Computer programs increasingly mediate our lives. From email and photography, video and music sharing, to online banking and even government, digital media condition our daily lives, but also our forms of thought. It has become the case in many fields that the most important theories and methods are either computational or depend upon the language of computers and networks for their articulation. These contemporary conditions of digital ideology and digital life make the task of articulating theories a new form of writing. In this talk, I describe and distinguish computer programs as a form of language; and, then explore the implications of this new form of writing for some specific pieces of art and questions of aesthetics.
Professor Sack is a software designer and media theorist whose work explores theories and designs for online public space and public discussion. He is Associate Professor of Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz and earned a B.A. from Yale College and an S.M. and Ph.D. from the MIT Media Laboratory. Warren's writings on new media and computer science have been published widely and his art work has been shown at the ZKM|Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany; the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the artport of the Whitney Museum of American Art; and, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
