Aesthetics of Dysfunction: On Virtual Agglomerations and the Creative Errancies of Code

Abstract

Aesthetics of dysfunction: On Virtual Agglomerations and the Creative Errancies of Code; explores the implications of the ubiquitous status of code in our digital time. This thesis is the result of a four-year research undertaken through programming and software studio practice and theory to answer the question: How can the algorithmic medium of programming and software illustrate the role played by code and its dysfunctions in the shaping of the new universe of virtual agglomerations? This enterprise is divided into three major components related respectively to the questioning of code as a medium, the techno-social context of computers as an artistic tool, and the power of software in conquering territories metaphorically and physically as a war engine. In being a repository for accumulated experimentations with the Processing programming environment, algorithms, software, military aerial photography and mathematical functions; my studio practice explores the limits of software error to reflect the status quo imposed by machines as generators and regulators of the digital universe—lived and presented as virtual territories shaped by microprocessors, random access memory, speed and error.