Subjectify An Object by Burn Unit
June 19th, 2008 12:54 PM
"Spimes," I muttered."What's that honey?" BlueTulip asked (this was back in the days of the Revolution you'll recall, at the twilight of Glasnost, and before she'd seized her tulipy mantle).
"Oh. Uh. Spimes. This bouquet. It's telling its own story. I think I need an RFID reader but I can't really do it that way." This was not helpful to her of course, but we changed the subject and moved on.
Honestly? I'm pretty sure the "physical output" involved—that is to say the subjet d'art created here—is derivative, something that's been floating in my head ever since reading William Gibson's Count Zero nine or ten years ago. The mad A.I. in the novel constructs these allegedly amazing collages. And I had a kind of personal vision of what that entailed. I wanted to make things like that, creations out of the snipping apart this world of things and reassembling. The pulling of elements out of a whirling cloud of darkness, and calmly, reflectively adhering them together in a cool enclosed space. (Wikipedia will tell you about Joseph Cornell if you want other words about the roots. Count Zero is also mentioned in the article, of course. )
But that's getting ahead of (or behind?) myself... Last year I was turning "subjectification" over in my mind conceptually. Out there is some profound, Lacanian or other flashy metapsychological reading of this concept. Some grammatological and deeply slippy/slippery exploration that, once you get ahold of him (and between your fits of giggling about The Drive), you could ask Zizek about. But then I received that tramp bouquet from The Revolutionary-Dax in late December. Somehow that clicked it all into place.
Check this out: sometime before that I had gotten the idea that it was possible to realize, in a crude fashion, what Bruce Sterling had described as a "spime" in various speeches and writings back in 2003-04. His speeches at Max Weber, and at SIGGRAPH and various places. Well he had plenty to say on the subject of speculative objects in space and time, about the internet of things, and so on. His inspiration was the convergence of these technologies, the ubiquity of tracking of objects, and thus the ability of these objects, which are so tied together and trackable, to tell us about themselves. To tell a story. The phrase he used is a bright beacon in my mind: "A spime is a protagonist." (cf. SIGGRAPH or Google tech talk)I should note Sterling has also said "Spimes are speculative objects; uniquely identified, data searchable, physically trackable, sustainably recyclable, virtually designed, and manufactured by fabricators." and "Blogjects are objects that can use the web to disseminate a record of its interactions with people, contexts, and other objects." As they are speculative, such things do not precisely exist. Not yet, though speculation is rapidly changing into reality. And what is more, people far more adept than I shall be the ones to make them exist. (The iPhone I'm going to buy, chock full of "location services," is going to reach close to that, though miss the mark by far on the cradle to cradle aspect. )
But as I stared at the tramp bouquet, a prototypical version of the spime that I had been pondering finally materialized in my mind. What a wonderful gift I've been given, I thought. I should pass this along to someone else, but in other forms, translate it into this thing in my mind. I decided I would make a little gift or maybe a kind of super vote for Blueberry Mascarpone and then have it live on as a crude blogject, not a spime but an ur spime.
I dismantled one of the flowers of the bouquet, cutting away the veiny structure from behind the petals and adding paint to everything. I took apart the stamen/pistil things in the center of the flower. Then I envisioned how these fit into the realm of this tiny shadow box, along with some other materials such as textiles and some wire, and some paint.
For realizing the tracking/story side of these theory objects, I figured I could make a website using some simple relational databases. When you theorize one of these objects (it doesn't even have to be made yet) then you can create a place for the theory of the object to live in data form, while you begin to accrete data and eventually real matter around it. In this case I made a database for the spimes, the protagonists, and related database for the materials, the components of the spime. Now I can create the theory object, and as I begin to add materials to it, document those along with it. Once the object is instantiated, I can document that too. Moreover, I can document the experiences I have with the object, whether in theory or in reality. I can open up that database of experiences or encounters with the object to other people and they can write encounters with the object.
Now we start to have a theoretical and physical object transforming into a subject. It can tell its stories through the contributions of "plot points" and "encounters." It can create a larger story out of the confluence of data and material, becoming an art-protagonist, a subjet d'art by rendering these data in a place. Imagine a gallery showing of these sculptures and collages (or other pieces). To do it properly, these art pieces would be displayed not only on a wall or pedestal, but along with their packaging, and anything that's been added to them by others physically, and possibly the digital additions on hand. Until I create cradle-to-cradle pieces with their own packaging, we have to address the crude reality of the box, the packing paper, the bubble wrap, as components of the urspime. It is contrary to the fundamental definition of these protagonists to simply throw away their packaging undocumented. Someone seeing a particular ur-spime in the gallery, or buying one or getting one in the mail can add data, which grows its story on the site. On the one hand this is very simplistic sort of stuff--I suppose on the level of "write a review of teh art on my internet website, kthxbai."
On the other hand, rather than trying to build a picture of the role and meaning of these as artworks by going out and finding stuff like reviews, going out and searching for wiki articles about the artist or looking in the library for books about it, we can now approach and interrogate the theory-object itself to tell its own story out of these components? I do not presume some kind of vast originality or revolutionary moment here. In its own way is just a new method for me to create and document artworks: as theory objects with a life that is both real and simultaneously digital, but objects that are also subjects, which accrete both materials and meaning over time.
Well I went ahead with my first urspime, and the aforementioned website, and made a piece I titled Assembly Call #1. I finally completed the site and mailed the physical instance to BlueberryMascarpone as a gift. While I was making it I thought of it in terms of a super vote, but I'll probably submit other proofs for that task. In this case I just got really lucky in having all these desires (making spimes, making a gift, subjectifying an object) converge.
ur Spimes.com launched a while back, and it's taken me about 6 months or so in fits and starts of spare time to get the site working pretty much the way I want it. We'll see where it goes. Mean time, as I get more subjects built, I'll add to their stories, let them tell their stories on the site as best I can with the tools available.
In an intriguing coda, the first ur spime hard copy may have been lost. I used an old mailing address and "word on the street is" the package hasn't made an appearance. Either I'll get it back, it hasn't arrived, it has arrived and it just hasn't been relayed to Blue, or it's been stolen. Is it wrong of me to be both peeved that though I did something nice I failed to update my address book AND intrigued at the possibilities of what a thief might do with this piece of art? That this subject is now officially at large in the world, and its existence as a subject is solely as a pure "theory object"? Stay tuned!
wrapped for sending
I sent it to BlueberryMascarpone
oooh
dramatic lighting. boring stove. . .
Assembly Call #1
This is an art piece I had sort of appear in my mind. It's a shadow box collage.
Max Weber Lecture Dec 2004.mp3
This is the basis of the whole deal. A speech Bruce Sterling gave at Max Weber's academy in December, 2004. It took the lid right off the top of my head and stuck a stir stick in the brains.
18 vote(s)
Evil Sugar
5
Rainy
5
Fonne Tayne
5
Sparrows Fall
5
JJason Recognition
5
Lank
5
GYØ Ben
5
Loki
5
meredithian
5
KristinawithaK
5
Dela Dejavoo
5
Jellybean of Thark
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teucer
5
Sean Mahan
5
Myrna Minx
5
Darkaardvark
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help im a bear
5
saille is planting praxis
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Mr. Sterling is one strange man, via audio. Does he look just as he sounds?
On second thought, this is not just off-the-beaten-path strange. This is the ridiculously good kind of strange. I mean... you've really been chewing on this for four years?
Bruce Sterling is a brilliant kind of strange. I don't think I'll ever stop chewing on some of his ideas.
Well, yeah. That lecture lived on my ipod and my hard drive for a good long time, I've been reading up and searching for stuff. The building process and the actual development of urspimes.com qua urspimes.com was a much more recent phenomenon however, I assure you. (no retroactive tasking, yes?)
"A spime is a set of relationships first and always, and an object now and then."
What's so strange?
This one takes some concentration to understand.
Once you do, it's very cool. There's a lot of potential in this, like a seed.
Oh my yes. I like his sartorial style. He tries out different things. In the Innovationsforum lecture I vimeo-link to on the spimes page he really outdoes himself. I mean check out that shirt and the chain.
Looks like Mr. Sterling noticed. Nice times.
He was alerted by...a person we shall not name.
Well what the hell does THAT mean??
woah. I mean like woah. we're thru the looking glass here, people.
I'm interested to actually meet you, Senator, to see if I can determine whether you are a mad A.I. yourself. Or to realize whether that matters.
Having met Burn Unit, I can assure you that he is not a mad A.I.
Help! Conventional military is powerless against his terminator bots! He's infiltrated all of our communications systems and rules the Twin Cities with an iron fist! He's rapidly boot strapping to the singularity! If somebody doesn't stop him soon humanity will be doomed!
Not an A.I. at all.
With my advanced technology, I can determine that Burn Unit would make a good robot. I am told to inform you that there is a program, that will ultimately lead to humans becoming obsolete, that is in session now at Honda's research laboratories that can enable humans to become more robot that they have ever been before.
I, for one, encourage players, particularly Burn Unit, to enroll in this program.
A lovely object, and a thoughtful project. I look forward to watching it progress.
Note - After listening to the talk BurnUnit provided here, I realize the other points I originally made in this space have already been addressed in more detail by Stirling himself. (Not surprising, I suppose.) For anyone else wondering what BU's on about, I strongly recommend you don't start with the google talk.
Yeah, I should say that somewhere: the Max Weber lecture is, for me, the most lucid by far.
But, Senator, reading hurts!
Wow, the things you miss when you're away.
A new kind of object, part of which is not really an object.
I know, I know...the long wordy proofs aren't as good or fun. I could edit it way down, but this project was very much about process. What would you have me do? One of those proofs where it's all like "I was bored so I did some tasking Here's mah art Hope you like it The End." It took like six months--I can't really say I was bored for six whole months so I spent it tasking on this (and the calendarts for that matter)! In fact, I think I'm going to write up the several proofs exactly like that. Just to see what happens.
Texty proofs aren't the most popular, and they never get the votes they deserve - but sometimes there's not a great way to document a task by any other means.
"I could edit it way down"
Don't you dare!
Well, I submit what, a task every three weeks on average? I try to pack the good stuff in there, which sometimes adds length With this one it's not so much that it's texty, it just fell between the cracks. Many of them do. There were 200+ proofs in the last month alone. Can you honestly say you read them all? If you saw this many paragraphs of text, would you skip it?
For that matter, it's very difficult for me to mope publicly about whether I think I got "enough votes" ( I don't know what the "enough" number equals heh heh) for a proof. I mean so much of that is about the question of the zen-like rewards of the doing or the quite unzen rewards of ...rewards. We were discussing the matter of votes and whether there was vote inflation this era or not. Some say yes. Some no. Some fall in between.
I think I haven't submitted a task proof in over a year where I didn't hit the button and go, "okay now...vote you bastards! vote, I say!" I really can't think of a task where I wasn't working really hard to create something I not only hoped but expected to see some votes for it.
Maybe it's not inflation, either, but a matter of time, yes? Where all my Chrononauts at? The life cycle of a task's active presence on the praxis page has gotten compressed and likewise the attention paid to a task after the fact. Yeah, who doesn't want to see their proofs get "the votes they deserve," as you say Dok? And in a way, a task has just a few hours really, to climb that mountain. Since I like to propose crazy numerical theories (1:1 anybody) with minimal evidence let's do one here: Right now I'd guess really good tasks have about 18 hours to reach a certain vote threshold or the chance of a very high final vote level drops precipitously. Certain monolithic achievements of epicness throw that curve off because the tops of forever, ordered by votes will always pick up new ones as people are justifiably awed by doorhenge, near-nakedness, and basically anything and everything Dax does ever. You gotta hit certain benchmarks in that window or you won't climb the next mountain.
I'd say the stratospheric tasks, the 60+ would reach that level no matter what because they are The Undeniables. The 50+ are close behind that. But if you want to climb over the gold standard, currently I'd say it's 40. And to get to 40, a proof needs to hit 30+ votes within it's first 18 hours, or it won't cross the 4-0. (this is generally speaking) Same with 30. It won't hit 30 unless it exceeds 15, maybe 20 within that window. This task hit 15 today, it will probably grow, but not at that rate.
This is altered somewhat by the comments. This conversation right now has a direct correlation to at least two of the votes this proof just picked up, I'm sure of that. Comments aren't the only things, either--don't rule out the power of home page featuring--adding an image to a task that gets noticed and part of the stream of images on the sf0.org home. I like to believe the sweet dream machine in Desires contributes to its long votability life cycle.
I'd sure like to see everyone go through everyone else's player pages and see old praxes for their own edification. That's one thing I'd love to see new players do, revisit old pages and extend some of the love. That takes a certain amount of discipline and affection I suppose. You know for someone like me with 101 or Tom with a whopping 141 tasks you'd have to have a lot of patience. It makes for some fun reading though, seeing people's players evolve.
I'm sure there's other contributors like the sit up and take notice factor that accompanies certain players—Gummies, Myrna Minx, Meredithian, and Minch are who I'd put money on for this era's versions of that. Lincoln crosses eras with that kind of energy. You know we had Bex, Charlie Fish, The Vixen, Lank and Dax2 definitely fill those roles in Glasnost; Cameron, Oliver, Piratey, and Rubin in ImpEx. This doesn't detract from the awesomeness of some of us other people, mind you—I mean it's not quite like high school for pete's sake! People notice when I post a task, or when rongo rongo does, or InkTea, or JTony, JJason, or you, or the many members of Foecakes. I'd just say there's definitely a certain amount of "hierarchy of attention" to people's participation habits.
It's a balancing act between quality, luck and ...here's a tricky word for which I'm hunting a replacement... player popularity. And whereas someone like a Burn Unit gets noticed by most of the people he wants to be noticed by (and believe me is happy and content to make them happy and content), there's more of a frisson when certain other people hit the praxis. Good or ill? Who knows.
As far as my own tasks, the best I can figure is that number of votes is roughly correlated with quality, then either multiplied or divided by a random number between 1-10, and then replaced with a completely different number that is the number of votes you get.
Seriously, maybe I'm just dense, but after all this time I feel like I'm no closer to figuring out what does or doesn't get votes then when I submitted my first couple of tasks.
It's simple, really.
The number of votes a task gets roughly correlates with its quality.
Except that if you think you shplanked it you didn't.
And if you do something dramatic enough it will get extra votes.
And if you write it up well it will get extra votes.
And if people don't like you right now it will get fewer.
And if it's got a bunch of text it won't get as many votes as it should.
And if you're famous on the site it will get more votes than otherwise.
And if it's a large collaboration it will get extra votes.
And if the moon is gibbous it will get far fewer votes than it deserves.
And if it's raining in Podunk you'll get extra votes unless there's a butterfly in Tokyo flying with extra vigor that day.
And if you submit at the right time of day you catch people's attention and get more votes.
And if the product of the md5 hash of the Dow and the temperature in Great Yarmouth is lower than the average temperature worldwide multiplied by a very large constant you'll get fewer votes.
Also you'll lose votes if the stars are right, because people will be too busy trying to summon Cthulhu to click the vote button. Thankfully that also guarantees you won't receive any flags.
That's all you really need to know.
But
I don't know what quality is.
Edit: Oh, and also, based on the last five praxis to sink below the new tasks list, tasks have an average of 23 hours and 23 hours on the front page. Also, subtracting time is hard.
I don't understand it... but I approve anyhow.
I am, admittedly, not as creative as the gummies in my thanks, but felt the need to share this all the same.
That was pretty creative, I'd say, as I now have the equivalent value of submitting the proof on-site. Not necessary, of course, but very nice. Also, a most amusing decision for what to do with the tiny paper box.
This praxis made the gummy bears' heads hurt. But in a good way.