Clustering and Decisions: An Archeology of Computational Creation

Erik ZepkaFollow

Submission Type

Paper

Start Date/Time (EDT)

21-7-2024 9:15 AM

End Date/Time (EDT)

21-7-2024 10:15 AM

Location

Hypertexts & Fictions

Abstract

This essay makes two basic claims: one that the history of creative technology shows a problematizing pattern of accumulation. More waste leads to more granularity, as well as more points of failure and knowledge discretion. The second that within creative technology there are focal points of decisional (categorizing) and clustering (unifying) processes. The divisive approximating of the world, breaking it down and rebuilding it up, inadequately estimating spaces to predict and imagine. We contend that these two interweaving evolving patterns provide a framework to look at current computational creation: that it is an innovative version of cultural frameworks through history, and that this tree branching and rooting space is the key event trigger of digital code and language over a more biased internal or microliterary view. The first claim will be looked at through historical comparison, for instance between Plato and Leibniz. On the one hand papyruses, math compasses, water clocks, geometry and forms, on the other mechanical codices, calculators, pendulums, calculus and monads. This will be compared with linguistic, demographic and geographical data as complexity indicators of respective periods. The second claim will be explored by using an algorithmic approach to find a common conceptual ontology (through graphs and trees) between periods - independent of complexity creative works offer a symbolic traversal of ideas, rooted in principle concepts and developed in branching supports. Decisions are made physical in references, scrolling, page flipping, dial turning, filling and pressing that becomes the logical unfolding of the work. The granularity of the computer is unprecedented but the basic process of interaction is not, nor are the basic qualities of a creative medium. Additionally, this can aid to defetishize cloistered histories and myopic local cultural tropes of what is validated as legitimate work, towards a more general and inclusive cross-temporal view of artistic and literary creation.

Bio

Erik Zepka is a scientist and theorist currently working in the areas of bioinformatics and evolution. His research focusses on the foundations of science, emerging knowledge paradigms and the roles biology, culture and technology play. He has published and presented this work globally through venues including Tongji University, Publication Studio, MIT, Curiosity Collider, Microsoft Innovation Labs, Free Dogma Press, New York University, Simon Fraser, Furtherfield, University of Victoria, VIVO Press, and Shanghaitech.

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Jul 21st, 9:15 AM Jul 21st, 10:15 AM

Clustering and Decisions: An Archeology of Computational Creation

Hypertexts & Fictions

This essay makes two basic claims: one that the history of creative technology shows a problematizing pattern of accumulation. More waste leads to more granularity, as well as more points of failure and knowledge discretion. The second that within creative technology there are focal points of decisional (categorizing) and clustering (unifying) processes. The divisive approximating of the world, breaking it down and rebuilding it up, inadequately estimating spaces to predict and imagine. We contend that these two interweaving evolving patterns provide a framework to look at current computational creation: that it is an innovative version of cultural frameworks through history, and that this tree branching and rooting space is the key event trigger of digital code and language over a more biased internal or microliterary view. The first claim will be looked at through historical comparison, for instance between Plato and Leibniz. On the one hand papyruses, math compasses, water clocks, geometry and forms, on the other mechanical codices, calculators, pendulums, calculus and monads. This will be compared with linguistic, demographic and geographical data as complexity indicators of respective periods. The second claim will be explored by using an algorithmic approach to find a common conceptual ontology (through graphs and trees) between periods - independent of complexity creative works offer a symbolic traversal of ideas, rooted in principle concepts and developed in branching supports. Decisions are made physical in references, scrolling, page flipping, dial turning, filling and pressing that becomes the logical unfolding of the work. The granularity of the computer is unprecedented but the basic process of interaction is not, nor are the basic qualities of a creative medium. Additionally, this can aid to defetishize cloistered histories and myopic local cultural tropes of what is validated as legitimate work, towards a more general and inclusive cross-temporal view of artistic and literary creation.