, buildings or art projects as computation. The most common form of algorithmic design is a finite length command (usually written in a programming language, mediated by a specific program) which is applied at the start of a process, generating new effects and responses without the constant intervention of a human being. With the diverse use of procedural and generative programs in gaming and architecture computation is getting everywhere, albeit it works through a network of symbols: a language or an abstract calculation. Within a program a highly formalized code dictates the dynamics of the relationships that certain part of an object or a symbolic unit maintains with its surroundings. Just as with the Cartesian distinction between mind and body, our computational techniques heavily rely on separating hardware from software. This top-down collaboration between agents is not exclusive to information technology. Recipes, user manuals and avant-garde concepts also operate on representations, a widely applicable instruction or a command, which is distinct from any particular interaction (from, say, a description, a collision or an exchange of data, a handshake or a threat), and a step-by-step approach to generate partial results towards achieving a goal. Funnily enough, our current systems are not always like that: neural nets are bottom-up structures.7

Could we reformalize computation without relying too heavily on symbols and codes? Well, several tasks that would require the programming of some piece of hardware can be outsourced to so called natural processes (as in contrast to cultural ones, like writing down a prescription or doing math), such as plant growth, phase changes in certain materials, flexibility of a body part, or motion of a medium. A beaver dam or a maple seed, for instance, responds to future events based on certain natural conditions. These work like “if-then” conditionals without needing a specific number value, a string of symbols, or a precisely set threshold. Fluidics—an alternative form of computation—uses fluids or air flow as a dynamic medium to accomplish tasks, much like how plants pollinate through the air. Stepping from single-purpose machines to general-purpose ones, the standard procedure is to emulate circuit elements in order to build a digital system: mostly (but not exclusively) Boolean logic gates to structure and evaluate energy or material flow through a space of possible routes or phases. 8 From marble counting to reaction-diffusion wave fronts digital computers can be built in various environments. Fluidics was a promising field of computer engineering during the sixties, on both of the sides of the iron curtain.9 As proof of concept, a pure fluid computer was built in the USA. 10 Pumping pressurized air through 250 NOR gates FLODAC used the same operational architecture as its electric counterparts. In theory, it could do everything that your computer can do. Just more slowly. But not if it’s connected to other passive systems.

A handmade full adder circuit and its truth table. The blue lines mark the flow of air in this small computational system, the blue ones are the input, the pink ones are the output channels. By manipulating the three input channels, you can let pressurized air into the logic circuit (input=1) or leave the channel closed (input=0). The logic circuit is in the middle.

A handmade full adder circuit from AND, XOR , and OR gates.

Although pure fluid computers can’t reach the arithmetic capacity of modern electric models, their low manufacturing cost and energy consumption, the lack of moving parts, and the way they capitalize on parallel channels of activity to evade the von Neumann bottleneck made them a cheap and versatile toolkit for numerous tasks. Microfluidics became a multidisciplinary field, mainly used in labs for molecular analysis and in the development of wearable, non-electric diagnostic systems. Logic-enabled textiles can react to changing weather conditions in order to help their wearer. 11 A drainage system integrating logic functions can offer a model for reactive architectural design by using non-invasive technology.12 By eliminating a mediating level of abstract semiotics, embodied logic also serves as an educational tool for students interested in computation. As a common ground for low-tech goal-oriented planning, it can connect multiple fields, from object design to architecture or experimental music. By removing elemental computation from its informatics context, naked logic helps us to rediscover the shared life world between nature and culture, between human beings and their environment. Finally, we could see the layered nature of a computer. We can see it as a collection of things, languages and practices, as a tool to see other things differently, and a way to create new objects and thoughts (or to destroy them).

We won’t be able to separate computation from metaphysical speculation and creepy, colonizing projects. Any new idea or approach will end up in a deeply chaotic place, muddled by manipulation and craziness. But, as Jaron Lanier reminds us all the time, striving for ultimate purity, a hunt for a universal solution is what lead us there.

Boldizsár Hordós (1991) earned his master’s degree from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2016. He is currently a PhD student at the same institution and teaches computer history in the Intermedia Department.

Notes:

1 Kripal, Jeffrey J. (2019). The Flip: Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge.
Bellevue Literary Press, New York.
2 Dupuy, J. (2009). On the Origins of Cognitive Science: The Mechanization of Mind. MIT
Press.
3 Sam Kriss has a witty essay about ancient AI: https://samkriss.substack.com/p/a-users-guide-to-the-zairja-of-the.
4 Japyassú, H.F., Laland, K.N. Extended spider cognition. Anim Cogn 20, 375–395 (2017).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-017-1069-7.
5 You don’t have to be a marxist to see that we still make machinery by alienating the work
and creativity of various creatures from the creatures themselves. True technocrats know this
dirty secret, but they are not crazy, they won’t talk about it.
6 Adamatzky, A. (2019). A brief history of liquid computers. Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society B, 374(1774), 20180372. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2018.0372
7 Copeland, B.J., Methods and goals in AI,  .https://www.britannica.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/Methods-and-goals-in-AI
8 Adamatzky, A. (2021). Handbook of Unconventional Computing. WORLD SCIENTIFIC
eBooks. https://doi.org/10.1142/12232
9 Auger Raymond, N., Pneumatic Computer Research in the USSR, Automatic control, Vol.
13, No. 6 (December 1960), pp. 43-48.
10 Gluskin, R. S., Jacoby, M., & Reader, T. D. (1964). FLODAC – a pure fluid digital computer.
Managing Requirements Knowledge, International Workshop On, 1, 631.
https://doi.org/10.1109/afips.1964.74
11 Rajappan, A., Jumet, B., Shveda, R. A., Decker, C. J., Liu, Z., Yap, T. F., . . . Preston, D. J.
(2022). Logic-enabled textiles. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America, 119(35). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2202118119
12 Carlström, C.H.V., Architecture as elemental computer,
https://royaldanishacademy.com/project/architecture-elemental-computer

Жить тяжело и неуютно
Зато уютно умирать

(Living is difficult and confining,

But dying is liberating)

The words written above are an excerpt from the song Sudno (Boris Ryzhy) by post-punk band Molchat Doma from Minsk. These words also often loop over the reels on post-Soviet aesthetics found online – the ones of decayed brutalist buildings with blue and grey undertones, or snow-covered, rectangular residential blocks with crumbling soviet elevators. Such content online grabs me instantly because of its familiarity, but it also grabs me because of how it claims the space. I am drawn to it insofar as I’ve been part of that infrastructure, but I am also consciously keeping the distance because it feels too close, too empty, and too sticky.

Some objects or bodies are ‘stickier’ than others, forming a relationality, or “withness”, where things that are “with” each other get bound together. Sara Ahmed uses the analogy of stickiness to reflect on how disgust can generate effects by “binding” signs to bodies, as a binding that blocks new meanings. In digital culture, I see this as one form of an affective shift to online spaces – how some objects, more than others become sticky on the Internet, and how they accumulate layers of meaning through repetition and circulation. These objects or ways of understanding a certain lifeworld sometimes become territorial; they bind to some bodies, desires and affects, sticking in ways that close off other forms of engagement. What interests me is that the more they firm their presence online, the more they seem to pull our emotionality in, until the point when our encounters with them become habitual.

With this in mind, I want to engage with Soviet and post-Soviet aesthetics on the Internet. Yet, it feels impossible to deconstruct the presence of online remains of the Soviet/post-Soviet world without becoming entangled in its own memetic landscape, and ultimately becoming part of it. The very act of reflexivity I use while scrolling through Instagram and TikTok pages dedicated to post-Soviet lifeworlds—blurs the line between observer and subject—I critique but I also consume. So, in a way, this article becomes its own kind of meme. I find myself stuck as a meme insofar as I am absorbed by it. For the more serious the analysis becomes, the more it echoes the same meme narrative post-Soviet aesthetics on the Internet continuously produces.

The stickiness, when touching upon the post-Soviet meme world, holds a quality of fixedness. It is firm and unmovable. Whatever sticks to this certain aesthetics found on the Internet is frozen and fixed in time – it cannot be removed as its digital footprint will be elsewhere. Yet it continues to shift within its own limits, as it is also stuck with its own boundaries, trapped between forming and erasing meanings, old and new. This leads me to the space between these acts of fixation and circulation—the space between sticking and moving. How, then, is the “post-Soviet” performed on the internet?

Ownership of post-Soviet memorabilia on the Internet, and liminality that comes with it

The term post-Soviet does not just refer to the aftermath of the collapse of Soviet Union, but sets the two in a reciprocal relation, where what is considered Soviet is a construct of the post-Soviet present. Multiple Instagram/TikTok pages soak this up. While producing Soviet narratives for various purposes—educational, nostalgic, or entertaining—the imageries of post-Soviet lifeworld are continuously accumulated, reconstructed, and reimagined. What my Instagram algorithm provides is ranging from austere appearance of Soviet propaganda posters, or the captions of pages like soviet-movies: “Subscribe, Tovarish[1]!” – and easternblocgirl – “dropping some Eastern European vibes on the Internet” with the weekly reminder, “going insane in Eastern Europe Wednesday”, to Soviet_busstops, giving surprisingly detailed descriptions of bus stops found in post-Soviet countries.

What I see, is that this specific content on the Internet is multi-layered and in a constant flux, but more impressively, it has its own digital infrastructure.

Figure 1: Louvre in Russian (Last viewed on October 22, 2024)

Take, for instance, the Instagram page easternblocgirl, where the aesthetics of post-Soviet life are curated through images of scraped-off light blue walls, crumbling brutalist buildings, and the gritty surfaces of “Sovietcore.” “I can smell that подъезд[2] through the phone”, comments one user on the photo above. And I can smell it too. Being born and raised in a post-Soviet country, this picture resonates with me deeply, for I also have been living in “one of those” Soviet brutalist buildings. It reeks of old dust that stings nostrils, of damp walls, beer, and indelible marks of cigarette butts, the texture of the light blue wall, which is similar to how school classrooms were painted in the early 2000s. It is not only simply a building but a sensorial memory that clings to me and other bodies shaped by this very infrastructure.

These are archives of feelings, of that stickiness. And there is a subtle dimension of the social: sensory landscapes we become endowed with, treat us as active record-keepers, used as an extension of human memory with continuing value. In this instance, we seem to be value carriers, while the sensory modalities affect our lived experiences and make our bodies become witnesses of the material experiences. Yet, the Internet is fragile in this regard, as these experiences are flattened into digital archives, fragmented and reduced to visual traces on screen. One cannot locate the digital manifestation of a Soviet past residue in its own socio-political context.

The easternblocgirl Instagram account is marked by its own disembodiment. The sensory connections it evokes, might be more about collective imagery or invented nostalgia, rather than a personal memory. This uncertainty complicates the relationship between digital archives and lived experience. Instead of asking where these memories truly belong and who gets to claim ownership, I would rather question how we become the owners of post-Soviet memorabilia as we perform on the very remembrance that has a fictive, invented quality to it.

Paul Connerton argued that performativity cannot be thought of without a concept of habit; and habit cannot be thought of without a notion of bodily practices[3]. Bodily practice can be reached through virtual interactions in case of easternblocgirl. If we use our virtual bodies to perform on post-Soviet memories, we are doing so in a manner of thinking and feeling through the infrastructures. Infrastructures do fix space and time when being built, but they are not hard to reverse.  As things in motion, they fall into decay and deterioration, and also, they repurpose themselves over time. Mentioning time here as a temporal dimension is important for several reasons. I oppose Akhil Gupta’s argument when examining infrastructure as an entry point into future desires, aspirations, and one’s life trajectories. He writes that often, infrastructures are shaped by notions of futurity, which then in turn moves the discussion to what they signify for future[4]. Limiting thinking about infrastructure in terms of its futuristic desires risks detracting from the narrative of its multidimensionality. For when delving into post-Soviet infrastructures displayed online, the space for futuristic aspirations lacks its purpose. Users do not seem to look at this matter in a way that would position decayed buildings as desirable places to live.

Instead of futuristic narratives, these types of infrastructures associated with post-Soviet aesthetics on the Internet create the kind of temporality that does not orient itself towards future, but towards the liminality – the disorientated state of being between what is no longer there, and what is not there yet. In other words, it is a temporal sense of nostalgia towards the past that drives such aesthetics. And more importantly, this nostalgia might be invented the way the past is reinvented, reconfigured and affective.

Figure 2: Beautiful New World in Russian. (Last viewed on October 22, 2024)

Figure 3 (Last viewed on October 22, 2024)

Reality Bruised

Infrastructure can be defined as the assemblage of people, objects, practices, and institutions that enable and sustain these patterns, or more concisely, a “matter that moves matter”[5]. Pages like easternblocgirl are not just visual archives—they are dynamic, ever-flowing spaces that act as affective infrastructures, carrying the weight of the past forward. We come, then to what is perhaps a re-emergence of Soviet past residue in its new forms. These new forms are not merely of nostalgic quality, they are also tied to an affective infrastructure.

Just as some infrastructure projects in the Soviet Union were a way to insert state power over territories, people, and the environment, so too the post-Soviet aesthetic found on the Internet transforms this narrative, vacates the state-led power and repurposes these infrastructures. There is a discourse under the umbrella of post-Soviet aesthetics that has installed itself as a place re-invented. Cloaked in dull and grey brutalist, decayed buildings, and hyping itself as Slavic “core” having a quality of suffering – the one that elicits nostalgia, melancholy and loss. These transformations in digital culture are not only a visual shift but also an affective one. In this way, this certain understanding of the past and present crumbling post-Soviet infrastructure could be seen as a source for an emotional landscape that offers new narratives of belonging and desire.

Figure 4: (Last viewed on October 22, 2024)

Figure 5: I drink coffee and silently gaze at this fucking city in Russian. (Last viewed on October 22, 2024)

These Instagram posts of decayed buildings and low-resolution images create a sense of dislocation, an almost Burroughsian “junk time”—a time that is both past and present, liminal, real and imagined. When looking at these pics, I am tempted not only to contemplate the object in mise en scène, but also ponder the object that captured them, which, in my own remembrance would be Samsung’s or either Nokia’s old flip phones. Seeing the present visual culture in its own capitalist hierarchy, it becomes clear that the contemporary image system has a tendency to establish a hierarchy of images, based on their “quality”. In this regard, high-resolution pictures become an attractive and immersive economic force, whereas low-quality images are further marginalised and represent technological failure. Yet, in this instance, low-quality runs the monopoly over the content, which further helps to glorify the context – it becomes an integral part of the aesthetic itself. The very visibility of technological and infrastructural failure, and the detachment from an overly polished discourse of images online, absorb the post-Soviet imagery in a way that it becomes intimate.

The space praises itself as seductive, luring the viewer in by temptingly asking whether one misses it, embodying a sentiment of innocence and affective properties that generate a narrative and active construct. The online post-Soviet performance almost created an alternative, “bruised” realm of orientation, a space that is being claimed as inherently glitched, ripped apart, and worn out. I suggest that such orientation in motion acts as a repository of feelings and emotions, creating an accidental memory community. “I feel very sick here”, says the meme (Figure 6). Under the same meme found on vk.com, another user comments, “I feel sick here too”. Feeling sickened is always directed toward the object, as it is the very object that makes us feel repelled. This also implies the spatial quality of such an object, which, in this case, can be the dislocated post-Soviet space itself – a digital site that saturates certain emotionality in a shared experience.

Figure 6: I feel sick here in Russian. (Last viewed on October 22, 2024)

Figure 7 (Last viewed on October 22, 2024)

Figure 8 (Last viewed on October 22, 2024)

There is a shared sense of “missing something”; however, it is an accidental longing, as there is no implicit or explicit shared purpose, or a unified narrative where community members practice a specific type of remembrance or have a specific goal to reach – the constitution of the community occurs by accident. I suggest that these types of places create an online interaction where users can pass through or sometimes even settle in such material networks without actually belonging there. I treat such users as accidental members of memory community, and memory precisely because it is oriented towards the past in a liminal way. Together with accidental, reinvented remembrance practices, the emotionality and relatedness – real or imagined – that these memes or comments bring forth further reinforce the idea of reconfiguring affective infrastructure. We think and feel through infrastructure that is affective as long as we embody such online presence as something tangible and experiential.

—

References

Ahmed, Sara. 2014. The Cultural Politics of Emotion, Edinburgh University Press.

Connerton, Paul. 1989. How Societies Remember. Cambridge University Press.

Gupta, Akhil. 2018. “The future in ruins: Thoughts on the temporality of infrastructure.” In The promise of infrastructure, edited by Nikhil Anand, Akhil Gupta, and Hannah Appel, 62–79. Duke University Press.

Larkin, Brian. 2013. The politics and poetics of infrastructure. Annual Review of Anthropology, 42:327-43

[1] A comrade in Russian.

[2] Building entrance in Russian.

[3] Connerton, Paul. How Societies Remember, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), 6

[4] Akhil Gupta,”The future in ruins: Thoughts on the temporality of infrastructure”,  in The promise of infrastructure, ed. Nikhil Anand, Akhil Gulta, and Hannah Appel. (Duke University Press, 2018), 63.

[5] Brian Larkin. “The politics and poetics of infrastructure” Annual Review of Anthropology, no. 42 (2013): 238